Who Is This Christ? - Part 2

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley.

Welcome back to it because this is very important. John chapter 1 in describing the person of Jesus Christ in verse 18 said, And no man has seen God at any time, the only begotten God, Christ, who is in the bosom of the Father. He has done what? Explained God. Now, he says he is the image of the invisible God. The image of the invisible God. So that if you want to know what God is like, then who do you look to? You look at Christ. Now, back to the first chapter for just a moment, when we talk about this image of God.

He says he is the image of the invisible God. What in the world is the image in the beginning with? The word in the Greek is icon, an image. For example, the engraver used that term. He placed the metal on the clay or whatever it was, and he impressed it.

Or if it was a silver engraving or a gold engraving, it was an image left exactly like the original. What he's saying in this passage is this, is that Jesus Christ is the exact flawless replica of God. He is the perfect reflection of him.

He is the exact perfect image of God. Therefore, Jesus could say, If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Jesus said, I and the Father are one.

Why? Because he was the exact perfect image of the Father. Now, I want you to look at several verses of scripture here in Colossians chapter one. Look, first of all, if you will, in verse 19. He says, For it was the Father's good pleasure.

This was God's choice. It was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. That is, all the fullness of all that God the Father is dwelling in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look, if you will, in chapter two, verse nine. Again, he says, For in him that is in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in what?

In bodily form. Jesus Christ was God's perfect image, perfect explanation. He says, Christ is the explanation of God the Father. Now, you see, this is the reason you have friends who say, Well, I believe in God, but don't give me this stuff about Jesus Christ. No, I don't believe in Jesus Christ.

That's against my religion. But I do believe in God and I know I don't tell me I don't know God. I know I know God.

Well, my friend, the witness of scripture is that you cannot. You absolutely cannot know God apart from Jesus Christ because he says Jesus Christ is the explanation. Jesus Christ is God's explanation of himself, that it was God's full pleasure to put all of his own fullness into Christ so that Christ is the perfect expression of God. The exact expression of God. Now, we're talking about the same Christ who lives inside of you. Inside of you, God has stamped your spirit with the image of God.

Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what God must be anticipating when he and all of his perfection is willing to stamp a person whose life has been full of sin with the very image of God? Now, we love it that our children look like us or the favors we say.

We say that they're chips off the old block. I want to tell you, Jesus isn't a chip off the Father's block. He is the perfect express image.

He's not a twin. He is the perfect image. And he's the only explanation and man's only hope. And that's what Paul is saying in this passage. Now, I want you to go to Hebrews chapter one for a moment. Look, listen to what he says in this passage.

Listen to this. God, Chapter one, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways. In these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. And he, Christ, is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature. There is none other.

This is why, my friend, if you're looking for someone else and getting involved in the cults and following leaders and all that, all you're going to do is to find yourself following a model that is going to disappoint you. There is only one person who can lead you to eternal life. And God, the Father said that he chose to put all of his own fullness into the person of Christ.

He is God's only acceptable image. Now, look, if you will, in second Corinthians chapter four for a moment. Second Corinthians chapter four.

Look in verse six. For God, who said light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of what? Of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. God has done something within us. God wants to express someone through us.

And if we ever get a glimpse of what Jesus Christ is up to in our life, it's going to make an eternal difference. You see, let's face it, most people spend most of their time thinking about me, myself and I and my business and my family, my work, my pleasure, my plans, my goals, my dreams. And the Bible says that Jesus Christ, who is the express image of God living within us, it is his ultimate purpose that you and I would so live our lives, that those around us, that is God's big goal is that the world would see him in us. And if my mind is taken up with me, myself and I, my goals, my dreams, my plans and all the rest.

All that I am is going to be slightly shaded with self-centeredness, selfishness and pride, egotism and disobedience. He says Jesus Christ is the express image of God now. If Jesus Christ is the exact perfect image of God, the father living within us to express God's life through us, and we choose to act independently of him, then we have decided to act like God. If we believe what Jesus Christ said about himself, I am the father of one, you've seen me, you've seen the father. He that cometh to me, he says, first of all, no one gets to the father except he come to me.

I am the father of one, you've seen me, you've seen the father. If I say that I believe that and act otherwise, what I'm saying is no, I don't believe it. Or if I say I believe that and act otherwise, what I'm saying is I bring down the deity of Jesus at this moment and subject him to my level of thinking and my way of living and then later I'll come back and say, yes, Lord.

I'm amazed at the people who can come Sunday after Sunday and listen to the gospel. Turn right around and say that they believe what's happening. And if I should ask you to believe Jesus Christ, son of God, yes, on down the line. Turn right around, walk out and deliberately, willfully choose to live a life of sin. My friend, what I want you to see is that is idolatry. Jesus Christ, who's living within you, whom you claim to be your savior and your lord.

You are saying no to his lordship, no to his deity. I will be the god of my life in these moments and do what I choose. Now, what we like to do is we like to cover all that up and say, well, you know, everybody makes mistakes. Nobody's perfect. Everybody sins.

I understand that. And I'm not going to say none of us will ever sin. I'm saying that immediately we act independently of God, that we ought to be smitten in our hearts of conviction and immediately repent of that sin. If you can go on in it, then you don't understand who Jesus is. And if you understand who he is, then you are willfully committing idolatry and what you're saying is I refuse to accept the deity of Jesus Christ and I choose to be lord of my life.

Now, you may have never said that verbally, but that is exactly what we are doing. There is only one Lord and my friend, when you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior, he stamped you with an indelible, in erasable stamp that can never be removed. You are now the purchase possession of God, bearing the image of God and the person of his son who sits in his throne in your heart. That's the reason God doesn't save us today and take us home.

Why? Because he wants to express himself through us. Jesus Christ, the image, the perfect image of God. Now, one more thing back to Colossians, chapter one, listen to what he says. There's one more little phrase I want us to look at.

And then I want to ask you a question. He says he is the image of God, the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Now, when you first think about it, you say, well, that's a contradiction.

Look at the next verse. For by him, all things were created. How can he be the firstborn of creation and at the same time be the creator? The word firstborn is a Greek word which means first, not in time, but in position and in authority. For example, we say of the president's wife, she is the first lady of our nation.

That doesn't mean she's the first lady who's ever come along, but she is first in elevated position. Jesus Christ is the preeminent one, the firstborn of all creation, which means he is above and beyond. He's first.

There's none higher than, none equal to, none comparable to. He is the image of the invisible God. All things are subject to him. All things created by him. Look at this passage.

Verse 16. By him, all things are created. Things in heaven, things in earth, visible, invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all the things in the heavenlies. All things have been created by him and for him and he's before all things, holds all things together. Jesus, when he says, is the firstborn of all creation means that he is the preeminent one above and beyond first, not in time, but in authority, power, position. Listen to what he says in verse 18. He is also head of the body of the church.

He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that that is God made him that way in order that he might come to have first place, preeminence, elevated position above and beyond for all time and eternity. And if you turn to the fifth chapter of Revelation, when he says, And I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who? Listen, who is worthy to open the book and to break the seals? Looked around, couldn't find anybody until finally, who steps upon the scene?

The rest of that chapter is about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one who is worthy to reclaim this whole earth. Now, do you wonder why the unbeliever who sits and watches television listens the radio programs and some of them do? And multitudes of unbelievers sit in church buildings and like this week after week and hear gospel and walk out and live like the devil. You want to know why they do? Get me to show you. Do you know why some church members sit on the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, hearing the truth week after week after week after we go right out and live like the devil, engaging themselves, involving themselves in what they know to be deliberate, willful disobedience to God?

Why do they do it? It all has to do with this message. Once you look at one last passage, you may close second Corinthians chapter four, verse three. Listen to this very sobering passage. And even if our gospel is veiled, that is hidden. It is hidden to those who are perishing to the lost in whose case the God of this world, that is Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving. That that is in order that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. You know why the unbeliever will not accept Christ? Because Satan has blinded him to the fact that Jesus Christ is the express image of God and he is the explanation of God. And apart from him, no man will ever see God.

No man can be saved and no man will ever get to heaven. So now think about this. If you get rid of Jesus as God, what do you have? You have the privilege to be a God maker. So you make your own self God. You live like you want to live. You formulate in your mind what kind of God you think God is. And so you've got a God that suits your lifestyle.

Your God will let you do these things and not let you do these. What he's saying is that the unbelieving world cannot accept the fact that Jesus Christ is God. Look at that verse. He says Satan has blinded their minds that they may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

They will not see who he is. That is the image of God, the exact perfect image of God. That is not only true of the unbeliever, it's true of the believer. Now I want to say something.

I want you to listen carefully because I'm probably going to be misunderstood if I don't say it exactly right. You can be saved. You can even serve the Lord and choose to sin against God. And God smites you with conviction. And you sin and you sin and you sin and you sin and you sin till your conscience begins to be partially seared. And you become less and less sensitive to the Spirit of God.

Until finally you find yourself or you become totally deceived. That is, you walk in a state, a spiritual state of deception. We're not talking about unbelievers, we're talking about believers. Believers becoming deceived by the devil. When a person chooses to sin and sin and sin and sin and sin, what happens? First of all, there is a smiting of the conscience and then a few weeks or a few months or a year or so down the line, the conscience doesn't sting quite so bad and God hasn't struck you dead.

And so after a while, you feel less and less tinge of conscience. After a while, after all, nobody's perfect, everybody sins, God understands. And after a while, you're walking in a state of deception, satanic deception. And you know one of the things that Satan deceives a person with? Oh, Jesus loves you, Jesus understands. Don't let nobody scare you with all this wrath business, all this judgment, God understands.

A man or woman can walk themselves into a state of total deception, explaining away their sin. Now, do you understand why Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me because I'm God's only explanation.

If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, I'm the Father of one. If you ever get the glimpse of what it means to have Christ as your real Lord, your life will never be the same. Lord Jesus, we exalt you, we praise you, we bless you, we honor you, we thank you, we give to you, we bow down before you, we prostrate ourselves before you in prayer, we worship you, understanding that no human tongue can describe adequately and no spirit can ever express perfectly all that we feel of who you are. But it is my prayer today in your precious name that you have been exalted and lifted up, that any and every person who has refused you, denied you, rejected you, profaned your precious name, would humble himself and herself to not only confess their sinfulness, repent of that sin and accept you, precious Savior, Lord Jesus, as their Savior and their Lord. I pray that your spirit, Lord Jesus, would prevail in our hearts the spirit of submission to the Father, desire to express that beautiful image in our life by our conversation, in our conduct and by our character. We praise you for who you are and I just want to thank you that these old marred images you said one of these days when you would come back, we shall see you as you really are and that we will be like you. Hallelujah and praise to your precious name is my prayer. Thank you for listening to part two of Who Is This Christ? For more inspirational messages like this, visit our online 24-7 station. And 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.