Word of Salvation – July 2018
B.C.10 – What do you think of the Christ?
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Bible readings: Matthew 16:13-20; Isaiah9:2-7; John 1:1-18
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.
Introd: The most important question in your life, young people, is not the question: who you will marry?
The biggest issue for you to resolve in your life is not what kind of career you will choose.
The most major decision is not a decision about the place you will settle down and live.
For all of us in church those questions were important… but they weren’t the most important.
Who is Jesus to you?
That’s the most important question you or anyone will ever answer.
Who is Jesus to you?
The way you answer that question affects not only your life but your eternal destiny.
Jesus once asked His disciples that question too.
Peter answered with those well-known words: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Tonight we want to have a look at that answer of the Apostle Peter:
The fact that Jesus is God… the Son of God… the second person of the trinity.
But please note first of all the response of Jesus – because it is most instructive.
Jesus doesn’t say: “Full marks, Peter, for working that out. Well done!”
No! Jesus says, “This was not revealed to you by man but by my Father in heaven.”
IOW: the starting point for a correct view of who Jesus is, is not your head.
This is not first of all a matter of your clever deductions.
It is first of all a matter of FAITH. You believe that which God has revealed in His Word.
The starting point is that our heavenly Father makes this known to us.
That’s why we accept that this Jesus who was born of Mary – is the only-begotten Son of God.
A] CHRISTIANITY IS CHRIST (JESUS IS DIVINE).
a] That has always been the consensus of Christianity: Jesus Christ IS God.
Okay there has always been a small fringe group within Christianity that denies Jesus is God.
They want to be seen as Christians – but they don’t accept Jesus as fully God.
That’s a fringe minority… overall, the Christian consensus is that Jesus Christ is truly God
I find this teaching that Jesus is God a very comforting truth to hold on to.
Let me explain why it’s so encouraging. In religion people always tend to go in one of two directions.
At the one extreme there is a danger of separating God from His creation and from this world.
Down here is the world… and us… and our day-by-day affairs… our work and our play.
And up there… somewhere a long way off… is God… a God who is remote and distant.
Many people tend to think of God that way. He was once involved in this world.
He brought it all into being – but a little like a clock-maker makes a clock.
He made it, wound it up, got it all going – and now it runs by itself.
God interferes only occasionally when things go drastically wrong. We call that DEISM.
Such a view of God isn’t very encouraging, is it?
It makes God very remote – it means he doesn’t really care about your work or your studies.
A God like that doesn’t have too much to do with you and your daily routine.
He doesn’t concern Himself with your leisure time or your worries. He’s a distant God!
We can’t count on a God like that to help us in our trials and struggles.
Such a view of God very effectively separates Him from His world.
At the other extreme is the danger of confusing God and His creation.
Some religions make God and His creation inseparable.
God is this world and this world is God.
God is in the rocks and trees. Everything is God and God is everything.
Again, many people today think of God in those terms. Eg. New Age spirituality.
Nature is worshipped as though nature is equal with God.
We call that kind of thinking: PANTHEISM.
It is a view that came out in John Denver’s songs: Country Road lead me home!
A God like that also becomes a very impersonal God – again an uncaring God.
Sometimes almost a powerless God – a God who is a victim and prisoner in His own creation.
Christianity finds a balance between those two extremes when it teaches that Jesus Christ is God.
It teaches that this Jesus was involved in the creation of all things.
God the Father is the Creator… but He created thru the Word… thru Jesus!
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
And then John in His gospel goes right on to say:
“Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”
IOW God is different and distinct from His creation. We oppose panteism.
God is not the world and the world is not God… but God made the world.
God created all the things in the world… and He did that thru Jesus Christ.
And yet… at the same time… this God is not remote and distant from His creation either.
We also oppose this idea that God is some kind of Divine clockmaker – distant and remote.
In fact, the central teaching of Christianity is that God is involved.
That in the fullness of time the CREATOR became a CREATURE.
From the virgin Mary, the Son of God took on a created form.
Here is one of the great things central in the Christian faith:
That the Almighty, Creator God – who is quite distinct from His creation…
has personally come even closer to His creation… in the person of Jesus.
God Himself entered our human history.
He lived our life… died our death…. that’s the Christmas miracle.
God who is distinct from nature and the world…. God who made it all….
nevertheless cared so much…. that He came in a stable in Bethlehem.
So today God is very close to us… so close that we can know Him.
And if you do want to know Him… all you have to do is look at Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to show us the Father.
He came to prove to us that God is not remote and distant.
That He is not some impersonal part and parcel of creation.
The human Jesus is at the same time fully God – the only begotten Son of the Father.
b] Today there are very few people who would deny that Jesus really lived.
Most agree that He was a real historical person. He really lived in Palestine.
We know that (not only from our Bibles) ancient historians agree with that.
Eg. The ancient Jewish historian, Josephus, makes several references to Him.
You cannot deny that there was once a historical person – Jesus of Nazareth.
But the trouble is that many will say: Yes but He was only a man;
Perhaps the GREATEST man who ever lived – but still only a man.
His teachings were superb. His life was a great example.
And after all, He did found a movement that has spread worldwide.
And that movement has already lasted for nearly 20 centuries.
Jesus Christ was one of the greatest men who ever lived…. a wonderful prophet and teacher.
Many of your workmates and neighbours will agree to that but they will go no further.
Ask them that question: Who is Jesus Christ to you?
or: What do you think of the Christ?
Their answer would probably be limited to this:
He is the founder of Christianity and arguably the greatest man who ever lived.
Of course there is absolutely nothing new about that.
There have always been people who deny that Jesus is fully God.
In the fourth century there was a popular church leader by the name of Arius.
He taught that Jesus was not fully and totally God.
According to Arius, Jesus had a beginning.
Jesus only had God in Him in a very special way.
Today the modern followers of Arius are the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Next time you have one at the door ask them to lend you their Bible.
Then turn to John 1 and read the first verse.
In their Bible it does NOT read: And the Word was God..!
Instead it reads: And the Word was A God..!
According to them Jesus is not fully and truly and eternally God, one with the Father.
c] If that was the case then we might as well give up Christianity. In fact I want to stress that.
If Jesus is not fully and truly and eternally God…
then you might as well give the Christian religion a miss altogether.
It is exactly at this point that Christianity is different… totally different to most other religions.
First of all because it is the only faith that teaches that God actually entered human history…
that God himself became a part of His creation…
that He lived our life, died our death and then rose again victoriously.
But there is another reason too why this is important.
Christianity stands or falls with the claims of Jesus that He is God.
You can take the teachings of Buddhism…. The whole system outlined by Budda.
And then take Budda, “the enlightened one” out of that system
and you would not really affect the teachings of Buddhism one bit.
You can take the religion of Islam… their whole religious system.
And then take Mohammed, their prophet, out of that religion
and it would not substantially change the teachings of Islam.
But take Jesus Christ out of Christianity and whatever you have left is no longer Christianity.
The whole of the Christian faith hinges on the person and work of Jesus Christ.
It all rests on whether His claim to be God is true or not.
Some people have the idea that the essence of Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount.
It isn’t! At least not if you only see the Sermon on the Mount as a code of moral behaviour.
That was the mistake Mahatma Ghandi made.
He had the highest respect for the moral teaching of Jesus and for the Sermon on the Mount.
But it seems he never really came to terms with the central issue.
That Christianity is not just the teaching of Christ. Christianity is Christ…. who is God.
I’ll say it again: Christianity stands or falls with the claim of Jesus that He is fully God.
B] PROOFS FOR HIS DIVINITY.
a] I want to spend just a little time looking at those claims of Jesus to be God.
There are many of them in the gospels.
When Peter said: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God…
Jesus did not say: Don’t be silly, Peter. It is blasphemous to say that.
Neither did Jesus say to His disciples as some do today:
Okay I am the Son of God! But don’t forget that we are all children of God – everyone of us.
On the contrary Jesus commended Peter for that confession.
On one occasion Jesus said: I and the Father are one.
On another occasion He said: He who has seen me has seen the Father.
And consider when Jesus stood before Caiaphas, and the High Priest put Him under oath.
He asked: Are you the Christ, the Son of God?
Jesus answered: You are right. I am! And Jesus said that under oath.
If anyone ever understood clearly what Jesus claimed then it was the Jews at the time of His trial.
They actually sentenced and condemned Him for blasphemy.
He was convicted on this basis: that He claimed to be God.
Let me just ask you: What kind of people today go around claiming they are God?
Where do we find people like that?
We find them in institutions for the mentally disturbed.
C.S. Lewis wrote a book called “Mere Christianity” where he put it well.
It makes as much sense, humanly speaking, for Jesus to claim that he was God
as it would for him to claim that he was a poached egg.
That is true! And when you stop and think about it there are in fact only three options.
Jesus is either a liar or a lunatic or He is Lord.
Option 1 is that Jesus wilfully deceived his followers when He claimed to be God.
That He was a liar…. guilty of calculated and deliberate fraud.
But if that is so then why did He offer up His life for a lie?
Option 2 is that in His claim to be God Jesus was a pathological victim of His own delusions.
A madman who belonged in an asylum for the insane.
But His teachings do not give the slightest impression that He was mad.
That leaves us with option 3 – that He was speaking the truth.
That when Jesus claimed to be God He said that because it was so.
And if that is the case then you and I had better bow down and worship Him as Lord.
The only possible conclusion we are left with is that Jesus is God.
b] The NT not only mentions the claims of Jesus… it also focuses on His deeds.
Those great works and miracles support the truth of His claims.
He stilled the storm. I can’t do that and neither can you. But Jesus did.
He healed the sick and raised the dead.
He multiplied a few loaves of bread to feed 5000 people.
The gospel of John calls those works of Jesus “signs”.
Signs that show that He is everything he claims to be. He turned water into wine.
A sign that He is indeed the Creator God who has the control of the universe.
He walked on water… He cured the leper. Signs that He is God Almighty.
Anyone who wants to dispute the claims of Jesus that He is God
will have to find an explanation for His many mighty works – His miracles.
They will especially have to find an explanation for His resurrection.
Because His resurrection from the dead is the sign above all signs.
All the miracles are signs that Jesus is all that He claimed to be.
But that is especially true of His resurrection from the dead.
Interestingly – the crowds that gathered around Jesus often had to admit that.
They said: “No one ever did the miracles that this man does.”
John, who begins his gospel by telling us that the Word was in the beginning
and that this Word which became flesh was in fact God,
ends His gospel on exactly the same note:
Jesus did many other miraculous SIGNS… which are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
c] Small wonder then that this is the testimony of the whole Bible.
In Isaiah 9 we read:
For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given.
And then one of the names given to that child is “MIGHTY GOD”
Here 600 years beforehand, the OT foreshadowed that the child of Mary, born in Bethlehem
would be the one who has existed from all eternity.
No wonder then that John the apostle begins with that great theme.
And no wonder that he takes that up in his gospel time and again.
And then with that same theme ends his gospel too.
This is the central theme of all Scripture.
Because it is the very essence of Christianity.
Jesus Christ is the true, eternal Almighty God, whom we invoke, worship and serve.
Christianity stands or falls by that teaching.
The really beautiful thing about all this is that this happened so that you and I might know God.
Not as a distant God who is remote from His creation and His creatures….
Not as a God whom we can confuse with nature and with His creation.
No! It happened so that we might know God as our loving, caring Father.
“No one has ever seen God…
But God the only Son who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”
Let me ask you again: Who is Jesus Christ to you?
John says: Believe He’s the Son of God and you have eternal life.
If you know Jesus as the Son of God you’ll know God
and knowing God you will also know what life really is.
But take the divine Christ out of Christianity and you have nothing left.
Only some moralistic good advice. And moralistic good advice can’t save you.
Today our world desperately needs to answer the question: Who really – is Jesus Christ to you?
Jesus is the God whom we worship and serve.
Let’s be instruments this week for God to reveal that good news also to others.
Amen.