Dec 11 2008
Twisting Physics
Have you ever heard the expression; “No two things can occupy the same place at the same time?” This is a valid physical law, but we need to scramble it a little to see if a vital Christian doctrine will fit. The Christian says that Jesus Christ IS God, and the amazing thing about God is that no physical law can bind Him, so the question needs to be; “Can one thing occupy two places at the same time?” How could God come down from Heaven and dwell among us? Did He put Heaven on auto-pilot? Besides, Jesus didn’t say He was God, only the Son of God. By way of establishing the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact, God; let’s see if one thing can occupy two places at the same time.
First, if Jesus is not God incarnate then He could be anything; an angel, an inferior god, or even a total imposter; this makes the assignment of Jesus’ proper station extremely important. If He is not God, then He’s a liar and we may completely dismiss Him without the slightest regard. But where is the evidence to refute the common claim of the non-Christian, that Jesus is not God? We need to look at the nature of God, the person of Christ and the teachings of Paul to establish the fact that Jesus is the Almighty. The first two things we will discuss here; the third I will leave for you to glean from reading my other article, “Validating the Preaching of Paul.” That essay sets the basis for being able to accept Paul’s writings as though they were straight from the lips of Christ, Himself.
Lets begin now with the nature of our Holy God. The Bible shows us exactly what God is like and the regard with which He holds Himself. We know that God is love, He is compassionate, He is perfect; but He is also jealous and possessive of His glory. He shares His divinity with no other god and takes great pains to punish those who would attempt to give His glory to another. God leaves no room for doubt when, in the 1st Commandment He states, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God…” Exodus 20:3/5. Is there any doubt that God reserves this most high station for Himself, exclusively?
What intrigued me was the verse in Hebrews, (1:6), that says, “…when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all angels of God worship Him.” “He saith?” “All the angels worship Him?” We know that God is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow; how can He command His angels to offer their worship to anyone other than Himself? If the first begotten were not, very God of very God, then any worship offered to Him would be completely out of place; yet God commands His angels to do exactly that. As I looked into this a bit deeper, I found that God, speaking through Isaiah, announced hundreds of years before the virgin birth of Christ that He, (God Himself), would enter into physicality .
In Isaiah 9:6, we see the prophet opening his mouth to utter the very words of God the Father, “…and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Now then, “Wonderful Counsellor,” and “Prince of Peace,” are easy enough to take; but the other two are pretty explicit. God says that this Son, that is to be given, shall be; not ought to be, or might be, but SHALL be called, “the Mighty God,” and, “The Everlasting Father.” God is not telling us that some folks will use these names for Jesus, God is commanding that these names SHALL be used to name His Christ, names that belong to Him alone! Since the nature of God precludes contradiction, it should be becoming apparent that Jesus of Nazareth must be God.
I have heard many people argue that Jesus never called Himself God. This may be technically true, however, there can be no doubt that the people to whom Christ spoke, realized that His meaning was exactly that. John 5:18, “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making Himself equal with God.” To be equal with, is not the same as being the offspring of, or to be similar to. This is referring to the presence of Christ being all the fullness of the Godhead embodied in one man. But before you say, “Wait-up, that was only the opinion of the rulers and the Pharisees,” we need to look at what Paul tells us. Keeping in mind that Paul received the truth of the message of Christ by the direct revelation of Jesus, we can understand that the following verse is as golden as if Jesus had spoken it from the Mount of Olives, Himself.
Philippians 2:6 reads, “who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:” This is remarkable! “The form of God;” The power, the righteousness, the holiness of God; this is the form that is Jesus. “Thought it not robbery;” There was no problem with the assertion, it did not detract from the glory that rightly belonged to God the Father; how is this possible? “To be equal with God;” Equal! Jesus explained to Paul by direct revelation that He, Christ Himself, was in all ways equal with God. Can it be any more clear? Jesus says to Paul, “Pssst, yo Paulie… Get this one thing straight OK? I AM God.” And Paul turned around and answered, “Solid Dude!” Or something like that. Paul did not write these words to the Philippians on his own, Jesus Christ gave this explanation to Paul, and Paul gives it to us in the pages of Scripture, so that we might know the one in whom we could rightly place our faith.
The things that Jesus did during His earthly ministry were clearly the things that even the most learned scholars of His day realized were the exclusive providence of God. Healing of the lame, opening of the eyes of the man who was born blind, causing the resurrection of Lazarus, (not to mention taking up His own life); these are things that no one but God could do. “Who but God alone can forgive sins?” This was the question asked by the Pharisees and the scribes when Jesus healed the cripple. Even Jesus called upon the evidence of the miracles He worked as evidence that He was who He claimed to be. So why didn’t Jesus just come out and say, “I am God?”
It could be that we needed to come to this realization on our own. Faith, without faith, is not faith. This is where the Holy Spirit works, planting the seed in us which grows into the idea that we need Jesus. When we are convicted of our sin and when we begin seeking salvation, we need to know that Jesus Christ is the Lord God Almighty who forgives sin, and it is only by the power of the Father through the Spirit that we can learn this essential truth. We know that only God can cleanse us from sin and we need to understand that the only way it is accomplished is with the soap of Jesus’ blood. Our faith in Christ is where we are allowed to say, “Good bye,” to our sin.
It seems to me that there is far too much time spent on the ridiculous debate of the deity, or lack thereof, of Jesus Christ. If we are uncertain about the fact that Jesus is God, we need only look to the Word of God to see that it is so. This is not the burning question for us today though. I rarely find people restraining themselves from the cross because they aren’t sure of Christ’s ability to save; it is that they don’t want to accept the grace at all. The question is not as much, “Who is Jesus Christ?” as much as it is, “Will you accept or reject Him that died for you?” Faith in God is not enough to save you from the hell forged by our disobedience, we must come to Jesus; what God wants is that we invest ourselves entirely…
All for the Glory of Christ