Category Archives: Deity of Christ

Thoughts on Holy Week

Posted on by under Atonement, Deity of Christ, Easter, eternity, faith, Jesus, Resurrection, Salvation, Uncategorized

“It is finished,” said the broken, bruised and battered man; struggling to lift his bloodied body holyweekfor quick gasps of air. Then He died. The horrible result of Roman crucifixion had claimed another victim. But this was no ordinary victim; this was “Immanuel, God with us” (Matthew 1:23). This, of course, was (and still is) Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

He had entered Jerusalem with celebration, the laying down of palm branches and the shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (John 12:13). Not even a week later, the same people were crying out, “Away with Him! Crucify Him” (John 19:15).  

Fickle lot, we humans.

Hopefully you know the story, but even if you don’t, after three days and nights in the tomb, Jesus, much to the astonishment of not just humanity but the satanic realm as well, rose from the dead. Yes, I believe whole-heartedly in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s not some sick, psychological fantasy to appease grieving souls; the body was not stolen; nor is it some figure of speech. Jesus was tortured, crucified, buried three days and three nights, and, yes, rose from the dead. This same Jesus, God in the flesh, that entered humanity as an unborn baby in the womb of a young virgin allowed Himself to be mercilessly treated, even to point of death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).

But why?

Simply stated, because of the sin of humanity and the abject rebellion of humanity against God. Only a perfect atoning sacrifice would suffice. Nothing is more perfect than God. Therefore, God entered humanity in an astonishing way and exited His earthly life in an equally astonishing way: by being executed by the humanity He came to save.

Easter Sunday, perhaps more accurately referred to as Resurrection Sunday, is the acknowledgement of this miraculous resurrection event. The world of darkness celebrated the death of Jesus because it felt that this salvation business expressed by Jesus in the famous John 3:16 (and other places as well, of course) was now laid to rest. As the old adage goes, “Dead men tell no tales.” Salvation and hope was now a tale silenced in the dank and dark coldness of a sealed tomb; a sealed tomb under guard by Roman soldiers no less.

But brutal beatings resulting in death, sealed tombs, dank darkness and several feet of solid bedrock could not keep Jesus in the grave. At the right time, He broke loose from the shackles of death. At this very moment, Jesus showed His power over even death. Weather, physical laws and demonic strongholds could not withstand Jesus (Mark chapters 4-6), and now even death was firmly trampled under His feet. He had conquered the grave, proving that even all of hell couldn’t stop Him. He is, was, and will forever be King of kings and Lord of lords, the Captain of our salvation (Revelation 17:14 & Hebrews 2:10.

Eternity Awaits!

And we can partake of His eternal victory by simply expressing faith in Jesus by confessing with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, then we will be saved (Romans 10:9)! This isn’t just good news, it is great news with eternal results. If you haven’t confessed Jesus yet, I invite you to do so and become a part of His kingdom both now and forever more. If you have confessed Jesus, how will you approach this time known as Holy Week? I ask, because I’m asking myself the same thing: what will I do to draw even closer to Jesus? What will I do to better understand the significance of His sacrifice on my behalf, a broken and sinful man?

I’m not sure yet, but I have some ideas. But what I do know now, is that when I think deeply about Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for me, I tear up and become speechless. Maybe you do to.

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Deity of Jesus, Part 4: The Wider Sacrifice

Posted on by under Christ, Christian, contemplation, Deity of Christ, faith, Uncategorized

Today is the last installment of my four-part series on exploring the deity of Jesus Christ. J.17-5.jpgIt began four weeks ago, in reaction to the apparent lack of understanding of professing Christians in grasping Jesus as Emanuel, God with us; and the springboard was John 17:5:

And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5, NKJV).[1]

Obviously, this series has not been an exhaustive study, because I think it requires several lifetimes to begin grasping something so monumental. But you must start somewhere and this series is my attempt at ‘somewhere.’

Exchange of Glory

Pastor Jeremy Treat, Ph.D., in a recent article, connected John 17:5 as a “loving Trinitarian exchange of glory” at the cross where “we see the wisdom of the Father, the grace of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit.”[2] I think this is a significant understanding of the verse because it implies that Jesus, the Creator, the Preexistent One, is allowing Himself to be treated in shameful and unjust fashions knowing that the end will result in glorification of God via the coming resurrection and the outpouring of salvation via the coming new birth in the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ earthly punishment will culminate with death on a cross through the horrible process of scourging followed by the crucifixion. What kind of God would do this? But Jesus endured in part because of His eternal vision of the ultimate result of such a gruesome sacrifice (cf. Php. 2:8 & Heb. 12:2-3); namely the salvation of humanity.

Only for a moment we need to put ourselves into the shoes of Jesus (cf. Mt. 5:14). While we are not being forced to do this, I think John 17:5 invites us to due to its intriguing concept.

The Wider Sacrifice

At some point in Eternity Past Jesus enjoyed a perfect existence in the Eternal Community (see my post from December 11, 2016). Within the Eternal Community, everything was well and beautiful beyond our understanding and expression and there was no threat to disrupting this bliss; except for His own willingness to step away from it and into humanity as the agent of salvation. All that was beautiful, comfortable and perfect was set aside so that Jesus could come and reside among us (cf. Phil. 2:1-5 and Jo. 1:1-18). So while the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is very tangible to the believer, we now need to stop and consider the sacrifice of Jesus at the moment of conception in Mary’s womb. Is this the point in time when Jesus “changed His situation?” I tend to think so because Jesus’ sacrifice did not begin in the Garden of Gethsemane; it began much earlier. His sacrifice began at the moment He left the Eternal Community, entering into Mary’s womb so that someday, those that call on His Name, may be saved and thereby destined to eternal glory forevermore with Jesus Christ. His great sacrifice began upon exiting the Eternal Community and, I would suggest, did not conclude until He ascended back into glory (cf. Mk. 16:19, Lk. 24:51 and Ac. 1:9). In other words, His entire life was, among many other things, a continued expression of sacrifice; a sacrifice that we cannot fully comprehend but are invited to at least try to comprehend what we can. Such effort on our part can only expand our faith while also perhaps humbling us a little more as well.

What I have hoped to inspire through this exploration is a deepening of our love and appreciation for Jesus Christ and all that He has done for us. Jesus is God and as such, carries all the powers associated with God. He could have easily eradicated the “human problem” through any means of annihilation but chose instead to come into our depraved condition to lead us out of it and into His glorious Kingdom. Only through Jesus Christ can we be eternally saved and only Jesus Christ could have been the agent of this salvation (cf. Jo. 14:6, Ac. 16:29-31 and Ro. 10:9-10).

Finally, I close with the words of McCready:

Knowing the Son of God has entered into our world in Jesus of Nazareth is transformative knowledge. If it is true, we who believe it can never be the same again. Such belief is not merely a matter of our intellect—it must affect our thoughts, words and actions as well. That Christ is the preexistent Son of God is the basis for believing God has loved us and given himself to us and for us without reservation.”[3]

 While a lengthy quote, I could not have summed it up any better. It is a joy to push the intellect deeper into the things of God, but the real gain is a further grasping of all that God has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Such an exercise only deepens my own love for my Lord and Savior and increasing my desire to make Him known to others. I hope it does the same for you as well. May blessings be yours now and into 2017.

[1] New King James Version Study Bible, (Nashville, TN: Tommy Nelson, Inc., 1997), p. 1799.

[2] Jeremy Treat, “The Glory of the Cross,” Christianity Today, October 2013, p. 58.

[3] Douglas McCready, He Came Down From Heaven: The preexistence of Christ and the Christian faith (Dower’s Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2005), p 308.

Deity of Jesus Part 3: Leaving the Eternal Community

Posted on by under Christ, Christian, Deity of Christ, eternity, faith, Theology, Uncategorized

Only when the time was right did Jesus come to earth in incarnate form. I return again to McCready where he reminds the reader that of the Godhead—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—“only the Son has changed his situation in such a way that the term preexistence is helpful.”[1] This is an astounding thought that Jesus “changed his situation.” Changing His situation was a sacrifice that is staggering to comprehend.

Expanding Understanding

The lofty and somewhat circular language is purposeful in reminding us that there are some aspects of God that we just can’t explain because they are beyond the scope of our intellect; the created cannot ever fully explain the Creator (cf. Is. 55:8 & Ro. 9:20-21). For instance, how can something exist before existence? What form was the pre-incarnate Christ in? Did His form change once Earth and Man were created (I ask this since there’s a strong possibility that “the angel of the Lord” was the pre-incarnate Christ)? All of these questions are fascinating and worth further exploration if for no other reason but deepening our love for Jesus and what He accomplished on our behalf.

But now I return to the significance of John 17:5 and grasping that Christ was indeed preexistent. Being preexistent means that He was God and He was no less God in His Incarnation. Therefore, Jesus being God in the form of man is Him truly coming into our world from a beyond-our-understanding-existence. Crabb, similarly struggling with trying to grasp the significance of Christ’s departure from His previous existence, once captured what he thought a conversation was like between Father and Son prior to the incarnation:

‘Father, what you ask is painful beyond description to even contemplate. I cannot imagine what the actual experience will be like of not seeing your face. And yet I am delighted with your plan. It will give me the chance to let people see how wonderful you are. The joy of seeing you glorified makes it worth it all. There is no other way?’

‘No.’[2]

The Eternal Community

Imagine the emotional upheaval Jesus went through to comply with the necessity of taking on the form of a Man. He had indescribable joy in what Crabb refers to as the “Eternal Community.”[3] Along with this joy is perfect harmony with the Father and the Holy Spirit; there was nothing disruptive, painful, or evil. That all changed when Jesus entered the world of Man. Here He was treated in shameful and unspeakable ways. Even today no name draws so much elation or hatred as the Name of Jesus Christ.

So often, and rightly, we recognize Jesus for the incredible sacrifice He gave on our behalf while on the earth, mostly focused on the Passion Week. We cite with pomp and ceremony what Jesus endured at the hands of men. Rarely, however, do we ever hear about the sacrifice Jesus made in leaving His ‘Eternal Community’ to enter humanity on our behalf. Not only that, but He entered humanity in the most vulnerable way: an embryo in the womb. I suggest this because we don’t really understand what Jesus sacrificed by leaving His eternal dwelling, so rather than trying to gain a further understanding of that it so we can teach it to others, we avoid it altogether. I don’t say this to be harsh toward anyone, I have spent much time in the pulpit myself, and I would definitely be intimidated by teaching something that is beyond my understanding; I don’t want to look or sound foolish, but even more, I would not want to say anything theologically inaccurate or dishonoring to Jesus. Still, people need to better understand that Jesus’ sacrifice began long before the Passion Week.

[1]Douglas McCready, He Came Down From Heaven: The preexistence of Christ and the Christian faith (Dower’s Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2005), pp. 12-13.

[2] Larry Crabb, Connecting: A radical new vision (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 1997), p. 59.

[3] Ibid., p. 58.

Exploring the Deity of Jesus, Part 2

Posted on by under Christ, Christian, Deity of Christ, Theology, Uncategorized

john-1

As we explored last week in Part 1 of Exploring the Deity of Jesus (actually titled Jesus and the Startling Stat, John 17:5 clearly speaks to the preexistence of Jesus Christ. Preexistence itself is a difficult concept to grasp. Since humans have a finite beginning we grope for some sort of previous knowledge or anchor[1] to hang the concept of preexistence from. The most likely and accessible anchor of previous knowledge is that of deity; only a deity or divine being could preexist. What’s more astounding is thinking of the word “world” in John 17:5 to mean “universe” as Mounts attests in his definition of the Greek word kosmos (see footnote #5 from last week). Jesus existed before the universe, which of course means that He existed before anything else ever did. Thinking deeply about this eventually derails our train of logic. Jesus is not below logic but rather the opposite, He defies logic, He transcends it, we could even say that logic resides in Jesus since all things come from Jesus (cf. John 1:3 and Colossians 1:17).

Such thinking either troubles or excites the mind that previously held Jesus as not being God. It was hugely exciting for me; and it still is, but why?

Still Exciting

As briefly explored above, only one “thing” or “power” could be in existence before anything else, and that is God. Nothing and no one created God; He has always been and always will be.  God is infinite. Lewis states that, “If anything is to exist at all, then the Original Thing must be, not a principle nor a generality, much less an ‘ideal’ or a ‘value,’ but an utterly concrete fact.”[2]

Here is where some struggle while others celebrate accepting God as a “concrete fact.” If we are to accept God as such a fact, then we now have a choice to accept Jesus on the same basis or not. Accepting Jesus on the same basis is to proclaim accepting His deity; or stated another way, accepting that Jesus Christ was indeed God in the flesh as Scripture attests to (cf. Is. 7:14 & Mt. 1:23).

After “discovering” this verse, I went back to the Wierwille book to see how he handled it. I was not surprised to find that he did not explore John 17:5 at all. Finding this verse absent in that work was the final exclamation point I needed to verify that I had indeed fallen for a great deception and that it was now time to finally move into accepting and even embracing the deity of Jesus Christ as a concrete fact.  Since then I have put a lot of energy into doing the best I can to properly teach Jesus to any I have opportunity to speak to, this includes to my children, pulpit messages, and coffee shop conversations.

Several other verses also attest to the preexistence of Jesus Christ. The more familiar prologue of the Fourth Gospel is the one most people refer to:

 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 were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-4a & 14, NKJV).

 McCready states that this lengthy introduction from the Gospel of John insists that,

 Jesus’ origin and nature are incomprehensible if seen solely in terms of this world. Only when we read it in the light of his pre-incarnate deity does Jesus’ story make sense. … Christ’s preexistence requires that it identify the Word with Jesus, which the prologue does.[3]

 The prologue of John is thick with theological significance. Walvoord comments on the first three verses of John 1 thusly, “If Christ is eternal, it also is obvious that He is the uncaused cause, the self-existent One. As the Creator of all things, He Himself must be uncreated.”[4] Johnson states that,

 The prologue in this case gives explicit expression to the constant assumption behind the deeds and words of Jesus: he acts and speaks as the incarnate expression of God’s speech. As word gives body to thought, so does Jesus give visible expression in the world to the invisible power and presence of God.[5]

 So while the human mind may struggle with the somewhat ethereal concept of preexistence, that is, existence before anything else existed; the same human mind can easily grasp the existence of another human being. The human being is “concrete” in that he is tangible, physical, and visceral; thus, Jesus as the Incarnate God now presents to humanity a tangible example of the “invisible power and presence of God.” Jesus not only embodies or personifies God, He is God.

Another interesting fact that McCready points out is how similar John 1:1 is to Genesis 1:1.[6] I had not thought about this connector before, but I find it profound because in John 1, as indicated above, we see Jesus preexistent and we see Him linked to the Word of God by in fact being the Word that became flesh. Here I’m tempted to dive into more quotes and references, but will instead attempt to coalesce this into my own thinking; after all, this started with my own journey of faith upon realizing my own gross theological error regarding the truth of Jesus Christ.

My Own Words

Only one being can be preexistent and that is God. Scripture clearly establishes that Jesus Himself was preexistent. Therefore, Jesus being preexistent makes Him God. He is God from before the beginning of the world, or of the universe, so He is in fact God and preexistent before time. I say this because I have heard many teachings state that God is either above or outside of time or perhaps both. But the concept of time seems to have been instilled more for Man than for anything else. We see time first expressed in Genesis by way of measuring the lights in the sky (cf. Gen. 1:5). I find this relevant because Jesus existed in some pre-incarnate/preexistent form even before time. The finite human brain cannot comprehend what existed before existence, but one thing we know from Scripture is that whatever it was, Jesus was there. In fact, the opening verses of John 1 indicate that all things were made through Him; so not only was He there but He was also apparently the initiator of it.

While it may sound somewhat confusing and a little circular, the point I’m trying to make is that Jesus was, is, and always will be; He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (cf. Heb. 13: 8 and Rev. 1:11 & 22:13). He is not a god in time, but the God of time and all that came before it and all that will come after it.

In Part 3 next we’ll look a little more closely at the Incarnate Jesus.

 

[1] David P. Ausubel, The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A cognitive view (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 8 & 101.

[2] C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York, NY: Macmillian, 1960), p. 87.

[3] Douglas McCready, He Came Down From Heaven: The preexistence of Christ and the Christian faith (Dower’s Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2005), p. 140.

[4]John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1969), p. 28.

[5] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), Kindle loc. 8014.

[6] McCready, p. 141.

 

 

 

Jesus and the Startling Stat

Posted on by under Christ, Christian, Deity of Christ, Theology, Uncategorized

According to a survey by LifeWay Research and Ligonier Ministries and referenced in the November 2016 issue of Christianity Today, 71% of professing Christians apparently do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. The survey statement responded to is: “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” Respondents had three possible responses: 1) Agree, 2) Don’t Know, and, 3) Disagree. Seventy-one percent agreed. The article rightly refers to this as one of “our favorite heresies.” God is not a created being and therefore, Jesus as God with us, is God in the flesh (see Matthew 1:23, Isaiah 7:14, Hebrews 1:3) and is not a created being but is instead, ever-existent.

This is a startling statistic; especially when the “un-deification” of Jesus is typically a common ploy of cults. To un-deify Jesus minimizes His entire ministry, including removing Him from the throne of Heaven and thereby from the throne of our own lives. Once this throne is vacated, anything can then move onto that throne. Such things as the cult itself can hop onto the throne as can materialism, greed, self-worship or something of even more depraved nature.

The main question, however, is why so many professing Christians are confused on the deity of Christ? Are church pulpits not teaching it? Or are pulpits filled with pastors that themselves teach against it? Is it rampant biblical illiteracy? It’s more than likely a combination of all of these elements; still, the statistic is sad and startling.

I’m sensitive to this because I ignorantly spent years as part of a cult (The Way International) that vehemently taught against Jesus’ deity. God worked through a lovely young woman to wake me up to my error in believing this heresy, and since then, I have strived to help people better grasp the truth that Jesus is God.

Now that the first day of Advent 2016 is here, my hope is that as we celebrate the birth Christ and eagerly await His return, and that we do so with a little deeper understanding who Jesus is.

Such a deeper understanding began for me with John 17:5.

“And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5, NKJV).[1]

This Scripture is very different than what the cult taught. Compare John 17:5 to what I had read in years past from Wierwille, “I am saying that Jesus Christ is not God, but the Son of God. They are not co-eternal.”[2] Thus was the crossroads of faith confronting me over a decade ago as I realized I had been part of a cult founded by Wierwille. These two quotes placed together evoke a profound sense of tension for the person that truly wants to follow and honor God, is Jesus Christ God or not?

I will assume as a basic tenet that the inerrancy of Scripture is held by both the writer and reader of this post and state that misunderstandings rest with wrong learning or poor personal interpretation. For instance, as in my case, a logical but ignorant person could be easily fooled by the often repeated Scriptural phrase of Jesus being the Son of God. Many can indeed conclude that a son and a father are two separate entities; they may share similar characteristics due to genetic connections and familial socialization[3], but the similarities do not indicate they are the same person. Hence, it is easy to see how a person unfamiliar with all references toward Jesus could confuse Him as being completely separate from God. Such was my case.

However, in the spring of 2002, after exiting the cult, I was fervently praying one Saturday morning for God to help me understand the truth about Jesus. In that same hour I “stumbled” across John 17:5. This verse was transformational for me primarily due to one word: world. The word in the Greek is kosmos and can be defined as “orderly arrangement … the world”[4] or “world, universe, humankind.”[5] That one word nested within the context of the entire chapter indicates that, “the whole verse is about a past-tense experience Jesus actually had.”[6]

The verse is not referring to some mystical foreknowledge, because Jesus would not have been aware of such foreknowledge because that foreknowledge would have rested solely with God and therefore would not be directly accessible via Jesus’ own memory. What’s more, “Jesus’ statement that he enjoyed divine glory before the creation certainly presumes a personal preexistence; it also implies an essential relationship with God, not merely a functional one.”[7] The Expositor’s Bible comments thusly:

The glory which He prayed for now was a conscious, living glory; He did not wish to become extinct or to be absorbed in the Divine being; He meant to continue and did continue in actual, personal, living existence. This was the glory He prayed for, and this therefore must also have been the glory He had before the world was.[8]

Walvoord even states that in John 17:5 “Christ speaks of His memory of the glory of heaven prior to His incarnation as an evidence for His preexistence.”[9] Finally, all this indicates that “Jesus Christ is, at the inmost principle of his being, true God, from whom he came as the eternal, not temporal, Son.”[10]

And, of course, there is much more information validating the deity of Jesus Christ. But that will have to wait until Part 2.

[1] New King James Version Study Bible, (Nashville, TN: Tommy Nelson, Inc., 1997), p. 1799.

[2] Victor Paul Wierwille, Jesus Christ is Not God (New Knoxville, OH: American Christian Press, 1981), p. 5.

[3] Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 58-60.

[4] New Strong’s Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc, 1995), p. 51

[5] William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), p. 428.

[6] Craig Kuhn, From Cult to Christ (Maitland, FL: Xulon, 2007), p. 58.

[7] Douglas McCready, He Came Down From Heaven: The preexistence of Christ and the Christian faith (Dower’s Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2005), p. 152.

[8] W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s Bible, Vol. V., (New York, NY: Wilbur B. Ketchcam, no date), p. 250.

[9] John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1969), p. 26.

[10] Samuel J. Mikolaski, “The Theology of the New Testament,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 1., ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979), p. 464.

Jesus and the I AM—Part 1

Posted on by under Deity of Christ, Easter, Resurrection

Clouds _housetopGenesis 1:1 tells us that “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In Exodus 3:13-14, God is addressing Moses by way of a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire. God, the same One as in Genesis 1, is calling Moses back to his Hebrew people to proclaim that God will soon deliver them from Egyptian enslavement. Moses asks God whom should he say sent him, and God answers, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM sent me to you.’”

A few thousand years later Jesus and the Pharisees are embroiled in a heated exchange (John 8:13ff). This is a discussion with deep spiritual ramifications as the Light of Jesus and the darkness of Satan collide. The Pharisees are laying hold of the statement that Abraham is their father while at the same time proclaiming Jesus to be a liar. Jesus has proclaimed them to be of their father, the father of lies, Satan; while He then states the titanic phrase, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58).

The Pharisees were so stunned and angered by this statement that they took up stones to throw at him. In essence, they were so incensed that they wanted to kill Him then and there. But what made them so angry?

The Pharisees were well aware that God proclaimed Himself to Moses as I AM. They also knew that this I AM was the very same God that created the heavens and earth. And now, standing in front of them was a carpenter in sandals calling Himself I AM. No, Jesus did not bluntly blurt that He was God. Instead, He made statements to this fact that include this exchange as well as the other six I AM statements. He also backed up this claim through His many miracles.

But think about this; how would you have responded if you were a Pharisee? How do you respond now? In John 11:25-26 Jesus tells Martha that “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” This very same question applies to you and I today, do you, do I, believe this?

If we’re honest, this is a tough thing for us to grasp. Jesus understands that. One of the reasons why God came in the flesh, why this Emmanuel, God with us, came in human form, was so that we could begin grasping this. The creator of the heavens and the earth became man so that we could actually see Him, experience Him, and follow and have salvation faith in Him.

This leads us to begin considering the differences between eternal and infinite. But that will be Part 2 next week.