The Craziest Claim in the Bible
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Two antenna got married, the wedding was okay, but the reception was incredible.
What do you call a cow with a twitch? Beef jerkey
One scholar said this is the most outrageous claim in all of the Bible.
Next week the rapture, Heaven hell, etc.
This week is super theological, and is A LOT about Jesus and very little about you.
Pick it up on verse 18… he has healed a guy on the sabbath.. you cant do that.. the father works continuosly...
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
This is one of the most scandelous ideas in history. This idea takes us to a place and wants to change things… here a man claims to be equal with GOD. The question of your life is whether you believe this statement. Do you believe that Jesus is equal with God.
The Roman empire thought early christians were atheist… because they offered no sacrifices and they had no temples or special rituals… every other religion in the world is marked out by these special rituals except for Christianity… and Jesus said all those rituals are over beause God himself has showed up and you dont need to build a ladder to me… and this scandal is huge… that Jesus is God…
Packer said
“The real difficulty, the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us [may not lie] in the Good Friday message of atonement nore in the easter message of the resurrection, but in the Christmas message of the incarnation.”
Meaning God becoming flesh… hinduism has a plethora of different Gods… and the question when becoming a Christian is is Jesus Christ actually God.
Mormonism questions whether Jesus was god… this is what they differentiate and go offline… and so the question is does the new testament actually teach this...
Davincci Code/// 300 years after Jesus they voted to make Jesus divine...
but here we see it… Jesus was making himself equal with God… and we cant read that in a way that we understand without reading it in a way that they understand… and people say Jesus never claimed I am God… but you look at it the way we understand… but he said it a bunch of different ways.. and this is a proof of that… because they understood what he was saying… he was even calling GOd his own father… and mking himself equal with God.
Here is what one Scholar says
“In a foxhole, Jesus si a rescue squad; in a dentist’s chair, Jesus is a painkiller; on exam day, Jesus is a problem-solver; in an affluent society, he’s a clean-shaven middle of the roader; for a Central American [soldier] he’s a bearded revolutionary.”
We make the mistake of framing Jesus in our own image instead of seeing him in teh way that first century Jews saw him.. and he makes this scandalous point… I am God. And if he had said it that way it probably wouldnt have been as controversial… New age belief is that we are all God.
He is saying I am Yahweh.. the god that took you our of egypt.. you have to understand that he is making HUGE claims… and as new christians we tend to jump to Christology… who is Jesus… we have to figure all of that out before we can get out to the other stuff… how to deal with money and other people… and the reality is we have to figure otu who is Jesus… and then it filters down into everything else then everythign else will make sense… and all of it makes sense after you answer this question… is Jesus equal with God or not…
And this goes along with what Tozer said…
“The most important question of all is what comes to your mind when you say God.”
Is he the distant god.. is he the judge… is the one demanding you sacrifice you children… and John 1 told us that Jesus came to SHOW us god
“The first Christians unquestionably Spoke about Jesus as God. IN his earliest letters, written prior to the Gospels, the Apostle Paul said that in Jesus ‘all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell’ (Colossians 1:19 ) and ‘ in him the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily’ He wrote that Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. The writer of Hebrews says that God has spoken to the world by his son through whom he also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And then in Colossians 1:16 it says by him all things were created: things in heaven and things on earth.”
THe NT is claiming that Jesus was the one God that created all things… he is the one that created the world… amd all of your theology needs to be reworked around this.
This was God adding on to himself… not subracting from himself.... why did God make humankind in his image… so one day he could come down and be the ultimate fulfillment of a human being made in his image…
Jesus claimed… he invented the sabbath and could change its rules.....that whoever saw him saw the father.... he never corrected a single person that treated him as God… this would have been a moment to say he wasnt equal when they are trying to kill him.... he says he is older than abraham… claimed to share glory with God before the world existed...
Now Jesus is going to drive one step deeper… now things are going to get a little deeper even.
Inception… Im in the first guys dream.... then they go down to second level dreaming… and at some point you never have any idea whose dream you are in… and
Jesus is about to say lets go deeper and let me show you how my relationship with the father works...
19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
We usually stop at Jesus is God and move on… but what he did here is seperate something out and show how there is a father and a son and how they relate to one another… and he makes this idea of a plurality in God.. .and to Jews there is ONE god.... singular.... and what Jesus is going to show us is that God is one but three in one...
So the first thing we have to understand as God as father is he has this parental love and he has this love for his kids… and some of you didnt have that… and there is this whole generation of people that do not know what that feels like… im the jewish world the father was the leader of the household...
and he says the son cannot do anything on his own accord… and what you see is Jesus saying that there was this obedience to his life… and in most cultures in the world the son goes into the business of the father… Jesus apprenticed under his earthly father… a carpenter
You apprentice them whether they want it or not.... right
and JEsus is saying look I am an apprentice to the father… even the cross is somethign that he wanted me to do....
and so here is the question… is your life a life of obedience where you do what God tells you to do versus doing waht you want to do.... and if you want to be CHristlike do what God wants you to do instead of what you want to do...
Is that your life… that can be really hard. Do you have the kind of obedience that Jesus ask of you… look at hwat Jesus says later.
18 The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.
There are only two kinds of people in the world… people who speak and do on their own accord what is good for them… and people that speak on what God haas wanted you to do...
Another awesome thing....
For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise....
So you have an obedience piece but you also have this imitation piece.
ANd Jesus is saying I actuallly imitate God… and some of you ahve good fathers that you are able to imitate. Good fathers try to teach you some stuff… and sometimes it sucks… and JEsus says I saw some things in the father and that is why I am the way that I am.... does your life imitate the father...
and then he goes a little bit further and explains the third level...
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
Like some of us think that God the Father just kind of sent him down go save those people and it was all robotic… but he LOVES the son… this relationship of the trinity is the most intimate relationship you could ever imagine… etneral perfect and pure.... and john tells us God is love… and if God is love and you are a unitarian thinker… God cant be love until he creates something… but in Christianity he is love becasue he has had this trinitarian love that has been around longer than anything we can ever imagine...
We need men who love and sacrifice… its not less masculine to lvoe on somebody...
The father loves the son…and there is a distinction… so God is eternally one… but he is also eternally distinct… we cant say that hthe father IS the son, becasue they are distinct, but we can say they are one.... but we cant say the one IS the other… the father didnt die on the cross for the sins of the world… the son does.... the holy spirit resides in human beings when we trust in him.... and its not the father that lives in us.
“Christ was god, and is God, and forever will remain God. he was not the Father, nor was he the Spirit. He was the Son, the own, only0begotten beloved Son of the Father. And it was not Divine being, neither the Father nor the Spirit, but hte person of the son who became man in the fullness of time.” Herman Bavinick
Jesus christ didnt begin to exist 2000 years ago when he became human… he already existed… not in human flesh…
So we worship the father… and there are times we worship the son… and times we worship the HS.... and that is okay.... because there is a fullness in both… All throughout the Gospel he calls him HIS father… except for in the Lord’s prayer he says OUR father.... there is something about JEsus and his relationship with the father that we can never have.... it is unique… amd its his accomplisments that set us free,,,,
20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
Now he will list off the thigns the father has taken care of that he is now handing off to the son… and in about six chapters he will raise lazarus from the dead… and at the end of time I will raise them all from the dead and I will decide who gets heaven and hell… God gave it toi Jesus
22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,
The father doesnt Judge, but Jesus does.... and he gve it all to the son.
23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
So that all may honor the son…
Every himan being that has ever existed will at some point honor the son all=panta… and for some of them it wont be salvific… because it will be too late, but they will bow a knee to honor the son
and JEsus is saying the judgment is now based off of what you do with me… and you have to choose a side… you either honor the son or you don’t....