Weekly Devotional 5-4-20 By Oscar Leske
Is Jesus Really God in The Flesh / God Reaching Down to Man
This is a very important question: Who is Jesus? I was once asked this question many years ago in bible study and I remember replying at the time saying that Jesus was “God in the flesh.” If asked this question today I would answer the same. Jesus is part of the Godhead. The Bible teaches that there is one God and that there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three of these Persons are God. Not three gods but a God who manifests Himself as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit.
So many people I know who take a stab at religion have a view of God as someone distant and unapproachable, someone who cannot be reached or who cares little about the mundane things that happen on this earth. But the God of the Bible is “Immanuel” or God with us. God coming down to be one of us; literally, God walking around in the body and Person of Jesus Christ! The deity of Jesus Christ is an undeniable truth from the Bible. He is God in man. He is the Son of God and He is God, the Son. As the Son of God, He is equal to God. It is the truth that we will probably never really comprehend fully with our finite minds until we get to heaven.
According to Scripture, the prophet Isaiah said 700 years earlier that God would give us a sign: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).” Immanuel translated means “God with us.” When God chose to reveal Himself, He did so through a human body, through that of a virgin and not of the sinful seed of man.
The apostle John had an eye of an eagle and was a real stickler for detail. He couldn’t have made it clearer than this when he spoke of who Jesus was. Here is what John said: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1-3, 10, 11, 14).”
John begins his gospel by speaking about the Word, but he does not explain at
first who or what the Word is. A word is a unit of speech which we express
ourselves to others. But John is not writing about speech but rather about a
Person. That Person is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God has fully
expressed Himself to mankind in the Person of the Lord Jesus. By coming into
the world, Christ has perfectly revealed to us what God is like. Christ left
his royal robes of heaven and came down to earth to be the atoning sacrifice
for our sins. By dying for us on the cross, He has told us how much God loves
us. Thus Christ is God’s living Word to man, the expression of God’s thoughts.
Let Me Explain
“He was in the beginning with God (v.2),” tells us that He did
not become a person for the first time as that babe in Bethlehem. Nor did He
somehow become a god after His resurrection, as some teach today. He is God
from all eternity.
“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made
that was made (v.3),” tells us that He Himself was not a created
being: rather He was the Creator of all things. This includes mankind, the
animals, the heavenly planets, the angels – all things visible and invisible.
There can be no possible exception. If a thing was made, He made it. As
Creator, He is, of course, superior to anything He has created.
All three persons of the Godhead were involved in the work of creation: “God
created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)” “The Spirit of
God was hovering over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2).” “All
things were created through Him [Christ] and for Him (Colossians 1:16b).”
In summary, the most significant fact in history can be summed up in four
words: Jesus Christ is God! The great declaration of the Bible is that God in
human flesh was born in Bethlehem. It was God in the person of Jesus Christ who
astonished the people of His day with His miracles and amazed them with His
teaching. It was God who lived a perfect life and then allowed Himself to be
put to death on a Roman cross for humanity’s sin. It was God who broke the
bonds of death three days after He died and came out of the grave alive. The
deity of Jesus – the fact that He was God in human form, is the bottom line of
the believer’s faith. Thank Jesus for coming to explain God fully to us.
Now that I’ve shown you from Scripture who Jesus is, I want to close this
chapter by quoting verse 12 of John: “But as many as received Him, to
them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in
His name” (John 1:12).This verse tells us clearly how we can become
children of God. It is not by good works or trying one’s best to be good, and
it’s not by church membership. It’s not about buildings, rules, priests,
ceremonies or traditions. It’s all about a relationship and not a religion; by
asking Christ to come into our hearts and receiving Him as Lord and Savior and
very best friend.
You are saved by believing in His Name and believing in the good news of the
gospel: His birth, death and resurrection.
Oscar
Oscar Leske / Author – Teacher at “Understanding the Signs of Our Times”
stevelampman.com “Transforming Power; The Work of God on Behalf of God”
stevelampman.com
Transforming Power; The Work of God on Behalf of Man