Whom Do You Think Jesus Is?
What Do You Believe About Jesus?
Some religious groups say Jesus was just a good man. Some say he was just a teacher. Some would say he was a prophet (one who tells the future). Most of these groups would say that Jesus was not God and is not God.
Some groups are willing to say that Jesus is God’s son, but they do not believe that he is equal with God. They think He is less than God the Father.
It is important what you believe about Jesus. What you believe about Jesus will decide if you will go to heaven or not.
What you believe about God depends on who you look to for information. What you believe about God depends on if you believe the Holy Bible to be God’s Word and you believe that the Bible is completely true.
If you do not believe the Holy Bible to be “the authority” about God—–then you will believe someone else’s idea about God.
Many people have their own ideas about God. They are depending on their own ideas to be truth, but when they die, they will learn the real truth——and their own ideas will be wrong.
Many people have followed the teachings of men who have “seen visions” or “seen angels” or have had dreams and thoughts and they wrote their ideas about God. They have many explanations. Some of them have written their own “Bibles”. They have written many papers, and little booklets telling what they think about God and what they think God wants.
Two very large religious groups in our country today, are each based on writings of a man who say they received teachings from God. These men have said they have the truth. Two of these men lived in the early 1800’s and 1900’s.
Those two same large religious groups say that the Christian church as a whole became “corrupted” (evil, full of mistakes and error). Each of their leaders say that they had a divine (message from God) and God himself told them how things should be.
Both of these men said that they have the “truth”. Yet they do not agree with each other. Both of them have a different “truth”.
If they did not receive the “truth” until modern times, then what about all those millions of people who lived from the time of Adam? I do not think God would wait until the 1800’s to give two American men the “truth”. And each of them received a different “truth”.
God has spoken to the people he created from the time he made Adam.
He has talked to them personally and they heard his voice. Then in the time of Moses, the people were so afraid when God talked to them at Mt. Sinai, that they told Moses to listen to what God said, and then tell them—-God’s voice made them too afraid.
God, also, told Moses to write down what God was telling him and to write down the things about the people’s travels across the desert. So Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament. Remember, God talked to Moses with his voice.
The Holy Bible has been written thousands of years ago. People have studied the history of it writings. They have studied the old copies of the books of the Bible. They have studied the history of the times when the Bible was written. They have studied about the men who translated the Bible into English from the Hebrew and Greek. We know much information about the Bible. (See my lesson on How We Got the Bible)
I believe the Holy Bible to be God’s true words to man.
I can tell you what the “Holy Bible” says about Jesus. But you must believe that the “Holy Bible” is the true and are words from God, written by men as God spoke to them, and that they wrote what God told them to write, and they wrote what they saw and heard.
I have written two other “lesson papers”—-How We Got Our Bible and Prophecies About Jesus—-both of these go along with what I will say here in this lesson.
Jesus was with his disciples. He asked them, “Whom do men say that I am?” and then he asked them, “Whom do you say I am?” Matthew 16:15 -17, Mark 8: 29, Luke 9:20, John 6: 69. All of these gospel writers told of the same talk with them.
Peter answered Jesus by saying: “Thou (you) are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus answered: “You have not received this knowledge and understanding by human knowing, but by My Father, which is in heaven, has showed it to you.”
Jesus agreed with Peter that what he said was right. Jesus told Peter that the reason Peter knew this was because God in heaven showed it to him.
God the Father Called Jesus His Beloved Son
When Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, when Jesus was coming up out of the water the “heavens opened, the Spirit of God came down like a dove and rested on him, a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16 -17, Luke 3: 21-22, John 1: 31-33, Mark1: 10-11
This was prophesied (told it would happen) in the Old Testament: Isaiah 11:1,2 Isaiah 42:1 Isaiah was talking about the Messiah that would come. The “Messiah” meant “anointed one” —the promised one that God had promised to the Hebrew people.
Jesus Called Himself God
Jesus called himself “I Am”. This was the name God called himself when He told Moses to go to Egypt to lead out the Hebrew people. Moses asked God, ” What should I tell the people who sent me to do this?” God said, “Tell them ‘I Am’ sent you.”
This was God’s own name. “I Am”. What does this name mean? It means “always is”. God never began. He always was. God will never stop being. God always will be. God is now. We can not say “God was”. God is always in “now”. Man has a begin and an end. God does not.
Jesus is calling himself God’s special own name! The Jewish people who heard him say this picked up stones to throw at him to kill him, because he was making himself equal with God. John 5: 18
Because they thought Jesus was just a man, they were going to kill him for speaking in such a way as to call himself God! John 8:58, 59, John 10:30 – 33 (last part), John 10: 38,39
These Jewish people believed that Jesus was saying he was God—-that is why they were trying to stone him.
Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, “I Am”.” The Jewish leaders had great respect for Abraham. Abraham lived many hundreds of years before Jesus was here on earth. How was Jesus alive before Abraham? Jesus was telling them that he was alive before Abraham because He (Jesus) was God, so he was alive before any people. He had always been “alive”. He always was.
Jesus Was With God the Father Before the World Began
John 17:5 Jesus said, “Now, Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory I had with you before the world began.”
Jesus was with God the Father before the world began. He had the same glory as the Father had before the world began.
Paul wrote to the Colossians —Col. 1:17—“And he is before all things and by him all things (consist) are in being.”
Paul wrote to the Philippians—Phil. 2:6 —Paul is talking about Jesus “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation (he humbled himself) and took upon himself in form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”
Jesus was in the form of God. And then He came to earth in the form of man. He came as a servant (not a king or ruler). When Jesus said he was God, he did not think he was “robbing” God to say he was equal with God.
Jesus Is Made of the Same “Stuff” God Is Made Of
John 12: 44, 45 “Jesus said, ‘ He that believes on me, believes not on me, but on him that sent me, and he that sees me sees him that sent me.”
Jesus said, ” I and the Father are one.” John 10:30, see also, John 14:10 ,20, II John 17:11, 22, John 10: 38, John 14:10
John 12: 44, 45 “Jesus said, ’ He that believes on me, believes not on me, but he believes on him who sent me. And he the sees me, sees the one who sent me.”
Jesus is saying that God the Father and he are the same. If you believe in one, you believe in the other. If you see one, you see the other.
Where We Get the Idea of Trinity
I John 5:7 “For there are three who bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost (Spirit), and these three are one.” The “Word” is Jesus, see John 1:1 -5.
Christians through history have believed in the Trinity. The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. The word “Trinity” means 3 in 1. Christians have believed I John 5:7 that all three are one. They have believed that they are all God. They have believed that they are in some way we can not understand—-separate from the other—-yet they all have the same God power and knowledge. Jesus said, “If you see me, you see the Father.” Yet Jesus was on earth and prayed to the Father in heaven. And when Jesus was baptized in water, Jesus was in the river, God the Father spoke from heaven, and the Spirit of God came down on Jesus like a dove.
This is a mystery—-how God can be three and be one at the same time.
We can not understand it with our human minds. But just because we do not understand it—–does not mean it is not so. There are many things that we do not understand or even know about—-that are. Truth does not exist only if we understand it or know about it.
For years people believed the world was flat. That did not make the world flat because they did not know or understand.
The world was always round. When men got enough knowledge, they understood. Some day when we are in our eternal bodies, we may understand, too.
Is God the Father of Higher Rank (Leadership Office) than Jesus?
In John 14:28 Jesus speaks of the Father being greater than he (Jesus).
When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and was praying before they took him to the cross—-Jesus prayed to the Father and said, “Not my will, but your will be done.” Matthew 26:39, Mark 14:36,
In John 5: 30, Jesus said he did the Father’s will. There are many other places where Jesus speaks of doing the Father’s will.
In Mark13: 32, Jesus said that only God the Father knows when the heaven and earth will pass away.
Because of these verses above, church groups have said that Jesus is lesser than God the Father.
Jesus is not less powerful. The Holy Spirit is not less powerful. But it does seem that there is separate work that each one does.
Jesus said of the Holy Spirit—–“When the Spirit of Truth comes—-he will not speak of himself, but he will glorify me.” John 16:13, 14
The Holy Spirit does not draw attention to himself, but he draws people to Jesus, and Jesus points them to the Father.
This seems to make the Father at the top of the 3 “Beings” of God. These 3 “beings” —–having separate “work” to do—-still work together as one.
We do not fully understand how God is—-in three and yet one.
Christians believe them to be equal in essence (what they are made of), yet it does seem that they have separate work that they do.
The most important thing to believe is that Jesus is God. Jesus has the authority to judge men. Jesus has said in many places in the New Testament that he and he only is the only salvation for men. That we must believe in him and believe he rose from the dead, and we must confess our sins to him—- for us to be forgiven our sins and live in heaven.
There are many verses that tell us that Jesus is the only way to the Father and to heaven. The whole of the New Testament talks about this truth of Jesus being the only way to eternal life. Jesus said: “No man comes unto the Father but by me.” John 14:6
(See my lessons on Death of the Righteous and Unrighteous, Salvation Study, and What Happens to You When You Die)
When Jesus was here on earth, he put himself “under” the Father’s direction and will. Jesus while he was here on earth was in a human body and mind. He was limited in what he was able to do because of being in a human body. Because of this, he was “under” God the Father. Once he went back to heaven, he would have the glory he had before he came as a man. John 17:5
Jesus Has the Power to Judge Man and Decide if That Man Gets Eternal Life
John 5:22, 23 “The Father does not judge any man. He has given this authority and responsibility of judgment to the Son. That all men should honor the Son, (even as) in the same way they honor the Father. The person who will not honor the Son does not honor the Father which sent the Son.”
Jesus is to be honored in the same way that we honor God the Father. Jesus has the authority and responsibility to judge man. When people arrive in heaven and stand before God—it will be Jesus who will judge them.
John 17: 1 – 5 “Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and prayed, he said, ’Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you. You have given him power over all men, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given to him.
And this eternal life is that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
God has given Jesus the authority and power to decided who gets eternal life.
That depends on if those people have believed in the one true God and Jesus whom he sent.
Jesus Has the Power of Life in Himself
Jesus said, “For as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself.” John 5: 26
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believes in me, even though he is dead, yet he will live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11: 25, 26
When Jesus was about to go to the cross and be killed, he said, “No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it again. “( I give it up my life by my own power.),
In other words, men would not be the ones to decide to take away Jesus’ life.
Jesus would decide himself he would allow himself to be killed, and he would give up his spirit. And in 3 days he would take up his life again. John 10:18
When Jesus was on the cross, he said, “Father into your hands I commend (give) my spirit: and having said that, he gave up his spirit.” John 19: 30, Luke 23:46, Mark 15: 37
Only God has the power of life. Jesus said that he had power to lay down his life and power to take it up again. Jesus has God power.