Who is Jesus?

Ishmael LaBiosa: Welcome to the You Ask Podcast, where the goal is to answer common questions about Christianity. Let's listen in as Pastor Rusty answers today's question. Today's question is a rather simple question, or rather a simply stated question, but I hope today to bring clarity to this question. And the question simply is: who is Jesus? Now it would seem obvious to us who Jesus is. Since Christianity is founded by Jesus, Jesus is the central figure in Christianity. And yet I notice that sometimes when you just ask a Christian who Jesus is, they have a little bit of a difficult time not trying to say too much, but oftentimes saying too little, mainly saying, well, he's my friend or I have a relationship with Jesus or he is my Lord. Actually, I think the way that this question is answered in a comprehensive way is actually to say this about Jesus. And here it is Jesus is fully God, fully man, one person, two natures. Jesus is indeed the God man. And I do think understanding each one of those four phrases, true God, true man, or fully God, fully man, one person, two natures will really help us grasp the fullness of the contours of who Jesus is. So let's just take each one of these in turn. First, let's talk about that he is, well, fully man. Jesus takes on flesh. We should notice that you may not think this to be rather strange, but in the history of the Christian church, actually, some of the earliest false teaching about Jesus was not that he was not God. Actually, some of the early false teaching about Jesus is that he was not man. Actually, if you read in 2 John in the New Testament, one group of false teaching that John the Apostle wants to combat is a group of false teachers who say Jesus has not come in the flesh. They denied the humanity of Jesus. Now, where would you look in the New Testament to point to the humanity of Jesus? Well, there are a few places. We should notice in texts like Luke 7, 44 through 46, Jesus clearly has a body, and it says he grew in wisdom and stature. And so he grew and developed like other human beings. Also, we notice in the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus had a deep inner life. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, in some ways as Jesus prays and sweats as great drops of blood there in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the full humanity of Jesus, both the physicality of Jesus in his great distress, and the inner life of Jesus, saying, Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me. There we get to see the full humanity of Jesus. Also, we notice that the birth of Jesus began by a virginal conception. And so there are many things that point to the humanity of Jesus. I know that's not an issue for most 21st century Christians that Jesus was a man, but actually that was a pretty significant issue in the second and third centuries where They were so convinced Jesus was God, they weren't sure he was also a man. Now, often when it comes to the second big idea, who is Jesus? He's not only God, he's man. We ought to notice some places in the Gospels that point to the fact that Jesus is indeed God. In places like Matthew 13, 41, Jesus has command over the angels. In Mark 2, 5, Jesus is able to forgive sin. In Matthew 25, 31 through 46, Jesus says he will judge the world. In Mark 2, 47 through Mark 2, 27 through 28, Jesus has authority over the Sabbath. Jesus also takes titles on himself, such as being the Son of God, being also the Son of Man, which quite frankly, the Son of Man Is actually one of the strongest titles to deity in the New Testament, because the Son of Man is understood in light of the book of Daniel, and the Son of Man is clearly there, a divine figure. And then you have very plain text in the Gospels, such as John 1 1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Also, we shouldn't minimize the fact sometimes we look at the Gospels as very important to understand Jesus, and they certainly are, but actually the earliest Christian documents written were not the Gospels, but the letters of Paul. And what this means historically is the first things, the first letters that were written by Christians held to a high deity of Jesus, meaning that. The very first things ever written, Jesus was declared divine. From time to time, you'll hear some people say, well, this idea that Jesus was divine developed. The bottom line is there is zero evidence that that happened, because in the earliest Christian documents that we have, Jesus is clearly heralded as divine. And so as we say it, Jesus is the God man. Now, along the way, people have either, listen carefully, diminished the humanity of Jesus, or they have diminished the deity of Jesus. And if you're going to get this right, you have to hold both together. And let me just tell you a little bit about ⁓ some of the ways in which people have kind of messed up who Jesus was. And the church got together, they wrote a document at the council of Chalcedon in four fifty-one A.D. that basically cut it straight and said, I'll read a bit of this to you. It says, He, Jesus, is the one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, acknowledged in two natures. Which undergo nucle no confusion, no change, no division, no separation. At no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and come together into a single person. He is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ. So let me just try to point out. the different ways in which people have gotten Christ wrong. And sometimes it's important for us to know as much of what people got wrong so that we don't get it wrong so we can get it right. Let's talk about Jesus being divine. There were teachers ⁓ in the in church history that some just deny Jesus was God and and that was already happening clearly in the New Testament. And that's clearly a diminishment of who Jesus is and others Say if he was God, he wasn't fully God. But Orthodox Christianity says Jesus is fully God. In regard to humanity, there have been some, again, a denial of Jesus' humanity. I already pointed out that in the New Testament, there were already people denying Jesus' humanity. They said Jesus was not human. Or sometimes people said, well, if he was a human, he certainly wasn't fully human. He was a human of a different kind. But Orthodox Christianity has said no, Jesus is fully God, fully man. And then he is one person, that he's fully God, fully man, but still one person. Some tried to say no, Jesus was two persons. There was like a God part of Jesus and a human part of Jesus, but that's not what Orthodox Christianity said. But while he is one person, Orthodox Christianity has said he has two natures. And some have said, no, he's kind of a mixture of human and divine. And Orthodox Christianity has not said that. It says that he's fully God, fully man, one person, two natures. So if someone were to ask me who Jesus is, I'd probably simply start by saying he's the God man. And if they asked me more about it, I would say, well, he has one person, but two natures. And this is indeed the Orthodox teaching about Jesus, which is most clearly formulated in a summary at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and I believe is an accurate reflection of the biblical witness. So I hope this helps you as you answer a pretty basic question of Christianity, and that is who is Jesus? Thank you for listening to the You Ask Podcast. This is a ministry of Liberty Baptist Church. And we pray this podcast enables you to more faithfully live out your Christian life.