CHRISTOLOGY
The Study of
the Doctrine of Christ
(Five Sessions)
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Session One: JESUS, THE WORD
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PURPOSE
OF SESSION
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To
come to know Jesus as the Word of God, the revelation by which man comes
to experience God.
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EMPHASIS
OF SESSION
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Coming
to know God in this earthly realm means that man must experience the
Christ--experience Jesus intimately as the breath and heartbeat of his
life.
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Introduction
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I
am a Christian.
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I am of the persuasion
that God, the essence of all that is, came down to the material
world in the form of a man.
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In doing so, he
revealed himself on the physical, as opposed to the spiritual,
realm.
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By this self-imposed
disclosure, he made himself known in the earthly, as opposed to
the heavenly, domain.
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God took on the robe
of flesh that all flesh might experience (to know) the God who
is the Creator of all things.
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Since
I am a Christian, I believe the ultimate expression of God coming down
to the material world occurred in a man we now know as Jesus of
Nazareth.
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Born of humble origins
over 2,000 years ago, he spent the days of his life virtually
unknown by the world of his generation.
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His simple life was
brought to a climatic end when he was put to death like a common
criminal.
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Then, the miracle of
miracles occurred--He was resurrected from the dead and ascended
back to heaven, beyond the earthly domain. |
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The
man Jesus, his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, is the
ultimate revelation of God to the physical, earthly realm.
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He is the Christ--the
anointed One, the means by which the created universe
experiences God.
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He is the ultimate
expression of God in the world.
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f I
am to know God and his ways in this earthly realm, I must experience the
Christ.
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I I must come to know
Jesus intimately.
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The Expression of God
must become my breath and my heartbeat--my all in all.
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I
believe experiencing Jesus brings all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge of the ways of God.
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What
he says is always consistent with the nature of his being, his
words can be trusted.
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They reveal all the
essence of an infinite God that can be comprehended by a finite
mind. His expression is defined as the words of eternal life.
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Although
he never transcribed a single word of his sayings, his words have been
recorded that people of every age may hear.
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Even though he never
printed a single page of his teachings, his proclamations were
soon written to be kept for following generations to read.
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While he lived and
died in an inconspicious place, the life and times of Jesus have
been uniquely preserved for all peoples and for all times.
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In
the following twenty-nine sessions, we will examine the words of Jesus
in the customary divisions of systematic theology.
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Christology--the study
of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
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Theology Proper--the
study of the existence and the nature of the Divine Being.
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Pneumatology--the
study of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
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Anthropology--the
study of the doctrine of man.
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Soteriology--the study
of the doctrine of salvation.
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Ecclesiology--the
study of the doctrine of the church.
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Eshcatology--the study
of the doctrine of the last days.
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Although
these fully developed doctrines as we know them today have come down to
us from the study of the Bible by man, the essence of all Biblical
truths can be found in the life and the teachings of Jesus.
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Even though it is
impossible to take man entirely out of the equation (for it is
always a man who receives the teachings of Jesus in the light of
his own mind), these twenty-nine sessions will attempt to
examine the words of Jesus from a fresh vantage point.
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In these
sessions, we will attempt to view not what man has come to say
about these doctrines down through the church age, but what
Jesus has given us in his life and in his words.
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I
pray that each of you who participates in these sessions will be able to
hear Jesus yourself as I share my understanding of the words of
Jesus.
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The uniqueness of
coming to understand the basic tenets of Christianity is that
the expression of Jesus, and only the expression of Jesus, will
enable you to experience God, the Divine Being of everything.
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Knowing Jesus,
experiencing Jesus, is the essence of all wisdom and knowledge.
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Listen
to CD 1
(Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in John 6:23-67)
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Order
Basic Bible Beliefs Part One Now
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| Return
to Basic Bible Beliefs Part One |
Session Two: JESUS, THE CHRIST
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PURPOSE
OF SESSION
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To
come to know Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one in whom creation
lives, moves, and has its being.
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EMPHASIS
OF SESSION
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The
Son of God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ with full power
and authority to be the essence of life for all creation.
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Introduction
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In
one of the most dynamic verses in all the Bible, John opens his gospel
with, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God."
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John is simply stating that the Word has
always existed with God.
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Not only existing with God but the Word also
from the beginning was God.
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Then, thirteen verses later, John states,
"And the Word was made 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."
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Finally, John closes his book by stating that it
was written that the readers "might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God . . . ."
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John uses specific terminology to explain this special relationship that
Jesus of Nazareth had with God.
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In verse fourteen of Chapter 1, John
calls the Word ". . . the only begotten of the Father."
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In
verse eighteen of the same chapter, he calls the Word, ". . . the
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father . . . ."
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In
John 3:16, he states, ". . . God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son . . . ." In John 3:18, John proclaims Jesus
to be ". . . the only begotten Son of God."
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The Word of God reveals three different kinds of sons of God.
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Luke 3:38
states that Adam was the son of God--it was sonship by creation.
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Romans
8:14,15 proclaims, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption"--it is
sonship by adoption.
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Finally, John called the Word, ". . . the only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father--t is sonship by
begottenness.
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Jesus
Christ is eternally in the "bosom of the Father."
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He
is not the Son of God because he was created like Adam.
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He
is not the son of God because he was adopted like believers who are led
of the Spirit.
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He
is the Son of God because he is the same
essence as God.
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John uses the term begotten to state that the Son is the same essence as
his Father yet does not use the term to imply that the son ever
experienced a birth.
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Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had no beginning.
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He is always the same nature as
God--"In the beginning was the Word, and Word was
with God, and the Word was God."
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He was begotten of God
by a birth that never took place.
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The first fourteen verses of John reveal the power and the glory of
Jesus Christ.
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The eternal existence of the Word, from everlasting to
everlasting, (verse one) was made flesh.
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The natural union of the Father
and the Son, a union not by birth, not by creation, not by adoption,
(verse two) was made flesh.
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The absolute deity of the Son, the power,
the originator of all creation, (verse three) was made flesh.
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The life
and light of men, quenching the imperfect lights of the Old Testament,
(verses 4-9) was made flesh.
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The power and the authority to grant
eternal life, sons of God not of natural descent, not of human decision,
not of a husband’s will, but born of God, was made flesh.
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John is
saying with all the profoundness of the truth itself that the eternal
Son of God, the Creator of all the universe, the true light, the giver
of eternal life was made flesh.
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John proclaimed He "dwelt among
us" as Jesus of Nazareth--the Christ.
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"What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He?" is the critical
question of theology and life.
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It is a question that Jesus Himself
raised to a group of Pharisees.
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The Pharisees answered Jesus with their
usual shallowness.
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They responded, "The Son of David."
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To which, Jesus said, "How then doth David in spirit call him Lord,
saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I
make thine enemies thy footstool?"
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Jesus then added, "If David
then call him Lord, how is he his son?" The gospel writer then
recorded, "And no man was able to answer him a word . . . ."
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The nature of Jesus, the Christ, is a truth that cannot be comprehended
by man’s logic or reason.
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It is a truth produced only by the
revelation of God through Jesus Christ Himself.
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Listen
to CD 2
(Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in John 8:12-59)
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Order
Basic Bible Beliefs Part One Now
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| Return
to Basic Bible Beliefs Part One |
Session Three: JESUS, THE PERSON
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PURPOSE
OF SESSION
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To come to know
that Jesus of Nazareth was totally God and totally man, yet He did not
have two personalities.
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EMPHASIS
OF SESSION
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The two natures
of Jesus (divine and human) united in one person was the belief and the
message of the early followers of Jesus.
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Introduction
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When it comes to the person
of Jesus, there are three key basic truths.
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His divine nature is not lacking
in any of the essential qualities of deity.
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His human nature is not
lacking in any of the essential qualities of humanness.
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Jesus does not
have two personalities--he is one person.
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In the letter to the Romans, Paul refers to both natures of Jesus but
also refers to them as one person.
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Totally God,
totally human, but one person.
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To the Romans, Paul wrote, "Concerning his Son
Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to
the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to
the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."
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In his Philippian
letter, Paul wrote concerning
Jesus, "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God." Jesus is fully God.
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Then, Paul added, "But
made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men."
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John simply stated, "And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
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The deity, the humanness, and the oneness of Jesus are the three key
basic truths of the person of Jesus.
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The revelation of God reveals that Jesus of Nazareth is God.
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The revelation of God reveals Jesus of
Nazareth is man.
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The two natures (divine and human) unite in one person.
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The deity of Jesus was readily accepted by the early followers of Jesus.
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Paul wrote to the Romans, "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God
called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the
Lord Jesus Christ."
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To the Philippian saints he stated, ". . .
Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be
equal with God."
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In the Colossian letter, he penned, "Beware
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily."
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John wrote his entire gospel to declare "that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God."
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He also stated, "And we have seen and do
testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in
him, and he in God."
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Finally, John added, "Who is a liar but
he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-christ, that
denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath
not the Father."
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Jesus is totally God with all the perfections and attributes of God.
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Paul stated, ". . . in him dwelleth all the fulness of
the Godhead bodily."
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When the Son of God became "tabernacled"
in the flesh (the birth of Jesus), He did not lose or set-aside any
aspect of deity.
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John wrote, ". . . 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"--Jesus is
omniscient.
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John also recorded the words of Jesus when He said,
"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from
heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven"--Jesus is
omnipresent.
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The prophet Micah proclaimed, "But thou, Bethlehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose
goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting"--the Son of
God tabernacled in the human flesh is eternal.
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Jesus of Nazareth was not only totally God, but He was also totally
human.
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Jesus
called Himself a man when He stated, ". . . ye seek to kill me, a
man that hath told you the truth . . . ."
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Paul wrote to Timothy
that ". . . God was manifest in the flesh . . . ."
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John also
stated that the Son of God "dwelt" in the flesh.
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The total humanness of Jesus was subject to human development, wants,
and suffering.
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Luke records, "And the child grew, and waxed strong
in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him."
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Luke also stated, "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and
in favour with God and man."
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The writer of Hebrews wrote that Jesus
suffered. Matthew recorded that Jesus became hungry, needed sleep, and
felt compassion.
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John also revealed the humanness of Jesus when he wrote
that Jesus became wearied, wept, became troubled, and thirsted.
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Jesus of
Nazareth experienced all the development and limitations of humanness.
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Jesus
of Nazareth was totally God and totally man with two natures in one
person.
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Paul declared to the Romans, "Concerning his Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."
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Listen
to CD 3
(Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in John 8:12-59)
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Order
Basic Bible Beliefs Part One Now
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| Return
to Basic Bible Beliefs Part One |
Session Four: JESUS, THE LIFE
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PURPOSE OF SESSION
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To come to know the humility and the
humiliation of Jesus Christ in His birth, His life, and His death.
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EMPHASIS OF SESSION
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Jesus Christ was born of humble origins,
lived His life in abasement, and died by the degrading death of
crucifixion that man might be exalted.
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Introduction
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The life of Jesus Christ serves as the example of perfect
humbleness.
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The Son of God, whom we
know as the Second Person of the Trinity, left the glory world and
became flesh that man might experience what it means to be a son of God.
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He who was worthy to be worshiped by the host of heaven willingly became
as one who must worship.
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He was willing to become a man (born as a man,
live as a man, and die as a man) in order that men might be redeemed.
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Jesus Christ came into the material world to do the will of the Father
and to do that will in the power of the Holy Spirit.
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He humbled Himself
to the Father and to the Spirit to be the one mediator between God and
man.
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The virgin birth of Jesus begins the story of the greatest act of
humility ever witnessed by man.
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With Jesus of Nazareth being totally God
and totally man, the human person of Jesus did not exist until the union
of the Divine and the human in his birth.
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According to John, the divine
Word who possessed a divine nature from everlasting to everlasting
assumed a human nature when He became flesh.
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Jesus became a fact of
history when the pre-existent Son of God assumed human nature and took
upon Himself a flesh and blood body.
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The person of Jesus began with His
conception in the womb of the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy
Spirit.
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Isaiah had prophesied that ". . . the
Lord himself shall give [Israel] a sign; Behold, a virgin [a young
woman] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel."
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When Joseph became concerned that his wife to be was "found with
child," he did not know what to do with her.
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Should he "put
her away privily?"
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The
angel of the Lord answered his question:
". . . fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife . . . ."
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Then,
the angel informed Joseph that this child to be born of Mary was in
fulfillment of prophecy.
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The angel interpreted what the name Immanuel
meant, "God with us."
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It is what John meant when he wrote,
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
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The Word of
God, the Son of God, assumed human flesh and now has both natures.
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The miracle of the virgin birth is both divine and human.
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The conception
of Jesus was supernatural.
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After the supernatural conception, the
development of the impregnated egg of Mary was entirely natural.
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Jesus
of Nazareth was conceived supernaturally but developed naturally.
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When the egg of Mary was supernaturally impregnated by the power of the
Holy Spirit, the person of Jesus became a reality.
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The union of the
divine Word with a human nature became a fact of history.
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The ultimate
expression of God now dwelling with man had occurred.
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The personality of Jesus would become the seat of the union, the point
of contact, between the two natures.
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Since Paul stated, "For there
is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus," the Son of God would take on this humanity for eternity.
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The man Jesus had a beginning in His virgin birth, but He will have no
ending.
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Perhaps, the greatest truth in the entire Bible is that the Son
of God left the glory world to dwell in the tabernacle of flesh not just
for a few short years but for the rest of eternity:
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"And I John saw
the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice
out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself
shall be with them, and be their God."
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Jesus not only experience humility in his
birth, he also
endured humiliation throughout His life.
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The Son of God did not hold on
to the state of exaltation He experienced in heaven.
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He willingly
emptied Himself out of that glory and took on the role of a slave.
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He
did not live his earthly life in the state of exaltation but in the
state of humiliation.
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The Son of God came as a servant--Jesus functioned in his earthly life
in a creaturely dependency.
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He did not live His life in the power of the
Second Person of the Trinity, a power that was His because of His deity.
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He lived only in the power of the Third Person of the Trinity.
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All that
Jesus of Nazareth did in his entire earthly existence was in submission
to the will of the Father and in submission to the power of the Holy
Spirit.
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The final act of humility in the life of Jesus was His submission to
death.
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In submitting to the will of the
Father and to the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus became obedient to the
most cruel death ever devised by man--death by the cross.
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When
approaching that death, His prayer became ". . . not my will, but
thine, be done."
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The Son of God, clothed in human flesh,
experienced the death reserved for common criminals.
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The humiliation of Christ is the greatest story ever told.
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It is the
cosmic saga of history because He had the power to change the script.
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Suffering as none has ever suffered--born of humble origins, lived His
life in abasement, and died by the degrading death of crucifixion, He
nevertheless willingly gave his life.
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He was humbled that you and I
might be exalted.
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Listen to CD 4
Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in John 10:1-42)
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Order
Basic Bible Beliefs Part One Now
|
| Return
to Basic Bible Beliefs Part One |
Session Five: JESUS, THE RESURRECTION
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PURPOSE OF SESSION
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To come to know that the distinguishing mark
that separates Christianity from all other belief systems is the belief
of the resurrection of the physical body.
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EMPHASIS OF SESSION
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As the entire creation responds to the death
of the seed by the resurrection of new life, the believer in Jesus
Christ has the eternal hope of life always coming out of death.
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Introduction
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The mystery of life.
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With every morning, there
is a new day.
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With every spring, there are the fresh buds of the flower.
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With every planting of a seed, there is the beginning of new fruit.
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With
every forgiveness, there is anticipated love.
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God has begotten his world
again unto a living hope.
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The distinguishing mark that separates Christianity from all other
belief systems is the resurrection of the physical body.
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Many believe in
some form of the reincarnation of the soul.
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Many Christians even believe
that the soul is trapped within the body and ultimate salvation occurs
only when the soul is finally set free from the body.
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The basic tenets
of Christianity, however, declare that the body was created by God to
house the soul of man eternally.
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The resurrection of the body is crucial
to what it means to be Christian in the light of the words of Jesus.
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Death and resurrection is the fact of every
created existence.
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Plant a tomato seed in the ground.
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The outer casing or husk
of the seed must rot or decay before the essence of life within the seed
can come forth with tender sprouts of life.
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One pushes up through the
ground seeking the light of the sun and another one pushing into the
soil seeking water and nutrients.
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Without this struggle for light and
water, it does not survive.
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Eventually, the essence of the seed comes forth from the earth into the
heaven producing a full grown tomato plant.
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Hanging on the branches of
the plant are fully developed tomatoes--they are the physical glory of
the tomato plant.
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The mature tomatoes are the fullest possible
manifestation of life the tomato plant can experience.
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This
process is what it means to be a
created entity.
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Experiencing the eternal glory. |
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Within each tomato are many seeds which contains within each of the seed
the same life
that was in the seed that was planted in the ground to start the cycle
of life.
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The new seed is the new body of the life that resides within
the seed.
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Although individual tomato plants with their tomatoes live and
die, the essence of life within the seed is eternal.
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This resurrection of the body is crucial to experiencing life as a
Christian--it is the eternal
glory to which we have been called.
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God will not suffer His Holy One to see corruption.
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Every time the seed
(the outward manifestation of anything that has the essence of life
within) falls to the ground and dies, it will bring forth abundant life.
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As Jesus stated, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24).
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It brings forth fruit
because the life within is eternal; it never dies.
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Every person has been called unto this eternal glory.
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The mystery of this
glory is seen in God’s statement to Noah after the great flood:
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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease"
(Gen. 8:22).
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His eternal glory is that which flows through the seedtime
and harvest, through the cold and heat, through the summer and winter,
and through the day and night.
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Understanding the mystery of the
resurrection.
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The Spirit of life--the Spirit that raised
Jesus from the dead is the hope of eternal glory.
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It is not the actual seedtime or the actual harvest because both the
planting of the seed and the harvest of the fruit will perish.
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As Peter
stated, "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof
falleth away" (1 Peter 1:24).
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The manifestation of the bloom of the rose, the fruit of the tomato, the
love of a human relationship is definitely glorious
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Each is produced by
God, but the glorious moment for each of them will eventually fall away
to be resurrected again and again.
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For His eternal glory is not the rose
or the rose bush, nor the tomato or the tomato plant, nor the love
relationship of the human beings.
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It is that which produces them, the
Spirit of life.
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There will be many plantings of the external manifestation or fruit of
life in our journey through this world and each planting (the process by
which the outward man perishes) always brings forth the harvest (the
renewing of the inner essence of life).
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Knowing that Jesus Christ was
raised from his seedtime, we can be begotten again unto a living hope.
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In the midst of the distress of things dying, we can greatly rejoice for
we know the harvest is coming.
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We will be kept by the power of God
through faith unto the salvation of our souls.
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We will be kept because
Jesus lives--resurrected from the dead.
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Listen to CD 5
Approximately Forty-Five Minutes of Exposition
on the Words of Jesus Found in 12:20-36)
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Basic Bible Beliefs Part One Now
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