Jesus is God and Man

Part 1 – 12/5/2004

 

What does it mean when we say that Jesus is both man and God?

Is Jesus…

  • A man who became God?
  • God indwelling a man?
  • God appearing to be a man?
  • A spiritual being ordered by God to become man?
  • Fully God and fully man?

 

John 1:1

1 John 4:2

 

Jesus is God and Jesus is man. He can understand our needs and can meet our needs.

 

Jesus Is God

How do we know Jesus is God?

  1. Jesus said he is God

John 5:18 – He was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

John 10:30 – I and the Father are one.

John 14:9 – Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

John 8:58 – I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am

 

“… people often say about [Jesus] ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God’ … A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic… or else he would be the Devil of Hell.” – C.S. Lewis

 

  1. Others said he is God

Isaiah 9:6 – Prophecies of Jesus’ birth before he was born

Philippians 2:10-11 – His disciples

Isaiah 45:22-23 – This is speaking of God

Colossians 2:9 – All the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form

John 1:1-2

 

  1. He is worshipped as God

Philippians 2:10 – At the name of Jesus every knee should bow

Hebrews 1:6 – Jesus regarded as higher than the angels

    1. What did Jesus do in response?

Matthew 28:9-10 – Told them to go tell their brothers

John 20:28-19 – Affirmed Thomas for his belief

    1. What would He have done if He were not God?

Rejected the people’s worship – “No, you’re wrong. Don’t worship me.”

 

  1. He does only what God can do
    1. He has the power to forgive sin (Mark 2:1-12).

Paralytic lowered from the roof to be healed. Jesus says “Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins.”

    1. All judgment is in his hands (John 5:27; Acts 17:31).
    2. He sends the Spirit (John 15:26).
    3. He will raise the dead (John 5:25).
    4. He is the Creator (John 1:3; Col 1:16; Heb. 1:10).
    5. He is the Sustainer – upholding all (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3).

 

What evidence supports Jesus’ claim to be God?

Evidence 1: Fulfillment of Prophecy (Luke 24:44)

 

- Some people call this fulfillment of prophecy as a “statistical accident.”

- In Science Speaks, Peter Stoner calculates the mathematical probability of eight of these prophecies being fulfilled in one man: “We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.”

- Illustration: “We take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote in their own wisdom.”

- Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies!

 

Evidence 2: His Miracles (Luke 7:20, 22)

 

Miracle of Lazarus (John 11)

-          Jesus is a good friend of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha

-          When Jesus heard that Lazarus was near death, he stayed where he was for two days

-          When Jesus arrived, Martha expressed faith and rebuke at the same time (Have you done this to God?)

-          Jesus wept about Lazarus’ death – painful experience

-          Jesus 1) ordered stone to be rolled away; 2) prayed out loud; 3) shouts to Lazarus to come out

-          Lazarus had been dead for four days!

 

Evidence 3: His Resurrection

  1. Jesus not only predicted it by told the number of days!

John 2:19 – Destroy the temple, and I will raise it again in 3 days.

Matt. 12:40 – Jonah was in the belly of a whale 3 days.

Mark 8:31 – Son of Man must suffer, be killed, and rise in 3 days.

  1. He claimed authority behind the Resurrection

            John 10:17-18 – I lay down my life… on my own accord.

 

Story of Lee Strobel, reporter for the Chicago Tribune

The date was November 8, 1981. It was Sunday. I locked myself in my home office and spent the afternoon replaying the spiritual journey I had been traveling for 21 months…

I’ll admit it. I was ambushed by the amount and quality of the evidence that Jesus is the unique Son of God. As I sat at my desk that Sunday afternoon, I shook my head in amazement. I had seen defendants carted off to the death chamber on much less convincing proof! The cumulative facts and data pointed unmistakably toward a conclusion that I wasn’t entirely comfortable in reaching…

I realized that my biggest objection to Jesus also had been quieted by the evidence of history. I found myself chuckling at how the tables had been turned.

In light of the convincing facts I had learned during my investigation, in the face of this overwhelming avalanche of evidence in the case for Christ, the great irony was this: it would require much more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to trust in Jesus of Nazareth! …

I talked with God in a heartfelt and unedited prayer, admitting and turning from my wrongdoing, and receiving the gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus. I told him that with his help I wanted to follow him and his ways from here on out.

There were no lighting bolts, no audible replies, no tingly sensations. I know that some people feel a rush of emotion at such a moment; as for me, however, there was something else that was equally exhilarating; there was the rush of reason.