The Christ of the Bible

The subject that we are about to investigate and upon which we are to reflect is, The Christ of the Bible: the Christ of the Bible as distinguished from many of the popular representations of the Christ in our present day, and as distinguished from many of the representations of the Christ in our pulpits, and by not a few of our professors in the theological classes in our universities and in our theological seminaries.

It cannot be denied by any one who has any large knowledge of the teaching of God’s Word regarding the Christ whom God has anointed and sent into the world, and who is coming back some day to take the reins of government out of the hands of emperors and kings and presidents and soviets, and all other rulers, that the Christ set before us so clearly in the Word of God, the true Christ, the only real Christ, God’s own Christ, Christ Jesus, is far different from

the Christ of many of our modern romancers and poets, and sociologists and moralists and popular preachers, and even of many of our theologians, theologians sometimes in supposedly orthodox seminaries.

We are to study the actual Christ of this Book, not the Christ that we would like to have or love to dream of, but the Christ that really IS. The Bible is one of the easiest books in the world to understand if men really wish to understand it and to find out what it actually teaches, and do not wish to read into it their own notions and speculations. It is sometimes said that “you can make the Bible mean almost anything.” Yes, you can, but the question is not what you can make it mean, but what God intended it to mean, and that is easy enough to find out provided you wish to find out and will get right down to hard, honest, earnest investigation. That is exactly what we shall endeavor to do under the illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit Himself, the real author of the book, Whose guidance God has promised to all those whose wills and minds are fully surrendered to him to discover and do His will. (Jno. 7:17; Acts 5:32; Jno. 14: 15-26; 16: 7-13.)

The particular subject of this chapter is: “The Christ of the Bible: Is He God?”

This question about Christ, Is He God, is the most fundamental of all questions concerning Christ. If two persons are agreed about Christ at this point, agreed that He really is God, they can have fellowship together, though they may differ widely from one another upon many questions of quite secondary importance; e.g., the question, “When Christ is Coming Back to the Earth to Reign,” and the minute de-PEE GHRISTsOR DHE: BIBLE 13

tails regarding His return. But if two really intelligent and earnest-minded persons are disagreed upon this point, if one believes that Christ is God and the other is equally confident that He is not God, how can there by any possibility be any true fellowship either in worship, in prayer or in anything that can properly be called “Christian work’? For if the one who denies that Christ is God is right, then the one who believes that He is and worships Him as such, is an idolator. And on the other hand, if the one who believes that Christ is God, is right, the one who denies that He is God is a blasphemer and is robbing God of the Faith and Honor and Worship which are His due.

“Is the Christ of the Bible, Jesus Christ, God?” This question is answered in the most unmistakable terms in the Bible.

I. ALL THE DISTINCTIVE ATTRIBUTES OF DEITY ARE ASCRIBED TO HIM IN THE BIBLE.

In the first place, We note that all the distinctive attributes of Deity are ascribed to Jesus, the Christ, in the Bible. What are the distinctive attributes of Deity; that is to say, what are the attributes God possesses and no one but God possesses? Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Eternity, Immutability. Now all these distinctively divine attributes are ascribed to Jesus Christ in the Bible. It would take many pages to give all the passages with any fullness, but I can give you enough in a few pages to abundantly prove the point.

1. First of all, Ommnipotence is ascribed to Jesus Christ. Read Eph. 1: 20-23: “Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his. right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all incally We are here told that Christ is now far above all principalities, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come — and that all things are in subjection under His feet. Even all the hierarchies of the angelic world are under Him. In these words we have the plainest possible declaration of omnipotence. In other passages which I will not take time to quote, we are told that Jesus, even during His earthly life, had power over disease, that it was subject to His word; that He had power over death, that it was subject to His word; that He had power over the winds and the sea, that they were subject to His word; that He had power over demons, that they were subject to His word — and in the passage just quoted from the Epistle to the Ephesians we are told that He had power over all things, that “all things’ were put “in subjection under His feet.”

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Now read Heb. 1:3:

“Who being the effulgence of his (God’s) glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Here we are told that the Son of God, the Christ of God, upholds all things by the Word of His power. So we can say without the slightest hesitation that Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, is Omnipotent.

2. In the second place, The Christ of the Bible ts Omniscient. ‘There are again a multitude of passages clearly showing this, but we will look at only three.

(1) Look first at Jno. 2:24, 25:

“But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.”

Here we are told that Jesus knew all men, and in various passages in the Gospels, we are told that Jesus, even during His earthly life, knew the secret thoughts of men. Now in II Chron. 6: 30 we read:

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