Continuing Pastor Kennedy's message, He states, I want you to understand
something about Jesus Christ. Many people today say that Jesus was a good man.
Categorically, that is a lie. Jesus Christ was not a good man. Do you remember
when the rich young ruler came to Him and said, “Good Master”? He said, “Stop
right there! Why do you call me good?” He just finished teaching that all men
were sinful and someone comes and calls Him good? Jesus said, “There is none
good but One, that is God.” If Jesus was merely a man, then He was not good,
for all men are sinful. If Jesus was good, then He was God.
Oxford and Cambridge
Professor C.S. Lewis wrote: “I am trying
here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say
about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘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 sort of 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 up with any patronizing nonsense about His
being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend
to.” Jesus said that He was the only way to Heaven ... that all who trusted in
Him would be everlastingly saved. On the other hand, if anyone denies Him, that
they would be denied before the Father and would be shut out from paradise in Heaven. Based
upon those teachings, many Christians have suffered agonizing deaths in the arena,
covered with tar and lighted as torches in Nero’s garden, place in sacks with
vipers, thrown to the lions and killed in the cruelest ways that depraved man
could invent. If Jesus was not God, then He was a great demon or the deepest
arch-deceiver of all time.
But, the Christian church,
in all it’s branches, all historic Christian denominations (excluding the
cults) have held that Jesus Christ was 100% God and 100% human. He was God and
He was man. He was the Anthropos; the God/Man. All churches, whether
Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Congregational, Episcopalian, Roman
Catholic, Greek Orthodox or any other, they have all held that truth. One of
the sure signs of a cult is that they deny that Jesus Christ is God.
What does the Bible, our ultimate and final authority, say? Matthew
1:23 “Behold, the virgin
shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which
is translated, “God with us.” John 1:1 “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.” Isaiah 9:6 “For
unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will
be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful,
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
In the New Testament, all of
the attributes of Deity are ascribed to Jesus Christ. Eternal, Omnipresence,
Immutable, Almighty, Incomprehensible, yet comprehending all things, Creator,
Governor, Preserver of all things, Searcher of the heart, and Most High Judge.
All attributes are ascribed to Christ, except one. That is the attribute of
invisibility because Jesus Christ came to manifest the Father and to make Him
plain. In Him, we see the image of the eternal God.
There is another interesting
evidence. There is repeated Scriptures in the Old Testament which are
prophesies of the coming Christ which are fulfilled in the New testament by
Jesus, but refer to Jehovah. Example: Isaiah 40:3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of
the Lord.” and Mark 1:3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way
of the Lord.” The Biblical evidence is so luminous.
Zechariah 12:10 “And I
will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit
of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced.” and John 19:34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and
immediately blood and water came out. Jehovah is the Triune God; the
Father is Jehovah, the Son is Jehovah and the Holy Spirit is Jehovah – the
great “I Am”.
Jesus Christ is God, for if
He was not, then He could not be our Savior. The Scriptures are clear that no
man can redeem his brother. No man could pay the penalty of all the sins of the
world. It took an infinite God/Man to do that. No mere man can hear and answer
our prayers. Jesus Christ is God. Who do you day Jesus is? Can you say “My Lord
and my God” to Jesus Christ? Have you come to know Him as your Divine Redeemer
that took upon Himself the Cross at Calvary; the guilt of all your sin and
suffered at the Hands of Father God the wrath that sin deserves so you would be
spared and taken to Heaven? Eternal life in God’s kingdom will only be when you
receive Him, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and without whom no one will
enter into Heaven. Who do you say that Jesus is?
In Christ, Brian
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