Word of Salvation – Vol.38 No.27 – July 1993

 

God’s Son Our Lord

 

Sermon by Rev. Bill Wiersma on Lord’s Day 13

 

Beloved in Christ,

The Good News which the Christian church proclaims in this world of strife and suffering, is about Jesus Christ; who He is and what He has done.

The Christian faith is about WHO came to rescue sinners from their sin and misery, and WHAT He did to save them.

The message this morning (evening) is about Jesus.

But it is also about those who believe in Him, because when we have faith in the Christ of the Scriptures we become new people.

When we believe in Jesus, who Jesus is effects who we are.

The heart of the Gospel is that Jesus is God’s Son.  The Bible teaches that this means Jesus is GOD.

This conviction, that Jesus is God, is the heart of the Christian faith.  John writes, “To all who received Him (Jesus), who believed in His name He gave the right to become the children of God.’  To Peter who had discovered his true identity, Jesus said, ‘Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.’

Recognising Jesus as the Son of God, who became man, is the heart of the Christian faith.

The apostle John put it this way, ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.’  In other words, to be born again is to know who Jesus really is.  He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

As I said, that means that Jesus is God.

Lots of people, also in the church community, have difficulty with this.  Some even say that the Bible does not teach that Jesus is God.  This is for instance the contention of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  They claim that Jesus is a god.  A very important person.  But He is not one with Jehovah, the God of Israel.  The Jehovah Witnesses take a passage like John 1:1, and try to convince you that most Bible versions translate this verse incorrectly.

They claim that where most Bibles read ‘and the Word was God’ it should read ‘and the Word was a god’.  They will tell you that the word ‘God’ does not have a definite article (in the Greek it does not have the word ‘the’).  Therefore, they say, it should be translated ‘a god’.  According to the Jehovah Witnesses Jesus is a god like the devil is a god; that is, a mighty spirit creature.

Now the Jehovah Witnesses are wrong on two counts.

First the Greek literally reads ‘and God was the Word’.  All the emphasis is on the word GOD.  Which in grammatical English is translated ‘and the Word was God’.

It is true that in the Greek the word ‘God’ does not have a definite article.  Nor does it have an indefinite article.

It simply says that the Word, which was with God, was itself essentially GOD.  And as the Jehovah Witnesses correctly point out, according to the Scriptures there is only one God.  Jesus (the Word which become flesh) is that God.

In the second place the Jehovah Witnesses are wrong because they are not consistent in their argument.  In the verses 6,12 and 13 the word ‘God’ is also used without an article in the Greek.  Yet in those verses the Jehovah Witnesses in their New World Translation are quite happy to spell ‘God’ with a capital ‘G’.  In other words they accept that these verses refer to the one true God.

I hope this bit of technical information may be of some benefit to those who are confronted, and perhaps confused, by the Jehovah Witnesses.  I want to make it clear that their arguments are not as expert as they make out.

Let me now draw your attention to a few verses which clearly teach that Jesus is God; one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

I have already referred to John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was GOD!

In verse 14 we read: ‘and the Word became flesh’.

As you read the Gospel according to John, you will again and again come across references to the divinity (as well as the humanity) of Jesus.

It would be interesting to go through the Gospel and look at every instance, like Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus and references to the ‘Son of Man’, and the occasion of the healing of the blind man, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

But let me, for a start at least, mention just two verses in John 20.  First, verse 28.  It is about Thomas who, when he was first told about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, did not believe it.  He said to the other disciples, I won’t believe it till I see Him with my own eyes.

A week later the Lord Jesus visited his disciples again, Thomas was there.  Jesus invited him to come and take a close look at Him and even touch the scar in His side.  After Thomas did so, we read, “Thomas said, ‘My Lord and my God.”

That is how the apostle John would like all his readers to see Jesus, for in verse 31 John tells us that he wrote what he did ‘so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that believing in His Name (that is, believing the truth about Him) you might have eternal life.’

Perhaps the clearest of all statements is found in the first letter of John 5:20; ‘And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding in order that we might know him who is true, and we are in him who is true even in His Son Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.’

Now, as the Belgic Confession points out in Article 10, Scripture also says that all things were made by the Word which John calls God.  John 1:3 “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.’ Moses writes in Genesis 1:1 that God created the world.  The apostle Paul says that God made the world by His Son, and also that God created all things by Jesus Christ.

The conclusion of all this is not difficult.

We learn that the Word, God, the Son and Jesus Christ are one and the same.  That is, the Word-part of Jesus is God and was there before anything was ever created.

To be precise, if everything was created by the Word, the Word itself cannot have been created.  Something cannot create itself.

In other words the God-side of Jesus is eternal.

He is therefore, so the article in the Belgic Confession concludes, that true, eternal and almighty God whom we invoke (pray to), worship and serve.

There is no conflict between worshipping God and worshipping Jesus.  The apostle Paul gets to the heart of the matter when he writes in 1Corinthians 12:3, ‘No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.’  That’s equivalent to saying, ‘no one can see and confess that Jesus is Jehovah, except by the Holy Spirit.

So the Good News is that GOD has come to this world to give us the knowledge of the truth; the truth about Himself, because it is the truth about God that has been distorted by the lies of the devil.

God has come to destroy the works of the devil; He has come to undo the effects of the devil’s lies.  God teaches and demonstrates the truth about Himself in His Word.  Jesus, as the letter to the Hebrews points out, is that Word of God by whom God reveals Himself.  Through Jesus we come to God.  Through the Word we come to see God for Who and what He is.  Through Jesus we learn to trust God and to take Him at His word.  Jesus said, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’.  Through Jesus we come to know God and obtain eternal life, as Jesus Himself said, “This is eternal life, to know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Let’s now focus our attention on the name, or title, ‘LORD’ as that is applied to Jesus.

From what we have just heard we learn that ‘LORD’ can refer to the Old Testament name, Jehovah which is usually translated as THE LORD (because that is the way it was pronounced by the Jews).  Jesus is Lord then means, Jesus is Jehovah.

The title ‘Lord’ can also mean ‘master’ or even ‘sir’.

We call Jesus ‘our Lord’ says the Catechism, because He is our Master.  And He is our Master/Owner because ‘not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood He has set us free from all our sins, and has delivered us from all the power/tyranny of the devil, and has bought us, body and soul, to be his very own.’

By His blood, by the sacrifice of His life on the Cross, Jesus has set us free from all our sins.  He has paid the price for our sins.  He has made satisfaction for our sins.  Jesus has made atonement for us.  The practical implications of this are: our guilt is removed, our sins are forgiven, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Our sins are out of contention as far as our relationship with God is concerned.  Jesus has taken care of them.  He has taken responsibility for them.  He has broken their hold on us.  We are dead to sin, says Paul, having died to sin through our union with Christ.

This has also broken the power of the devil over us.

The only hold the devil has on people is due to their sins.  The devil was never the natural or rightful owner of man.

His only claim to men is that they have believed him and taken his side against God.  And because men have done that they are guilty of sin.  And the devil, in utter spite, is their accuser.  He taunts God with our sins.  Yes, the devil taunts us too with our foolishness to believe him and take his advice.

But when Jesus frees us from the guilt and condemnation of our sins, the devil loses his grip on us.  We are no longer under his spell or control.  When our sins are forgiven, the devil can no longer blackmail us or even accuse us.  Jesus is our Advocate.

Not only is Jesus our Advocate, our defence counsel.  He is our Lord.  As Paul writes, ‘You are not your own, you were bought with a price, therefore honour God with your body.’ (1Cor.6:19)

‘Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.’ (Rom.14:8)

Now, this is not a new form of tyranny.  The rule of the devil is tyranny because it is a rule of hatred and destruction.  The rule of Christ is peace because it is a rule of love and justice.

Yes, the believer has changed allegiance.  And he has done so willingly.  He has done so in the knowledge that the Lord Jesus has paid the ransom for his freedom.  The Lord Jesus has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into His kingdom of light.

Acknowledging Jesus as your Lord is the greatest freedom.

You see, freedom is not a matter of no rules or no obedience.  Freedom is to function within the proper framework and boundaries of our existence.  And we were created to live for God in the love of God.  Jesus brings us back into that proper sphere of existence.

And in that sphere our relationship to God is restored.  We begin to see God, not as a tyrant who in fear of our power seeks to keep us in subjection, but as our Father who knows and desires what is best for us.  This in the first place means that God through the atonement of Christ is able to accept us as His children.  Through atonement we are able to exist in His pure and holy presence.

Secondly, by the righteousness of Christ God, through His Spirit convinces us of His everlasting love and moves us to call Him, FATHER.

And thirdly, because of the faithfulness of Jesus we may know that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God.  Whatever happens, we have the hope of glory, the glory of Christ and the place He is keeping for His own.

And with that in mind it is good to come back to just one other aspect of Christ’s Lordship.  Namely that He has been given all power in heaven and on earth.  And He must rule till all His enemies are defeated and every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

I close with the wish expressed by the apostle Peter.  “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  To him be the glory both now and forever.”

AMEN