Category: Non-negotiables

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Was Jesus Really God?

The belief that Jesus was and is God has always been a non-negotiable for Christianity. The Christian tradition claims that God took on flesh, became a man, and walked on earth. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus (the Word) is God and came to earth.

“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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-4, 14, NASB)”

The author of the book of Hebrews says, “He [Jesus] is the radiance of His [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3, NASB).”

In his famous book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes this statement, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

The Jews asked Jesus “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ (Messiah), tell us plainly (John 10:24).” Jesus went on to tell them that “I and the Father are one (vs. 30).” They then took up stones to stone Him.

Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?”

The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make yourself out to be God.”

“If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father (John 10: 32-33, 37-38 NASB).”

We know Jesus is God because:

1) He Possesses Attributes that Only God Has

a. Eternality (John 8:58; 17:5)

b. Omnipresence (Matt. 18:22; 28:20)

c. Omniscience (Matt. 16:21; Luke 6:8; 11:17)

d. Omnipotence (Matt. 28:18; Mark 5:11-15)

2) He Performs Works that Only God Can Do

a. Forgiveness (Mark 2:1-12)

b. Life (John 5:21)

c. Resurrection (John 11:43)

d. Judgment (John 5:22, 27)

3) He Was Given the Names and Titles of Deity

a. Son of God (John 10:36)

b. Lord & God (Luke 1:76; John 1:1; 20:28; Romans 10:13)

4) He Claimed to Be God (John 10:30, 33)

Outside of the inspiration of the Bible, there may be no other Christian doctrine more vehemently attacked than the deity of Christ. Our very salvation is inseparably linked to faith in Jesus Christ. So it becomes an issue of great importance to determine biblically who Jesus Christ is.

Who is Jesus of Nazareth to you? Your life on this earth and for all of eternity is affected by your answer to this question.

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No Wiggle Room

 

If you were to look up the definition of “No wiggle room,” you would find it means “no flexibility of interpretation or of options,” in other words, not negotiable. There may be few non-negotiables in life. Some would suggest there are no absolutes. I would argue that there are absolutes and they are found in the Word of God.

What are the non-negotiables in your life? What will you not budge on (no wiggle room), no matter what?

In this and the next number of blogs I will look at some non-negotiables found in Scripture.

The Inerrancy of Scripture

The first place we must start is the Scriptures themselves. All Scripture is inspired by God, that is, “God breathed”(2 Timothy 3:16). What process did God use to reveal Himself in Scripture?

“But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:20-21, NASB).

Scripture is not the product of men. It is not the product of the will of men. “But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The Holy Spirit filled them. The idea is like putting your sails to the wind on a ship and being borne along by the breeze.

When speaking of the Bible being “God breathed,” it means the Bible is inerrant and infallible in the original manuscripts. Inerrant means “totally free from error,” and infallible means “incapable of error.” Inerrancy applies equally to all parts of the Bible as originally written. You can’t pick and choose what you like and what you want to believe.

Why is the inerrancy of Scripture so important? In his book, Ryrie’s Basic Theology, Charles Ryrie writes,

“If the Bible contains some errors, however few or many, how can one be sure that his understanding of Christ is correct? Perhaps one of those errors concerns something about the life of Christ. It would not be impossible that there might be an error about the crucial matter of His death and resurrection. What then would happen to one’s Christology? It would be changed, perhaps even so drastically that there would be no Christian faith to embrace.”

“Or suppose the biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit were inaccurate. This could affect the cardinal doctrine of the Trinity, which in turn could also seriously affect Christology, soteriology, and sanctification. Even if the errors are supposedly in ‘minor’ matters, any error opens the Bible to suspicion on other points that may not be so ‘minor.’ If inerrancy falls, other doctrines will fall too” (Ryrie, 87).

It is crucial that we believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. The Bible is our only rule for faith and practice. If it is not reliable, then on what do we base our beliefs?

It is not a mixture of doctrine that we are free to believe or not believe. Many people like the verses that say God loves them, but they dislike the verses that say God will judge sinners. We simply cannot pick and choose what we like about the Bible and throw the rest away.

God has said what He has said, and the Bible presents us a full picture of who God is. “Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89).