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Preached in Markham Baptist Church,
May 28, 2006
UNLOCKING THE DA VINCI CODE:
PART 2 - WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?
Matthew 16:13-21
Well you
remember how last week we discovered that the Word of God is true and
authentic. It is historically accurate, authenticated by thousands of
documents and trusted by the early church.
You will
remember also that last week we were introduced to the person of
Constantine, a Roman Emperor who became a Christian and who lifted the
persecution of Christians. Now as we move on to examine the question “Is
Jesus Christ God in the flesh?” we read in the Da Vinci Code the following
conversation:
… Constantine needed to strengthen the new Christian tradition and held a
famous ecumenical gathering known as the Council of Nicea.
Sophie had heard of it only insofar as its being the birthplace of the
Nicene Creed.
“At this gathering,” Teabing said, “many aspects of Christianity were
debated and voted upon – the date of Easter, the role of bishops, the
administration of sacraments, and, of course, the divinity of Jesus.”
“My dear,” Teabing declared, “until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed
by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man
nonetheless. A mortal.”
“Not the Son of God?”
“Right,” Teabing said. “Jesus’ establishment as the “Son of God” was
officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicea.”
“Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?”
“A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing added … (page 233)
Who do you say
Jesus is? It is a vital question. Dan Brown says that He is a good man who
won His divinity by a vote, a relatively close one at that. Now there may
be some here today who would simply wave their hands and say, that’s just a
work of fiction - we don’t need to pay any attention to it. And it is true
- the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. There is more fiction than fact
in the book. For instance, in that quote I just gave you, there are two
facts – there was an Emperor named Constantine and there was a gathering of
church leaders at a place called Nicea. It happened in 325 A.D. and it is
called the council of Nicea. But beyond that the rest is fiction.
But one of the
reasons we must pay attention to this book and what is being said is because
there are numerous other books that are saying the exact same thing as the
Da Vinci Code and they are not in the fiction section, but in the history
section and the religious section of your bookstore. And as people of the
truth we must declare the truth and one of the truths we must be sure about
is the person of Jesus Christ. It is upon this that I want to focus on this
morning.
The Christian
testimony is clear and unequivocal, Jesus is fully man and fully God. To be
sure it is a great mystery (see 1 Timothy 3:16).
I know that to
many it does not sound logical. If Jesus Christ is God then He cannot be a
man; if He is a man He cannot be God. Some say it is not logical. But to
say such a thing, though, we have to assume that we know all there is to
know about God and all there is to know about humans. Who could claim such
a thing? We also would have to assume that God could not do anything
outside the realm of what we consider to be possible. But that is not the
kind of God that is revealed to us in the Scriptures - not the majestic,
all-powerful, King of the universe. To be sure it is a great mystery, but
it is not one to be dismissed simply because we cannot fully understand it.
That is what makes it a mystery. It is to be approached with awe and
thanksgiving, yet with a desire to know and comprehend as best we can.
Is Jesus
Christ God in the flesh?
Yes He is!
The fact is that God stepped out of heaven and became a man. This act is
called incarnation. God incarnated Himself in a body, was born in
Bethlehem, lived in Nazareth, and Galilee, died on the cross and rose on the
third day. That person was Jesus of Nazareth.
This is the
central truth of the Christian gospel. You must accept and admit and
confess and acknowledge and adhere to and rely on the fact that God is
incarnate in Christ. Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God, and you must
confess this if you expect to be saved and go to heaven.
That's as
clear and as plain as I know how to make it. This is what we read in I John
2:21-23; 4:1-3 and again in verse 14 – 15. There is no grey area here. The
deity of Jesus Christ is the centre of Christian belief. It is not a side
issue - it is the issue itself.
The fact of
Jesus Christ's divinity is of utmost importance. Why is it so important?
It is important because if Jesus is not God, then His sacrificial death has
no power - He is just another man dying on a cross, and it is not an act of
sacrifice for our sins. You and I are still left in our sins and we can
repent all we like but it will do us no good if that wasn't God hanging on
the cross for our sins.
Secondarily,
it is important because if Jesus wasn't God then God remains unaware of our
human condition and is unable to understand the human situation and human
feelings.
So who is
Jesus? The Da Vinci Code makes it sound like He was human until the time of
Constantine and a bunch of religious leaders decided to make Him divine.
But that’s not true - the early followers of Jesus believed Jesus to be
fully God and fully human.
Ah – you say,
before you get to that, you know pastor, Jesus never claimed to be God in
the flesh.
In one of his
many articles in the Toronto Star, Tom Harpur the religion editor says that
Jesus never claimed to be God. Is that true? No. Tom Harpur is wrong.
Consider our
text – Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and
Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And
instead of charging Peter with blasphemy, Jesus replies, “Blessed are
you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my
Father in heaven.”
Again in John
14, Philip asks Jesus, “Show us the Father and that will be enough for us."
And pay attention to Jesus’ answer, "Don't you know me Philip, even after
I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the
Father, How can you say, Show us the Father. Don't you believe that I am in
the Father and that the Father is in me?”
What is Jesus'
testimony about His divinity? He is divine, God and Jesus are one. He
states it plainly in John 10:30 saying, "I and the Father are one."
Or consider
why the religious leaders of the day wanted to kill Jesus. In John 5:18 we
read, “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him, not
only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own
Father, making himself equal with God.”
Again in John
10:31-33 - “Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said
to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which
of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any of these,’
replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be
God.’ ”
When Jesus
stood before the high priest Caiaphas, he was asked, “ ‘Are you the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see
the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the
clouds of heaven.’ The high priest tore his clothes, ‘Why do we need any
more witnesses?’ he asked. ‘You have heard the blasphemy. What do you
think?’ They all condemned him as worthy of death.” (Mark 14:61-64)
Notice that
Jesus responded to the direct question with a direct answer: “I am”.
Referring to Himself as the “Son of Man,” Jesus then added that He would be
coming back on the clouds of heaven. Caiaphas and his onlookers knew the
implication. This was a reference to the vision of the Old Testament
prophet Daniel had of the end times: The Messiah – the Son of Man – will
come to earth to judge the world on the authority given to him by God the
Father (“The Ancient of Days”), and all the world’s people will worship him
(Daniel 7:13). Of course, no one is to be worshipped but God Himself, yet
here is Christ claming that He would be the one to judge the world and
receive worship from its people. He was claiming to be God and everyone
knew it.
While Matthew,
Mark, and Luke all recorded the “I am” response to Caiaphas, John
tells of another occasion where Jesus claims deity by answering, “I am.”
This occurs during a tense exchange with some Jews.
After several
volleys back and forth about the true identity of Jesus, the conversation
culminates with Jesus declaring, “ ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced at the
thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.’ You are not yet
fifty years old,’ the Jews said to him, ‘And you have seen Abraham!’ ‘I tell
you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ At this
they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself slipping away from
the temple grounds.”(John 8:56-59)
Skeptics may
say, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” is not even good English! It’s
the wrong tense. Exactly! Jesus isn’t worried about grammar because He’s
quoting the very name God gave to Moses at the burning bush.
“I am” is the
self-existent one. He has no past or future because He is eternal. He’s
not in time. Jesus was claiming to be that eternal, self-existent one and
that’s why the Jews picked up stones to stone Him.
For those who
continue to say, “No, Jesus never claimed to be God,” I have a question - if
Jesus didn’t claim to be God, then why was He killed? Jesus’ crucifixion,
which is probably the most well-attested fact from all of ancient history,
is difficult to explain unless he claimed to be God.”1
Further, think not only of the words that are spoken, but think of our
Lord’s actions - He acted like He was God.
Do you know
that the Old and New Testaments forbid worshipping anyone other than God?
(Exodus 20:1-4; Deuteronomy 5:6-9; Acts 14:15; Revelation 22:8-9) Yet Jesus
accepted worship on at least nine occasions:
-
a healed leper (Matthew
8:2)
-
a ruler whose son Jesus
had healed (Matthew 9:18)
-
the disciples after the
storm (Matthew 14:33)
-
a Canaanite woman
(Matthew 15:25)
-
the mother of James and
John (Matthew 20:20)
-
a Gerasene demoniac
(Mark 5:6)
-
a healed blind man
(John 9:38)
-
all the disciples
(Matthew 28:17)
-
Thomas, who said, “My
Lord and my God” (John 20:28)
Not only did
He accept worship that should be given only to God, He did deeds that only
God can do. He has supernatural authority over sickness (Matthew 4:23) “going
throughout Galilee healing every disease and sickness among people.” He
has authority over the natural order rebuking the wind and the waves,
saying, “Quiet! Be still!” (Mark 4:39). He has authority over the
spiritual realm commanding demons to come out of those possessed. (Luke
4:35)
Think of how
Jesus demonstrated omniscience by telling Peter, “This very night, before
the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” (Matthew 26:34). He
declared omnipotence, not only by resurrecting Lazarus (John 11:43) but by
raising Himself from the dead. And He professed omnipresence by promising He
would be with His disciples to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
Think also of
the authority He claimed to forgive sin. The Old Testament teaches us that
this authority belongs to God. "It is God who will redeem Israel from
all their sins," we read in Psalm 130:8. And yet here is Jesus saying
to the woman caught in adultery and to the man sick with paralysis, (John
8:1; Mark 2:1) "Your sins are forgiven you". And you can feel the
shock waves ripple through the Jewish crowd so that the Pharisees ask, "Who
can forgive sins but God alone?" That is precisely the point! Jesus
was laying claim to that which God alone does because He was God in the
flesh.
So, was Jesus
simply a man? Jesus didn’t leave us that option. Well, you might say,
that's not a very credible witness, since we are talking about Him. Of
course Jesus wants us to believe He's God.
What about His
followers? Did they believe He was God in the flesh? Indeed, they were not
mistaken that Jesus was a man. He ate with them, walked with them. They
saw Him sleep, weep and express a whole range of human emotions. But did
they see Him as divine? And the answer is yes. We discovered last week that
the earliest Christian documents we have are the letters of Paul.
Consider how
he saw Jesus Christ. In Colossians 2:9 -"For in Christ all the fullness
of the Deity lives in bodily form." In that same book Paul says that by
Jesus Christ "all things were created: things in heaven and on earth."
(Colossians 1:16) But we all know that Genesis 1:1 says that God created
the world. Now, either there were 2 creators OR the God of Genesis 1 is the
God of Colossians 1. I believe Paul is saying they are one in the same.
Or consider
the earliest confession we have the church – “Jesus is Lord.” (1
Corinthian 12:3). This does not simply mean that Jesus is master. It
refers to Jesus’ deity. In the Greek Bible the title “Lord” often was
substituted for “God”.2
Or consider
John the apostle, who writes in John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God and the Word was God." And so that we
understand who the Word is, he says in verse 14, "The Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the
One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The truth is
that for 33 years God whom no one had ever seen before chose to reveal
Himself in hair and skin and flesh and blood and human personality that we
could identify and relate to. So when Jesus Christ came, the Word became
flesh. Jesus Christ then, says Scripture, is no ambassador for God, no
representative from God or spokesman about God. He is absolutely and has
always been fully God in a human body. The invisible God is made tangible
in flesh and blood.
Aha, you say –
here’s another possibility, pastor. Perhaps Jesus was more than a man, but
less than God.
And if you
believe that then you have come to one of the issues that was raised during
the Council of Nicea. The council of Nicea did indeed meet to discuss the
divinity of Christ, but contrary to the Da Vinci Code, they did not meet to
vote on the divinity of Christ. No - for 250 years before the council,
before the name Constantine was ever known, Christians had agreed that Jesus
was divine.
What the
council met to discuss was not whether or not Jesus was divine but how
He was divine. One popular view was that Jesus was not fully God, but a
created God of sorts; that, in fact, He was God’s first creation and Christ
was the one who brought all creation into being. This was what many
Christians were saying in 325 A.D. Jesus, they said, is not co-eternal or
co-existent with God. It is interesting to note that this same belief was
reborn in the 1930s and is still around today – the Jehovah Witnesses
believe this very heresy.
Is Jesus
Christ a lesser being than God? No. He is God in the flesh. He is equal
with God, co-eternal and co-existent. John 5:18 - “For this reason the
Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath,
but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”
That word
equal means, “equal in quality as in quantity, to claim for one’s self the
Nature, rank, authority, which belong to God.” (Martin page 67)
Or consider
Philippians 2:6-7 - “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ
Jesus:
Who being
in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped, but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant, being
made in human likeness.”
You may read
that and say that Jesus Christ wasn’t ambitious enough to claim equality
with God but instead emptied Himself and became a human being. That’s not
what that passage says. It is saying that Christ Jesus did not consider
equality with God something to be grasped. Why? Because it was His already
– He was in very nature God – and what this passage is saying is that even
though He was equal with God – co-eternal and co-existent – “for in
Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” (Colossians
2:9) Having the very nature of God, He became one of us - O the wonder of
it!
The council at
Nicea voted and what did they decide? They decided that Jesus Christ was
what Scripture said He is – that He had always existed, and did not come
into being, was of the same essence of God Himself, and was fully divine as
well fully human. Was it close vote? No. Over three hundred church
representatives were present … and only 2 voted against the idea!
The final
issue, of course, is what are you going to make of all this. In light of
Jesus Christ’s character, His teaching, His behaviour, His miracles, His
claims to be God, what are you going to say? He backed the whole thing up
with rising from the dead. “He was declared to be Son of God, powerfully
through the resurrection from the dead.”
What are you
going to do? What will you do with Jesus? Because you are faced with a
choice here. In the words of Michael Green, “Jesus Christ comes to us from
beyond the human race, as God himself, hastening to our rescue. He expects
of us, indeed demands of us, not our admiration but our allegiance, not our
patronage but our hearts. He has the rights of God Almighty over us. And he
can make all the difference of God Almighty within us, once we allow room
for him in the lives he has given us.”3
Who do you say I
am? How you answer that question is of utmost importance. If He is just a
man, you can ignore his teaching and live as you please. If He was some
kind of lesser God, then you can insult Him and ignore His word. But if He
is God as He says he is, then He demands your life, your soul, your all.
Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - May 2006
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Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I
Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist, (Wheaton Illinois: Crossway
Books, 2004), 341-342.
-
Darrell Bock, Breaking The Da Vinci Code, (Nashville, Tennessee:
Nelson Books, 2004), 105.
-
Michael Green, You Must Be Joking,
(Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1976), 74.
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