Who is Jesus? Savior of the World

 

John 4:39-42

My text, which I’ll read in a moment, comes at the conclusion of a remarkable story. It’s a story often discussed as a model for personal evangelism, which it is, and a reminder of the satisfying “water of life” Jesus gives.  I want to look at the story from another angle.

Let me remind you of the details.  Jesus and the Twelve were traveling through Samaria, a place most Jews tried to avoid.  As midday approached it was time for lunch so Jesus announced he would rest by a well just outside a village and wait until his men went into town for some food.  As he waited a woman approached the well to get some water.

This was odd since this task was usually taken care of at the beginning of the day when it wasn’t so hot.  Then, too, the woman was alone, not walking with women friends who were also going to get water.  We very soon learn the reason why:  This woman has a “reputation.”  She had lived a morally questionable lifestyle.  She was alone because the other women in the village would have despised and   abhorred her.  Her very presence in the village was a scandal.

Jesus knew this perhaps by divine revelation or perhaps by intuition since John presents Jesus as someone who could size up a person pretty quickly. 

In any case, Jesus shocks the woman by asking her for a drink of water.  It was shocking first of all because she was a Samaritan and Jews didn’t care much for Samaritans.  Of course, Samaritans didn’t care much for Jews either but the point is Jesus had broken a racial taboo.  Then, too, most Middle Eastern men didn’t talk to women in public—not even their wives.  Jesus had broken a social taboo.

But it gets even stranger, shocking.  For within a few minutes Jesus not only confronts this woman with the moral chaos of her life, he engages her in a theological discussion.  The 1983 film Yentl tells of a woman who disguised herself as a man so she could study the Torah.  The story was fiction but the tradition of barring women from studying the Torah wasn’t.  In the first century, no rabbi would discuss theology with a woman.  He’d consider it a waste of time.  Yet, here was Jesus talking to this woman about the Messiah, the nature of worship, and God’s plans for the future.  He must have seen a spiritual hunger in her that no one looking only at the mess of her life would have imagined.  Then came the great shock.

He tells her that he is the One who would come, the Messiah.  So, it is to this foreigner, this outcast, this adulteress, this woman he reveals his identity.  And she becomes the first non-Jewish missionary as she goes to tell her village the story of the man at the well.

Near the turn of the twentieth-century, Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper described this woman as “superficial” and “positively uncouth.”  Well, she wasn’t going to become a professor of Reformed Dogmatics but she possessed an essential element to be a witness:  She had encountered Jesus and been changed.   Perhaps something of that showed in a new manner.

Simple as her faith may have been, she persuaded the village folk—who would have been naturally skeptical of anything she said—to go see Jesus.

Here’s where my text begins:

³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” ^[1]

 We don’t know what happened during those two days among these Samaritans.  We can imagine the Twelve whispering among themselves, “Can you believe this?  We’re staying with Samaritans, eating at their tables.”  John—who was there—tells us that “many…believed because of Jesus’ word.”  We don’t know what Jesus may have said to them, but we can be fairly sure it wasn’t the usual scorn and condemnation most Jewish teachers would have heaped on them.  Whatever Jesus said, the Samaritans came to a remarkable conclusion:  Jesus was “the Savior of the world.”

Although Jesus’ ministry was primarily among the Jews there were occasional hints that he had a broader vision.  Jesus understood that his work would not be limited to just one group of people.  He would fulfill John the Baptist’s description of him as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” 

We might look at the earthly ministry of Jesus as “World Evangelization, Phase One.”  Eckhard Schnabel has written a massive study of the early Christian outreach (volume one alone has more than 900 pages).  Listen to his description of the efforts of Jesus in bringing the good news.

The early Christian missionary work began in Galilee with Jesus' preaching and healing ministry.  During his three years of public ministry Jesus could easily have visited the 175 towns and villages on his travels through Lower and Upper Galilee. It would have been difficult to find anyone among the approximately two hundred thousand people living in Galilee who had not heard about Jesus, and presumably there would not have been many people who had not personally encountered him during these three years. Most of the half a million Judeans would only have heard about Jesus, including many of the one hundred thousand inhabitants of Jerusalem. Jesus proclaimed the dawn of God's kingdom in synagogues, in private homes and in the open air, before pious audiences, and before "sinners" such as the tax collectors and their politically problematic and ethically unreliable friends. He had learned disputes with scribes, experts of the law, but he also had conversations with uneducated rural folk. He had contacts with members of the small upper class, even though he avoided the Galilean capitals of Sepphoris and Tiberias.  But he concentrated his efforts on the unprivileged, the peasants and the fishermen, rural wage laborers and tenant farmers, day laborers and serfs, artisans and traders, beggars and prostitutes. Jesus sought encounters with men and with women, and he did not refuse to deal with children. He spoke before large crowds of people numbering in the thousands, and he had private conversations with individuals who came with questions or with whom he initiated contact.^[2]

That description concerns his ministry before his death and resurrection.  Following those events, as he prepared his disciples for the days to come he let them know that phase two was about to begin.  Phase two would embrace Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and “everywhere in the world.”[3]

The first disciples would take this task seriously because they, like the Samaritan villagers, had come to believe Jesus was “the Savior of the world.”

What are we saying when we say Jesus is the Savior of the World?

To say Jesus is the Savior of the world is to say something about God.  The God of the Bible is not a tribal god, a god limited to one people.  God cares for the whole world.  That’s explicit in some of the best known words in the Bible.  Some of you learned them in Sunday School.  Remember, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” 

The ABBA song “The Winner Takes It All” depicts our lives being controlled by the dice-throw of the gods with “hearts as cold as ice.”  The song wasn’t meant to be theology but many do picture God as fundamentally indifferent to our situation.  The notion of God being remote and indifferent to the world cannot stand in the face of the mission of the Incarnate One. 

He came and moved among us.  He sat in the hot noonday sun talking to a “loose” woman about her soul.  He tossed his reputation to the wind by staying with pariahs because he cared about them.

The Bible seems to suggest we shouldn’t trust any “savior of the world” who doesn’t have the dirt of the world under his fingernails.

To say Jesus is the Savior of the world is to say something about the church.  The Risen Jesus sent his church into the world to carry on his work.  That sense of mission has marked the church at its best.  The church has sometimes forgotten its task but God has been faithful to remind it that the work isn’t finished.

Awakenings and revivals in the history of the church have tended to jar the church out of this amnesia, giving it a renewed interest in reaching the larger world with the message of Christ.  In fact, I’d say that any “revival” that leaves a church turned inward, totally self-centered wasn’t a revival at all. 

True revivals lead to a desire to take Christ to those who may have never heard of him.  Just look at the awakenings in America alone.

--The Great Awakening in the mid-eighteenth century led to a new effort to reach out to Native Americans and slaves. 

--The Second Great Awakening at the beginning of the nineteenth century gave birth to the American involvement in foreign missions.  Adoniram Judson sensed the call to missionary work during this revival.

--The Prayer Meeting Revival of 1858/59 produced evangelists like D. L. Moody.  It was also during this revival in 1859 that Charlotte Diggs Moon, daughter of an aristocratic family in South Carolina, was converted and first sensed God’s call to missions.  We know her better as “Lottie.”

--The many-faceted revival of 1906 also produced a new interest in missions and evangelism.  No denomination was untouched and some were created by the revival.  These new denominations were passionately committed to the missionary cause.

Followers of this “Savior of the World” have an inherent interest in telling the world of this Savior.

Of course they made mistakes.  Sometimes they depended too much on the power of the government to extend the gospel.  More often, they confused their cultural baggage with gospel essentials.  But when their love for the Savior and for those the Savior loved came through, they made progress despite their failings.  Evangelist Luis Palau tells this story about how his family came to Christ though the efforts of missionaries in his native Argentina.

The British missionaries who led my family to Christ made all the cultural mistakes in the book. I remember as a little boy sitting in the front row, watching this poor man. It was hot as blazes in the summer. Being a proper Britisher, he not only wore a tweed suit but a vest and thick socks. He would stand there sweating and sweating. I remember looking at the poor fellow and saying, “Why doesn’t he take his coat off?” But a proper Britisher in those days kept his coat on and toughed it out. He massacred the Spanish language and had strange foreign habits. But because of that fellow, my father went to heaven.

Missionaries are more sensitive—and perhaps cooler—now but the desire to honor the charge given by the Savior of the world continues to motivate them.

Of course, to say Jesus is the Savior of the world is to invite controversy.  Seems like you can’t make any statement about Jesus without someone getting irritated.  Saying Jesus is the Savior of the world is no different.  That shouldn’t surprise us because Jesus told his earliest followers that preaching about him would inspire strong emotions—some of them negative.

àThere are those who ask, why does the world needs a savior anyway?

Have you seen the bumper sticker that says, “Born Ok the First Time?”  It’s a challenge to the Christian call to be born again.

As we look over the headlines, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could think this isn’t a broken world.  But, of course, the bumper sticker guy may be saying, “Other people might be messed up but not me.”

Interestingly, John tells us that saying we’re not messed up means we’re really messed up.  Glenn Reed once said that it was harder to get a man lost than it is to get him saved.  That was years ago but the situation has hardly changed.  We still don’t like to admit our spiritual need.

Once you could talk to someone raised in the West and repeat Paul’s declaration, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  No more.  We have conveniently dismissed the Bible as an authority in our lives.  Just quoting Scripture may not shake anyone.

Instead we have to rely on the power of God’s Spirit to shake the confidence of the most jaded crowd.  That’s what happened on the Day of Pentecost when Peter preached about the crucified and risen Christ.  The crowd cried out, “What shall we do?”  Once that happened, Peter could say, “Repent….”

A. W. Tozer gives a clue about what happened.  He says,

Sin has many manifestations but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, “I AM.” That is sin in its concentrated essence; yet because it is natural it appears to be good. “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:37) is the deep heart cry of every man who suddenly realizes that he is a usurper and sits on a stolen throne.

On our mission for the Savior of the world we need the Spirit’s power.  That’s why Jesus told the disciples to wait before they set out on the task he had given them until they were “clothed with power from heaven.”

And keep in mind that skeptics can and do come to faith.  It happens in remarkable ways.  That’s why the story of C. S. Lewis’s conversion is so appealing.  This man, who was one of the twentieth century’s most influential Christian writers, was once an atheist who had no use for God.  But God had use for him.  Here’s his story:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen [College at Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. . .

àThen, there are those who ask, “With so many religions in the world how can you claim Jesus is the Savior of the world?”

Christianity has an estimated two billion adherents in the world, with varying degrees of commitment to the faith.  But that’s only a percentage of the world’s population.  There are a dozen or so major religions and thousands of lesser-known religions.  When we tell folks in these religions that Jesus is the Savior of the world, they’re likely to say, “We have our own Savior, thank you.”  Although some might say, “Another Savior, great, we need all we can get.”

Those who are religious but non-Christian have one attitude toward Christianity’s claim that Jesus is the Savior of the world.  The non-religious have another.  We seem to be moving from an attitude that says all religions are equally true and lead to God to one that says all religions are false, even dangerous, since there probably is no God.  The one attitude is naïve, the other is just cynical.  Worldwide those who take either position are in the minority.  We’re more likely to encounter someone who holds some religious worldview.

When we watch the early church encountering those who were part of another religion, we’re surprised had how respectful they could be.  Respectful, yet forthright. 

They focused on building up Christ.  Shortly after the attacks of 9/11 a prominent Baptist leader preached a sermon saying that Mohammed was guilty of an act of gross immorality.  It created a firestorm.  The charge may have been true, though several historians questioned it, but it certainly didn’t win any Muslims to Christianity.

We would do better focusing on Christ, laying out his claims, portraying his beauty.  When we do that he will outshine any other religious leader or prophet.  A Hindu guru once gave this advice to a Christian evangelist, “Don’t ever use the Western style of arguing, trying to show your religion is better than my religion or your Savior is superior. Just simply tell who Jesus is. Tell of his character. Tell what he’s like. Let people do the comparing for themselves.”

If we really believe Jesus is the Savior of the world, then we believe he has an appeal beyond any argument we might put forward.

To say Jesus is the Savior of the world is to say there is hope.  The story of Jesus—his incarnation, his death, and resurrection—tells us that God cares for us.  We aren’t abandoned to this world.  There is hope for salvation.

Maybe that’s what the Samaritans found so appealing.  Seen as half-breeds, the Romans didn’t care for them and neither did the Jews.  But this remarkable man from Galilee seemed to care.  And they soon realized his love was big enough to embrace the whole world.

That’s hope for the world, but there’s also hope for us who are set to tell the world about this Savior.  Our hope consists in this:  Our success does not depend upon our skill, our knowledge, our powers of persuasion.  That’s why Kuyper missed the point about the woman at the well.  She reminds us that our success doesn’t depend on what we know but Who we know.

If we believe him to be the Savior of the world, we’ll know he should be the center of the message we take to the world.

---

^[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Jn 4:39–42). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[2]  Eckhard Schnabel. Early Christian Mission, Volume 1: Jesus and the Twelve, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004, p. 383.

[3] “Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world.” Acts 1:8 CEV.

Who is Jesus? Deity Incarnate

I John 4:1-3 

Most of us have grown up accustomed to the critics who question the deity of Christ, the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was God, the Incarnate Deity.  After all, some prominent people have denied the claim over the past few centuries.  Voltaire, Rousseau, and even Thomas Jefferson couldn’t accept the incarnation.  And we know many less famous people who believe Jesus was simply a good man, a great moral teacher, but no more. But what seems surprising is that in the early church there were those who questioned, not his deity, but his humanity.

One such group that appeared early on the scene held a position called Docetism.  Coming from a Greek word meaning “to seem,” this teaching said that Jesus only seemed to be human.  In fact, he wasn’t.

Bruce Milne explains the origins of Docetism, “Its roots lie in the Greco-Oriental convictions that matter is inherently evil and that God cannot be the subject of feelings or other human experiences.”[1]

John seems to have had such thinking in mind when he wrote his readers about how genuine faith demanded acknowledging that Jesus had “become a man and … come in the flesh.” (Amp)  Later in the chapter he is especially pointed when he describes Jesus as having come “by water and blood.”  Without going into the details that anyone witnessing the birth of a child can recall, that reference probably reflects an insistence that Jesus experienced a truly human birth. 

For the most part, the suggestion that Jesus wasn’t really human belongs to the footnotes of historical theology.  Again, as Milne points out, the teaching “was unacceptable because it cut the bridge between God and man at the [human] end; God did not really come to us, hence no effective sacrifice was made for our sin.”[2]

This isn’t to say there aren’t those in the 21^st century who raise other issues regarding the humanity of Christ. Let me mention just one.

Some feminist theologians ask how a male Savior can be a woman’s savior.  No male, they reason, can understand the difficulties, needs, and pains known by a woman.  Now just how quickly these theologians would be to actually acknowledge and bow before a female Christ—one born of a Virgin, who died and rose again, one who demanded repentance from sin—is a question beyond the scope of this sermon.  But, without denying that women have faced genuine oppression through the centuries, we also have to recognize that countless women have found genuine wholeness through their Christian faith and, in Jesus, they have seen what a man might be.

The Biblical view stresses humanity’s unity.  There is no need for a female savior for women and a male savior for men.  We need a human savior for us humans.

So, let’s turn to the matter of the humanity of Christ.  I’m going to gather what I say under two points.

First, as we look at the Biblical picture of Jesus of Nazareth we find he is a human being like other human beings we have known.

I haven’t read a comic book in a long time.  I used to read them:  Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, the whole DC lineup.  Then in my early teens I decided it was time “to put away childish things.”  So, I got rid of my collection—burned it.  If I had them today I’d probably be able to sell them and make a pretty nice profit on their original dime a copy price.

Anyway, if today’s vampires can stand around in the sunlight maybe Superman has changed too but as I recall, he could spend the whole day moving boulders the size of houses and sealing up volcanoes without breaking a sweat.  I don’t remember him putting on his Clark Kent outfit, returning to the Daily Planet, and saying to Jimmy Olsen, “I’m famished.  Let go to the all-you-can-eat pizza and chicken buffet.”  Superman didn’t get tired, didn’t seem to get hungry.  But, of course, Superman isn’t human.  He’s what? A Kryptonian?

What seems to have been true for Superman wasn’t true for Jesus.

Several times in the gospels we see Jesus eating.  In fact, some of his critics called him a glutton. The charge was certainly born of bias but it does suggest that Jesus didn’t go through life on a continual fast.  Like a healthy human being, he enjoyed a good meal and socializing with others.

Of course, you’d expect that of one who had a balanced upbringing.  Luke reports, “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.”  Jesus matured physically, intellectually, socially, and spiritually.  Just like a healthy human being.

Jesus grew weary.  After a long day of teaching Jesus needed a break.  As Mark tells the story, “On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’
And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.” (Mark 4:35-38)

Like all of us, there were times when he was tired and needed rest.

The gospels tell another story involving Jesus and sleep.  It was the night before the crucifixion and Jesus was about to face the greatest challenge yet.  He went to the Gethsemane to pray, taking three of his closest disciples with him.  While Jesus was in agony only a few yards away, the disciples slept.  In this crucial moment, they had failed him. We could say a lot about that but I want to stress the point that, like all of us, there were times when Jesus desired human companionship.

Jesus was not a Stoic.  He had genuine emotions.  He knew anger, especially at injustice.  He knew joy.  Although the gospels never portray him laughing, he clearly had a sense of humor.  In a very personal moment he stood outside the tomb if a friend and wept.  People ask why, if he was going to resurrect Lazareth anyway? I think it must be because he could feel genuine sorrow for all the sorrowful.

As I was preparing this message, I came across one writer who observed that Jesus never knew the stress and pressure of family life, so how could he really be like us.  It’s a mistake to define being human with having a spouse and children.  Many of our fellow humans do, but many don’t.  Jesus of Nazareth did not experience every human experience.  Of course, no human experiences every human experience.  I cannot experience both robust health and a lifetime of illness.  I cannot die young on a battlefield far from home and die peacefully in my bed at a ripe old age, surrounded by my family.  I cannot be in Ohio and in Texas at the same time, despite the miracle of Skyping.  Like every human being, Jesus knew limitations.

Certainly the most telling proof of Jesus’ humanity came when he submitted himself to crucifixion.  The early Christians sang of this, as Paul says in Philippians 2: “He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.  He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death— his death on the cross.”  The scourge did not leave Jesus’ back unmarked, the thorns of his crown didn’t break when his tormentors pushed it down onto his head, the nails that were to hold him to the cross did not bend when the Romans drove them into his hands.  His physical sufferings were real, not an illusion.

 Think of this, the Creator made himself subject to the limitations known by his creatures.  The God who spoke the universe into existence was willing to walk the hot dusty roads of Palestine, speaking Aramaic with a Galilean accent.

Jesus was truly human. 

Before I move on to the next point I need to deal with an issue that inevitably comes up when we deal with the Deity and Humanity Christ.  That the second person of the Trinity could not stop being God seems to go without saying.[3]  But, of course, saying just that raises some tough questions when we speak of the incarnation.  How could Jesus be both God and man?

Exactly how Deity and Humanity existed within Jesus was a puzzle early Christian thinkers wrestled with earnestly.  From the beginning it seems they insisted that whatever the final answer might be, nothing essential to Deity and nothing essential to humanity could be absent from Jesus.

Contrary to the claims of some popular writers, the church did not decide to deify Jesus sometime in the fourth century under the direction of Constantine.[4]  University of Edinburgh New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado has carefully analyzed the writings of the earliest Christians and concluded that from the beginning these believers worshipped Jesus as God.  All the while, they were insisting Jesus was also fully human.

The early creeds dealt with the issues raised by One who was both God and Man.  In one sense, those creeds don’t so much explain the wonder as set parameters or boundaries in which they felt the final answer would someday be found.  The search continues.  The best thinkers of the church have been humble enough to acknowledge they haven’t explained it all.  But the best thinkers of the church have also been so committed to loving God with their minds they haven’t given up pursuing answers.

For now, Christians affirm both that Jesus is truly God and truly human.

Now, let’s move on to another crucial matter.  We have said that as we look at the Biblical picture of Jesus of Nazareth we find he is a human being like other human beings we have known.

But we can also say that…

As we look at the Biblical picture of Jesus of Nazareth we find he is a human being unlike any other human beings we have known.

Every man, woman, and child you have ever met bears the taint of sin.  For most, its presence is obvious; for a very few, you must look carefully but it is there. 

Since the fall a rebel flag has flown in every human heart—save one. 

Looking back at his years with Jesus, John says, “You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.”  The writer of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

We’ll look as some of these verses more later, but for now think about what they imply.

Occasionally, you hear the question:  Are we sinners because we sin or do we sin because we are sinners? It’s a great question to kick around.  Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.  Most of us, when we are honest, will admit that even without the heritage of Adam’s sin, we would strike out on the way of sin on our own.

The story is told that one day Reinhold Niebuhr, one of 20^th century America’s greatest theologians, returned home to learn his young children were being punished for being “naughty.” Their nanny tried to excuse their behavior by saying, “It’s the other children at the playground; they’re a bad influence.”  Niebuhr answered, gesturing at his own children, “No, it’s because the little beggars are full of sin.”

We like to say a child will live up to our expectations.  It’s a principle parents and educators are encouraged to incorporate into their day to day dealings with children.  Yet, even when they have wholeheartedly embraced this notion by positive and optimistic encouragement, only the most naïve parent or inexperienced leader is truly surprised when a child is sometimes selfish or belligerent, fails to live up to that lofty ideal; when their little angels behave, however briefly, like little devils.

Jesus’ family, friends, and neighbors, though they might have believed him a wonderful child, would have expected him to someday, somehow, someway sin.  He failed to live up to that expectation.

In this way, Jesus, who was so like us in so many ways, was unlike us.  We are sinners, he wasn’t.  We face temptation and, though victorious over some, we inevitably fail in the face of others.  He never did. 

The gospels focus on one episode of temptation at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry but make it plain that these were not the only temptations Jesus faced.  Each time he was victorious.

His temptations were real and intense, certainly more intense than any we have ever faced.  Why?  You see, while we may have successfully resisted some temptations none of us has resisted every temptation.  You might have struggled valiantly against the enticement before you surrendered but surrender you did.  Imagine how much more severe the temptation would have been had you never surrendered.

Some might consider Jesus’ continuing victory over temptation and say, “No fair.”  After all, Christians have generally argued that Jesus was born without the fallen nature.  He didn’t have the fatal flaw every other human being was born with.  Without the taint of original sin, He entered the battle with an unfair advantage.

In answering that, let’s look at some truths.

First, remember Paul portrays Jesus as “the second Adam.”  By this he seems to mean that Jesus was reenacting the battle that plunged humanity into sin.  Think of that first Adam.  He too faced temptation without the “bent to sinning” his offspring would have.

So, Jesus had no more advantage than Adam had, perhaps less, since Jesus grew up surrounded by members of a fallen race while the first Adam had no such detriment.

Second, Jesus’ freedom from an innate sin nature by no means suggests the temptations were less severe.  Bruce Milne offers an analogy.

Fortified cities have sometimes fallen to the enemy because there were traitors within the walls who conspired with the enemy.  We might think of our sinful nature as an enemy within that contributes to our defeat.

Yet, even fortified cities filled with patriots and loyalists have fallen—when the assault has been severe enough.  Jesus—though he possessed no sin nature—did face intense, unrelenting attack.  Yet he never yielded.

Could Jesus have sinned, yielded to the temptations?  Theologians have debated the question for centuries and have come up with two answers:  Some say yes, some say no.

Deciding whether Jesus could or could not have sinned is beyond the scope of this sermon series.  The question has been debated by theologians for centuries and will continue to be debated.  I have no doubt Jesus faced temptations more severe than I have ever faced because, though I have sometimes been victorious over temptation, I haven’t always been.  I have succumbed before the temptation achieved the severity Jesus faced and triumphed over.  Though I understand the arguments that his Devine nature seems to have precluded the possibility of his sinning; I am just a little concerned that this means the contest between Jesus and the Tempter was “rigged,” that the fix was in before the temptations began.  So, while I recognize that both positions are within the pale of orthodoxy, I going to admit that I lean toward the position that says the Second Adam faced a genuine rematch with Satan. 

The important matter is this:  Jesus who was in so many way like every human being we have ever known, was different in this one crucial way, he never sinned.

Implications of Christ’s Humanity

So, what does the fact that Jesus was Deity Incarnate mean?  What are the implications of Christ’s humanity?  I’m going to point out four, though there are probably more.

This truth confirms God’s commitment to us.

Historically, theologians have long used a term to describe that phase of Christ’s work from his birth through the crucifixion.  It’s referred to as his “humiliation.”  The God of the universe was willing to endure the constraints of human nature, rejection, and crucifixion to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

This truth gives us a better view of what God is like and what he intends for us.

I have often said that if you want to know what God is like you should look at Jesus.  It is equally true that if you want to know what God intended and intends for us humans, you should look at Jesus.   in Jesus, we see what God had in mind when he made our unfallen parents.

This truth encourages us to look to Christ as one who understands.

The writer of Hebrews put it beautifully.  He said, “…we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

He who walked as one of us understands us.

This truth assures us that his death was sufficient for our sins.

As sinners we could not solve the problem of our sin.  Only one who was sinless could do that.  John comforted his readers with the assurance that Jesus could deal with their sin.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

That’s a great truth to cling to when we face the reality of our failures.

Conclusion:

We’ve looked at the twin truths of the Incarnation.  Jesus is both fully God and fully human.  As Paul wrote the Colossians, “in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.”

We’ve been talking about deep matters.  Christians throughout history have wrestled with these issues.  With that in mind, I’d like to conclude this message by reading what our Christian forebears concluded in the fifth century (AD 451).  It still guides us today.  It’s called the Definition of Chalcedon.  As you hear these words, remember that many who have recited them have done so, not as an intellectual exercise, but as an act of devotion.

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us humans and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

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[1]  Bruce Milne, Know the Truth, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1982, p. 142.

[2]  Ibid.

[3]  This sermon doesn’t lend itself to a discussion of the Trinity.  This teaching, peculiar to Christianity, insists that God has always existed as one substance manifested in three Persons.  To read more about it, look at Thomas Oden’s Classic Christianity or Timothy Keller’s King’s Cross.

[4]  The interference by the emperor illustrates a key axiom in the church’s history:  No matter how appealing it may seem, whenever the church and state are wed, the marriage is dysfunctional.  What we know as orthodoxy didn’t become orthodoxy because the bishops agreed with the emperor, orthodoxy was already orthodoxy.  It became official when the emperor finally agreed with the bishops.

Who is Jesus? Incarnate Deity

 John 20:24-29

Generally, I avoid the awards shows like the Emmys and the Oscars.  I avoid them for several reasons:  During an election years especially, I think we have to listen to too many political speeches.  Then, too, until recently it almost seems as if there was a concerted attempt to hire really obnoxious off-color commentators as hosts.  I will admit I occasionally watch the Tony’s because those folks know how to behave in front of a live audience.

Anyway, as I was preparing this message I thought of Sally Field’s famous speech for her second Oscar win.  She had won the Oscar in 1979 for Norma Rae and then 1984 she won for Places in the Heart.  I was still watching awards shows then and heard her famous acceptance speech.  She said, “The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"  As it happens, her speech is usually remembered as, “You like me, you really like me.”   It’s been the focus of jokes and comedy routines.  She’s a fine actress but that speech is what comes to mind when people think of her.

Thomas is another person who’s often remembered for a comment he made. 

I’m talking about the disciple who will forever be known as “Doubting Thomas.”  You and I have joined countless others in pinning that name on him.

If we do we're being just a little unfair. After all, unlike us, he had never experienced an Easter.  And, unlike us, he had seen a crucifixion.

We know very little about this man Thomas. John tells us what we do know. . His name means "twin" so he probably had at least one brother or sister somewhere. That brother or sister is never identified in the Bible.

Let me remind you of what was happening. On the third day following Jesus' execution, several women went to the tomb and found it empty. They immediately reported to the eleven disciples; Peter and John went to the tomb and confirmed what the women had found. At this point, no one was quite certain what was happening.  Though John may have walked away with a degree of faith, perhaps no more than a hunch, about what had happened.

As the morning wore on, a strange report reached the frightened, hiding disciples.  Mary claimed to have seen Jesus, raised from the dead.  What could it mean?

On the evening of that first day, while they were still frightened and confused, Jesus appeared to ten of the disciples. For reasons the Bible never explains, Thomas wasn't present for that momentous event. But he heard about it as soon as he returned.

He had no more than entered the room when his friends exclaimed, "We've seen the Lord!" No doubt they told him every detail of the visit, maybe they told him more than once.

Thomas listened respectfully and then said, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

So Thomas goes down in history for saying, “Not so fast.  For something this big, I’m going to need more than your word.”

Well, a week goes by.  We don't know if Thomas made his statement only once or repeatedly as he heard his fellow disciples retell their story.  It doesn't matter, because suddenly Jesus was back.

                His disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them this time.   Here’s John’s account:

Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be                with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. "

There before Thomas was the proof that the cemetery isn’t the final destination.  Jesus was alive--the same Jesus who had taught them for three years, the same Jesus who had walked the dusty roads of Judea and Galilee with them, the same Jesus who had been nailed to a cross, whose heart had been pierced by a Roman spear.

In the face of this, “Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’"[1]

                It’s a shame Thomas is so little remembered for that second statement.

As John tells the story, Thomas is the first to put it all together and reach a startling conclusion about Jesus, the man the disciples had travelled with for three years:   When they had walked with Jesus they had been walking with God.

Let’s let Thomas’ words be a starting point for exploring the issue of the Deity of Christ Jesus.

(1) Almost certainly, his words invited his fellow disciples to look back over their years of association with Jesus. And, although we can only joint them in our imagination, we will benefit from making the attempt.

As we join countless Christians in years past on this exercise, we will see Jesus saying and doing things that provide hints to his identity.

What were some of these hints?

Jesus used titles for himself that his Jewish people only applied to God.   For example, in John 8:58 Jesus applied the divine title, “I AM,” to himself.  The response of Jesus enemies suggests they understood his bold claim.  He had not only claimed to be greater than Abraham, the founder of their religion, he had claimed to be God.

Jesus insisted he had the right to forgive sins—a right possessed only by God.  In Mark 2:1-12, we read of such an occasion.  In the story of a man brought to Jesus by four friends, an interesting bit of dialogue appears.

 LK 5:20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are

forgiven."

    LK 5:21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to

themselves, "Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins

but God alone?"

    LK 5:22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, "Why are you

thinking these things in your hearts? [23] Which is easier: to say, `Your

sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Get up and walk'? [24] But that you may know

that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ."

Did you follow that?  The Scribes and Pharisees claim that only God can forgive sin--a point which Jesus doesn't refute.  Jesus claimed for himself the divine right to forgive sin!

Jesus taught he would be the Judge during the final judgment at the end of history.  In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned there would be a day of judgment.  Who would be doing the judging?  Listen, “On the day of judgment many will call me their Lord. They will say, ‘We preached in your name, and in your name we forced out demons and worked many miracles.’
But I will tell them, ‘I will have nothing to do with you! Get out of my sight, you evil people!’”

Jesus encouraged people to pray to him and worship him.  After healing a man who had been handicapped for nearly forty years, Jesus began talking to the people about his relationship to God.  Among other things he said, “The Father wants all people to honor the Son as much as they honor him. When anyone refuses to honor the Son, that is the same as refusing to honor the Father who sent him.”

We can imagine the disciples recalling incident after incident where Jesus, explicitly or implicitly, hinted at his identity.

--He allowed himself to be called "good" and then reminded the speaker that, "No one is good except God alone." (Luke 18)

--He claimed to be the only way of access to God.  "I am the Way:  I am Truth and Life.  No one can come to the Father except through me."

--He claimed equality with God. (John 5:18)  Again his opponents were ready execute him for blasphemy.  They knew what he was saying.

Maybe, as the disciples reflected on what they knew about the man they had known so well, one of them—Matthew, for instance—reasoned he should try to discover more about him.  Who better to ask than Mary?

Perhaps this was when the future gospel writer first heard the remarkable story of the Virgin Birth.  It was a remarkable story, but to some extent the early Christians seem to have treated the virginal conception—to use the proper term—with an attitude that said, “Of course, what else!”  You see, it’s not so much that his virginal conception points to his deity as his deity points to his virginal conception.  Someone as remarkable as Jesus would naturally come into the world in a remarkable way.

Of course the early Christians would have known the Greek myths of the gods impregnating young women but this story had none of the characteristics of such stories.  Besides, no Jew would borrow a clearly pagan notion to apply it to the birth of the Messiah.  Then, too, the Jews don’t appear to have expected the Messiah to be born of a virgin. The Isaiah 7:14 passage isn’t cited as pointing to the Messiah.

At some point, as Matthew reflected on the story, he seems to have recalled the verse from Isaiah.  He saw that it fit.  Isaiah had said the baby to be born as a token of God’s commitment to the nation eight centuries before would be called “Immanuel,” which means “God is with us.”  While that was true on one level for the prophet’s people, when Jesus was born, God was truly with us in an even more remarkable way.[2]

If we could ask the disciples, they might say, “The clues were there all along but we didn’t see them until we saw them in the light of Easter morning.”

(2)  Thomas’ confession may have meant something to the gospel’s earliest readers that we in the twenty-first century might miss.

Thomas was applying to Jesus the very words Caesar had been applying to himself.  As the first century moved toward its last decades the emperors were making bolder and bolder claims for themselves.  In time, they would demand to be worshipped.

But keep this in mind.  The Caesars who used these words for themselves often came to the throne because they were willing to deal out death to others.  The Man standing before Believing Thomas had been the victim of deadly violence, not its perpetrator. 

And, of course, one by one the Caesars would be carried to the grave and never return.  This Jesus was carried to the grave and returned alive.  Anyone thinking about this would have realized that Jesus was the real power in the world.

The power of Jesus was ultimately greater than that of Nero, greater than that of Domitian.  Even the popular myth of Nero redivivus—the myth that Nero would return—paled before the reality of the empty tomb.

When these believers faced persecution and death, they were sustained by the knowledge of Jesus’ power.

(3) We need to remember that countless believers would come to echo Thomas’ testimony as they affirmed their faith in Christ and began their lives of discipleship.

New Testament scholars seem to be agreed that the earliest Christian creed was the simple statement, “Jesus is Lord.” According to Ben Witherington, the statement “… became for the early church the central Christian confession regarding Jesus.”^[3]

Paul told the Romans that becoming a Christian involved such a confession: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

He would tell the Corinthians that only when they could genuinely testify to this truth  would their worship authentic:  “I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”

Finally, Paul shows that the early church looked forward to the day when all the world would honor Jesus Christ: “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord,’ to the glory of God the Father.”

In other ways, the early believers referred to Jesus as “Lord.”  Why was this important?

The Greek word kyrios was used kings and emperors. It was also used for others in places of authority, for people who were in charge.  And it was often used as a term of respect.  During his earthly ministry people sometimes addressed Jesus using the word.  Of course, when these people used it they were just being respectful. 

But after the  Resurrection, when believers used “Lord” when referring to Jesus, it had a special meaning.  This was especially true for the Jewish Christians.  In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, kyrios was the word used to translate Yahweh (God’s personal Name) and Adonai (a title signifying God’s sovereignty).  So when Christians with a Jewish background heard Jesus referred to as “Lord,” they would have thought “God.”

This testimony would continue throughout Christian history. Those popular writers who claim Christians didn’t believe in the deity of Christ until the fourth century are just wrong.  Consider these words from some early Christians. 

Ignatius of Antioch (30-107) wrote: “Jesus Christ our God;” “

Justin Martyr (100-165) wrote of Jesus, “who…being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.” In his Dialogue with Trypho, he stated that, “God was born from a virgin” and that Jesus was “worthy of worship” and of being “called Lord and God.”

The earliest Christians were convinced Jesus is God.

That belief transformed their lives.  That belief changed how they saw God.  That belief changed how they related to one another.  That belief brought peace in the face of death. That belief changed their driving force from selfishness to selflessness.  That belief gave them purpose. 

What has that belief done for us?

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[1]  Of course Jesus also said, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” I’m not convinced Jesus is criticizing Thomas.  He may be speaking to generations to come.  Jesus may simply be saying that those who come to faith without such a dramatic experience are nonetheless blessed.

[2]  Raymond Brown comments, “no search for parallels has given us a truly satisfactory explanation of how early Christians happened upon the idea of a virginal conception—unless, of course, that is what really took place.”  (Cited by Hank Hanegraaf in The Search for Jesus Hoax.)

^[3] “Lord,” in Green, J. B., McKnight, S., & Marshall, I. H. (1992). Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (484). Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.