School of doctrine

God the Son (Jesus)

What we believe about Jesus is just as important as what we believe about the Father. In fact, He asked His disciples this very question "Who do you say I am?" ( Matthew 16:15)

Some people today say that He was a very good man, but not God, whereas in the early church some false teachers seem to have taught the exact opposite! The Bible doesn't teach something in the middle (a bit of each), but that He was and is fully God and fully man.

When we are talking about Jesus, the one who we love so much, it can seem a bit strange to describe what we know about Him in such academic detail, but the following are some of the broad areas that have helped Christians to understand His divinity.

John teaches us about Jesus, and says that 'He is the true God' ( 1 John 5:20, see also Titus 2:13 & John 1:1).

Jesus also claimed Deity (To be God) for Himself in a way that was very, very clear for His hearers, saying such things as 'I and the Father are one' ( John 10:30 - see also John 19:7, Matthew 26:63-64 and Jophn 5:18).

Jesus also claimed the authority and prerogatives which belong to God alone, like forgiving sins, sitting at the right hand of the God the Father, having authority to judge mankind and having power to raise the dead ( Mark 2:10, Mark 14:62, John 5:22, John 6:39-40,54, 10:17,18).

Jesus also possessed attributes that only belong to God. For instance He claimed to have all power, and through out His life He showed it by His authority over nature and natural phenomena, by healing people and by raising the dead ( Matthew 22:18, John 2:7-11, Mark 3:10, Mark 4:39, Luke 4:35, John 11:43,44, Ephesians 1:20-22).

It was also obvious that He was omniscient i.e. He knew everything ( Mark 2:8, John 2:25).

All of these characteristics help us to see that He was no 'ordinary' man, nor 'just a good teacher', but that He was actually God, who had come and taken the form of real humanity (Philippian 2:6-8).

Although Jesus being God and man seems hard to understand (like the Trinity), this shouldn't worry us too much. After all, why would we expect to find anything about God easy to understand?

The Bible also teaches us that Jesus was born miraculously, that Mary His earthly mother who was a normal human being, became pregnant by the Holy Spirit ( Matthew 1:18).

The significance of this event is not only the amazing miracle that was taking place, but also that Jesus was not being born of the ancestry of Adam & Eve. Every human born of a natural human descent is born with original sin ( Romans 5:12), but Jesus was not.

In reading about the Old Testament sacrifices, we read that any offerings made to the Lord had to be perfect ( Leviticus 22:21), and the New Testament teaches us that all of the various sacrifices were representative pictures of the great sacrifice of Jesus' life for the sin of men and women who put their faith in Him ( Hebrews 10:1, Mathew 20:28).

If Jesus had not been born free from sin (i.e. perfect), and had not then lived a sinless life, He could not have made an acceptable sacrifice for sin. The book of Hebrews has much to say to help us understand these things.

Having a good understanding of what the Bible says about Jesus really helps us our faith make sense.

So to sum up some of these things, only one who was God would have had the power to deliver us from sin and been a worthy sacrifice. Only one who was perfect would have been an acceptable sacrifice, and only one who was also man could have perfectly fulfilled the law. Again, these deep things are beyond human understanding, in the sense that we will never grasp the full significance, but it is also obvious that there are many aspects that God wants us to clearly understand. The Bible talks about Jesus from beginning ( Genesis 3:15b) to end ( Revelation 22:21), sometimes in very specific, obvious ways, and sometimes in more subtle, symbolic ways.

When reading and thinking about Jesus, the cross lies at the heart of everything we consider, and this will be looked at in another section. What we mustn't lose sight of however, is the one things that Jesus taught about, everywhere He went, the Kingdom of God. The Cross and the Kingdom dominate everything we know about Jesus. Again, the Kingdom will be discussed in a separate section.

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