Who Is Jesus Christ (Part 2)? The Son of Man

My family and I once attended a Barnes and Noble to look for some books for the children. My eyes glanced up to a display of books that are part of a “Who Was…” series (“Who Is…“when it is written about someone who is still living). Some of the people that these book focus on are Albert Einstein, George Washington, Muhammed Ali, etc. I was surprised to find that they had one titled “Who Was Jesus” (there we go with that “was” thing that I had mentioned in Part 1). My curiosity got the best of me and I skimmed a few pages. I wasn’t surprised to find that this Jesus wasn’t born of the Virgin Mary, nor was He God incarnate (or the “Son of God”), but that He was a “good moral teacher”. The title “Son of Man” would be a more fitting description for those who do not know who Jesus truly is or deny His deity. It is better described as His humility, or Him in the human flesh form. This is when Jesus hungered (Matthew 4:2), thirst (John 19:28), cried (John 11:35), and bled (John 19:34). It can also be viewed as a descriptive form of his humility in that he was born of a woman (“man” as a collective representation of “mankind”) and that He was raised by a man in His earthly father Joseph. Jesus also refers to Himself as the Son of Man in that He was claiming to fulfill prophecy as the Messiah. In Daniel 7:13-14 it says “I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.” Jesus was essentially saying that He was the one who Daniel prophesied about when He claimed the title the “Son of Man”.

In Part 1 I had briefly touched on the divinity of Jesus with His title “The Son of God”. I had just briefly touched on what it meant when He had called himself the “Son of Man”. However, to grasp these two titles we need to ask the important question: If Jesus is God then why did He come to earth as man? There was once a hit secular song by an artist by the name of Joan Osborne called “One of us”. In the chorus she sings “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us. Just a stranger on the bus. Tryin' to make his way home.” (Some of you are all like “Oh yeah! I remember that song.”) In reality God did endure being a slob like one of us. He could have chosen to remain in Heaven and enjoy all of His glory and praise. But no. He chose to come here as one of us and endure the same hardships that you and I face. He traded His crown for thorns. His royal robe became a robe of blood. Can you imagine the creator of Heaven and Earth hanging on a cross as folks mocked him? Can you imagine trading praises from the heavenly host for jeers and scorn? Why would anyone do that? Why would any God so chose to be humbled in that way?

Philippians 2:5-7 states “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” (NASB). Jesus chose to set aside His place in Heaven and instead come as a humble man. In doing so He did three things: He showed us who God is, became a High Priest, and became the Lamb who was slain. These three things are very important and they deserve a deeper look.

The Mirror of God

Jesus said in John 14:7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Jesus revealed to us who God is. Studying the life of Jesus we see love, compassion, and mercy as He dealt with the sick and the poor, both physically and spiritually. He didn’t limit himself to just Jews, but even Gentiles (Mark 7:24-30). He said in Mark 2:17 “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” He also showed us righteous anger and judgment as He flipped over tables and chased the money changers out of the temple. We can learn that God too is merciful and desires repentance (2 Peter 3:9), but at the same time will judge those who are living outside of His will, whether saint (Hebrews 12:7-11), or sinner (Matthew 13:41-42).

The High Priest

Hebrews 2:17 states “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” What exactly does this mean? In the Old Covenant the High Priest entered into the Holiest Place in the temple to offer sacrifices for himself, as well as the people of Israel. The most remarkable thing about Jesus is that He was without sin, whereas the High Priest still had to atone for his. “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:14-15). Jesus, in His flesh, felt everything that we do. He walked with nowhere to lay his head. He knew thirst and hunger. He knew ridicule and mockery. He felt pain. He cried. He bled. He died. You get the point. Therefore, as or High Priest, He can have sympathy for what we endure because He endured them too during His pilgrimage here on earth. This He understands as He is our mediator in Heaven before God, as the High Priest was the mediator between God and the people. “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1).

The Lamb Who Was Slain

In 1 Peter 1 it states, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (vv. 18-19). This statement harkens back to the sacrificial lamb that was used by the High Priest during the Day of Atonement. This lamb was to be free of any defects and any spots. In other words, pure and one could say “perfect” for the sacrifice. As I had mentioned earlier from Hebrews 4 that Jesus was without sin. Therefore, He was the perfect sacrifice. Further in Hebrews the author states “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.” (Hebrews 7:25-28).

The verse from Hebrews 7 is a great summary for the point that I am trying to make. Jesus offered up himself as the perfect and final sacrifice. Only the High Priest could do such a thing to intercede for the sins of the people. Jesus acted as the High Priest by offering himself as the final sacrifice to atone for our sins. He continues to act as intercessor through His blood for those who believe on Him. So we see evidence from this verse alone that Jesus was the slain Lamb, as well as the High Priest. But what set him apart from all the other High Priests that His sacrifice was the final one and that God would accept it as that? “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.” (Hebrews 9:22-28).

As High Priest He offered a final sacrifice. But it is a sacrifice whose atonement isn’t for once at a set point per year, but is ongoing for everyone who believes and confesses their sins (Romans 10:9), always interceding on our behalf. This He did as the perfect Lamb because He chose to be the sacrifice in our place because we deserve to die instead for our transgressions. But He, as God the Son, chose to die so that we may live.

I may have briefly touched on Jesus’ divinity in Part 1 and the reasons for His becoming the “Son of Man” this time, but honestly I can’t do such a great truth the justice that it deserves while being brief. Next time I will finish this series by exploring the “Name above all Names”.

Who Is Jesus Christ (Part 1)? The Son of God.

It isn’t a coincidence that I have followed up a series about the decay of morality in our modern society, as well as a decay within the walls of our modern church, with a series about Jesus Christ. After all, I did say that the hope for both to turn around was to set their eyes upon The Christ. But, in order to effectively set our eyes upon Jesus, we need to understand who Jesus is. Notice that I didn’t say who “was” Jesus. To use the term “was” would imply that the person in question had existed and ceased to exist. This would apply to many historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Elvis, but it does not apply to Jesus, who sits at God’s mighty right hand and lives through the Holy Spirit. As the old hymn says, “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.” But to grasp Jesus, we need to focus on His various attributes. He called Himself the “Son of Man”, but He also was the “Son of God” and He also possessed the “name above all names”. This week I would like to focus on His divinity as the Son of God.

It seems almost as an idea to scoff at. A mere mortal man who walked the earth was also the Son of God. But not just the “Son” of God, but also God incarnate, or the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. Jesus Himself proclaimed to be God. In John 10:30 He said “I and My Father are one.” He also said “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” (John 5:17), this after healing on the Sabbath. The response from the Jews? “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” (v. 18). Not just did Jesus (here and in other various places) claim to be God, but even His disciples understood it. “But Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” (John 6:68-69). “[Jesus] said to [the disciples], ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” (Matthew 16:15-16). The demons understood that He was the Son of God. “And suddenly [the demons] cried out, saying, ‘What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?’” (Matthew 8:29). Even Satan knew that Jesus was the Son of God when he tempted him in the wilderness in Matthew 4 when he constantly tried to trick Jesus into sinning by saying “If You are the Son of God…” To claim that Jesus was indeed God is a bold proclamation and a hard pill to swallow for many who do not understand Christianity and God’s Word. In John 6 many of the people who were following Jesus turned away because they found His teaching on His divinity as being hard to take. Is Jesus truly God?

In Hebrews 1 the author writes “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” (Vv. 1-4). The author not just states that Jesus is heir of all things, that He created everything and upholds that creation, and that He is above the angels, but that Jesus is the “express image” of God. The Greek word that is being used here is charaktēr, which denotes that something is the exact reproduction in every aspect to something else. Jesus isn’t like God or possesses some of God’s characteristics, but He is God in every aspect. He even said “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” (John 14:9-10). He also said in John 17 “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (V. 21). It should be noted that Jesus confirmed that He and God are one by simply using one word…”us”.

Jesus and various New Testament writers may have proclaimed that Jesus is the “Son of God”, or in actuality “God”, but is there truth to that statement or is it just lunacy? Jesus had mentioned in John 14 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (Vv. 10-11). One of the things that verified Christ’s divinity and backed up His claims are the various works that He performed. He did what no one had done before Him and no one after Him has been able to do (although heretic Kenneth Copeland once claimed to have stopped a tornado by simply telling it to go away). Jesus had the power over the elements when He turned water into wine, the power over nature when He calmed the sea and walked on water, the power over infirmities when He made the blind, deaf, dumb, and lame whole again, and the power over death when He called Lazarus out of the grave. However, there is no clearer evidence to Jesus’ divine claim as to His power over His own life and death. In John 10 He says “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.  No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”(Vv. 17-18). That is a bold proclamation! That one can actually decide when to die and when to come back to life is a ridiculous notion. How many people do we know had actually made the choice as to which breath was going to be their last? We see later in John’s gospel, as Jesus was hanging on the cross, it says “So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” (John 19:30). The Greek term for the phrase “gave up” is paradidōmi. This term denotes giving, delivering, and permitting or allowing. It means that the one who had something (in this case Jesus’ spirit) had given it over or allowed it to be taken. Can any mortal man give his life away or even give death permission to come and take his life away? Who do we know that walks as flesh and blood actually has the power over death to allow it to stop our hearts from beating? Who do we know that walks as flesh and blood that has to give permission to death in order for it to stop us from breathing? As far as I know no one has that kind of power over life and death. But Jesus…. Jesus had that power. He always had as He created, and He always will as He sustains as the heir to all things. Jesus is the “Son of God”, which is more than just being begotten offspring. As the Jews had determined, it makes Him equal with God.

I could go on and on about this. Just ask my former professors. My 5-8 page assignments turned into a 15 page assignment. I just can’t stop talking about how great is our God. But that leaves an important question. If I have succeeded in briefly describing Jesus’ evidence of divinity and convincing you of such, then why on earth would God the Son leave His throne and the glories of Heaven to come to this filthy and wretched place in order to suffer like the rest of us? Even to the point of being mocked, beaten, tortured, and suffering a criminal’s death upon a cross? We will see next time when we explore the “Son of Man” and the Lamb who was slain.