Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Jesus Christ P4 (10-12-20)
Synopsis
It is so important to know what salvation is, the condition of man under sin and death and in need of new life. This life is the Spirit of god to be placed into man, and has to come by receiving the offer of new life that Christ has now offered to all men, having died on a cross to take away the sins of the entire world and raised from the dead so as to always live to intercede for you. This salvation is not choosing the you’s and me’s but to whosoever believes in Him, both the Jew and the Gentile, to be saved the same way, by faith alone in what Christ Jesus alone accomplished for you.
As you look into the scriptures, there is no doubt that Jesus is who he claimed to be, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the promised Messiah, the “I am”, the one who said “I and the Father are one” and “if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”. But not everyone will believe in Him. There are those who knew what he claimed to be, but they were unwilling to believe that. Why is that?
The same reason people do not believe today is the same reason the Jewish leaders in Jesus day would not put their faith in Him. People would rather believe what men say, their religious tradition, in men who say “we have 2000 years of church history”, and “we have the law and the prophets”. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “if you believed in Moses, you would believe in me, for he wrote about me. If you have the same faith as Abraham, then you would be glad that I came to do what I did. Abraham rejoiced in my day, but you are ready to kill me, because I tell you the truth that before Abraham, I am. You claim Abraham as your father but you fail to come to me to have life.”
Here were the Jews as custodians of the interpretation of the word whom God suddenly confronted with the living word. They were custodians of interpretation of the written word suddenly coming face to face with the living word. There was a problem there. The living word did not agree with their interpretation. So what did they do? Hang him on a cross. They really did not come to grips with what it is to be in Christ, who is love. So they came to crucify the one who claimed to be God because they did not agree with His interpretation of the written word.
So too does that happen today. You have those who claim you can go through Mary to get to God. You have those who claim that you can get your sins forgiven by confessing your sins to God. You have those who claim you have to go back to the day of atonement to get your sins forgiven. So many make the charge that you have your opinion and I have mine. But it is not about an opinion. The truth of the gospel is revealed to men, and was never something man made up. Jesus came to reveal to mankind what he heard from his Father. He came from heaven and knows what is necessary to be there with Him, and to experience life in His name.
Listen, getting sins forgiven is something Jesus already did, when he shed his blood on a cross. Salvation is not getting your sins forgiven, but receiving new spiritual life. What Jesus did, by shedding his blood on a cross, was a necessary preparation for life to be given. If sins were not taken away, and if we are still under the wages of sin is death, then there is absolutely no hope for anyone, for the next time man should sin, he would die again. So Jesus took away eternally the punishment of death for us, so that whoever comes to Him to receive life has eternal life, which can never be taken away.
The Spirit of God draws all men to Himself, and man must respond to what God has initiated. The natural man cannot discern the things of God. That must be revealed by the Spirit of God, and that is how the scriptures came to be written down for us, through men carried along by the Holy Spirit. So it will not do you any good to study the word of God if you do not know the foundation. The foundation is Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone.
But once you are born again, then you can discern the things of God. Then you are in the position to test and see whatever any man says is true. You do that by studying the word of God for yourself, relying on the Holy Spirit, to reveal to you the meaning of the word of God. And He will do so, for He lives in you, and has placed His mind in you and has promised to guide you into all truth. Focus on the New Covenant you are under. Read the entire New Testament to understand the full context of what Jesus is saying. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
Transcript
Predestination and election have to do with Jew and Gentile. Not only were the Jews selected for salvation but I also predestined the Gentile to be subject to salvation. “It was my will. In my foreknowledge I predestined the Gentile to come to Christ and to know Him the same way I predestined the Jew to come to know Him.” It is not talking about an individual over here and another individual over there. You are talking about Jew and Gentile. All you have to do is read scripture in context for a change and you will understand that is what he is talking about.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
There is one Shepherd that has come and made a call to you and all who come to Him you have assurance of something. Nothing can snatch you out of His hand, including yourself, which alleviates that hair-brained idea you can walk away from God. If you walked away from Him, then it means you never got to Him. If indeed you got to Him and He knew your heart, then He accepted you unto Himself. Do you think when you came to Christ, He did not know what you would do later on? “Well, I came to Christ and then later I decided to walk away.” If you made that decision, He would have already seen that when He accepted you and why would He accept you when He knew you would walk away.
Psalm 139:2
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Jeremiah 12:3
3 Yet you know me, Lord; you see me and test my thoughts about you.
God is not a nitwit. He understands you and knows what is going on. We make Him out to be some lame brain. God saw you before the foundation of the earth. He knew every thought you would ever have. If you thought you could walk away then you never had thought to come to Him.
So this teaching that you can lose salvation is an insult to God. It is not an insult to theology, whether Baptist or Church of Christ. That is irrelevant. What is important is you made an insult to God who said He came to give you eternal life and no one will snatch you out of My hand. Either call Him a liar or believe Him by faith but quit saying I believe in Jesus. When I believe in a Jesus that will cast me out, that Jesus does not exist. He may exist in your own mind but he is not the Jesus of the bible.
That is why you can rest in the fact that if you came to Him by faith, then you are in Him forever. That is the good news of the gospel. There is no good news of the gospel that says, “I am saved temporarily, that if I ever mess up He will pitch me in water.” That is not the good news. The God we have come to is the God who said “I will never ever leave you and I never ever will forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Now when the Jews, who came to stone him after he said “I and the Father are one”, did they understand what he claimed about himself? Did they understand He was proclaiming to be Deity? Absolutely. That is why they picked up stones to stone him.
John 10:31-33
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Is there any doubt about what Jesus claimed about himself? He claimed to be God. The people who came heard, and heard him claim to be God. He said “I and the Father are one.” Their idea of God was “God the Father”. He said they are one. He said, “I am God.” They heard him. They picked up stones to stone him for the statement. So we have to understand, folks, that Jesus Christ is precisely who he claimed to be. He is God who came to earth and took upon himself our earth suit. He identified himself with our humanity and being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself to the point of death on a cross for you and me.
Philippians 2:6-8
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!
Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice and I know them and they follow me.” So we understand who he is and who it is who follows him. Whose hand did he say that no one can snatch them? His. “I give eternal life, and he will not perish, and no one will snatch him out of my hands.”
I sit here with amazement at teaching that is contrary to that. At any rate, we have to know that there is but we do not have to give into it.
John 10:29
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
Who else’s hand could no one snatch them out of? The Father.
John 10:30
30 I and the Father are one.”
What relationship does Jesus have with the Father? “I and the Father are one.”
John 10:31-32
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
What was the reaction of the Jews? Pick up stones to stone him.
John 10:33
33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Why? He proclaimed himself to be God.
John 5:17-18
17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him;
They tried before to kill him, and now they are going to try harder.
John 5:18
not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Are there any doubts as to who Jesus was proclaiming to be? Are there any doubts that those who heard him knew precisely what he was proclaiming? No. They picked up stones to stone him because he was calling himself God and so they tried all the harder to stone him.
There is one other reason they were angry. There is this person calling himself God and working on the Sabbath. To the Jew that was horrible. They had all kinds of laws to get around what working on the Sabbath was all about. You can spit on a rock but not on the ground for that would be making mud, and that is considered work.
John 9:1-7
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
That is what Jesus did when he healed the blind man. He spit on the ground and he made mud. He did not get on the ground and get mud because it was there. He got down and made mud. He was not going to leave anything to the imagination. Now if anyone thinks it takes mud to make a blind man see then you really are deceived. He did that to drive the Pharisees crazy because he stooped down and made mud to put on the man’s eyes and he did it on the Sabbath. You could imagine the disciples, who took a lot of gut to follow this guy, what they were thinking. This man was blind from birth, so why not just wait one more day. Wait until tomorrow. But Jesus did that to show the stupidity of religion. It was stupid then and it is stupid now. God did not call us to a religion. He called us to a relationship with himself. So they picked up stones to stone him for Jesus was making himself equal with God, and was breaking the Sabbath, according to the Pharisee’s interpretation of the law.
Why did he make himself equal with God? Because he is. As God, we have to listen to what He said. “I have given you life called eternal life. I could have given you temporal life, but I gave you eternal life. You will never perish. No one can snatch you out of my hand.” If that is not good news, you are dead.
Jesus responded to a question asked.
John 8:48-59
48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”
52 At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
John 8:56
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
Abraham rejoiced in the fact that this day was coming. Abraham prophesied that this day was coming. He himself rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. Of course, he is saying to the Jewish leaders, that in contrast to you, that you are not only not rejoicing, you are so angry that you are going to kill me. He saw it and was glad. Here is this Abraham that you say you are a follower of. Again, pointing out their hypocrisy. You say you are a follower of Abraham and Abraham rejoiced for this day, obviously way in advance, he saw it and was glad about it, yet you see it and are angry about it. All they could think about was that Jesus was not yet fifty years old and can see Abraham.
John 8:57-59
57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
We are going to pick up in the next lesson and amplify some of what that claim was getting at when he stated, “Before Abraham was, I am.” But you see the Jews could not believe Jesus claimed to have seen Abraham so he said, “to tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I am.” The Jews knew exactly, again, what he was claiming about himself, because in Exodus 3:14, God identified himself as the “I am”.
Exodus 3:14
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
As a matter of fact that was one of the names for God, where the Jews were fearful of even mentioning the name Elohim for God. So they called him, “I am”. So, again, did the Pharisees understand what he was saying? Did they hear what he was saying? The answer to that is absolutely yes. They heard what he was saying. It was coming through loud and clear. When Jesus said “Before Abraham was born, I am”, he was identifying himself as who he is and that is God. What was he proclaiming about himself? Deity. How did the Jews react to that claim? They picked up stones to stone him.
John 6:63
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you – they are full of the Spirit and life.
There is a written word and there is a living word. The Jews had become custodians of interpretation of the written word. There are many people and denominations today, who like the Jews, have become custodians of the interpretation of the word of God. You even have people around who have become custodians of the determination that here is only one translation of God. So they camp on King James and say that Paul must have spoken to King James. Nothing wrong with King James but there are many translations that are fine translations. For people to sit around worshipping at the feet of that have missed the point of scripture altogether. So we become the custodians of the interpretation of the word of God. We become custodians of protection of a translation. Here were Jews as custodians of interpretation of the word whom God suddenly confronted with the living word. They were custodians of interpretation of the written word suddenly coming face to face with the living word. There was a problem there. The living word did not agree with their interpretation. So what did they do? Hang him on a cross. They really did not come to grips with what it is to be in Christ, who is love. So they came to crucify the one who claimed to be God because they did not agree with His interpretation of the written word.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Now, unfortunately, the same type of things takes place today. There is nothing new under the sun. That same kind of mean, vindictive Pharisaical spirit that was back then is still in the world today. This would be in the world among Jews and Gentiles alike. There is no difference anymore. You have people today, who again, have become the custodians of interpretation of the word of God, of the written word. The custodians of the protectant, the protector of a certain translation, and if you do not use that translation, you are a goner. We have been kicked off radio stations because we have not used their translation.
People have become interpreters of that, not depending upon the Spirit of God to reveal what the word of God means, but saying, “I am telling you what it means. If you do not agree with me, you are on the outside looking in.” They have never come into contact with the message of life. It makes no difference. “Crucify people teaching that.” It has nothing to do with life. It has to do with this doctrine. It has to do with “this dead doctrine that I am the protector of.” That same Pharisaical spirit again that was evident then is absolutely evident today. We have to realize that.
2 Peter 1:21
21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
When I am teaching you out of the word of God, folks, I am not teaching you out of the word of God so you can believe like I do. I am teaching you the word of God in order to try to communicate what the bible is saying. But I cannot teach you in a minute what it means. As an example, I can stand hear speaking these words until you are blue in the face, but until you are saved, you will not have a clue what it means one way or the other, for natural man cannot understand spiritual things, even the simplest of spiritual things.
1 Corinthians 2:14
14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
The only thing natural man can understand is the gospel. Until he responds to the gospel, he cannot understand one earthly thing. That is why you have an intellectual sitting around stroking his beard, and pondering these great truths, when he has never come to understand the one who said, ”I am truth.” They never came to understand Him. He is still trying to understand godly things as if natural man can understand godly things.
So they come up with hair-brained ideas that come right out of their brain. And it looks like something that comes out of his brain. So I am not teaching you so you believe what I believe. It is irrelevant what I believe. But what I am trying to do is to teach you to go into the word of God to see what God has to say, and to depend on the Holy Spirit of God, who alone can teach you what it means. If you agree with me, fine. That is nice. If you do not agree with me, then that is your prerogative as well, because it means I do not agree with you either. Now, if I do not agree with you and you do not agree with me and we are both born again Christians, then maybe we ought to take another look at the word and let the word show us. Do some more study. Look at it. Look at all things in context.
2 Timothy 2:15
15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
I remember when we first started on radio. We had a lot of people who were very anxious. They were very anxious to write to us and tell you where you were wrong. I must have read through the New Testament one hundred and fifty times in those early years, because every time I got a letter in that made a major objection to what I was teaching, I made it a point to go back and read the entirety of the New Testament through so that I was interpreting a verse of scripture in the context of the entirety of the New Testament. I did not have to go back and read the whole bible because we are under the New Covenant today. From the New Covenant on that is what I read. If there was a question, I reexamined it. If there wasn’t, then I realized that God had shown me the truth of the word of God as it was contained in the New Covenant and I was able to discount those things. But I do not take them lightly and I do not take them lightly today.
But the issue is not whether you agree with me or not or whether you agree with somebody else or not, but the issue is, ”What does the word of God say?” That is why it is our responsibility to go into the word of God and look at it. But it will not do you any good to study the word of God if you do not know the foundation. The foundation is Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone.
1 Corinthians 3:11
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
The summary of this lesson, as we continue to study, can be seen as I go through some additional passages of scriptures.
What did Christ claim about Himself? First, he claimed to be the Messiah. Recall the encounter of Jesus with a Samaritan woman at the well.
John 4:25-26
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you – I am he.”
Jesus claimed himself to be the Messiah. Folks, in the Old Testament, the Messiah was prophesied from beginning to end, starting at the first chapter of Genesis, as the one who was going to come. All through the Old Testament is Messianic passages that were studied deeply by the old rabbis, who knew full well that the Messiah was coming. In Orthodox Judaism today, they are still looking for the Messiah. I asked the question, the same question my father asked, who was not even a Christian at that particular point, to one of the Jewish friends we grew up with. When this Messiah comes, how much better will he have to be than Jesus? How many more miracles will he have to do than Jesus did? How much more loving will he have to be than Jesus was? The answer to that question was stark silence. No one can answer that. How are you going to improve on this Jesus of Nazareth?
We take a look at these claims of Christ. We take a look at what he said about himself. We have to come up with some conclusions as to whether or not he is God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, same one, or someone else. Jesus claimed to be that Messiah. He was prophesied. He came.
Matthew 22:31-33
31 But about the resurrection of the dead – have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.’33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
Romans 9:8
8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.
John 1:10-12
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
The very people who knew all about the one who was coming. They came to his own, the Jew, but they received him not. But to as many as did receive him, and to them alone, he gave the right to become a child of the living God.
As we wrap up this final segment, we are going to wrap up. We will not be following the lesson. I will be bringing in some additional scriptures that kind of summarize this first lesson. First of all, as we read in John 4:25-26, Christ claimed to be the Messiah.
John 4:25-26
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you – I am he.”
He claimed to be equal with the Father. We have already looked at John 10:30.
John 10:30
30 I and the Father are one.”
In John 14:8-10, he amplified that when he answered Philip.
John 14:8-10
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
John 1:18
18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Now folks, when Jesus is talking about this, that “I and the Father are one“, and “if anyone has seen me, he has seen the Father“, so how can you say “show us the Father?” Once again, I ask some theologians today, “How in the world are you putting an emphasis on now getting to know the Father as if that was different than getting to know Christ, when Christ said, ‘if you have seen me, you have seen the Father?’”
Quite frankly, the reason you see Christians out seeking the Fatherhood of God, seeking to know the Father, is maybe because they do not know the Son. At least they may know Him in salvation, but they have never learned to walk in a trust relationship with Him, knowing the truth that will set them free. If they are still seeking, then they do not know the truth and have never been set free. A free man is not still seeking. A free man has found. A free man is not seeking the Sabbath rest. The free man has found the Sabbath rest. You cannot say you are free and say you are seeking the Sabbath rest. Then you are not free yet because you have not entered into it yet. Yet people that are out looking for a new experience, saying “Now I have got to know Jesus and I got to know the Holy Spirit, and now I need to get to know the Father”, then they missed something. For Jesus very clearly says, “if you have seen me, then you have seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father?”
The same thing that was asked then needs to be asked some very well known Christian theologians today. How can you say show us the Father when Jesus says you have already seen Him. I only have one conclusion. You may have found Him but you have not grown in Him.
John 1:18
18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Christ made Him known. How did He make Him known? By showing us Himself. When we have seen Him, we have gotten to know the Father. Jesus also claimed himself to be God.
Luke 18:18-19
18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good – except God alone.
In other words, “Why are you calling me good unless you want to call me God, because only God is good. So if you want to call me good, call me God, and if you do not want to call me good, then do not call me God.” That is a paraphrase, but that is what He said. We walk around in our confusion, and in our ignorance, we say, “Oh, what a good man. He sure was a good man.” Not according to God. Jesus Christ said there is no one good except God. So please do not call yourself good. We are not good. He is good. I can plug into the one who is good. I can be influenced by the one who is good. I happen to be indwelt by the one who is good. But please do not refer to me as good. Jesus said no one is good but God alone. I am not God and you are not God, so I do not think we need to be referring to each other as good. Blessed? Yes, you better believe it! Good? Absolutely not!
So Jesus claimed to be the “I am”, the Messiah. He claimed to be equal with God. He claimed to be God. Again, as we study, I am going to amplify this a little bit. What was the response? The reason I think this is important for us to look at this is because many times people will deify a religious leader over the years. Some people have said that about Jesus. “Oh, he never claimed to be God. Nobody ever thought he was God. Oh, we just deified him over the years.”
Well, let us take a look at scriptures and see if it answers that. We talked about that. Enraged by his claims, what was the Pharisees response to his claims?
John 8:59
59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Mark 2:5-7
5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Order the Bible Study; “A Closer Look at Faith, Hope and Love” book today!
