Is Jesus Christ Really God? - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, December 19th. The story of Christmas doesn't start with a manger.

Let's begin a series that ushers in Christmas with a reminder of the spiritual realities that began before Bethlehem. If someone should ask you, who is Jesus? How would you answer that question? And when you'd finish giving your answer, would they have a keen interest in Him? Would they have a deep, warm feeling down inside that they want to know more about Him? Would they ask you, how do I have a personal relationship with Him? Or would they just sort of shrug off your answer as something they've heard before and go on their way?

Well, the answer to that question is, it depends upon how you answered that question. And how you answered that question would depend upon your understanding and knowledge of who Jesus is and your personal experience with Him. And you may say, well, I know who He is. He's my Savior. Is He more? Well, He's the Lord. Is He more? Well, He's the pattern for my life.

But is He more? It just may be that there's one aspect of the life of Jesus Christ and who He is that you and I need to look at in a very fresh way. So I want you to look, if you will, in John chapter 1, and I want us to read these first 18 verses together. Because these first 18 verses are sort of like the foundation for the whole Gospel of John.

Because he makes an assertion here, a declaration, a proclamation, and then he spends the rest of the Gospel affirming and declaring and proving that what he said about Jesus Christ is really true. John chapter 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There came a man sent from God whose name was John. He came for a witness that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through Him. He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light.

There was the true light, which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me has a rank higher than I, for He existed before me. For of His fullness we have all received in grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. Who is this Jesus?

Well, I want to answer that question, and then I want us to look in the Scripture and affirm what I want to share with you. Here is who Jesus is. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who came in human flesh, being deity, being God, with a mission and a mission that has transformed the lives of all who are willing to listen to Him and willing to believe in Him. Now, the deity of Jesus Christ is the most controversial issue in the whole Christian realm. There are many people who will tell you they believe in God, but do not believe that Jesus Christ is God.

They believe that He's a teacher, a philosopher, a healer, a great man, a revolutionary, a social reformist, you name it. Many, many good titles they placed upon Jesus, but many people, many of whom claim to be Christians will tell you, no, I don't believe that Jesus Christ is God. There are many sects, religious bodies who will talk about the Bible who will tell you, no, Jesus Christ is not God.

And what I want us to see in this message is this. If Jesus Christ is not God, you and I have nothing to hope for. If Jesus Christ is not God on the basis of what the Bible says about Him and what He says, then, my friend, He must be the world's greatest liar or the world's greatest lunatic, or He must be the world's Lord. He cannot be all of that.

So I want us to think for just a moment. When Jesus Christ came into the world, He assumed, listen to this, humanity. That does not mean that He ceased to exist as the eternal God that He was. All the attributes that Jesus Christ had before He came into the world, He had even after He arrived on the scene. The difference is this, that Jesus chose to subordinate Himself to God the Father and lay aside a portion of His glory in order to identify Himself with mankind, in order to achieve the mission that the Father had sent Him on. The Bible says that He is the only begotten of the Father. That means He is unique.

There is none like Him and never has been. When He came and assumed humanity, He was both God and man. If He had brought with Him and if He had carried with Him His full glory of heaven, then no one would have been able to approach Him, because the Bible says that God dwells in unapproachable light.

The glory of God, no person could have approached Him. But He came having laid aside a portion of His glory in order that He may identify Himself with sinful men and accomplish the task that He came to accomplish. That does not mean that He's less God after Bethlehem than before. He laid aside none of His attributes that would make Him less God. He was fully God in eternity past, and He is fully God even now, and He was fully God when He walked upon the face of this earth. And so when He came, He came as the perfect Son of God. He was the Son of Man and the Son of God, perfect in His deity, perfect in His humanity.

The Bible says He was the spotless, unblemished Lamb of God, so that there was nothing sinful or nothing less than about Jesus Christ because He assumed human flesh. And what we need to realize is this, that the witness of the Word of God is that Jesus Christ was, always has been, and is presently God. He is deity. He is no less than deity, never has been, is not, never will be. And this passage of Scripture that we're going to deal with here in just a few moments is simply an explanation and an affirmation of the deity of Christ, Jesus Christ is God.

Whatever limitations He placed upon Himself when He came was a self-imposed limitation. It did not mean that He was less than God now that He's born walking in the flesh, but it was a limitation in order to accomplish the purpose that the Father sent Him for. Now with that in mind, let's look in John chapter 1, and I want you to see three affirmations that John gives us concerning the deity of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ was not just a man, not just a philosopher and teacher and healer, not just a good preacher or teacher, but that Jesus Christ is nonetheless than God Himself. And so he says in the very beginning of this first chapter, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Look at that first phrase, in the beginning was the Word. Now when he says in the beginning was the Word, let me go back to Bethlehem just for a moment and say that when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, that was not the beginning of Jesus. That was the time when He was born into this world, and His mother and Father gave Him a name which they had been given to give Him by God the Father. Jesus was His name.

But the Bible also says that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. So that upon His conception, listen carefully, upon His conception that was not the beginning of the life of Jesus. That was the beginning of His earthly life. That was the beginning of the life of Jesus Christ in His human flesh. And so while deity was cloaked in humanity, sinless humanity, that same Jesus came into this world. He came as God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, limited Himself in time and space to a mother's womb, grew up as every other little boy, only sinless and absolutely perfect, grew up into manhood sinless and absolutely perfect to begin His mission in life, sent by God the Father, the only begotten, eternal Son of God. Bethlehem speaks of the beginning of the earthly life of Jesus, not the beginning of Jesus. When you and I look at that little scene and we think about this sweet baby Jesus and we think about Mary and the cattle and all the rest, sometimes our focus gets a little bent. And my friend, when you and I look at that scene, we should look at that scene and recognize in the arms or in that manger lies Almighty God in His humanity and in His deity, no less God as a babe than He was when He sat in all of His glory at the Father's right hand. The problem is the world does not believe that because they do not know Him.

I'm going to show you in a few moments why they don't. That's who He really is. And that's really what happened in Bethlehem. What happened in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ came into the world, born into this world through the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish His Father's mission.

Now imagine this if you can, and we really can't. Here is Jesus Christ in all of His splendor and glory, the Bible says, living and dwelling in unapproachable light. That is, no man could look upon Him in His full glory.

And here's what He did. He agreed to God the Father, to become that which is conceived in a mother's womb, limiting Himself to time and space, laying aside His glory, confining all of His deity to that which could not be seen at first until He grew and was born and became a child, growing up in those years knowing that He was deity, knowing that His Heavenly Father was His Father, knowing that He was sent on a mission, and knowing ultimately that He was going to die for the sins of all mankind. Imagine God in a mother's womb. Imagine God lying in a manger. Imagine God running around the house in diapers. Imagine God growing up as a two-year-old boy. Imagine God as a teenager. Imagine God as a 21-year-old man.

Imagine God as a 30-year-old man. But you see, He came clothed in humanity. So when He said to the fishermen, Peter, follow Me. When He said to them, cast the nets on the other side. When He held little children in His arms, in His bosom, and when He touched lepers and raised the dead and gave people their sight, forgiving the woman at the well of her sin and the woman caught in adultery, giving Bartimaeus his sight and calling Zacchaeus down from the tree, going home to eat lunch with him.

This is humanity, but it is humanity cloaking deity. He was none other than Jesus Christ God. That's what happened at Bethlehem. Now isn't it interesting that when John began this gospel, he didn't say, look in verse 1, he didn't say, in the beginning was the God, in the beginning was the Lord, in the beginning was the Messiah.

He knew all of those things. In the beginning was the Lamb. He said, in the beginning was the Word. Why did John call Him the Word? Well, a word is how you and I express ideas, concepts.

We speak the Word, and our thoughts end up being in words. And so when John described Jesus Christ, understanding that He was deity, what better word could he have used to describe Him than, in the beginning was the Word. That is, Jesus Christ was the full expression of God. Jesus Christ was the full verbal expression of God. Jesus Christ was the full visible expression of God. Look, if you will, in Colossians chapter 1 for a moment. You remember in this first chapter what the apostle Paul said about our Lord Jesus Christ? He said in chapter 1 verse 9, he said, for in Him that is in Christ, all the fullness of deity, listen to that, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. When you've seen Jesus, you've seen whom?

God. And so what is John saying in this first chapter? He says, in the beginning was the Word. Jesus Christ is the full verbal expression of who God is. That is, He came to tell what God wanted to be told. He came to express in His visible form. Listen, in His visible form, in human terms, so man can comprehend who is this Father, who is this God, what is God like? For in spite of all the revelation of the Old Testament, you can read the Old Testament for years and years and years, you'll never get the revelation of God the Father that you will get in the person of Jesus Christ. So when he says, in the beginning was the Word, what he's doing is he's giving us a verbal, visible explanation of who Jesus Christ really is.

Now, let's think about that for a moment. When we think about Jesus Christ and we think about how John is affirming Him, what is he affirming in his deity? He's affirming his deity by saying that Jesus Christ was pre-existent.

Now look, if you will, in this phrase. When he says, in the beginning was the Word, the word was there means it is describing something that was going on at the time creation began. That is, when he says in the beginning of creation was the Word, that is, in eternity past, before the creation, when the creation was going on, before that was happening, Jesus Christ was with the Father. Listen, He was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John the Beloved declares unquestionably that Jesus Christ is deity.

He is God. He says at the creation, he was before that. He says he was with God and he was God and is God. So what he's affirming here is this, that in the creation, we have Jesus Christ beyond that. He says when you go all the way back to the very beginning and the, he says, the very edge of time, when creation began, he says you go back to that first verse, in the beginning God created and look back yonder in eternity past and what you'll find is Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, with the Father in eternity past because He is deity. And what John is saying in this passage is simply this, that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. If He didn't pre-exist, there can be no incarnation. He either was deity clothed in human flesh or He was the greatest imposter the world has ever known.

And as somebody said, He was either a liar, a lunatic or He is Lord. And the witness of the Scripture is He is Lord and the witness of every single one of us who know Him as their Savior would say, Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. Amen, amen, and amen.

Amen. Thank you for joining us this Christmas week and for listening to Part 1 of Is Jesus Christ Really God? If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.