‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
77th teaching
6.16.2014
“Christology from
Above”
Review:
So we just finished the first
section of our study in Christology, which we called “the Identity of Christ”.
Our introduction gave us a starting point for answering the central question of
Christology: “Who is Jesus Christ?” In beginning to answer that question, our
introduction based itself largely on the structure of the Tetralemma, the
four-part problem which poses that Jesus was either a Liar, a Lunatic, a Legend
or the Lord. We considered such topics as the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth,
any correlations between Jesus and other ancient religions, and exactly how the
Bible describes Jesus as the Son of God.
Last time we met, we addressed a topic that served
as a bridge between the introduction, “the Identity of Christ”, and our second
section in Christology: which we’ll call “the Nature of Christ”. What was our
topic from last time? This topic reminded us that Christology is a unique
science, in that its subject (Jesus) is both the center of the study and the moral example by which we ought
to live our lives, the goal we ought to strive toward. And so we discussed
three keywords that have to do with salvation, three keywords that describe
different aspects of salvation. What were they? Which of these three words
describes what we talked about in becoming more like Christ? The title of the
last study, “Restoring the Image”, illustrated that becoming more like Christ
is sort of like restoring a ruined piece of art, since we were once created in
the image of God, which sin then corrupted, though now we are being transformed
into His image through the process we call sanctification.
End
of Review
We’re
going to dive right in to this second section of Christology. The first part
was “the Identity of Christ”. The second part is called “the Nature of Christ”.
What do we mean when we say the nature of Christ? The word nature we most often use to refer to
outdoor-stuff: trees, rocks, mountains, rivers, animals, storms, etc. But when
we use the word nature here, we’re
talking about the basic features and the characteristics of Jesus Christ. The
Nature of Christ is a section mostly concerned with the Deity and the Humanity
of Christ, what’s known as His dual natures. There’s a whole sub-section then
of Christology devoted to Christ’s Nature, because He has two of them, a
God-nature or divine characteristics and qualities and a human-nature or human characteristics and qualities. To
borrow other phrases from our studies in the past, Jesus Christ has physical
qualities (such as real, physical human beings have) and also metaphysical
qualities (that is, qualities and characteristics beyond the physical and into
the supernatural).
So in this second section, “the Nature
of Christ”, we’re going to learn about the two natures of Christ: His Deity and
His humanity. Tonight’s study is
entitled: “Christology from Above”. Perhaps that gives you an idea of which of
the two natures we’re going to discuss first.
I’ll
explain what our title for tonight means in a moment, but first turn to Titus 2. There are passages everywhere
in the Bible that point to the nature of Jesus Christ, and one of the clearest
of them is found here in Titus 2.
It’s a short chapter, so let’s read through the whole thing.
Paul begins this chapter by giving
some structure for the Christian life, first to the older men and women, and
then to the young men and then to servants.
2:1-15,
“But as for you, speak the things which
are proper for sound doctrines: that the older men be sober, reverent,
temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that
they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers
of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to
love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to
their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise,
exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a
pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence,
incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an
opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. Exhort bondservants
[those of you with jobs] to be
obedient to their masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering
back, not thieving, but showing all good honesty, that they may adorn the
doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
“For the grace of God that brings salvation
has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking
for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus
Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless
deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
Speak these things, encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise
you.”
The key verse for our study tonight is
v.13, where Jesus Christ is
identified as the great God and
Savior. Many have attempted to deny that Jesus is God by saying that the Bible
never makes such a claim. Clearly it does. And there are many other references
to Jesus being God, as we shall see tonight.
Pastor Alistair Begg: “What do we do
with this man: Jesus? If He is not the Son of God and Savior of mankind, then
let us get down to the bitter business of adjusting to a grim and hopeless
world. If He is, then let us give Him the full measure of our loyalty and our
love.”
This is a huge issue. Talking about
the Deity of Christ and believing this basic doctrine of Christianity is
massive. If this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, who lived in 1st century
Palestine, who had a brief traveling ministry and who was crucified at age 33,
is not the Son of God, co-equal with God, the Lord Himself in the flesh, then
at best He is truly dead, and has been dead for many centuries, joining the
company of other merely moral teachers who said good things to live by, but who
have no power to help us or save us.
If Jesus was just such an ordinary
Man, admittedly a good man but merely a man, then as we heard quoted: There’s
nothing for it but to get on with adjusting to a grim and hopeless world, one
in which there is no comfort or salvation or light at the end of the tunnel,
where human existence is a brief and meaningless accident in the span of a
hostile and uncaring universe, where you’ll die in ultimate obscurity and be
forgotten in the passing of a few years.
But if Jesus was more than just a man, if He was and is the God-made-man, then that
changes everything. All of history, all the universe, all of human life
suddenly gains hope, meaning, destiny, pointedness and purpose, and the great
God and Savior Jesus Christ deserves the full measure of our attentions, our
loyalty and our love.
So don’t miss how absolutely huge this
is. If Jesus was not God, then all of Christianity is a sham and it, and with
it all of our existence, falls apart and becomes worthless. But if Jesus is
God, then we can sit down as we are and discuss how this God became flesh and
dwelt among us and died for us and redeemed us and gives us purpose to live for
His glory.
Here are our points for tonight:
1. What is Christology from Above?
2. Discovering the Deity of Christ
3. The Claims of Christ
4. The Attributes of God
5. The Deity of Self
1.
What is Christology from Above?
In the past, great theologians and
students of the Word have wrestled with Christology: how to create a structure
for studying it, what subjects to include in it, what is orthodox and what is
heresy, or where to begin in studying Christology? How does one approach such a
subject, vast and transcendent in its content?
So then two different approaches
developed, two ways to approach the study of Christ and these are known as
“Christology from Above” and “Christology from Below”, high Christology and low
Christology. They helped provide some guidance on where to begin a study of
Christ, how to approach this great subject.
For example, Christology from Below,
low Christology, is an approach that begins by considering Jesus’ human aspects
and nature first, His life on earth, His miracles and parables and teachings
and death and all that He did, before moving on to His deity and the
incarnation that brought human and divine together. So Christology from Below
starts with Jesus’ humanity and arrives at Jesus’ divinity, it starts with His
life and actions and ends with His supernatural nature. It takes the study to
the human life of Jesus and then interprets and understands His divinity based
on that.
Christology from Above, or high
Christology, is exactly the opposite. This approach to the study begins with
the Deity of Christ and His pre-existence as the Logos (the Word) before His incarnation and human life on
earth. Jesus’ life and action, then, are interpreted and understood based on
His divine nature primarily. Christology from Above, it seems to me, considers
His Divine identity and then interprets His actions, whereas Christology from
Below considers His humanity and actions and then interprets them as pointing
to His divinity.
Both approaches are fine, I think. I
would only maybe give Christology from Above the upper hand and say it is the
better of the two because it begins with Christ’s first nature and works
forward, rather than His second nature and working backward to the first as in
the case with Christology from Below.
What’s more, apparently Christology
from Above was the prevailing understanding of Jesus Christ in the early church
and throughout a large portion of church history, with men such as the first
century Christian Ignatius of Antioch and on into the middle ages to Thomas
Aquinas who first systematized Christology with an emphasis on His deity first
then humanity second.
As our title indicates, we’re taking
the high road rather than the low road, Christology from Above this week and
then Christology from Below next time. Both Jesus’ Deity and His Humanity will
be considered, but you’ve got to start somewhere so we’re starting with the
classic approach, the original approach that the early church knew and
understood: Christology from Above.
It is important that we consider both
approaches. We’ve often seen how there’s balance to the doctrines of the Bible
and a harmonious balance in God Himself. None of God’s attributes fight for
space or are more important and more prominent than His other attributes,
rather they each form a perfect network and harmony within Him. So too, we’ve
discussed how the biblical portrayal of Jesus Christ is a balanced one: He is
both Lover and Lord, Redeemer and Judge, Lion and Lamb.
With these Christological approaches,
there’s a danger if we do not use a balance of them, since both approaches, the
high and the low, have weaknesses to them.
For example, if we focus too much on
Christology from Above to the exclusion of His humanity than we can undermine the fact that He was a
real Man and end up in the early heresies that believed Jesus was just a spirit
or a ghost. Contrariwise, focusing too much on Christology from Below to the
exclusion of His deity might mean that we join the world in saying that He was
merely a good moral teacher and that some extrapolation and corruption made its
way into the Bible, adding words to
Jesus that seem to make it appear as if He is God, when we can’t really know
that, we can’t really believe He is the same as God, He was just a Man.
There needs to be a balance of both
approaches. You need both John’s gospel and Luke’s gospel. John emphasizes
Christ’s deity and Luke emphasizes Christ’s humanity. Both views are there. The
Bible contains a balanced portrayal of Jesus.
2.
Discovering the Deity of Christ
So earlier I said to myself, “Self,
you could just give them a bunch of verses and chapters proving the Deity of
Christ through the Bible… or you could let them search and discover for
themselves!” As Bill Nye the Science Guy recently pointed out in the debate
with Ken Ham, there is a joy in discovering new things. Of course he was
talking about science, but I suggest to you that discovery is just as joyful
and just as possible in the field of science we call Christology.
What we’re going to do then is a group
exercise: Let’s split into two groups. Each group will take the same chapter in
the Bible and see how many times this chapter points out that Jesus is God.
You’ll need to use your time wisely and discuss possible references as a group.
Use your reasoning and look carefully for direct and indirect references to
Christ’s deity. Look out for different ways that the verses express the same
idea of Jesus’ deity. You’ll have a bit of time to complete the exercise. At
the end of the exercise, the groups will take turns revealing their discoveries
and the group that discovered the most references to deity wins.
Turn to John chapter one. The prologue to John’s gospel is the classic
passage on the incarnation, the pre-existence and the deity of Christ. This is
a prime field to search through for references.
Now this is your chance to read for
yourself, employ your mind to understand and interpret for yourself, and see
what you can see rather than merely allow a teacher to tell you what’s there
and what isn’t. Begin by reading through the chapter together as a group and
then start to write down your list of references to deity. (START)
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without
Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light
of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
comprehend it.
“There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to
bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that
Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light
which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and
the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His
own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He
gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God.
“And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness
of Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after
me is preferred before me, for He was before me’. And of His fullness we have
all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The
only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
“Now this is the testimony of John, when the
Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He
confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’ And they
asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the
Prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No’. Then they said to him, ‘Who are you, that we
may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?’ He
said: ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: make straight the way of
the LORD,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.’ Now these who were sent were from the
Pharisees. And they asked him, saying, ‘Why then do you baptize if you are not
the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?’ John answered them, saying, “I
baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. It is
He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not
worthy to loose.’ These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where
John was baptizing.
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him,
and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is
He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was
before me.’ I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel,
therefore I came baptizing with water.’ And John bore witness, saying, ‘I saw
the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did
not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom
you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes
with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of
God.
“Again, the next day, John stood with two of
his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of
God!’ The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus
turned, and seeing them following, said to them, ‘What do you seek?’ They said
to Him, ‘Rabbi’ (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), ‘where are You
staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where He was
staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour). One
of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s
brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, ‘We have found
the Messiah’ (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.
Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, ‘You are Simon the son of Jonah. You
shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone).
“The following day Jesus wanted to go to
Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him ‘Follow Me’. Now Philip was from
Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to
him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ And Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good
come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see’. Jesus saw Nathanael
coming toward Him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no
deceit!’ Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do You know me?’ Jesus answered and said
to him, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw
you.’ Nathanael answered and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You
are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Because I said to
you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree’, do you believe? You will see greater
things than these.’ And He said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you,
hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man.”
So what I think this illustrates is
that there’s more to each passage than meets the eye, and a careful reading of
familiar verses can still yield new discoveries.
We’re going to stop here and continue
on our study next week with: the claims of Christ, the attributes of God and
the final point, the deity of Self. However, something I can’t pass up is this
perfect opportunity to bring back “Project Scriptura”. As mentioned, one of the
points we’ll take up next week is on the attributes of God, specifically how
the attributes we’ve studied recently are seen not only in God but also in His
Son Jesus Christ. Clearly, that’s an indication that Jesus and God are the same
if they share the same attributes, both the communicable and the non-communicable attributes, those God
doesn’t share with His creatures.
So the task for Project Scriptura for
next week is to find one verse which shows Jesus demonstrating one of the
attributes of God. Have fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment