Jesus Christ: The Son of God and God the Son | Part 1

What makes the Christian faith different from all other faiths? The Jewish people in general do not believe in the Trinity, but I'm going to show you what we call the Old Testament, that Jesus is God. And I'm going to show you from the Bible what the Bible teaches about the Holy Trinity.

We'll call him a great and moral teacher, but when you look closely at his teachings, you find that he left no room for interpretation. Jesus Christ was the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. If you have your Bible, turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, we'll look at verse 35, as Adrian Rogers tells us more about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God the Son. We're talking today about the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also God the Son. What we're going to be talking to you about today is the Holy Trinity. Now we're familiar with Mary and her birth of Jesus Christ, and I want you to see that in the very scripture that describes his birth, the Holy Trinity is seen. Look, if you will, in Luke chapter 1 and verse 35, and the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.

Now the angel is talking to Mary. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, that's the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost in the Holy Trinity, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, that is God the Father. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

There in that one verse, you have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That brings this question, who was this baby? Who was Jesus Christ? There's one right answer. There are many wrong answers. Let me give you some of the wrong answers that may sound so good. For example, some say that Jesus Christ was a great man, H.G.

Wells. The noted historian who wrote the outlines of history said this, as a matter of fact, he listed the 10 greatest men of all history, and Jesus Christ was number one on his list. Jesus Christ doesn't belong on anybody's list.

He's absolutely unique. You can talk of Peter the Great, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne the Great. But Jesus is Jesus, the one and only. Others say, well, he was a great moral teacher. There's a brilliant Englishman, C.S. Lewis, who said this about those who simply want to call Jesus Christ a great moral teacher. I want you to listen to this and listen carefully. These are rich words.

Here's what C.S. Lewis said. I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus Christ 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 that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic on the level of a man who says he's 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 none of us come away with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.

Did you hear what he said? I mean, listen, either he is a lunatic or a demon or he is God, but you cannot just simply call him a great moral teacher. Now, in Islam, he's called a prophet, a messenger of God, and the Quran of Islam teaches, and I quote, Jesus was only a messenger of Allah.

Oh, no. He's more than a messenger of Allah. But some say, well, the New Agers speak of Jesus as some mystic medium, some cosmic Christ, some channel that enables us to get in contact with inner space and out of space. And there are demon spirits who call themselves Jesus, but not the Jesus of the Bible. Who is Jesus?

Now, I want you to make some notes. Don't you be thinking about anything else, because what I'm talking to you about is so basic that if you miss it, you miss all of Christianity. Who is Jesus Christ? Now, the doctrine of the Trinity, listen to me, is the great Christian distinctive. It is what makes our faith different from all of the other faiths. Islam does not believe in the Trinity. Unitarianism does not believe in the Trinity. Mormonism does not believe in the Trinity. The Jehovah's Witnesses and others who will come to your doorstep do not believe in the Trinity. The Jewish people in general do not believe in the Trinity.

That's a stumbling block to them. But I'm going to show you in the Jewish scriptures, in the Old Testament when we get to it, what we call the Old Testament. They don't call it the Old Testament. It's their Bible.

They don't think that there's something new and better that's come along. But I'm going to show you in what we call the Old Testament. They're the Hebrew scriptures, that Jesus is God. And I'm going to show you from the Bible what the Bible teaches about the Holy Trinity. Before I ever get into the basic three points of the message, let me just remind you that Jehovah God is just that. He is God. But let me say also that Jesus Christ, Bethlehem's babe, was and is God and himself claimed to be.

This is the reason that C.S. Lewis said, you just can't tip your hat to him and call him a great moral teacher. Now, put in your notes, if you're making notes, Exodus chapter 3 and verse 14. Moses is going to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

And so he wants some credentials. And he says, now look, I just can't go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. Who shall I say sent me? And there in Exodus chapter 3, verse 14, Jehovah God speaks to Moses and here's what the scripture says. And God said to Moses, I am that I am.

That is, you could tell Pharaoh that I am sent you. This was his name. I am that I am. That's the most sacred name for God. What does he mean I am that I am? Not I was, not I will be, not that I had a beginning or I will ever have an ending. I am the great I am, the self-existent God.

I am that I am. Sacred name for deity in the Old Testament. Now, when we come to the New Testament, in the New Testament, in John chapter 8, the Pharisees were picking at Jesus and trying to discredit Jesus, wanting Jesus to give his credentials.

They were boasting. They said, we have Abraham for our father. And what that was was a sneer saying, we don't even know who your father is. We know that your marriage was not consummated when your child was born. It was an indication that Jesus was born out of wedlock.

It was a sneer. We have Abraham for our father. Here's how Jesus answered them in John 8 and verse 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, thou art not yet 50 years old.

And hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, verily, verily. Now, whenever Jesus says, verily, verily, that means tune in. It means truly, truly, amen, amen, listen, listen. Verily, verily, I say unto you, now listen to this, before Abraham was, I am.

Now listen, don't miss that. Before Abraham was, I am. Not I got here before Abraham did.

There never was a time when I was not. I am the great God of Exodus chapter 3. I am the I am. Do you know what they did after he said this? They picked up stones to stone him because to them that was blasphemy. Jehovah God is God.

Jesus Christ is God and the Holy Spirit is God. In the fifth chapter of Acts, there were two people in the church, Ananias and Sapphira, who pretended to make an offering to God that was less than they said it was. And actually, they were playing church. They were lying in church. Peter, by divine revelation, knew that Ananias and Sapphira were telling a lie. And this is what he says in Acts chapter 5 verse 3. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart, now watch this, to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Now, our Jehovah's Witness friends tell us that the Holy Ghost is just some emanation from God the Father. Oh, no, he's a person who can be lied to.

He can be grieved. Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Now, listen to me very carefully now. Go on down to verse 4, Acts 5 verse 4.

Listen to it. Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. The Holy Ghost is God. Jehovah God is God. Jesus the Son is God. And there is a Trinity. The Father is God. The Son is God.

The Spirit is God. Sometimes when you ask people to say it, what do you mean by the Holy Trinity? They say, well, there's God the Father, and then there's Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Or they might just say there's God, then Jesus and the Holy Spirit. No, there's God the Father, God the Son, and listen very carefully. We sing it Sunday mornings.

You probably pay no attention to it. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, God in three persons. Blessed Trinity. Now, we're going to look in the Bible, and we're going to see the Trinity in both the Old and the New Testament. And then we're going to come back and understand why we say that the Son of God is God the Son. First of all, point number one, I want you to see the sublime mystery of the Trinity. The sublime mystery.

Underscore the word mystery. The only way that you can know about the Holy Trinity is by divine revelation. Did that sink in? If it did, say amen. Only by divine revelation. You will never understand the Holy Trinity by human investigation, not by logic, not by philosophy, not by science, not by mathematics. The only way that you can know about the Holy Trinity is what God says in this book. Now, if God says it in the Bible, you believe it because of divine revelation. Don't get the idea that you discover the Holy Trinity.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, a great man of God, talked about this, and he said, how can a worm understand a man? How can a man understand God? Now, when we say that there's a divine Trinity, there's one God in three persons, some people say, well, that's contradictory to logic. That sounds like you're worshiping three gods.

No. There are a lot of things that you don't understand about the one God. Can you understand a God that never had a beginning?

Can you think of anything else that never had a beginning? Can you think of a God that is everywhere at the same time? If you think about it, those things are absolutely contradictory to logic, and yet they are true. God never had a beginning, and God is everywhere.

Now, that's not logical, but it's certainly true. You say, well, I have some questions about the Trinity. Friend, a five-year-old child can ask questions about anything that no one can answer. It doesn't matter that you can't understand it. Do you understand infinity? Of course you don't. Do you understand eternity?

Of course you don't. The doctrine of the Trinity rises or falls on divine revelation. Now, don't get in arguments about it, except what the Bible says. Now, there are some people who try to prove or disprove the Trinity with illustrations. You can't prove the Holy Trinity with illustrations.

Why? Because there's only one God, and since there's only one God, there's nothing you can compare them to. I can compare this pulpit to another pulpit. I can compare that man to another man.

I can compare this church to another church. But there's only one God. Put down this verse, Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 18. To whom then will ye liken God? Or to what likeness will you compare him to? You can't say God is like anything. God is not like anything.

There is nothing that you can compare God with. Now, we see reflections of the Trinity in all that God has made. For example, everything that God has created is time and space. Time is past, present, and future.

That's a Trinity. The past is not the present, the present is not the future, and the future is not the past. All three are distinguishable, all three are inseparable, and you can't have one without the other.

That's time. Space, height, width, and depth. Height is not width, width is not depth, depth is not height. All are distinguishable, but all are inseparable. They all exist together.

You can't have one without the other. Man, man is body, soul, and spirit, sitting in your chairs, body, soul, and spirit, yet you're one person. What we see are reflections of the Trinity, illustrations of the Trinity. Friend, God says there's nothing, nothing that you can compare me with. So don't come around here with saying, well, it doesn't make sense to me. Frankly, I'm glad it doesn't make sense to you or to me. We don't want a God that we can understand. Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and your thoughts above your thoughts. It ought to give us comfort that we don't understand the Trinity.

That means that God is bigger and greater than we are. But I said that Muslims accept to some degree the Old Testament. Jews accept the Old Testament. Jehovah's Witnesses and others say they accept the Old Testament. Let's just look in the Old Testament for a minute and see if God is reflected there. For example, let's just open the Bible and we'll find the Holy Trinity on the portals of the Bible. The first chapter and the first verse, you'll find the Holy Trinity.

Genesis 1, 1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The word for God there is the Hebrew word Elohim. It ends with these letters, I-M, if we put it in English, Elohim. That's the plural ending. For example, one angel is a cherub.

More than that, a cherubim. Now, actually, literally, what you have is a plural subject with a singular verb. And literally it says, in the beginning Elohim, gods, plural, created, singular, the heavens and the earth. You'll find the same thing in the creation of man.

Put down Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. And God, Elohim, plural, God, literally you could translate, and gods said, let us, not let me, but let us make man in our image. God, who's he speaking to?

He's speaking with himself. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is making man in his image. You see the Trinity reflected in creation. You see the Trinity reflected in the great commandment. Did you know the Bible has a great commandment and the Bible has a great commission?

The great commandment is found in the Old Testament. It's called the Shema for our Jewish friends. This is the key verse for our Jewish friends.

They love it. It is used to open the liturgy in Orthodox synagogues. A good Jew would repeat this verse every morning, and well he ought, and well we ought. It is a beautiful verse.

Listen to it. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 and 5. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our Lord is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.

That is a great verse, is it not? And so our Jews say we can't believe in three gods. Of course you don't believe in three gods.

I don't believe in three gods. I believe in one God, but now listen to this verse and look at it carefully because this is a prime proof text to the Jews as to the unity and oneness of God, and they correctly believe that. The word Lord, hear, O Israel, the Lord our Lord, the Lord our God is one Lord. The word Lord is the word Yahweh or Jehovah.

That's singular. Jehovah, singular. The Lord our gods, our God, remember that's Elohim.

That's plural. The Lord our gods is one God. Jehovah, singular. Our Elohim, plural, is one Jehovah. Jehovah, singular. Our Elohim, plural, is one Jehovah. Now, I want you to think about the word one that's in this verse.

If you're going to spell it, Echad, E-C-H-A-D, Echad. And what it literally means is one as a unit. One as a unit. I want to give you some verses. Genesis chapter 2, verse 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. Now, there are two here, but they're called one.

Now look, if you will, in Genesis 11, six. And the Lord said, behold, the people is one. The people, plural.

All those people round about the Tower of Babel. He says they are one. It's the same word that is used over here in the book of Deuteronomy that says God is one. Now, in Numbers chapter 13, verse 23. In the middle of that verse, one cluster of grapes.

So here's a bunch of cluster of grapes. Many grapes, and the Bible calls it one. First Samuel 13, verse 17, talking about an army. And there in the middle of that verse, it says one company, like a company of soldiers.

Now, what it is is a unit in plurality. First Chronicles 17, verse 21. And what one nation in the earth is like thy people Israel? One nation. A whole nation is called one. Now, let's go back to this verse of scripture here in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4.

Listen to it here, oh Israel. Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. It's the same word. That means a plurality in a unity. Yes, there's one God.

But that one God is a triune God. And coming up tomorrow, we'll hear part two of this important message. But maybe today you have questions regarding your faith in Jesus. We'd love to offer you an insightful resource on our website. It's the Find God's Love page. There you'll find answers you may need about your faith.

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