Pastor Larry Sundin, Rock Springs Church
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes this statement, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg—or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”
When you look at how the gospels described Jesus, all of them revealed Jesus as something far more than a mortal man. When John introduced Jesus, he described him this way: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14. This is one of the most comprehensive descriptions of Jesus. Jesus is the very expression of God. The fact that John uses “the Word” to identify Jesus tells us why Jesus came to be with us. For the term “word” points to the truth that it is the very nature of God to reveal Himself. A person’s word is the means whereby he reveals what he is thinking. So, “the Word” is God’s thoughts revealed to us in human form. God is not indifferent to us. He has chosen to reveal Himself to us. But He reveals Himself as He chooses. And He chose to reveal Himself to us through Jesus.
Hebrews explains Jesus as the Word of God this way: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word”( Hebrews 1:3.) In other words, when you look at Jesus, you see exactly what God is like. He is the beauty of God’s goodness personified. He is the fountain of God’s wisdom. He is the source of life and love. Everything of God radiates from Jesus. You don’t see 99% of what God is like, you see all who God is in Jesus. For as the Word, Jesus is the human face of God.
Next, we see that “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” And when Jesus did this, He did not become any less divine. When He was born, He was not part man and part God; He was completely human and completely divine. What that means is that once Jesus took on flesh; there would be no going back. Jesus is now and forever God in the flesh, and He is now and forever just like us. As a result, there are two amazing truths that apply to us. First, Jesus knows what it’s like to be you. He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, weak and tempted. He faced betrayal, abandonment and rejection. He shared in every aspect of our human plight. Second, Jesus was able to become our sin offering. His coming made it possible for Jesus to offer himself to die in our place and to take the punishment our sins deserve. That’s the good news of the gospel. Jesus took on flesh so He could take away our sin. But that’s just a fraction of all the good news found in Jesus. That’s why this fall we are digging into the letter of Colossians, so we might learn more of who Jesus is. Perhaps you’d like to join us, as we gather to worship together every Sunday at 9 a.m. in the ballroom. And then maybe you can make your choice as to who you say Jesus is.