We Believe in Jesus Christ, God’s Only
Son, Our Lord
Apostles’ Creed Part 4
Intro: (From Dr. Ray Pritchard, “The Incomparable Christ: ‘Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord’”)
Who
is Jesus Christ? Of all the questions that might be posed to modern men and
women, none is more important than this. It is no exaggeration to say that this
is the central question of history and the most important issue anyone will
ever face. Who is Jesus Christ? Where did he come from? Why did he come? And
what difference does his coming make in my life? In the end, every person must
deal with Jesus Christ. No one can escape him. You can avoid the question, or
delay it, or postpone it, or stonewall it, or pretend you didn’t hear it. But sooner
or later you must answer it.
It’s certainly not a new question. It’s as old as the coming of Christ to
earth. Once when Jesus took his disciples on a retreat to a place called
Caesarea Philippi, he asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” They offered
four responses: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets (see
Matthew 16:13-16). Even when he walked on this earth, people were confused as
to his true identity.
Across the centuries the discussion has continued to this very day. Visit any
Internet religious chat room and you’ll find a bewildering array of opinions
regarding Jesus. Here are some contemporary answers to the question “Who is
Jesus Christ?” A good man … The Son of God … A Prophet … A Galilean rabbi … A
teacher of God’s Law … The Embodiment of God’s Love … A Reincarnated Spirit
Master … The Ultimate Revolutionary … The Messiah of Israel … Savior … A
first-century wise man … A man just like any other man … King of Kings … A
misunderstood teacher … Lord of the Universe … A deluded religious leader … Son
of Man … A fabrication of the early church.
The Many Faces of Jesus Which answer will you give? Before you answer,
let me say that you can find people today who will give every one of those
possible answers. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. It is said that in the
days before Elvis Presley died, he had been reading a book called The Many
Faces of Jesus. That title stands as a fitting symbol of the confusion
surrounding Jesus in our time. Two thousand years have passed and still we
wonder about the man called Jesus.
That takes us back to Caesarea Philippi. After Jesus asked for the opinions of
others, he turned to his men and asked for their answer: “But you, who do you
say that I am?” In the end, each of us faces the same question. We can’t get
away with quoting the opinions of others. You have to make up your own mind.
So let’s go back to the original question. Who is
Jesus Christ? And how does your answer stack up with the Bible? That’s an
important second question because it is not enough to say, “I believe in
Jesus.” Millions of people claim to believe in Jesus who don’t have a clue
about what the Bible says about him. Which Jesus do you believe in?
(From
another source) John Newton: “What
think ye of Christ? is the test
To
try both your faith and your scheme;
You
cannot be right in the rest,
Unless
you think rightly of him.
It's all about Jesus Thankfully, we don’t have to wonder who Jesus is.
For 2,000 years Christians have affirmed their faith in Jesus with these words
from the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe … in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our
Lord.” With this phrase we enter the second major section of the Creed. The
Creed itself is Trinitarian—with a section devoted to the Father, a section to
the Son, and a final section to the Holy Spirit. Of the 110 words in the Creed,
70 occur in the section relating to Jesus Christ. That tells us something
important. The Christian faith is all about Jesus! He is the heart and core,
the touchstone of all that we believe. You can be mistaken on some secondary
issues and still be a Christian, but if you are wrong about Jesus, you are
wrong in the worst possible place. Our faith in Jesus must be more than just an
emotional experience of “having Jesus in my heart.” Our faith must rest on the
revealed truth about Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord.
If we take this clause from the Creed and examine it, we can see that it
contains four statements:
· I believe in Jesus.
· I believe He is the Christ.
· I believe He is God’s only Son.
· I believe He is the Lord.
Each of these statements deserves close examination. J. I. Packer notes that
when the Creed calls God the “Maker of heaven and earth,” it parts company with
Hinduism and by extension, with all the Eastern religions. When it declares
that Jesus is the Christ, God’s only Son, and our Lord, it parts company with
Islam and Judaism. This claim for Jesus makes Christianity utterly unique.
These titles were commonly used by the early church to describe their faith.
Sometimes they used the familiar symbol of the fish, which in Greek is IXTHUS.
Those letters were an acrostic for four of the words found in this phrase of
the Creed:
The letter I is the first letter of “Jesus” in Greek. (Ihsouj)
The letter X is the first letter of “Christ” in Greek. (Xristoj)
The letters TH stand for the first letter of “God” in Greek. (Qeou)
The letter U is the first letter of “Son” in Greek. (u”ioj)
The letter S is the first letter of “Savior” in Greek. (Sotvr)
So the word IXTHUS (and the fish symbol) stood as shorthand for: Jesus Christ,
God’s Son, our Savior.
Thesis:
When we confess that we believe in Jesus Christ God’s only Son, our Lord, we
are declaring four truths about this Jesus. Let us look at each of these truths
in turn.
I. We believe in Jesus
1. An historical person who actually existed; lived a life partially described in the NT
a. Contrary to some so-called Bible scholars who claim He was a fabrication of the early church
b. We know about His life from the NT; the self-styled “Jesus Seminar” scholars pick and choose what to believe about Him; if it agrees with their preconceptions, they accept it. Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible, but of their own making.
c. Paul’s warning in Gal. 1:8 “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”
2. Named Jesus
a. Divinely chosen name – Matt. 1:21 – “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
b. Aramaic Yeshu’a – God Saves
c. A popular Jewish name, but in His case, it was the literal truth – here was the very God who saves
3. Had a human body
a. Contrary to Gnostics – false teachers who said that He didn’t have a body, b/c they believed the material world was evil & spirit was good, so God wouldn’t take a physical form
b. Or Docetists – said He just seemed to be human
c. In a human body; has a human genealogy
4. Was “the representative man” (F.F. Bruce)
a. In order to pay the penalty of human sin, He became one of us
b. In order to understand us, He became one of us
c. “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” – Heb. 4:15
d. The most human one of us b/c He didn’t sin
i. Contrary to the popular wisdom “to err is human”
ii. To err isn’t human; it’s fallen, sinful
iii. God’s plan for us didn’t involve sin; Jesus didn’t sin, & so He’s the most complete human ever
1. John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
2. Some people go to the other error – Jesus wasn’t really God; He was just a good man
a. Not possible for someone to have said the things He said about Himself & still be a good man
b. “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” —C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
3. Both fully man & fully God; bonus $50 word – “hypostatic union” (the union of the divine & the human natures in Christ)
4. (more on Jesus divinity in part III)
A. Not his name; His title
1. Not part of the Christ family (Good day, Mr. Christ, Mrs. Christ, young Master Christ and Miss Christ)
2. Like we say President Bush or President Noh; “it’s the name of the office he holds” (Pritchard)
B. The Messiah
1. Means “the anointed one”
2. The One God had promised to send since Gen. 3:15
3. Particularly promised to come through Abraham’s descendants, particularly through David’s descendants
4. Jesus fulfilled over 300 Messianic prophecies from the OT
5. God’s plan of salvation unfolded in the Bible:
a. OT: Anticipation (He is coming!)
b. Gospels: the Incarnation (He is here!)
c. Acts: Proclamation (He has come!)
d. Epistles: Explanation (He is Lord!)
e. Revelation: Consummation (He is coming again!)
C. The Savior of the world
1. “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” – I John 4:14
2. “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” – I Tim. 1:15
3. Remember the meaning of Jesus’ name? “God saves”
4. Savior’s dual role: to bring God to us & to bring us to God
1. “Jesus said to them, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’” – John 8:58
2.
“Christ
is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth. He made the
things we can see and the things we can't see—kings, kingdoms, rulers, and
authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him. He existed
before everything else began, and he holds all creation together. Christ is the
head of the church, which is his body. He is the first of all who will rise
from the dead, so he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was
pleased to live in Christ, and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He
made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the
cross.” – Col. 1:16-20 (NLT)
3. “I and the Father are one.” – John 10:30 (The Jews knew He was claiming deity)
4. Nicene Creed – calls Jesus “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” He isn’t just similar to God; He is God.
1. 2nd part of the Trinity
2. Son not in terms of biological offspring, not in terms of time order (the Father didn’t exist before the Son) “The Son exists because the Father exists: but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 150)
3. Nicene Creed – “begotten of His father before all worlds,… begotten, not made”
4. Begotten as opposed to created, like us—we are created (Jesus is to God like a son to a father, and we are to God like statues to a sculpture)
5. “We must think of the Son always, so to speak, streaming forth from the Father, like light from a lamp, or heat from a fire, or thoughts from a mind. He is the self-expression of the Father—what the Father has to say.” (Lewis, p. 151)
6. “God is love.” (I John 4:16) This statement “has no real meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something one person has for another person. … Christians believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else.” (Lewis)
A. from Pritchard
The final title given to Jesus
relates to you and me. He is “our Lord.” The Greek word is kurios. This word
occurs many times in the New Testament, and it was also common throughout the
Roman Empire. Its basic meaning is “absolute ruler.” To call Jesus “Lord” means
that he is sovereign over the entire universe, and he has the right of
sovereign rule over you and me. Romans 10:9 says that “if you confess with your
mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved.” Notice how simple that phrase is—“Jesus is Lord.” To
confess with the mouth means more than simply saying the words. It means to
agree from the heart that you believe what you are saying. In order to
understand this properly, we need a bit of background on how the Romans ruled
their vast empire. Because the empire stretched from Europe into the Middle East
and across the northern coast of Africa, it encompassed many provinces and thus
included many local religions. Scholars speak of the “mystery religions” that
were found in many parts of the empire. Each of the various religions has its
own code of conduct, its own sacred scriptures, its own pattern of worship,
form of sacrifice, sacred rites, priesthood, and so on. Because these religions
tended to keep people pacified, the Romans left them alone as much as possible.
Rome required only that taxes be paid and that everyone be required to say,
“Caesar is Lord.” That’s all—just three simple words. Say “Caesar is Lord,” and
then go on about your business. Affirm that Caesar was sovereign and then
follow whatever religion suited you. For many people in the Empire, that was no
big burden. But Christians steadfastly refused to say, “Caesar is Lord.” They
simply wouldn’t say it. How could they say, “Caesar is Lord” when their faith
taught them that “Jesus is Lord?” They could not and would not deny Christ. And
that is why during the days of persecution, Christians were slaughtered,
murdered by the thousands, crucified, burned at the stake, run through with the
sword, and thrown to the wild animals. This was the great dividing line that
Christians would not cross.
Chuck Colson notes that in the first century, if you stood in a public
gathering and cried out, “Jesus is God!” no one would be upset. But if you
shouted, “Jesus is Lord!” you would start a riot. Let us be crystal-clear about
this. Rome did not persecute Christians because they believed in the deity of
Christ, or that Jesus was the promised Messiah, or that Jesus died on the cross
and rose from the dead. Rome did not kill Christians because they said Jesus is
the only way of salvation. Those were “religious beliefs” that did not threaten
the state. But when Christians declared, “Jesus Christ is our Lord, and there
is no other!” that was a direct attack on Caesar-worship, and thus punishable
by death.
That is why the Lordship of Christ matters so much. To call him “Lord” means
that we surrender all we have to him, and we follow him gladly wherever he
leads, whatever it costs.
B. Jesus is Lord; the is a necessary component of the Gospel message
1. “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” Rom. 10:9
2. MacArthur: “Jesus is both Savior and Lord (Luke 2:11), and no true believer would ever dispute that.” Some people say that it is possible to accept Him as Savior but reject Him as Lord – NO! (The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 27)
3. “We do not ‘make’ Christ Lord; He is Lord! Those who will not receive Him as Lord are guilty of rejecting Him. ‘Faith’ that rejects His sovereign authority is really unbelief. … No one who comes for salvation with genuine faith, sincerely believing that Jesus is the eternal, almighty, sovereign God, will willfully reject His authority.” (MacArthur, pp. 28-29)
1. It will happen – either now voluntarily, or in the future compulsorily; the choice is yours
2. Pritchard – “You were made by Jesus Christ. You owe your life to him. One day you will stand before him as your Judge. Sooner or later every knee will bow before him and confess that he is the Lord. You can bow before him today as your Savior or you can face him one day as your Judge. But you cannot escape him. The choice is yours.” Every knee will bow and every tongue confess. That includes your knees and your tongue. Will it be in love and adoration or will it be in abject terror moments before you are cast into eternal hell?”
3. Why not chose to worship Him as Lord today?
Conclusion
“In the end it all comes down to Jesus, doesn’t it? He’s really the central issue. … In the end, Jesus is the central issue of the human race. Each of us must one day give an account for what we have done with the Lord. Did we love him and serve him as Savior and Lord? Or did we choose to go another way?” (Pritchard)
· We believe in Jesus.
· We believe He is the Christ.
· We believe He is God’s only Son.
· We believe He is the Lord.