This booklet deals with God the Son, the second person of the Trinity.
As we have noted, the Trinity is not a Catholic doctrine or a Baptist
doctrine or a denominational teaching, but it is the truth which can
be found by comparing scripture with scripture as revealed by the
Author of scripture. This lesson deals in particular with the Deity
of God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is a fundamental Bible
doctrine that is consistently attacked by every non-believer in the
world. If there is one thing that unsaved people (who are self-
righteous) cannot stand it is the doctrine of the Deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ--the most fundamental doctrine of all.
Belief in Jesus Christ is essential to salvation. We read that a man
needs to confess Jesus Christ as Lord--not merely as a good man.
Salvation is by believing on Jesus Christ as the Son of God--not as
the "Son of man," not just the Jewish Messiah sent to Israel, but as
"God manifest in the flesh." Not a son of God (like the liberal
presents any sinner) but THE Son of God. As the centurion said,
"Truly this man was THE Son of God" (Mark 15:39). To deny the Deity
of Christ is to rob mankind of a living and real Saviour and to
condemn the entire human race to a hopeless future.
In these lessons we are going to present fifteen proofs for the Deity
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I
First of all, Jesus Christ is referred to as the Lord in Psalm 110:1,
"The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make
thine enemies thy footstool." Jesus referred to this passage in
Matthew 22:44, Mark 12:36 and Luke 20:42; and Peter referred to it in
his message to the Israelites and Jews in Acts 2:34. It is very
important. It is a prophecy that the Messiah Saviour would be the
divine Lord Himself. Jesus said to the skeptics in His day who
believed all religions were the same and everybody was trying to get
to heaven the same way, "How then doth David in spirit call him Lord,
saying, The Lord said unto my Lord,..." (Matt. 22:43,44). No Jewish
father would think of calling his son "Lord." For an oriental that
would be absolutely unthinkable; and yet David, by the Spirit, called
his own son "Lord" in Psalm 110:1. Obviously David's son "according
to the flesh" was virgin born of Mary who came from David's line, but
His father was "God the Father" manifest in the flesh.
Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford and the Russellites didn't like
this and insisted that "LORD" in the Old Testament referred to Jehovah
God the Father, while "Lord" referred to the Son. This would, of
course, make the Son a "lesser God"; but the truth of the matter is
that the Lord Jesus Christ was often referred to in the Old Testament
as Jehovah God. For example, in the book of Zechariah, did you notice
the prophecy on the Second Coming of Christ? In the book of Zechariah
where it speaks about the Second Coming of Christ and Christ showing
up and showing the holes in His hands to His brethren, it says (Zech.
12:10), "...They shall look upon me whom they have pierced...." The
speaker is the LORD, Zechariah 12:7,8. But you will find that nearly
all of the new Bibles carefully change "...they shall look upon me
whom they have pierced" to "...they shall look upon him whom they have
pierced." One must never forget that every Bible published since 1700
attacks the Deity of Christ. Now, of course, you can find the Deity
of Christ taught somewhere in these "bibles"; they couldn't get rid of
all the verses. For example, in John 20:28 Thomas bowed down before
Jesus and said, "My Lord and my God." No modern reviser has been able
to get rid of that verse. So the lame alibi given by these crippled
revisers is, "Why, our version is a reliable translation because you
can find the fundamentals in it." Well, you can find the fundamentals
in any Bible. So what? You can find a five dollar bill in a garbage
can. Does that mean it's a bank? People have been known to find a
diamond ring in a sewer. Does that make it a jewelry store? You see
how these people are? People are funny. You can find a murderer
going to church on Sunday morning. Does that mean it is a jail? Some
people have the weirdest ideas in America today. They get their ideas
from Hollywood and the commercial world of Madison Avenue and the news
media. They come up with some of the funniest ideas.
Some so-called "scholars" who graduated from Christian schools
actually think that because they can find the "fundamentals" in a
translation that it is the "Bible." What could be any funnier than
that? Why, these Bibles attack the Deity of Christ in one place and
then support it in another place. They are ecumenical Bibles. They
are made to satisfy the mind of the Christ rejecter and the Bible
believer. They are Laodicean bats. They are chameleons.
II
Secondly, the virgin birth indicates that God came to live with men.
In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible says, "...Shall call his name Immanuel,"
which means "God with us" according to Matthew 1:23. God, in the
person of Jesus Christ, came to dwell with man at the incarnation.
John speaks about this when he says in John 1:14, "The Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us...."
III
Thirdly, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, was given divine names in
prophecy. For example, in Isaiah 9:6 we read, "For unto us a child is
born, unto us a son is given... and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father...." Now
only the Lord God Jehovah Himself could satisfy the requirement of
these names. "The everlasting Father"; the Son was called that. That
was not His name, but that is what He was called. His name was Jesus
Christ. His name shall be called "Wonderful." His name shall be
called "Counsellor," "The mighty God." The One prophesied to be the
Messiah was to be God Himself. God of very God, "the mighty God,"
"the everlasting Father." Jesus said in John 10:30, "I and my Father
are one." Notice, He never said, "I and my Father are identical." He
said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"; but, of course,
that was the Father's body. He never claimed that the Father was
Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, Jesus does not say, "I am the
Trinity." He said, "I, (one) and my Father (two) are one." So we say,
"Three in One and One in Three and the One in the middle died for me."
Now, that is how it is going to have to be.
The human mind may not be able to comprehend all of this completely,
but in our lessons on the Trinity we covered all these matters
thoroughly. That was booklet 3 in this series on Studies in Theology.
It's available from HIS BOARD Publications, Ventura, California.
IV
The man who doesn't understand the basic truths of the Trinity has
missed a good deal of material. That is one of the main doctrines in
the word of God. It was prophesied that Jesus Christ was to be "from
everlasting." In Micah 5:2 we read, "But thou, Bethlehem...out of thee
shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose going
forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Now, take the same
objective, scientific approach to the word of God (and the facts of
spirituality and morality) that you take to computerized systems and
validating evidence and you will get a lot of light that you can't get
from thirty years in some places of "higher education". Check Micah 5
in the new translations. Check Isaiah 9:6 and 7 in the new
translations. You say, "Which one?" Any of them! Check John 9:35 in
the new translations. You say, "Which one?" Any of them! Check Luke
2:33 in the new translations. You say, "Which one of them?" Any of
them! Check Acts 4:27 in any of the new so-called "reliable
translations" recommended today. You will find the verses changed and
the deity of Jesus Christ played down--attacked!--in every single one
of them!
Check them out. The Messiah Saviour was to be the eternal,
omnipresent God Himself. God and Christ both gave their personal
names as "I am."
V
The fifth proof is in Exodus 3:14 where God said to Moses, "I AM THAT
I AM." He said, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM
hath sent me unto you." Yet in John 8:58 in the New Testament "Jesus
said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I
am." Don't believe a Bible that says, "Before Abraham was, I was."
The Jews understood Jesus perfectly when He said, "I am." They thought
that He had committed blsphemy for ascribing the name of God to
Himself. In John 8 and 10 they promptly attempt to stone Jesus
Christ. Now, why were they trying to stone Him? Because He committed
blasphemy, and blasphemy under the Levitical law was punishable by
death. What blasphemy did He commit unless He equated Himself with
God? He did equate Himself with God. He said in John 8:58, "Before
Abraham was, I am." He claimed an eternal presence--not a past tense.
He didn't say, "Before Abraham was, I was," like Pastor Russell and
Judge Rutherford had Him down. He didn't say that there was a time
before Abraham that I was. He said, "Before Abraham was, I am." There
never was a time when He wasn't. And they understood that. Death by
stoning was the proper death penalty for this particular sin according
to Leviticus 24:12-16. But Jesus had not sinned, for He truly was
God. He was the great "I AM" in person.
When He said, "I am," He never got off their backs. He would say, "I
AM the way, I AM the truth, I AM the door, I AM the bread of life, I
AM the water of life, I AM the good shepherd, no man cometh unto the
Father but by me." He claimed Deity, friend. Now, what was He? A
liar? Or, are you? That is the real problem when we get into this
mixed-up mess where people are afraid to take a clear stand for the
truth or even to find the truth.
Jesus Christ claimed things for Himself that no man could claim unless
He was claiming to be God. He said that no man could come unto God
except by Him. Is that a proper statement for any religious leader to
make, I ask you? He said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Could anybody
on earth do that or get anybody to believe it? Christ didn't claim to
be a way--He said, "I am the way."
Christ didn't claim to have a truth--He said, "I am the truth"--the
truth incarnate. Quite a claim, don't you think, for a faker or a
charlatan? Isn't that quite a claim for a religious quack? Wouldn't
you call that humbuggery for a religious leader to stand up and say,
"I am the truth," and not allow anybody else any leeway, and say, "I
am the way...no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6),
and if you try to get saved by Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism,
Protestantism, Judaism, Taoism, or Satanism, B'nai Berithism--even
"churchianity"--you are not going to make it.
Now, listen to me! If Jesus Christ were not "God manifest in the
flesh," He was the biggest deluded fool who ever lived on the faee of
this earth. Listen, Jesus Christ let people bow down and worship Him.
What do you make of that? Now, what intelligent American in his right
mind would bow down and worship any man? You know the commandments.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." If Christ let Himself be
worshipped and He wasn't Jehovah God manifest in the flesh, then He
caused everybody who worshipped Him to sin against God and break the
law. Why, if Jesus Christ were not God manifest in the flesh then He
was a sacrilegious rascal. The very idea of somebody following Jesus
Christ as the great revolutionary, the great overthrower of the
establishment, without believing that He was God!
He claimed to be the way, the truth and the life, and he said in John
3:36, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him." Jesus Christ said if a man didn't believe on Him, God
was angry with him and stayed angry with him twenty-four hours a day.
Is that any way for a good religious leader to talk? I don't think
some of you think it is. If I were to talk that way you would get
very put out with me. Some folks already get upset with me because
I'm blunt and not tactful. They wouldn't tolerate Jesus Christ for
five minutes if He showed up in the flesh. They want a "lovey dovey"
kind of a thing. That isn't the way He talks in scripture. He says,
"You fools and blind, you whited sepulchres, outwardly righteous,
inside full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness, you serpents, you
generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell,"--that
is the Lord.
VI
The sixth proof of Christ's Deity is that He forgave sins. In Mark
2:5 He says, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." And they answered
correctly that "only God can forgive sins." In Mark 2:7 they said,
"Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but
God only?" The Jews were correct, for only God can forgive sins
because sin is transgression against the law, and only the aggrieved
Lawgiver can forgive the guilty one. The One who gave the law was
God--not you. In forgiving sin Jesus either blasphemed or He claimed
He was God. That is all! There is no way to make Him a good man
without making Him God manifest in the flesh. A young man said to Him
in Matthew 19:16, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life?" And He said, "Why callest thou me good? there is
none good but one, that is, God," which is so much of saying, "If I am
not God, I am no good." Why, that "Sermon on the Mount" that some
people gush and blush and goo over is nothing but pagan discourse if
the man who spoke it is not "God manifest in the flesh." If the man
who spoke that discourse was not God manifest in the flesh then the
"Sermon on the Mount" is nothing but Socratic dialogue.
VII
Seventh, Jesus claimed equality with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
This is evident in the baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 where He
said, "...Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost"; and in the benediction of 2 Corinthians 13:14,
where the names of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all linked
together.
VIII
Eighthly, Jesus claimed Omnipresence. To be Omnipresent is a
characteristic of God Almighty which we studied in our first lessons
on theology when we studied the incommunicable attributes of God
(Studies in Theology Book 2). He claimed to be present everyhere at
once, which is not true of angels or of men. In Matthew 18:20 Jesus
promised to be anywhere and everywhere at the same time. In Matthew
18:20 He said, "For where two or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of them." Well, how do you accomplish
that if you are not Omnipresent? How do you do that unless you are
God? The Moonies can't do it! The hippies, yippies and zippies can't
do it! The TM's can't do it! All they can contact is a blank,
neuter, amoral, universal presence that is part of the energy force
field of the atomic structure of the universe. You don't find them
gathering together and Jesus Christ being "present" there with all of
them while they are there. You have got to gather together in His
name for Him to be present; and when He is present He is present
everywhere they are gathered together in His name.
IX
That isn't all. Jesus claimed Omniscience. Omniscience, if you
remember from our studies of the incommunicable attributes of God, is
to know all things at the same time and be cognizant of everything.
This is a characteristic that is exclusive of God Himself and there is
no guru who ever lived who could even approach it. There is no guru
on the face of this earth who ever lived who knew what my telephone
number was or the number of hairs on Sitting Bull's head in 1880.
There never lived upon the face of this earth a religious leader of
any kind who could give you the name of Christopher Columbus' cousins
and the year that the grandsons of John Calvin died. But, God can!
Jesus claimed this power. This fact is evident in Mark 11:2-6 in the
description of the colt and the triumphant entry. Jesus exercised
this gift, too, in Matthew 12:40 and Matthew 24:3-31.
X
The Lord Jesus Christ also claimed Omnipotence. This is the third
attribute of the Godhead which is incommunicable, one of the essential
attributes of God. Omnipotence, all-power, is another exclusive
attribute of the Lord God Almighty, Jehovah God the Father. In
Matthew 28:18 the Lord Jesus Christ said, "All power is given unto
me...." Not the church! "All power is given unto me." Not the devil!
"All power is given unto me." Not the United Nations. "All power is
given unto me." Not Buddha or Mohammed! "All power is given unto me
in heaven and in earth." Now, there is as blatant a lie as you've ever
heard if Jesus Christ wasn't God manifest in the flesh.
How do some Mohammedans and Buddhists feel about that? How do they
feel about a man standing up and claiming what their leaders couldn't
claim; and if they could claim it, nobody would believe them anyway?
"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Mohammed didn't
dare say that one time in his life, and you can read the Koran from
cover to cover and never find where Mohammed professed to have "all
power in heaven and in earth."
Folks say, "Well, all religions are alike. We're all trying to get to
heaven the best way we know how." Such people don't want to believe
what they read. They're so afraid of the truth they just pretend it
isn't there and talk about something that is a religious fantasy.
They're living in a dream world! What do they mean by saying that all
religions are the same? What do they mean by saying they're all the
same and we are all trying to get to heaven, each our own way, when
there isn't a religious leader in the history of man who ever dared
make a statement like that; and if he did he couldn't get ten
intelligent people to follow him to the gatepost unless they were
under the influence of drugs. Christ said, "All power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth." Why, that's what the Roman Catholic popes
claim! That's why they call themselves "Vicars of Christ"; but who
in their sound mind with rational senses would believe it? Jesus
Christ said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth," and
that power is reserved, my friend, only for God Almighty.
XI
The eleventh thing we would like to say about this important subject
is that Jesus Christ had creative power. To bring something into
being from nothing (that is creation) is possible only to God. There
is no man who ever lived who could make life out of nothing. They are
working with enzymes (which are already there) and amino acids and
genetic codes (which are already there) and they're pretending that
life came from the dead automatically and trying to pretend it came
from nothing; but the fact is, only God can bring something from
nothing. Jesus Christ was active in creation and continues to
maintain the world according to the testimony of Colossians 1, John 1
and Hebrews 1. Read it! John 1, Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1. These
verses say that Jesus Christ was the Author of creation, that there
was nothing made that was not made by Him, without Him there was
"nothing made that was made." He sustains all things and holds them up
by the word of His power and He is the Creator of "all things visible
and invisible, dominions and powers in this world and the world to
come." What a thing for a man to claim that is just a religious
leader! You didn't find Buddha claiming that power. Why, Mohammed
wouldn't dare claim that power.
The power to create the universe? That is what is claimed for Jesus
Christ. Now, tell me He was a good man but He wasn't God, huh? Tell
me He was a man you should follow and that you should follow His
teachings, but He wasn't God. Why, if He wasn't God manifest in the
flesh then He was the biggest liar that ever lived, bar none, and you
shouldn't follou Him to the front gate!
XII
Jesus Christ was the true God because He had power over the elements.
In Luke 8:24 Jesus rebuked the wind and it obeyed Him and there was a
great calm at once. In Mark 4:39 Jesus calmed the waves of a raging
sea, a power not of man but of God only.
In Matthew 14:25 Jesus walked on the water, and this ability is denied
to ordinary men. I know what they say. They say all kinds of things
to get rid of the Deity of Christ. They say He didn't walk on the
water--He walked on the ice. Yeah, right. Did you ever see ice cakes
a man could walk on in Galilee with a wind storm coming up? Do you
think a commercial fisherman didn't know how to walk on ice if it
could have been done? Do you mean to tell me Simon Peter, who was a
fisherman all his life, didn't know more about Galilee than you do?
Do you think that when a hurricane comes off the coast of Hatteras or
off the coast of Cuba or in the Gulf of Mexico there's any body of
scientists that can make it lie down and get quiet? Are you kidding?
When those winds come in at 150 and 200 miles per hour like Agnes,
Myrtle, Camille, and Gilbert, do you think any amount of "scientific
knowledge" or any body or group of scientists at Cape Canaveral or
Johnson Space Center can do anything but get off the coast and pray or
get drunk and curse? Christ can tell it to shut up and go to sleep
like a baby in his mother's bosom, according to the record. Is the
recorder a liar? He was an eyewitness. Are you?
XIII
Jesus Christ received worship due only to God. In John 9:38 the man
who had been healed of blindness recognized Him as Saviour and said,
"Lord I believe," and he worshipped Him. Why didn't Jesus Christ tell
him to get up? The idea of accepting worship from a man! And Jesus
always accepted it. In Matthew 14 the Bible says that after the storm
at sea, "they worshipped Him." In Luke 24 the Bible says that when He
ascended up "they worshipped Him" and returned to Jerusalem. Now,
isn't that something to consider and think about if He wasn't God?
Now, who are these people, telling you that Jesus Christ was a great
religious leader and a great teacher and taught the principles of life
in the "Sermon on the Mount," and yet are telling you that it doesn't
make any difference whether you believe or not that He was God
manifest in the flesh? Do you think that I would listen to a man that
let people bow down and worship him--do you think I would let him
teach me how to live--unless he was God? Aren't "Christians" strange
in America these days? You talk about P.T. Barnum being right about
a sucker being born every minute--you wonder if there isn't one born
every other second. I mean, how could a man in his right mind who
read the Biblical account think that Jesus Christ should be followed
to the air terminal in view of the way He talked and the way He
acted--unless He was God? He let people bow down and worship Him as
God.
XIV
In John 20:28 Thomas answered and said unto Him, "My Lord and my God."
You are not going to get out by saying that "Lord" was a term of
politeness and worship meant bowing down as an Oriental did. You are
not going to get out of that stuff no matter how hard you try to fight
against the truth.
The truth is that Jesus Christ accepted worship as God, and commended
men for doing it, allowed them to do it, encouraged them to do it and
never refused it. Now, do you see the limits to which the depraved
imagination of the unregenerate mind will go to get around the truth
in dealing with these matters? There seems to be almost no limit to
which the unregenerate mind will not acclimate itself in order to deny
the factual documented evidence. The evidence presented in Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John is that the Lord Jesus Christ would accept
worship, encourage it, tolerate it, promote it and would never refuse
it. Now, my dear friend, if He was not God Almighty manifest in the
flesh, what do you make of Him? Imagine a man who would let you bow
down in front of him and kiss his finger or kiss his ring or kiss his
toe if he was just another sinner like you? Imagine that!
In Luke 4:8 Jesus said to Satan at the time of the temptation, "Get
thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." To worship anyone but the
Lord God, according to Jesus Christ, is a terrible sin. Jesus Christ
said to the devil, "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and him only shalt thou serve." When Jesus accepted worship, He
was saying to the world, "I am the Lord thy God."
If Jesus Christ let people worship Him and He was not God, then He
broke "the first and great commandment" in Matthew 22:37, "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and
with all thy mind." And He also broke the first commandment in Exodus
20, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." If Jesus Christ were
not God manifest in the flesh, then an Orthodox Jew is perfectly
within his rights in saying that the saved Christians are idolators;
and we are, because Jesus Christ professed to be the image of God.
Hebrews 1:3 and John 14:9 ("...he that hath seen me hath seen the
Father") and Colossians 1 claim that Jesus Christ was God's image.
Now, if you bow down to an image, my friend, you are an idolator. Is
that clear? You say, "Brother Bob, I think...." We are not concerned
right now with what anybody thinks. We're concerned about documented,
factual evidence. The evidence given in scripture by eyewitnesses and
documented by every religion in the world is that an image is an idol,
an idol is an image, and if Jesus Christ were the image of God He was
an idol, and if you worship Him you are an idolator--UNLESS He was God
manifest in the flesh, I Timothy 3:16. People should quit trying to
present Jesus Christ as a good man and a good teacher and a religious
leader without believing what He said. He said that a man was to
worship and serve God only, and then He accepted worship. If Thomas
made a mistake in calling Christ "Lord" and "God" then Jesus Christ
would have corrected it at once. When Thomas bowed down and said "My
Lord and my God," if Jesus Christ were not Lord and God He would have
straightened old Thomas out in fifteen seconds, but He didn't. He
just let him worship. Thomas had told the truth, for Jesus was the
Lord God, the eternal, pre-existent Creator.
XV
And finally, the fact of the Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection clinches
the matter. This is the strongest argument that Jesus is God and the
capstone of all proof. In Romans 1:4 Paul says that He was "declared
to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead." The verse specifically states that
the resurrection declares Jesus is the Son of God. And if Jesus were
a fake, a liar, an impostor or a mere man or even a superman, God
would have left Him in the grave until the last day of judgment and
condemned Him to hell for lying. Now, you had better face that! If
Jesus Christ was a fake or a liar and not "God manifest in the flesh,"
His body is in the grave and His soul is in hell headed for he lake of
fire.
According to Romans 6:4 it was the Father, God Himself, who raised
Jesus Christ from the dead. If you look in Romans 6:4 and Romans 9:4-
5 you will find those verses have been tampered with in the modern
Bible versions.
The laws of jurisprudence in the United States (when they deal with
the credibility of a witness) state that if the testimony of an
eyewitness has been reduced to writing after being proven true, and is
on record, and the record is found in a proper repository, and no
conclusive evidence has been presented since that time that the
eyewitness' testimony is false, it must be accepted as credible. Five
hundred Bible-believing Christians bore testimony to the fact that
they saw Jesus Christ after He came up from the dead and ate, talked,
walked and fellowshipped with Him more than a month before He went
back to glory.
We must come to a conclusion. We conclude that Jesus is God, for He
possesses the exclusive attributes of God. He is eternal (Micah 5:2,
Col. 1:17). He is unchangeable (Heb. 13:8). He is omnipotent (Luke
8:24). He is omnipresent (Matt. 28:20, John 3:13). He is omniscient
(Mark 11:2-6, John 2:24, Luke 5:22). He is holy (Mark 1:24). He is
sinless (I Pet. 2:22). He is just (Acts 2:14). He is a righteous
judge (Acts 17:31). He is loving (John 15:13). He is merciful (Titus
3:5). He is faithful (2 Tim. 2:3).
The five works of God are ascribed to Jesus Christ: Creation (John
1:3), preservation (Heb. 1:3), forgiveness (Luke 7:48), raising the
dead (John 6:39), and judgment (John 5:22).
Now, tell me! Was He a good teacher or was He God manifest in the
flesh? You say, "Both." You can't say one without saying the other.
If He wasn't "God manifest in the flesh," He was not any kind of a
teacher to listen to or an example to follow. We conclude that Jesus
Christ was either God manifest in the flesh or He not only lied but
Matthew lied, Mark lied, Luke lied, John lied, Peter lied, Stephen
lied, and Paul lied; and the only people who are honest are the Bible-
rejecting, God-denying, humanistic-reverencing, materialistic-
worshipping adulterers of the twentieth century. Now, you are going
to have to get on or get off. There is no middle ground. Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John all testify to His Deity. He testifies of His
Deity. He acts like Deity. He does the works of Deity and He claims
to be Deity; therefore, He is or He isn't, and no halfway grounds are
allowed.
I know why people don't commit themselves. It's because they are
anarchists. In the final analysis, they want to be the final judge
themselves. They are not about to accept an infallible Book or an
absolutely authoritative God Almighty. They are their own god. Now,
those are hard sayings; who can receive them? But the facts are
facts, and if these things we have talked about here are not facts,
then Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Stephen are false itnesses
and Jesus Christ was a liar. Or, as Paul said in I Corinthians 15:15,
"If Christ didn't come up from the dead we are false witnesses." Paul
was not as cowardly as some people. Paul would declare himself. He
would lay it on the line. Paul wouid tell you that if what we have
said is not true then we are liars. If Christ didn't come up from the
dead then you are yet in your sins (I Cor. 15:17).
There are fifteen proofs for the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
was referred to as the Lord, Psalm 110:1 and as Jehovah God in
Zechariah 12. The virgin birth would be God coming to live with men,
Isaiah 7:14. The Lord was given divine names in prophecy, Isaiah 9:6.
He was prophesied to come from "everlasting," not from time, Micah
5:2. God and Christ both gave their personal names as "I am." Jesus
Christ forgave sins. He claimed equality with the Father and the Holy
Spirit. He claimed Omnipresence. He claimed Omniscience. He claimed
Omnipotenee. Jesus had ereative power. Jesus Christ, the true God,
had power over the elements. Jesus Christ received worship due only
to God. Jesus accepted the testimonl of Thomas to the fact that He
was God. Fifteen, the fact of Jesus' resurrection proved beyond any
shadow of doubt that He was not a mere man but God manifest in the
flesh.