What Does The Bible Say About Jesus?
Video Timeline
WELCOME
0:00 - Welcome with Matt & Dan
TALK with Peter Farrington
09:20 - What does the Bible say about Jesus?
09:57 - What does your portrait of Christ look like?
14:02 - Jesus Exists In Perfect Harmony With The Trinity
17:03 - Everything Exists In And Through Jesus
21:38 - What About Me?
27:31 - How Does Jesus Reconcile All Things To Himself?
WORSHIP
31:20 - What A Beautiful Name with lyrics
CONVERSATION STREET with Matt & Dan
35:23 - Conversation Street
CLOSING WORSHIP
1:01:20 - Christ Our Hope In Life And Death with lyrics
Podcast:
What does the Bible say about Jesus?
— Pete Farrington
This is a massive topic. And there's much that can be said here. But I'd like to try and answer this question by walking us through five verses in a book of the Bible called Colossians. Now, this passage has been called a theological vaccine, which protects against the disease of Christ diminishing error. In these five verses, the apostle Paul paints for us a stunning portrait of Christ.
What does your portrait of Christ look like?
Now I'm an artist, and I know very well that there are good portraits, and there are bad portraits. And for a portrait to be considered good, it's essential that it does justice to the object, that it actually resembles the person in the painting. Now, it's always a huge relief to me whenever I show someone a portrait that I've painted, if they can actually recognise the person in the painting, and sadly, there are many portraits of Jesus Christ today that fall woefully short of him, and that just don't look anything like him at all.
Quite often, our Jesus is just nice, he's safe, soppy, and a bit sentimental, and someone who just bends to our every whim, like a genie in a bottle. And in our pride and self-centredness, there's always the temptation to create a vision of Jesus that's small enough, that he won't offend our modern sensibilities and small enough that we can go on with our worlds just still revolving around us. But Jesus is not a supporting actor in your life.
So as we go through this, I want you to take that portrait you have of Jesus on the wall of your heart and mind, and I want you to hold it up against what we see in the Bible and see if there's any resemblance, do you need a bigger frame? That's my question. So here we go. This is Colossians one, verses 15 to 20.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. ”
So straightaway, in verse 15, we see that Jesus is the image or the true likeness of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Now, we will be wrong and very wrong to think that Paul is speaking literally here. When he says, firstborn of all creation, he does not mean that Jesus Christ is the best of creation. He's speaking here in terms of the rights and privileges that the firstborn son has. So inheriting, ruling, sovereignty, Jesus has been exalted to the highest order. In Psalm 89, verse 27, the Psalmist says,
“And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.”
In Daniel 7, verses 13 to 14, there's a prophecy about Jesus, and it says,
“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”
Another reason that we know that Paul doesn't mean that Christ is the best of creation is because in verse 19, he says, For in Him (in Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Jesus is God. This is laid out even more explicitly in the next chapter. So Colossians 2 verse 9 says,
“For in Him in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
Jesus exists in perfect harmony within the Trinity
Jesus has existed eternally in perfect union with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is what we call the Trinity, that God is one God in three persons. And these three persons - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all have the same essence, the same substance. We see this in Hebrews 1, verse 3, it says,
“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature...”
And Jesus himself made this claim of pre-existence and deity when he said to the Jews, in John 8 verse 58,
“Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.””
And when Jesus referred to himself as I am, he was using a name that God had used for himself in the Old Testament when He revealed Himself to Moses. So the Jews knew exactly what Jesus was claiming. And they considered it blasphemy and tried to kill him there and then because of it. Again, in John 10 verse 30, Jesus says,
“I and the Father are one.”
So there's no getting away from this. And Jesus didn't leave any room for us to call him merely a great moral teacher. He made claims that would be totally outrageous for anyone else to make. You'd have to be totally deluded, or totally deceitful to make that claim, if it's not true. Jesus has existed eternally in perfect union with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And so Jesus didn't come to earth to apologise for the God of the Old Testament. He didn't come to show that God has anger management issues or to balance out the blood and gore of the Old Testament with some warm, fuzzy vibes and sentimentality. In fact, when God was sending down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus wasn't looking on disapprovingly, he wasn't saying, we might need to work on our public image a bit. We need to be seen a bit more progressive to keep up with the times.
We play a very dangerous game when we pit the words and actions of Jesus against those of God the Father and the Holy Spirit. And far too often, we totally ignore the very, very challenging things that Jesus himself said and did. And we end up with a Jesus who looks just like us, made in our own image. So we'll celebrate the Jesus who saved the adulterer, but we'll go very quiet when he tells her to sin no more. But the Trinity isn't a pick and mix. And Jesus isn't a pick and mix!
Everything exists in and through Jesus
Colossians 1 verse 16, For by Him all things were created. By Jesus, all things were created. John 1, verse 1 to 3 says,
“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 was not any thing made that was made.”
Hebrews 1 verses 1 to 3, says,
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”
There again, we see that firstborn language. So he not only made everything, but he sustains and upholds everything. So if you wake up tomorrow morning, it is only because he gives you breath. Even if you hate him and rebel against Jesus, in every single moment, you are dependent entirely on him for everything. Even his enemies cannot hate him without moment by moment, having the breath and energy that only he supplies. There's nothing and no one who is not dependent on Him for everything. And that means that you and I need Jesus more than anything else. Acts 17 Verse 25, says,
“…nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
So Jesus is the agent through which all things without exception were created. But he's not only the agent of creation, He is also the goal of all creation. Everything was made by Him and for Him. Romans 11 Verse 36 says,
“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
My life was made for Jesus, your life was made for Jesus. Firstly, this means that there is purpose in your being alive, you're not just hurtling aimlessly and meaninglessly through the chaos and pain of life, you were meant to drink deeply from the fountain of living waters. That's what God calls himself. And in doing so, you were made to declare his primacy, his sufficiency and that he is all satisfying. So in this way, Jesus' glory is also your highest good. This also means that you're not the goal of your own life.
Let's go back to our text in verse 17. It says, And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent, that he might take first place in everything. How desperately we need to be reminded of that reality. And Paul knows that. Paul knows that this is of the highest importance. You can see that because he repeats the exact same point, beginning verse 17, and ending with verse 18. So it's like he's saying, Jesus is before all things. And just in case you forgot, Jesus is before all things. He is supreme. He is supreme over every other - every other joy, every other pleasure, every other comfort of life. He is supreme over every authority, over every ruler, over every government, he is supreme. And he's without equal, and Jesus made everything to exalt Jesus. His glory is His goal in everything he does.
What about me?
And now, in our pride and our self-obsession, it's so easy to think, excuse me, what about me? But God is utmost in his own affections. And it's God's God-centredness that is the very foundation of all our hope and joy, it is our only hope. It should be the truth that we treasure and cling to the most, the God-ness of God, because if God were to put anything other than his own glory as his goal, he would cease to be God, for there will be something else greater than Him. So if God were to turn away from himself as the source of infinite joy, and life, he'd no longer be God, he will be denying the worth of His own glory, it'd be implying that there's something above him and he'd be committing idolatry.
But I can still hear the question, Why is this such good news for us? Well, in one Samuel 12, verse 22, it says,
“For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself.”
So when God says that He will not leave us for his great name's sake, we can be dead sure, we can have total confidence that he will never leave us. God is utmost in his own affections, and He will not share His glory with another. His glory is His goal in everything he does. And the wonderful truth of the Bible is that we see that His glory and our ultimate joy are not at odds with each other. Our ultimate joy is actually found in his glory.
Now, I mentioned earlier that Jesus is the agent of all creation. We see in verse 20, at the end of our passage, that he's also the agent of our salvation. And through Him, through Jesus, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Father Voddie Baucham, an American preacher says that,
“Just when we begin to get this picture in our minds, and just when the weight of his majesty almost becomes too much for us to bear, just when we begin to say, I can’t even bear to look at him, maybe I should come into his presence backwards.”
— Voddie Baucham
It's right there at the climax of this hymn to Jesus, that Paul is writing, we see that Jesus loves us. And he loves us decisively, and unwaveringly, we see that he saves us. Revelation 1, verse 5 says,
“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood”
The apex, the highest point of Jesus' glory is His grace towards his people. It's wonderful. And the reason why it's called Grace is because it's totally undeserved. What we actually deserve in our sin and our pride is eternal punishment, in our rebellion from God and in our hostility towards him, we deserve his wrath and his anger. Isaiah 59, verse 2 says,
“but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
And Paul goes on to talk about how we were alienated and hostile towards God. And that's what all sin is, it's rebellion against God, it's hostility towards him, it's rejecting Him, and in so choosing, it's making another God for ourselves. And so because of the separation that our sin has caused, we needed a mediator. And Jesus became that mediator.
We saw earlier in John chapter 1, that in the beginning was the Word, then the Word became flesh. In Colossians 1, verse 15, that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. God is invisible, but Jesus became visible, he became flesh, he took on human form, so that he could become a perfect mediator, that he could represent us to God, and God to us. And so he lived a life of perfect obedience, and became a perfect sacrifice for our sins, satisfying the wrath of God and taking all of that punishment that we deserved, he took it upon himself. 1 Peter 3, verse 18, says,
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,”
We saw earlier that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, that Jesus died but the Spirit raised him to life and because he lives, we live and we will be resurrected.
How does Jesus reconcile all things to himself?
So, how does Jesus reconcile all things to himself? Does this mean that all will be saved? Interestingly, Paul says that all things in heaven and on earth will be reconciled to himself, but he admits the phrase under the earth. And this leads us to what is probably the most unpopular truth in the Bible, there's some hot competition for that title. But that truth is that of eternal judgement. And Philippians 2, verses 9 to 12 says,
“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ”
Jesus is coming back one day, and he will judge the living and the dead. And it says in John 3, verse 36,
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
In John 14, verse 6, Jesus is speaking and he says,
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
So again, we're left with no room to think that we can find our own way to God without Jesus in the picture, that we can continue in our own pride and rebellion and sin and just hope for the best on that. On that day when Jesus returns, it will be a glorious day for those who are in Jesus. But it will be a terrible day for those who are not.
Now, I sometimes think and maybe you are thinking it too, that there's no way that God could ever forgive me. There's no way that the sacrifice that Jesus made could be enough to make up for my sins, not the things that I've done. But again, I want to remind you that Jesus' goal of exalting himself in everything that he does is something that we should treasure. Because it says in Isaiah 43, verse 25,
“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
So you can have total assurance today that if you turn to Jesus and if you put your trust in Him, and if you ask him for forgiveness, he will forgive and he will not remember your sins.
CONVERSATION STREET
With: Matt Edmundson & Dan Orange
What is Conversation Street?
Conversation Street is part of our live stream, where the hosts (in this case, Matt & Dan) chat through Pete’s talk and answer questions that were sent in through the live stream. You can watch the conversation in the video, it starts at 40 min 30 seconds into the live stream, or you can go straight there by clicking here. This week’s questions and topics of conversation are:
How many prophesies were fulfilled by Jesus' life?
What do you think about the claims that the Bible makes about Jesus and the claims that Jesus himself makes?
Have you come across the Progressive Christianity Movement? What do you think about this idea?
How is Christ's love all encompassing and constant in our lives?
What does it mean when when Jesus says that He is the way, the truth and the life?
More Bible Verses About Jesus
Isaiah 9:6 - For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Titus 2:13,14 - waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Philippians 2:5,6 - Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
Acts 4:10-12 - then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is “’the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
1 Corinthians 15:55-57 - “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 3:15 - But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;
Matthew 4:3,4 - The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
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