Jesus Christ – Elohim in the Flesh
I don’t know if you are like me, maybe I’m just airing my dirty laundry here, but I grew up thinking God the Father is in the Old Testament, and Jesus appears suddenly in Matthew as a baby born to Mary. And the Holy Spirit…story for another day!
Following this thought, I quickly relegated Jesus to the man who came to die for me, acted as a bridge or mediator with the Father, ascended back to heaven, and that’s it. I just pushed Him to the side. Honestly, I thought I could use Him to get to the Father, whom I loved.
Lord, forgive my ignorance!
I thank God for His mercy. We keep learning. We keep growing. So, let’s get to it.
The Bible is about Jesus from Genesis to Revelation. When you and I, by the help of the Holy Spirit, search and find Jesus in the Scriptures, we will continually grow in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17).
And when we know Jesus, we will know God in His fullness – Father, Son, and Spirit, for the fullness of God dwells in Christ (Colossians 1:19; 2:9).
Listen to what Jesus said about the Scriptures bearing witness of Him (bear in mind that we do not have the New Testament at this point):
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me (John 5:39)
Later in the same chapter, He says, “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:45-46)
For context, He is responding to Jews who were upset with Him for healing the invalid man at Bethesda on a Sabbath. The Jews knew the Scriptures. They knew the law and always brought it up to accuse Jesus.
But as Jesus says, if they believed what Moses wrote, they would have believed that Jesus was the Son of God and be okay with Him being the Lord of the Sabbath, choosing to save a broken son (the invalid man) just as the Jews themselves would pull a donkey or ox out of a pit on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5).
Notice that the Jews were angry because Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, which made Him equal to God. That’s interesting for our discussion. If He were equal to God, then He was Lord over them. Then He had the same power and authority as the God of the Scriptures they so well knew.
But, believing that would mean they leave their traditions and teachings and follow Him as the Messiah. We know the story. They chose to crucify Him instead of believing and being converted. And the irony of it is that by crucifying Him, they were fulfilling the same Scriptures they knew but refused to believe!
Let’s consider another witness in Luke 24, where Jesus has just risen from the dead, and He appears to Cleopas and his friend on their way to Emmaus. They are perplexed that Jesus does not know that ‘Jesus’ was crucified and His body is no longer in the tomb.
Jesus rebukes them for not believing what was spoken about Him in the Scriptures. They did not know at this point who was opening the Scriptures to them, from the Law of Moses to the Prophets. Their hearts were just burning.
He opens their eyes as they break bread, they recognize Him and run back to Jerusalem to witness to the Eleven that He is indeed risen. Jesus appears to this gathering again, and they still doubt Him, until He had to show His scars and eat fish for them to believe He is not a ghost. Lord, help my unbelief!
Again, He goes to the lengths of explaining that the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms talk about Him. He opens their minds to finally understand the Scriptures and tell them what to look for as they read: His death and resurrection, and the preaching of repentance and forgiveness in His name to all nations (Luke 24: 45-47).
Quick learning moment: We cannot understand the Scriptures by ourselves. We need the Lord, who is the Spirit, to open the Scriptures. He inspired them. We need Him to open our eyes and minds to understand the Scriptures. Only He knows what He meant with each statement that He has allowed over the ages to be canonized and preserved for us. To Him be the glory now and forever!
So, the Scriptures clearly reveal the Messiah to anyone whose mind the Spirit has opened to see his incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. However, the same scriptures also tell us who Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is. They reveal to us His deity and equality with God.
Scriptural Witness of the Deity of Jesus
Jesus Christ was with God in the beginning. He was the Word. He was God Himself. He is God.
In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was [continually existing] in the beginning [co-eternally] with God (John 1:1-2).
This is the testimony of the one who lay on His bosom, John, one of the three disciples out of the twelve whom He called close to Himself. Later on, while at Patmos, when he sees Him glorified, He still calls Him The Word of God.
He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God (Revelation 19:13)
Staying with John, in John 12:39-41, this disciple that Jesus loved explains further that Isaiah saw the Lord Jesus in Isaiah 6. In this vision, the seraphs call Him the Lord Almighty (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah calls him the King, the Lord Almighty (Isaiah 6:5).
The Hebrew name here for Lord Almighty is Adonai–Tzva’ot, meaning Lord of Hosts or literally, Lord of Armies. Some Bible versions translate it as Lord of the Angel Armies. A bit of study on this shows that Adonai–Tzva’ot appears over 200 times in the Old Testament.
That’s just one clue that Jesus Christ is all over the Old Testament. He didn’t suddenly appear in Matthew!
Let’s keep walking…
Later in chapter 9, Isaiah gives another description of Jesus. I am confident you know this one:
For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6)
The Hebrew name for Mighty God in this verse is El Gibbor, which appears 159 times in the Bible, giving us further evidence about the deity of Jesus from the Old to the New Testament.
We can go into a deeper study of Jesus in the Old Testament, from types and shadows to Messianic prophecies, but I will leave that for another publication. Let’s stay in the New Testament for a minute.
John continues to testify that the Word became flesh (a human being) and dwelt amongst us. He was at the Father’s side (in the bosom of the Father), from where He came, full of grace and truth (John 1:18).
The Jewish Bible puts it this way, No one has ever seen God; but the only and unique Son, who is identical with God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Other versions call Him “the one and only Son, who is himself God” or “the Only Begotten Son.”
But, how was He begotten?
We can tell He didn’t start in Mary’s womb, but He was begotten of the Father, was there in the beginning, and nothing was made without Him.
So, when was He begotten? How did that happen?
We know how man begets, same for animals, but how does God beget a Son?
He replicates Himself.
So, His Son has His exact abilities, attributes, makeup, or whatever we can call it.
Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). In other words, if you ever wonder what God looks like, look at Jesus.
Philip asked Jesus to show him and his fellow disciples the Father, and this was His response, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9)
In a previous conversation, Jesus spoke of Himself and said, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (John 12:45)
See, when man begets, the son or daughter will have some of the father’s and mother’s attributes, but they are different.
From the fingerprints to the personality, looks, likes, and dislikes, children are different from their parents.
For God, He begets Himself in His fullness.
That’s why we can say that the Only Begotten Son was God Himself. By seeing Him, you have seen His Father. Not just the looks, but the attributes as well.
Paul had quite a revelation of Christ and His finished work, but He also understood His deity. In his letter to the Philippians, he says,
Have this same attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus [look to Him as your example in selfless humility], who, although He existed in the form and unchanging essence of God [as One with Him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes—the entire nature of deity], did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or asserted [as if He did not already possess it, or was afraid of losing it]; but emptied Himself [without renouncing or diminishing His deity, but only temporarily giving up the outward expression of divine equality and His rightful dignity] by assuming the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men [He became completely human but was without sin, being fully God and fully man] (Philippians 2:5-7).
The Amplified bible goes to the full length of explaining that Christ possesses the fullness of all the divine attributes, a revelation that Paul also emphasizes to the Colossians.
For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ (Colossians 1:19). The King James version translates it this way, “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.”
Our previously quoted verse in Isaiah 9:6 tells us that the Son is Everlasting Father
So then, there is nothing the Father is that the Son is not. There is nothing that the Father can do that the Son cannot do. There’s nothing in the Father that is lacking in the Son. Not an attribute, not an ability.
By seeing the Son, you have seen and met the Father.
He is the exact same person as the Son but co-existing eternally—before all time, in time, and after time.
1 John 5:20 plainly states that He is the true God. The same disciple is giving us more revelation of Jesus:
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life
John is not alone in this thought. Paul testifies that the completeness or fullness of the Godhead (Deity) is in Christ.
For in Him (Christ) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9)
Everything that the Godhead is (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), everything the names of God tell about His nature, character, ability, power, etc, is in Christ.
Jesus Christ, now in a glorified human body, is God in every way!
Do you see Jesus as equal to God, who frustrated Pharaoh? Who parted the Red Sea? Who led His people through the wilderness for 40 years? Who closed the mouths of hungry lions to preserve Daniel, and made Nebuchadnezzar chew grass?
Does Matthew 1 carry the same weight as Genesis 1? Do you lose a bit of reverence when Jesus cries on Mary’s lap as a baby? How about the cross or the garden before that, where He longed for His friends’ encouragement?
I am asking myself the same questions.
He is God. Scars and all, He is the true God. Worthy of our honor, reverence, and eternal worship.
Shalom
