The Christ of the Bible: Is the Christ of the Bible God?
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.”
LHe GHRISE OR THE: BIBLE 15
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:
“Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive, and render unto every man according to all his ways, whose heart thou knowest (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of the children of men).
Here we are distinctly told that there is only One Being in the universe who knows the hearts of the children of men, and that is God — but we are just as distinctly told in the passage that we have just read in the Gospel of John, that Jesus knows the hearts of all men. So the inference is inescapable, that Jesus, the Christ of God, was Himself God.
(2) Now look at Jno. 16: 30:
“Now know we that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee?’
Here is a distinct declaration that Jesus’ disciples made and that Jesus Himself accepted as true, that our Lord Jesus knows all things — that He is Omniscient.
(3) Look at just one more passage on this point. ON a Eee ab ae
“Even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.”
Here is the definite and distinct declaration that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are hidden in Jesus Christ.
3. In the third place, We are also told that the Christ ts Omnipresent. This we are told again and again, but we will consider only four passages.
(1) Look first at Matt. 18:19, 20.
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Here the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said that in every place where two or three are gathered together im His name, there He is, and as two or three are gathered together everywhere over the earth in His name at the same time, He must be at the same time in all these different places.
(2) Now read Matt. 28:19, 20:
“Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, J am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
Here Jesus promises His disciples who go out to do His bidding and make disciples of all the nations, that wherever they go, He is with every one of them — and since they go into all the world, He must be present at the same time in every part of the world.
(3) Now read a most remarkable passage — Jno. RATS:
“And no one hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven.”’
Here the Lord Jesus Christ declares that He was still in heaven while He was on earth. The reading in this passage is doubtful; that is to say, that it is not found in some manuscripts, but it is found in the Alexandrian MS. and in almost all the early versions, which were made before any of the MSS. now extant were written. This reading is accepted by most of the best editors of the Greek text; for example, by Tischendorf and Tregelles. It is, however, rejected by Westcott and Hort, but the weight of evidence for it is very great. But we can easily spare it, for essentially the same truth is so clearly set forth in so many other passages in the Scripture.
(4) Just one more passage on this point of the Omnipresence of the Christ of the Bible. Read Ppa
“The church, which is his (Christ’s) body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”
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Here is the plain, uncompromising declaration that Jesus Christ filleth all in all. It is evident then that there can be no reasonable question that the Christ of the Bible 1s Omntipresent.
4. In the fourth place, The Christ of the Bible 1s also Eternal as well as Omnipresent. ‘Take only three of the many passages that might be cited.
(1) Read first Jno. 1:1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Here we are told that the Word, the Person known as “the Word of God,’ Who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God (Jno. 1:14), im the beginning already was. There could not by any possibility be any plainer declaration of His Eternity.
(2) Now turn to the Old Testament. Micah 5:2:
“But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathan, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”
Here we are told that the Christ who was prophesied in the Old Testament was to be a being who had existed from all Eternity. This passage is all the more notable because it is from the Old Testament; and as we go on we shall see again and again that the predicted Christ of the Old Testament, as well as the historic Christ of the New Testament, is a Divine person.
(3) Now turn to our Lord’s own words, in Jno. ya ate
“And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
Here our Lord Jesus distinctly claims for Himself that He had existed from before the foundation of the material universe and had existed in Divine glory.
It is clear, from these passages, as well as from many others which we need not stop to quote, that the Christ of the Bible is an Eternal Being and that He did not begin to be when He became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
5. The fifth and only remaining distinctive and incommunicable attribute of Deity is Immutability, and this also is ascribed to Jesus Christ.
Turn to Heb. 13:8:
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever.”
Here is the plainest possible assertion of the Eternal Immutability of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
We see then that ALL THE DISTINCTIVE AT-Petes OP ODERDY, “ALL; THE VAI ERI-BUTES THAT GOD. POSSESSES, AND) GOD
ALONE POSSESSES, ARE ASCRIBED TO
JESUS CHRIST IN THE BIBLE. In addition to
all this, we are told in Col. 2:9 that —
“In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
II. SIXTEEN DIVINE NAMES AND TITLES.
In the second place, not only are all the distinctively Divine attributes ascribed to Jesus Christ, but furthermore, At least sixteen names or titles, that clearly imply Deity are used in speaking of Jesus Christ m the Bible and some of them are used over and over again. The total number of passages reaches far ito the hundreds.
Of course, it is impossible for us in the time at our disposal to cite all these names and titles. If you wish to study the matter, you will find them in my book, “What the Bible Teaches.” But let me give you three which, even if they stood alone, would be quite sufficient to prove our point.
Toe hurnto hi@oneense
“Which none of the rulers of this world hath known: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory?’
Here our Lord Jesus is called the Lord of Glory. Is that a Divine title? The Bible itself answers the question — read Psa. 24: 8-10:
“Who is the King of glory?
Jehovah strong and mighty,
Jehovah mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors:
And the King of glory will come in.
Who is this King of glory?
Jehovah of hosts,
He is the King of glory.”
We are here told that it is Jehovah of hosts Who is the King of glory and He alone, but in the New Testament Paul unhesitatingly speaks of Christ Jesus as “the Lord of glory.”
2. Now read Isa. 9:6:
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
Ee GIR a OF THE BIBIOE 2%,
given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
There are really three unmistakably Divine names in this passage. I could show you, if there were time, that the name “Wonderful” is a Divine name. But take two Divine names in the passage about which there can be no question: “Mighty God’ — “Everlasting Father.” These are beyond any honest question, unmistakably Divine names, names that could only be applied to a Divine person and they are here applied, in this Old Testament prophecy, to the coming Messiah, or Christ. Leeser, the wily Jew, has tried to avoid the force of this passage by putting words into his English translation of this passage for which there are no equivalents whatever in the Hebrew text and which grossly violate the context. The comparatively recently published authoritative Jewish-English Old Testament tries to avoid the force of the Hebrew words found in this verse by simply transliterating the Hebrew words instead of translating them, but no Hebrew scholar can honestly look at the Hebrew text and not admit that three unmistakably Divine names are here applied to the Christ.
3. Now read the angelic proclamation of the king who was to be born of the Virgin. You will find it in Matt. 1:23:
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,
And they shall call his name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us.”
22 THE CHRIST OF ‘THE SIBCE
There can be no mistaking the fact that the angel who announced the birth of the coming Messiah gave to Him an unmistakably Divine name, “God with us.”
4. Now turn to Rom. 9:5:
“Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, Who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”
Here the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostle Paul, distinctly declares that the Christ is “God blessed forever.’ The Unitarians have wrestled often and hard with this statement of Paul’s, and various interpretations have been suggested that would eliminate the plain declaration that Christ is “God blessed forever,’ but these interpretations are not candid nor straight nor reasonable, and they will not bear honest and unprejudiced examination.
5. Read one other passage — in some ways the most significant of all the passages — Jno. 20: 28, 29:
“Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”
Here again the Unitarians have wrestled hard to read out of these utterances of Thomas and of our Lord Jesus all that God has put into them, They say that Thomas was excited and indulged in profanity. If that is so, our Lord Jesus not only let his profanity go unreproved but praised him for it, which is inconceivable on the part of any one who has any respect for Christ as a reasonably intelligent and good man.
Furthermore, Thomas not only offered this ascription of Deity and this worship to Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ accepted it; and you cannot discredit or disallow it without impugning the moral character or sanity of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The Christ of the Bible was either ‘‘Lord and God,” or else He was a blasphemous impostor, or a pitiable lunatic. Take your choice — I have no difficulty in making mine.
iI. ALL THE DISTINCTIVELY DIVINE OFFICES ARE PREDICATED OF JESUS CHRIST.
In the third place, All the distinctively Divine offices, that 1s all the offices that God can perform and no one but God can perform, are ascribed to the Christ of the Bible. What are the distinctively Divine offices (that is, the offices that God can perform and God alone can perform)? Creation, Preservation in existence of created things, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Raising of the Dead, the Transformation of our Bodies, the Bestowal of Eternal Life and Judgment. All these distinctively Divine offices are predicated of Jesus Christ in the Bible. We will take them up in the order given.
1. First, Creation. Turn to Heb. 1:10:
“And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of thy hands:”
The Lord in this passage, as is unquestionably clear from the context, is the Lord Jesus, and we are here distinctly told that the Lord Jesus was the one who laid the foundation of the earth, and that the heavens are the work of His hands. The Christ of the Bible, Christ Jesus, is Creator. The one who is our Saviour is the one who also created the material universe.
2. Second, Preservation. Turn to the 3rd verse of this same chapter: Heb. 1:3:
“Who being the effulgence of his 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, upholds all created things by the Word of His own power. THE CHRIST OR ste BIBLE IS 2Eie PRESERVER OF ALLVCREA GED hI IN Gee do rejoice that it is the one who upholds all things by the Word of His power who is also my Saviour, Jesus Christ.
3. Turn now to Mark 2: 5-11.
“And Jesus seeing their faith saith unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak? he blasphemeth: who can forgive sins but one, even God? And straightway Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, saith unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins (he saith to
PHEC KIS TiOb Di BIBICn 25
the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house.”
Here Jesus Himself declares that He has authority on earth to forgive sins. They called Him a blasphemer for claiming this, and if He were not Divine in a sense that no other man nor angel was Divine, He was a blasphemer in claiming this; you cannot save His moral character and deny His Deity. But if Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, is God, then it is the Unitarian and the New Theology man, and all who deny His distinctive and full Deity and who make Him out to be Divine only in the sense that we are all Divine, who are the outrageous blasphemers.
In the passage in Luke 7: 40-47 Jesus distinctly taught that all sin was against Himself, which is an unmistakable claim of Deity. Read the passage carefully and ponder it deeply.
4. Turn now to Jno. 6: 39, 40:
“And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life, and J will raise him up at the last day.” (Read also v. 44.)
Here we are told by Jesus Christ Himself, that tt is He Himself Who in the great coming day will raise the dead. Who then is He? There can be but one answer — He is God.
5. Turn now to Phil. 3:20, 21:
“For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
who shall fashion anew the body of our humuliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he ts able even to subject all things unto himself.”
Here we are told that our Lord Jesus Christ, when He comes again, shall fashion anew these bodies of ours which are raised from the dead, into the likeness of His own glorious body. ‘This, of course, is unquestionably a Divine work; and furthermore, we are told in this passage that “He 1s able even to subject all things unto himself,’ the plainest possible declaration of absolute Omnipotence, which, of course, God alone possesses.
6. Now read II Tim. 4:1:
“I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead,”
Here it is distinctly taught that Christ Jesus shall judge the living and the dead.
In Jno. 5:22, 23 Jesus Christ Himself emphasized the Divine character of this office of judgment, which the Father had committed to Him. Here are His words:
“For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son; that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.”
We will have occasion to refer to this passage again, but just note at this time that Jesus, the Christ of God, Himself taught that all men should pay the same Divine honor to Him that they did to God the Father.
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7. Now read Jno. 10: 28:
“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”
Place alongside of this Jno. 17:1, 2.
“These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given him, he should give eternal life.”
In both of these passages Jesus Christ Himself declares that He is the giver of eternal life. This is also, beyond the possibility of question, a Divine office.
To sum up what we have said under this head, Seven Distinctively Divine Offices are Predicated of Jesus Christ.
IV. STATEMENTS WHICH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
ARE MADE DISTINCTLY OF JEHOVAH, GOD,
TAKEN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT TO REFER
nO yESUS CHRIST.
In the fourth place, Statements which in the Old Testament are made of Jehovah, God, are taken in the New Testament to refer to Jesus Christ. There are many instances of this, but we shall consider only two illustrations.
Taeiwead tteb). 1: 10-12:
**And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth,
28 THE CHRIST (OR VTHEr GIB ite
And the heavens are the works of thy hands: They shall perish; but thou continuest: And they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a mantle shalt thou roll them up, As a garment, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, And thy years shall not fail.” Now these words are here unhesitatingly applied to the Lord Jesus, but if you will turn to the Old Testament passage which is quoted, Ps. 102: 24-27, the person who is there named as the subject of this ascription of praise given in the passage is God. The Psalmist says: “I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands.” And the other words quoted in Heb. 1: 10-12 follow. So it is clear that a passage which distinctly names God as its subject in the Old Testament is taken to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament; that is to say, in New Testament thought and doctrine Jesus, the Christ of God, occupies the place that Jehovah occupies in Old Testament thought and doctrine. 2. Take another illustration of this. Read Isa. Bere. “Jehovah of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” Here the Prophet Isaiah specifies Jehovah as the
EH LOTER TS DiOe THe BIBICE 29
one who is to be their fear and their dread, and distinctly declares that He is the one whom they are to sanctify. But now turn to 1 Peter 3:14, 15: “But even if ye should suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled; but sanctify in your hearts Christ, as Lordy.
Here it is Christ who is to be sanctified as Lord in the heart. Here again it is perfectly clear that in New Testament thought and doctrine Jesus Christ occupies the place that Jehovah occupies in Old Testament thought and doctrine.
V. THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST IS COUPLED WITH
THAT OF GOD, THE FATHER, IN A WAY THAT
IT WOULD ‘BE IMPOSSIBLE. TO..COUPLE THAT
OF ANY FINITE BEING WITH THAT OF THE
DEITY.
In the fifth place, The name and person of our Lord Jesus Christ is constantly coupled in the Bible with the name and person of the Eternal God, the Father, im a way that would be impossible for any intelligent and reverent mind to couple the name and person of any finite being with that of the Deity. I will give you but three illustrations among the many that might be cited, and all of these are taken from the words of Jesus Christ, Himself.
I. First, John 14: 23:
“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
Here the Lord Jesus Himself unhesitatingly speaks of God and Himself as “we’’; that is, “God and I.”’ If Jesus were not a Divine person, could anything surpass the audacious blasphemy of this?
2. Now turn to the 17th chapter of John, the 3rd verse: “And this is life eternal, that they should know
thee the only true God, and lim whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.”
Here our Lord Jesus does not hesitate to couple Himself with God the Father, and declare that the knowledge of Himself is as essential a part of “life eternal” as the knowledge of God the Father. If Jesus Christ were not Himself Divine, this is most appalling blasphemy.
3. Now listen to the most amazing utterance of all: Jno. 14:1: (1 give the American Revision, which is more exact than the Authorized Version, though the thought that I am after is in the Authorized Version as truly as it is in the Revised Version. )
“Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me.”
Here Jesus Christ demands that His disciples put exactly the same absolute faith in Him that they put in God the Father. Who then is He? Surely, He must be equal with God the Father, or else an appalling impostor and blasphemer, or else a pitiable lunatic. Which is He? Which is He? Thank God, I know He is “my Lord and my God”! Remember also that when Jesus unhesitatingly commanded His disciples to believe in Him with the same absolute faith with which they believed in God the Father,
He did it in full recognition of the fact that God the Father Himself had said in Jeremiah, the Prophet, 1 Tokai be eae fx “Thus saith Jehovah: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah.... Blessed is the man that trusteth in Jehovah, and whose trust Jehovah is.”
If, then, Jesus was not Jehovah manifested in the flesh, “very God of very God,’ He demanded that the disciples should do that which would bring the curse of God upon their heads; but if he was Jehovah, then He simply commanded them to do that which would bring the blessing of Jehovah upon their heads.
Remember also that this amazing and overwhelming word of Christ Jesus, this daring claim of full equality with God the Father, is made in what most people regard as the most precious of all the precious chapters in the Bible, and you cannot give up your belief in the full Deity of Jesus Christ without giving up, not merely some unessential parts of the Bible, but you must give up the most precious chapter in the whole book, Jno. 14.
VI. JESUS CHRIST MUST BE WORSHIPED BY
ANGELS AND MEN.
Just one more unanswerable line of proof that the Christ of the Bible is God. It 1s declared over and over again in the Bible that the Christ of the Buble, Christ Jesus, is a person to be worshiped. A few of the many passages that might be cited will suffice for our present purpose.
32 THE ‘CHRIST (OF, THE: BIBER
1. We are told in the Gospels that Jesus Christ was worshiped when on earth. Turn, for example, to Matt. 14:33:
“And they that were in the boat worshiped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”
Some commentators, and even the margin of the “American Standard Version,’ seem to try to get around the force of this statement by saying (to quote the margin of the “American Standard Version’): “The Greek word denotes an act of reverence whether paid to a creature or to the Creator.” Now this statement is technically true, but it is altogether misleading. It is used of worship paid to man and to creatures by idolaters, but it is not used in that way by worshipers of the true God. Indeed, Jesus Himself says, speaking in Matt. 4:9, 10:
“And he said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
And Jesus here uses exactly the same Greek word that we are told in the margin of “the American Standard Version,’ ‘‘denotes an act of reverence whether paid to the creature or to the Creator.” So Jesus says that the act described by this word should not be paid to anybody but to God only, and yet He permitted it to be paid to Himself. Strangely enough, the American Standard Version, in the margin of Matt. 4:9, 10, where Satan uses the word ‘“‘worship,” has the same marginal note that it has elsewhere (that is to say, that the word Satan uses “denotes an act of reverence whether paid to the creature, or to the Creator”), but when the Lord Jesus uses it and strictly forbids such worship to be paid to the creature, they neglect to insert this marginal note. Were they asleep, or were they unwilling to hurt the feelings of some one who did not wish to believe in the Deity of our Lord Jesus? Why not be consistent and fair at any cost? It is amazing what fools real scholars can sometimes make of themselves when they attempt to be overwise or overgenerous to the enemy.
BeNow tread: Jnd.+5:22; 23:
“For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son; that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.”
These are the Christ’s own words and He here says that, It 1s God, the Father’s will that all men pay the same Divine honor to Him, the Son, as to Himself.
3. Now turn to Heb. 1:6:
“And when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world he saith, And lez all the angels of God worship him.”
Here we are told that, The Son of God, the Christ of God, is to be worshiped as God by all the angels as well as by men. Could anything be plainer than this?
Some years ago in the after-meeting in our church in Chicago, I stepped up to an intelligent looking young man at the back part of the room, and said, “Are you a Christian?’ He replied, “I am not what I suppose you would call a Christian.”’ I said, “What kind of a Christian are you?’ He replied, “I am a
Unitarian,”’ and named the church in Boston to which he belonged. I said to him, “Then, you do not believe that Jesus Christ should be worshiped?” He said, “That is exactly what I believe, and my Pastor (and he named the pastor, a prominent Unitarian minister in Boston) has told me that there is no place in the Bible where we are told to worship Jesus Christ.” I said, ‘Let me read you a passage,” and I opened my Bible and read Heb. 1:6:
“And when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.”
He said, “Does it say that?’ I said, “Take it and read it for yourself.” He took it and read. ‘‘Well,” he said, “my pastor told me there was no passage in the Bible where we are told to worship Jesus Christ.” And I said, “Does that passage tell you that Jesus Christ should be worshiped?” He replied, ‘Well, it certainly does.” There is no room for a moment’s doubt of that.
4. Now, last of all, read Phil. 2: 9-11:
“Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
This passage becomes all the more notable when we learn that it is, for the most part, a quotation from the Old Testament — lIsa. 45: 21-23. And in that passage it is Jehovah who declares that to Him “every knee shall bow” and “every tongue shall sware.” He says it directly after having said:
“T, Jehovah? and there is no God else besides me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none besides me.... Unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall sware.”
To sum up all that we have said: By the ascription of all of the distinctively divine attributes, by the use of many distinctively divine names, by the predication of all the distinctively divine offices, by referring statements which in the Old Testament distinctly name Jehovah, God, as their subject, to Jesus Christ in the New Testament, by coupling the name and person of Jesus Christ with that of God the Father, in a way in which it would be impossible for an intelligent and reverent mind to couple those of any finite being with those of the Deity, and by the clear teaching that Jesus Christ should be worshiped even as God, the Father, is worshiped — in all these unmistakable ways, God in His Word distinctly proclaims that the Christ, the only true Christ, Christ Jesus, is a Divine Being, is God.
Bear in mind also that the Christ of the Old Testament prophecy is as clearly and truly God as the Christ of New Testament history.
Whoever then refuses to accept Jesus Christ as His Divine Saviour and Lord, is guilty of the enormous sin, the appalling sin, of rejecting God. Many a man thinks he is good because he never stole anything, or never murdered any one, or never cheated — ‘‘Of what great sin am I guilty?” he complacently asks. I reply, “You are guilty of the awful sin, the damning sin of rejecting God.’ But suppose one questions or denies the Deity of Jesus Christ? That does not change the fact. No, not one particle. Nor does it lessen one particle of his guilt. Questioning or denying a fact never alters the fact. Suppose one should deny the goodness of a man, who, in actual fact, was the very soul of honor. It would not alter the fact that the man was the very soul of honor. It would simply make the questioner guilty of disgraceful and outrageous slander. So denying the fact of the Deity of Jesus, the Christ, does not make His Deity any less a fact, but it does make the one denying that Deity guilty of awful, blasphemous slander.
No imaginable sin that any one can commit against any human being can by any possibility be so great, so outrageous, and so damning as that of trying to rob this undeniably Divine and Infinite Person, Jesus Christ, of the absolute faith and whole-hearted worship which are His rightful due.