I used Dan Brown in my introduction last week, because that message was about one of the fundamentals of our faith – one of the fundamentals denied by Dan Brown and his friends. That message was a reaffirmation that “Christ died for our sins, as according to the scriptures.” To teach that Jesus died as a martyr, or that His death was a tragic accident, or that it was a mere travesty of justice, is to deny the clear declaration of scripture. As Peter succinctly put it, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” And Paul said, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Dozens of scriptures can be quoted which echo this absolutely essential truth. But those scriptures are denied in that book.
In addition to this error, I pointed out another equally horrendous heresy: Men like Brown believe that Jesus died as a martyr because they already deny Christ’s deity. It is because these people hate the doctrine of the divinity of the Son of God, that they seek out the ancient heretics like Origen and Arius, the predecessors of the Unitarians and the Russelites (Jehovah’s Witnesses). When someone is predisposed to reject the deity of Christ, then they have to turn to other explanations for His life, His miracles, His death, and His on-going worship. Brown twists history just enough to support his already twisted opinions about the Word of God. The world needs to be warned about men like Origen, Arius, Sidney Sheldon and his disciple, Dan Brown. But whether they like it or not, Da Vinci, Brown, Origen and Charles Taze Russel have a God and Judge over them, and His name is Jesus Christ.
As it turns out, the chapter that we are currently studying, comments on both Jesus’ death and His deity. Last week I took this opportunity to re-examine one fundamental of our faith, and this week we move on to another – our Lord’s eternal deity.
If you choose to say that you’ve heard all this before, be my guest, because it means that you’ve been listening. But these sorts of doctrines cannot be preached once every ten years and then filed away somewhere. They need to be openly declared over and over again, at least once every couple of years. Because, as well as being confirmed in our faith, we need to hear once again how to share his truth with the unthinking readers of “The Da Vinci Code,” “The National Geographic Magazine” and other publications like them.
While we were looking at Romans 9:5, last year, I took the opportunity to preach on the deity of Christ. I pointed out that, despite the claims of Mr. Brown and his friends, the Lord Jesus did teach his own divinity. I took you to John 10:23 where the Lord Jesus said – “I and my Father are one.” I pointed out the Jews understood the import of Jesus’ words: “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” We noted a similar passage in John 5:16-18 – “And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” In John 16:15 Christ said – “All things that the Father hath are mine.” Jesus was not speaking about his step-father, Joseph, but The Father – God the Father. He said in effect, “He and I share everything equally.” I pointed out that Jesus’ closest disciples believed in His deity as in I Jn. 5:20 – “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” Paul in I Timothy 3:16 said – “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”
And this brings us back to Romans – Romans 9:5 – Speaking of Israel Paul said, “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” Someone who is predetermined NOT to believe in the deity of Christ, like the leading character in Brown’s book, might argue that this verse is saying nothing more than that Christ has been blessed by God. But those who are experts in Greek positively assert that Paul says that Christ is the God who deserves to be blessed – that is – the One worthy to be praised and honored for ever.
In addition to Christ’s own declarations of deity and the testimony of his disciples …
Thomas indirectly proves the deity of the Saviour in John 20:26-29 – “And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Where do we ever read of Jesus’ rejection of Thomas’ testimony and praise?
There is indirect proof of Jesus deity in His divine attributes like his omniscience. John 2:23-25 – “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.” Matthew 12:25 says that Jesus knew the thoughts of the Pharisees. This ability of Jesus’ is something that belongs only to God. And listen to the testimony that disciples gave of Jesus in John 16:29-30 – First Christ Jesus said, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.” This last statement is a declaration that Jesus is the Son of God. People might sometimes guess what another is thinking, but actual knowledge of their thoughts belongs to God.
What is the meaning of Colossians 2:9 if Jesus is not God? “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And what is the meaning of Hebrews 1:3 if Jesus is not God? “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.”
Throughout the Word of God we find evidence of Jesus’ deity. Only those who refuse to see it, fail to see it. For example there are those Old Testament scriptures which speak about Jehovah, but which in the New Testament are applied to Christ Jesus. Isaiah 40:3 speaks about someone called “the voice of him that cried in the wilderness, saying, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” And then in the New Testament there are those words applied to John the Baptist, as he prepared the way of the Lord Jesus. Isaiah 44:6 says, “I am the first and the last; and beside me there is no God.” And then in Revelation we have those words applied to Christ Jesus. Isaiah 45:23 says “that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” Philippians applies those words unto the glorified Son of God. Isaiah 44:7 says, “in Jehovah have I righteous,” and in I Corinthians 1:30 we read that in Christ Jesus the believer has righteous. There are dozens of parallel statements like these which link the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New Testament.
And there is another in verses 17 and 18 – “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.” If you look back over my extended ministry here among you, you will never remember me saying: “If you serve ME perfectly, I guarantee that you will be accepted by God.” I will not say that because, I know that by my life, not even I can be sure of acceptance with God. I am dependent upon grace – the grace of Christ – to be accepted with the Lord. But I can be quite bold in saying, if you will do the things that Christ teaches us, then you will be pleasing in the sight of God. I can say that because the Bible teaches, and I believe, that Christ is the fulness of the God-head bodily. To please Christ is to please the Father. In fact, verse 17 includes the Holy Spirit in that calculation. The God-head is a trinity – the Father is God, the Son is God and the Spirit is God – all equally.
Something else is hinted here in verse 17 which indirectly suggests the deity of Christ. Notice the reference to “the kingdom of God.” Who is the King of the kingdom of God? It is none other than the glorified Christ. And then there are verses like Ephesians 5:5 – “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” The Bible is speaking of one kingdom, whether it is talking about the kingdom of God or of Christ. The titles given to the monarch of that kingdom are interchangeable, because Christ Jesus is God. This is another indirect proof of the deity of Christ.
Now look at Mark 2:5-11 – “When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.” It was correctly argued that no mere man can forgive sins. No man, no priest, no prophet, no pastor can forgive sins – even on God’s behalf. Even if we forgive those who sin against us, we cannot undo the fact that those sins were also committed against the Lord. Our remission of those sins does not change the fact that all sin is against God. But Jesus of Nazareth completely overturned the misconceptions of the Jews. He forgave that man, and others, of their sins against God. And he could do that, not only because He would die to wash away sin, but because He was the God against Whom all those sins were committed. He has perfect authority to forgive sin because He is God. In other words, salvation in Christ Jesus, is another indirect proof of the deity of the Lord Jesus.
But now we come to a problem with this truth – It is quite possible to believe what I have shared with you this morning, without actually tasting of the Lord’s salvation. It is possible to be doctrinally orthodox, and still to be as alien from God, as Dan Brown and others who deny Christ’s deity. It is absolutely essential that with your orthodoxy, you also repent of your sins and trust that divine Saviour to save your soul. Repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.