Who is Jesus Christ?

The title of our sermon today is a simple one, but a profound one. The title, Who is Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus Christ? And you can listen along, but if you have your Bibles, I would like to invite you to open them to 1 John 2. We're going to begin reading verses 18 through 23. That's 1 John chapter 2, the epistle of John, 1 John 2 verses 18 through 23.

As we begin here and begin to delve into our study with an understanding of just how important it is to have a correct understanding of Jesus Christ. I hope you can acknowledge that. And also an understanding of the risk involved with not having a correct understanding of who Jesus Christ is. And I think I can confidently say this afternoon that if the church gets it wrong on Christ, then it gets it wrong on everything. Again, solidifying the truth of who Jesus Christ is imperative.

And so we need to get this today. And what we're going to notice really right up front is that the Apostle John here, with this epistle, was very clear of that fact. He was very clear of the importance, the high importance of this issue. And we're going to see that right straight away from this portion of his letter. John here is writing to the church at that time. Regarding Jesus Christ, he writes. 1 John 2 beginning in verse 18.

Little children... it's a term of endearment for God's people. Little children, he begins. It is the last hour, and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming. Even now many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might show that it might be manifest, that none of them were of us.

Verse 20. But you, you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Now notice verse 22. Here it is. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Let's stop there. Strong words. Strong words with regards to this answering this question. Who is Jesus Christ here? And who is he really? What's the truth around him? And these words do in fact speak to the importance of being clear on this answer. And next time I'm with you, we're going to continue in our series in the Gospel of Luke. We're going to pick that back up next time. But I thought it would be important to have this study today to really provide clarity to whom we are following in the Gospels.

You know, we're around Luke 8, Luke 9 right now. And one of the questions that Jesus Christ asks is, who does the crowd say I am? And that's an important question. But then even more strikingly, he looks at his disciples and he says, who do you say I am? That's why we're now coming to this question.

As we follow the the Gospel account, as we follow Jesus Christ, we need to nail this down, this vital question, who is Jesus Christ? And again, it's an important one because back at this time when John pins this epistle here, the situation that he was responding to was to that of false teachers, false teachers who had crept into God's congregation at that time. And they began to organize their false message.

And it was so persuasive that many in the church at that time even began to question matters. And it was such a persuasive message, a heretical message, that even amongst God's people they began to debate these things. And it caused uncertainty. And it reached such a dark point that John here in verse 22, in verse 22, he refers to them as having a spirit of the Antichrist.

That's how serious this was. False teachers, he says. Verse 19, he wants to make it clear, they did not belong to us, he says. They didn't belong to us. And their going out showed they didn't belong to us. And just so you know, their departure was not based on some peripheral matters, debatable matters. You know, sometimes within our congregation we do have issues that come up and we're not quite all in agreement on some of the debatable matters. Well, John is saying this is not one of those. This, the details of their departure, was directly attached to a heretical teaching of who Jesus Christ was. It was heretical. It was false.

So he pins this letter, and he does so to provide certainty and clarity to God's people. And he does so right out of the gates. I want to show you this. Look at the, this, the absolute clarity in which John writes. I want to turn you back just one chapter to 1 John 1, verse 1. Look at right at how he starts off this letter. 1 John 1 and verse 1, he gives his testimony, and he shoots out of the gates here regarding Jesus Christ. And look how he begins this epistle. He says regarding Jesus Christ, 1 John 1, 1, he says, "...that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, that our hands have handled, concerning..." Who?

"...concerning the Word of Life." Verse 2, "...the Life was manifested, and we have seen, and we have bear witness, and we declare to you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard. We declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

And these things we write to you, that your joy may be full." Okay, let's stop there. You know, just so clear, so absolute here. This is absolute truth. There was all kinds of false teachings going around. You know, as we get closer to Pentecost, I want to do a some message regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit as well. God's power. What you will find is that in all of the New Testament letters, they always address in the greetings, I come to you in the name of the Father and the Son, and they never mention the Holy Spirit as an entity, as a person.

You know, so we believe that the Holy Spirit is God's power that He provides to His children. And we see that here. This is our fellowship. He's going to speak with truth, the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. We saw Jesus. We heard Him. We touched Him. He was alive. He is the Word of life. And at the end of verse 2, we declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. He came in the flesh. The end of verse 3, our fellowship is with who?

Our fellowship is with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. Objective truth. Everything that we're going to deal with today is objective truth regarding Jesus Christ. The Word of life. He was manifested. And He walked this earth. And so John is saying, I am declaring Him to you, he says. Very clear. Absolute truth.

So to God's people, we take this and we then know that we, as we're representing God the Father and Jesus Christ, we cannot adapt. We cannot accommodate other views of Jesus Christ. And it's just so interesting when you know to whom John is writing here, this is at the end of the first century. And it wasn't that long from the time in which Jesus Christ actually walked on earth. It hadn't been that long. And already, that which is ill-defined, or that which is vague, or that which is frankly in direct opposition to the truth of Jesus Christ, it already crept in. How did these things creep in so quickly, we could ask?

When thinking about that, if you know how Satan the Devil works, whenever there is absolute certainty, whenever there's the absolute truth of God that's being proclaimed, it is the work of the evil one to undermine it, to alter it, to diminish it, to water it down, to sow seeds of doubt, to absolute truth. And in that, we can then very easily take that which was in the first century and bring it to the 21st century.

See, if you agree with this, is there ever a time more than now in which absolutes are disdained more than today? You know, if you go out and you speak with absolute truth, and you even say that, oh, you're going to be met with great disdain in today's society. Increasingly, this society tells us there's no absolutes to adhere to. And it can cause in us fear, increased fear about speaking in definable terms. You know, that of who Jesus is, and it is only by him God the Father sent him, and through him are we saved. That's an absolute truth which will be met with great disdain and anger. But to every generation of God's people, we have the responsibility to not be soft or present some kind of malleable Christianity. When we're pushed up against on these absolute truths, we cannot reshape the truth. We can't redefine it. And the reason we can is because we see in the so-called Christian circles that's exactly what's happening. They're adapting to the society.

And I won't go into it, but I enjoy psychology. But the notion today, more than ever, is that everyone can have their own truth. What's my truth is my truth, and you can have your truth, and despite the differences, your truth is valid, my truth is valid, this person over here can have a truth, you know, you name it.

And they'll say, whatever works best for you, the only truth that matters is the truth that you have. There's no absolute truth. And so every subsequent generation that comes, they take it upon themselves to define what is the acceptable morality of the day.

What's some of the acceptable morality that would have been absolute nonsense as short as 10 years ago or 20 years ago? You know, if you look at some of the increased acceptable sexual immorality amongst teenage or unmarried populations, for example, even amongst Christian circles, they're being reshaped and redefined.

And we could ask, why? Why is society so malleable with what used to be absolute truth as scripture defines it? Well, if you don't believe in a definable statement concerning the lordship of Jesus Christ, if you don't believe that we can only live by what Jesus Christ said, because He is the Son of God and He is the Creator, if we don't believe that He was from the beginning, that He did was manifest and we heard Him and we saw Him and we looked upon Him and we handled Him, if we don't believe He is the Word of Life and that we cannot live by any other way than what He says, if belief in Jesus Christ is not definable as the only absolute authority, then everything is on a sliding scale. Everything goes. You see, this is why we're asking the question today. Who is Jesus Christ? That question speaks to the issue of morality. Who is Jesus Christ speaks to the issue of homosexuality? It speaks to the issue of heterosexuality? It speaks to the nature of marriage? It speaks to what it means to be a man? What it means to be a woman? Who Jesus Christ is?

That question speaks to every issue facing mankind today.

Because without it, if that is not an absolute definable answer in truth, then anything goes. Anything goes.

Because without that, we don't have an authority to turn to. We don't have an authoritative word. We don't have an absolute defined word to which our Lord and Savior gave us.

That's why we need to study these things. There can be no diffidence in our Christian testimony regarding Jesus Christ.

So I've taken a long time to really heighten the—I hope you'll see just how important it is to the highest level of importance to answer this question correctly. Who is Jesus Christ?

And so let's answer that now. And we're actually going to stay with John, but we're going to move from his epistle to his gospel. So if you would turn with me to the Gospel of John, John chapter 1 and verse 1. John 1 and verse 1, it's no surprise that we would stay with John. This was actually a major theme. You know, John loved Jesus Christ dearly, had a very close relationship with him. And so in John's gospel, in his follow-up epistles, he set forward to set the record straight. And so we want to trace a line here through the Gospel of John, essentially the first four opening verses here. And we're going to allow John to give us five absolute and certain truths.

Regarding who Jesus Christ is. So we're going to move through this very quickly.

Our goal is to not be exhaustive in this, but really just to set a foundation for us for your future study. So to get right to it, the first essential truth that we're going to see revealed here in John 1.1, the first essential truth to state is, number one, Jesus's eternal existence. Okay? So that's the number one essential truth revealed of who Jesus is. Jesus's eternal existence. This is what we see here. And we see it very simply. We could say in John 1 verse 1, these first six words. In the beginning was the Word. We're going to stop there. In the beginning was the Word. Six words that speak to the eternal existence of Jesus Christ.

You know, later on here, we're going to see that the Word became, was manifested, and the Word was came, and the Word was Jesus Christ. But you'll notice here, He was there from the very beginning.

In other words, there was never a time when the Word did not exist. Okay? Never a time in which there was no Word, the One who became Jesus Christ. And if someone has existed forever, well, He's eternal. Therefore, He's outside of time, did not have a beginning.

Therefore, He existed before creation. He cannot be then part of creation, right? He existed before creation. So He's not a created being. You can throw that right out.

So John establishes the fact that the Word existed from the beginning.

Now, you'll notice that John did not begin by saying, and the Word was Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ existed from the beginning. It's interesting to think about when you think about the psychology of the time and the thought process of the time. When we read John 1-1, we immediately thank Jesus Christ. We've read this so many times. Oh yeah, in the beginning was the Word. Of course, that was Jesus Christ. We say, oh yes, we understand that. Well, the readers at that time may not have innately known that connection, may not have made that immediate connection right away.

So John, in writing this way, what we're going to notice is that He's building.

He's gaining interest, if you will, developing their understanding. And He does so by using the phraseology and the terminology of that day in which they would have been familiar with. And so He uses this word, logos. And it's the word word. That's the word He uses.

And it's interesting to think about the initial readers or the initial listeners to this gospel here and how they would have interpreted this. There would have been Greek listeners there.

And perhaps some of them would have heard this introduction here and they would have said, oh yes, their Greeks would have said, oh yes, we understand this. The logos, the word. And they would have said, this is the Greeks, the logos, well that's the rational principle of the universe.

The Greeks loved to philosophize. And they would have found themselves at this time with the belief of a creator to be more of a force rather than an entity or a being, if you will. More of a force than a person. So they would have heard the word logos and they would immediately connect it in their phraseology, a principle of the universe. That which kept things in order. A force.

So John says, in the beginning was the word, and they would have said, okay, we understand that.

That's this force. That's this principle of the universe. So far, so good. We're with you, John. They would have said. Obviously, when he says logos, he's speaking about the agent, they would have said. The substance which keeps the universe in order. That was Greek philosophy at that time. So that would have been perhaps the initial interpretation of the Greek reader.

But there would have also been in this crowd Jews. And Jews were monotheistic. One God. And they would have perhaps heard this from John and they would have then interpreted it in a different way.

Logos, or the word to the Jewish mind, would have meant wisdom. Okay. So they may have heard this word. In the beginning was the word. And they would have said, oh yes, it has been said that wisdom has been with God since the beginning. You see?

So a Jew reading these words would have perhaps at this point, they would have been coming along with John as well here as he uses this word logos here. So it was landed on Jews and Greeks. Both perhaps would have had their own shades of interpretation here. In the beginning was the word with me so far. John would have said perhaps, yes, we're with you from the crowd, with their own perspective, of course. And perhaps John begins in this way, so as to ease the hammer of truth which was about to come. Okay. He hadn't yet hit them with the clincher, the connection with who he's speaking about is actually the one who became manifest to them, Jesus Christ. He hasn't hit them with that hammer of truth yet, but it's coming. We're going to see it coming as we go along here. And we're primarily going to see it coming in verse 14 there as John will lower the hammer fully there. But that's coming. He's building to that. But he begins with this incredible revelation, Jesus's eternal existence. In the beginning was the word. So that's number one, Jesus's eternal existence. Number two, second essential truth regarding Jesus Christ is to acknowledge Jesus's distinctiveness. Okay. So that's number two, Jesus's distinctiveness. Verse one again, in the beginning was the word.

And here it is. And the word was with God. Okay. So he underscores the first truth with the second truth. The word was with God in the beginning. So what is he saying? Well, he's saying that the word had a distinct existence. That existence. And if you have two distinct beings in, we can then understand this relationship would have been for all of eternity. So there's no closer relationship that exists except for this one. The closeness of it and the eternal aspect of it. So when the hammer of truth is lowered in a minute, and he connects the word with Jesus Christ, then that connection, that relationship between God the Father and the Word, we then say, oh, this is an eternal relationship of the closest of nature. Distinct relationship they had from all of eternity.

Two distinct beings in the beginning was the word. The word, again, was before creation.

The word was with God. So that's number two is Jesus's distinction.

The distinctiveness of Jesus Christ. That's the essential second truth.

Okay, number three. Number three. I told you we're going to go through these rapidly.

The number three essential truth regarding Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ?

Well, we have to acknowledge number three, Jesus's divinity. Okay. Jesus's divinity.

With the phrase there at the end of verse one, where John writes, and the word was not only with God, the word was God. Okay. The word was God. So this is the hammer being lowered, if you will.

So far, the Jews and the Greeks would have been coming along with John, I believe. In the beginning was the word. Okay, fine. And the word was with God. We're still with you. Okay, we can go along with that. But now he says the word was God. The word was God. So, Greeks, this is not some kind of cosmic principle, not some kind of force, if you will. And Jews, this isn't... I'm not speaking about God's wisdom, or his voice, all right, or his speech. Rather, what I'm talking about here is an eternal, distinct God. All right? And again, when you go down to verse 14, and with this hammer, going down to verse 14, and the word... Here it is. So I just talked to you about the word John would have said, and he says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory in the flesh, and the glory as the only begotten of the Father, so the only Son of God, of the Father, God the Father. So there's not just something simply special. There's not even something simply spiritual about Jesus. He's not simply a spiritual prophet who gives us educational words to live by. No, no. He's affirming that the word, the one who became Christ, is God, distinct being, the one to whom we, John says, beheld in all glory in the flesh.

It's quite a third essential truth. Now, let me quote... I want to quote to you from our United Church of God study guide. This is the booklet we have. I encourage you to read it if you'd like. Jesus Christ, the real story. Let me read you a quote from our study guide booklet.

I think it says it well. Quote, Jesus was prophesied to be God with us.

Jesus was a human being, and he was also God. There was never a time when he ceased to be who he always was. His identity did not change. When he was in the womb of Mary, he was God.

When he was a baby boy lying in the manger, he was God. When he was a youngster growing up in Nazareth, he was God. And when he was dying, he was God. Unquote. Amazing. You know, this is part of the mystery of the Gospel. All that God the Father is is also Christ.

Jesus Christ is God, a distinct being from all of eternity.

So from the beginning, two divine beings existing forever together, both of them God.

So that's the third essential truth, the acknowledgement of Jesus's divinity.

Number four. I told you we're going through these quickly.

Number four. The fourth essential truth regarding Jesus Christ is to acknowledge Jesus as creator. All right, so that's number four from John. Jesus as creator.

And it's all wrapped up in verse three, this phrase here in verse three.

All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.

So think about this. Let this blow your mind a little bit. Everything that exists owes its existence to the Word, the one who would become Jesus Christ. All right?

And I think John states it. It's not an easy sentence to say, but he states it from the positive sense form, and he states it from the negative form. All things were made through him. Positive. He says it in the negative context. Without him nothing was made that was made negatively. Context there. So he just wants to be crystal clear on this essential fourth truth.

So let's allow our physical minds to think about this a little bit. We are so limited, you know, sometimes. But if you can, just go behind creation, you know, before creation.

My mind's already stopped somewhere along the way. No matter how far you back you go, again, in the beginning was the Word. There was never a time in which he didn't exist.

And there's nothing which didn't depend on him for its very existence. All things were made through the Word. Jesus Christ. All things were made through the One who was manifest to us.

You know, this is a really good study on the hills of Passover and just looking back and seeing what we're hearing about this One and reading about this One and to know he took that journey to the Chris crucifixion. This is the One who took that journey for us.

Without him, nothing was made.

Therefore, if you will, we could say without him, nothing stays made. You know, Scripture tells us all things are held together by him. It makes sense. He's the creator of it all.

And you may have recognized when you begin to read John 1 chapter 1 here, there's distinct strains of Genesis here. You may have noticed that Genesis deals with creation and life and light and darkness. It's the very thing that John's dealing with here in his gospel. So we could say that Genesis, the beginning of Genesis, deals with the original creation. And in a sense, what John's introducing to us in his gospel account is he's now dealing with new creation. This is what John's beginning to deal with here, a new creation that this One who's been made manifest to us. Well, he's at it again, we could say. He's creating again.

Except with this new creation, what is he creating? Well, he's creating new hearts and new minds and in men and women. It's a new creation here. He's creating these new hearts and minds to then bring these men and women to a relationship with his father. It's beautiful. It's an incredible truth. So we see he is the creator, not only physically, but also spiritually as well. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ.

And he has to create in us a new heart, a new mind. So he's awesome. He's absolutely awesome. And he means everything to us. And through him, we know who the Father is. And it's such a special relationship that we build in this lifetime. So that's the fourth incredible truth, Jesus as our creator, physically and spiritually. And that really leads us to our fifth and final essential truth here regarding Jesus Christ. Our fifth and final truth revealed is, number five, Jesus as illuminator. Jesus as illuminator. I'm not even going to tell you how to spell that either. I'm going to let you leave that up to you. If you'd like to write it this way, Jesus Christ illuminates us. Drop a few L's that way. The illuminating of Jesus Christ. So that's found essentially here in verse four. Here it is. In him, verse four, was life...you know, that's physical life, we say.

And the life was the light of men. In him was life, yes. And the life was the light of men.

New creation. This is what we're speaking about here. In him was not only life, physical, but he is the light of men and women. He's the spark, if you will. He illuminates us and gives us true life. True life. And really what it is, is it's the gift of an eternal light, if you will. It's the gift of eternal life, which he offers us. Made possible by him making himself manifest and paying the penalty for us and opening up that door to receive the gift of eternal life.

So we could say he's our eternal light. He's the source, the means to the gift of eternal life.

And we have such a special opportunity here in this room. There's some few of us here, not many, but we have the opportunity to which we are dedicating ourselves to, that when he returns, he will return and the hope is we will receive that gift of eternal life at that time.

But he will raise up his own. And I love this visual. He'll place in us that light in us. He's the light of men. He's the light of women. And it will shine at that time forever.

For all of eternity. And in this life, we're just trying to get rid of everything that can cause that light not to shine. So we're removing things from our life. We want to shine brightly, trying to remove all the shadows in our life and shades that can affect that light from shining brightly. One day we're going to receive this light, if you will, and it will shine for all of eternity.

You know, he illuminates us. It also the analogy of he opens our knowledge to truth.

I know if you're like me, you felt it. One day you were in darkness and the next day it's like, I see things that I never saw before in Scripture. I've read that a million times. I never saw it before. I feel like something's happening in me here. And that's God, the Father, through Jesus Christ illuminating your mind to this knowledge and truth. So wonderful. So Jesus Christ is, in fact, the answer to all of humanity's issues and all of humanity's challenges and all of his, all of their questions. The questions of what is all this existence about, you know, I have my information on the website, and so I get a lot of these questions throughout the week. People, men and women, seeking answers. Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? What's in store for me? All of that's wrapped up in the answer of who He is. All of it.

And we see that many today cannot comprehend this light. It's verse five. We'll just read one more verse here. Verse five says, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. You see? So if you have a mind that can comprehend this, thank God. He has shined. He has given you to His Son. You know, He's brought you to His Son. The light. And I sometimes think, you know, I don't know if, I don't know if others are seeking answers to these questions, but I'm quickly reminded we are here in a tourist type of area, and I got to tell you the few times I've visited downtown in those tourist areas, as the weather gets better, no doubt there will be lines upon lines of men and women seeking men and women who will pay upwards of $50 to have their palms red, to have cards laid before them, to interpret and to give them meaning, the meaning to life.

They're seeking. They cannot interpret it unless that light has been given to them, unless the sun has been given to them. I found this quote. I love a good quote. Sometimes these individuals in whom I'm quote, they have a, they don't have truth, but they have a measure of truth at a moment. Pascal said it best, I think. Pascal said, quote, there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God made known through Jesus Christ, our Creator. Unquote. That's true. There is a God-shaped void in every man, and all these various ill-defined truths have not been able to fill. But we as a church, we as God's people, we have Jesus Christ, we have that light in us.

And it's a truth that John, the Apostle John, was dedicated to give his testimony to, and it's a truth in which we need to give our testimony to as well, each and every day. So as we begin to conclude here, I just want to remind you that you are the light bringers.

You are the light bringers, and we have the responsibility to be absolute and to speak with clarity and certainty in our culture. Do you believe? Do you believe in the Jesus Christ to whom John has revealed to us today? Well, I hope you've been able to collect your thoughts in a more organized way so that you can stand up with certainty.

So let's take these words of the Apostle John today, and let's let them shine in us, for this is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.