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The book of Ecclsesiastes wisely states:
9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.
This explains a lot of what we see in our Church today, where there is a battle raging, a battle that has been raging since the beginning of the Church, the battle over the identity of Christ.
One day Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”
14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
This Rock, the faith that could only be revealed by our Father in heaven, is the foundation of Christianity. This answer, that Christ is the Son of the Living God, is not the answer of men, but of God and those who truly follow Him. Without Jesus being who Scripture claims Him to be, we are all lost.
That same question could be asked today, “Who do men say that I am?” Jesus asks it to His disciples still. We should never forget that He also asks of us in our worship and in our very lives, to continually live out our answer to that question. What is our answer and how does that compare to the answers of men?
In today’s second lesson, Jesus addresses this question in a straightforward manner to the Pharisees. Claiming first a Father/Son relationship with God that was bound to ruffle the feathers of the Pharisees, but then going further and claiming that all who keep His Word will not see death.
The Pharisees are livid at this because Christ has put himself forward as God. I am not sure why the Pharisees then ask Christ, “Whom do you make yourself out to be?” It really should have been painfully obvious even to someone who did not believe that Jesus was God that God is exactly who He was claiming to be. Biblically speaking, they could not have been too confused about God appearing in human form as God had appeared to Abraham in that fashion before the conflagration of the cities of the plain, a fact of which the Pharisees were well aware. Abraham clearly addressed his visitor as the “Judge of all the Earth”. Maybe the Pharisees needed some specific words in order to charge Jesus, or maybe they just needed something so inflammatory that no one would blame them if they killed Him in a fit of rage at His blasphemy. A no-jury-would-ever-convict-me strategy, as it were.
Jesus answers them though, and culminates the discussion by saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” The Pharisees then picked up the stones to stone Him.
They wanted to stone Jesus for blasphemy because they did not believe who He was. They saw Jesus through the eyes of men. The knowledge of Jesus as the Christ had not been given to them by the Father because although they gave lip service to one Father, the God of Abraham, in actuality it was the devil who they served. They were of the seed of the serpent.
Some today, although professing to be of Christ’s Church, do not believe who He is either. When confronted with the question, “Who do you say that I am?, they- like the Pharisees - spout the answers of men, the answer of the serpent instead of the answer provided by our Father in Heaven.
Who do they claim Jesus Christ to be? Some say He didn’t ever really exist, hoping to avoid the question of who He is totally. Others say He was a just a man, a Palestinian teacher and guru to whom zealots and opportunists later ascribed deity. He was a revolutionary, others claim, here to guard the rights of the poor and neglected, empowering the proletariat against the abuses of the imperialists and secular and religious bourgeoisie. Others yet, see Jesus as a glorified Santa Claus who heaps goodies on all those who but ask - with enough faith and no negative thoughts, of course. Still others claim to be Christians but go as far as to consider Christ just another creation, an angel in Heaven, who was singled out for a special mission, a brother to Satan.
There is one shocking and profound example of the difference in the answers of men and the answer that comes from God in a recent exchange taken from one denomination’s discussion board.
In the course of a discussion, one man sought to clarify a matter by supplying God’s answer to who Jesus is:
“But, my friend, Jesus was God.”.
The response, came not from the person originally addressed, but from an ordained priest who took issue with the comment. The priest said:
Jesus was not God.
He was a human being on earth with a mind limited to the worldview of his time.
The synoptic gospels are theologized histories with the meaning written in; the Gospel of John was an historicized theology.
It was a different time, different world view.
I see God through Jesus, but to say he was God is something Jesus - as a faithful Jewish man - would have heartily rejected.
All the I AM statements in John were the beliefs of the early Church, not Jesus’ words.
Your claim answers nothing; just exposes ignorance, and a pathetic, simplistic, interpretation of scripture.
Time to get real here, both historically and theologically - and to differentiate between the two.
As anyone can plainly see the answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?” differs starkly depending on whether the answer is of God or of men. This is a contrast that we should never hide from, lest we find ourselves profaning the name of Christ.
Those who claim Jesus is not God will invariably at some point attack the testimony of the Scripture as to the identity of Christ. Undermining Scripture allows for the introduction of alternative authorities that are conducive to whatever aberrant view is being put forward. This they believe will allow them to undermine the identity of Christ.
One argument that is often put forward, which does not so much seek to discredit Scripture as to ignore what it clearly says and act as though what is said plainly is, in fact, not really there at all, is the argument that Jesus never claimed to be God. Most of the time, like our previous example, the person making the argument, for some odd reason (possibly ignorance), thinks that if we exclude the works of the Apostle John then we have successfully scoured the Scripture of all evidence that could lead to a conclusion that Jesus claimed to be God. This is often accompanied by teaching that the term, “Son of God” in any context only means that Jesus was highly enlightened and in touch with the divine in himself, like a Semitic version of Buddha.
For those who actually make an effort to read their Bible this argument falls flat. We have many examples of Jesus claiming divinity, so many in fact, that one cannot traverse the Gospels without continually tripping over divinity references. Jesus did more than occasionally claim divinity. Through His words and His miracles, He constantly and consistently claimed divinity. So much so that a person has to almost willfully close his eyes to it to miss it. Again as with the Pharisees, men without the working of the Holy Spirit cannot believe in Jesus as the Christ, Son of the Living God, but they should still be capable of seeing that God is exactly who Jesus unwaveringly claims to be. We know that Jesus stated that the Pharisees were the sons of the devil, and yet even the Pharisees saw clearly what Jesus was proclaiming to be. Even if we discount entirely the works of the Apostle John, divinity claims by Christ are inescapable.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus states, “You have heard it said … but I say to you” placing himself equal to God, the Lawgiver. Later in the same sermon, He speaks of those at the judgment saying to Him, “Lord, Lord”. Did not Abraham call his visitor, “Judge of all the Earth”?
In several miracles Jesus declares the forgiveness of sins. He does not give absolution as one speaking the promises of God, as do our priests, but clearly is the forgiver of the sin – the sole purview of God.
Jesus claims to be the Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Christ claims to be with us even unto the end of the world, yet only the omnipotent God could manage such a feat.
And my personal favorites, where Jesus states that He has come to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and the Parable of the Lost Sheep, both of which refer to Ezekiel 34 where God pronounces judgment against false and negligent shepherds, saying,
“Behold I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out … I will rescue my flock … and I will set up over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he shall feed them, He shall feed them and be their shepherd … and you are my sheep, the human sheep of my pasture, and I am you God.”
When Jesus claims to be finding and gathering His sheep, He is not only taking the role of God as shepherd, but pronouncing judgment on the shepherds of Israel.
There are many more claims of divinity made by Christ. Jesus claims to be God over and over and over. The question is do we believe Him? When asked by others, “Who do you say Jesus is?” we should always have ready as His disciples an answer that stands in stark contrast to the answers and teaching of men. This will be critical for those here who, God willing, achieve ordination as they will have the cure of souls for a local flock.
The early martyrs died over the answer to this question. But they only died the first death.
Faith is in the object of the faith. Who Jesus is is an essential part of the Christian equation. Without a Jesus who is God, Christianity loses everything and becomes just another system with another dead Asiatic guru. There would remain nothing unique about Christ to save a lost and dying world. Thus the fix the liberal congregations find themselves in where the secular social gospel is substituted for the real one. And is it any surprise, for without Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, what is really left?
We need to be sure we differentiate among those who believe in Him and those who believe in another Jesus.
There are two questions:
Who do men say that I am?
Who do you say that I am?
We especially, those who seek to minister to others in His name, need to make sure these answers are radically different.
Amen.
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