Is Jesus God? (Part 4)

See the series here

Q. What if God killed Jesus for making Himself God’s equal?

     satan tried to beat God, and lost. Was Jesus his sequel?’

    Why should Jesus be the focus? Many died before He came!

A. Please, let’s take a few moments to think about these 7 clear, bold and consistent messages of The Bible concerning Jesus.

1. He is The Lord God, through Whom and for Whom The Spirit of God created ALL things, and Whom Father God Himself, calls ‘God’. (Hebrews 1:2,8, John 1:3, Ephesians 3:9) In a conversation with Abraham, He rhetorically asked, ‘ Is anything too hard for The Lord?’ (Genesis 18:14) He declared to Jeremiah, ‘Behold, I am The Lord, The God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?’ (Jeremiah 32:27) Absolutely nothing is impossible to Him.

2. He is the physical person with Whom Adam and Eve spent quality time in Eden before they sinned. They physically heard Him walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Him. (Genesis 3:8) If He was an invisible spirit, how could they hide from a spirit or hear Him walking?

3. In the ensuing dialog with Adam, Eve and the serpent (possessed by satan), He pronounced judgments on each one. The judgment pronounced on the serpent was two-fold – initially referring to the physical serpent, and subsequently referring to the spirit who possessed and manipulated the serpent. This pattern is clearly repeated in Ezekiel 28 that initially refers to the King of Tyre, and subsequently refers to Lucifer, who became satan. It is also inferred in Isaiah 14 that refers to the King of Babylon and Lucifer; and is also reflective in many Bible verses in which God initially speaks to or about a mortal man, and in the same discourse references him as an immortal being (e.g., as in Haggai 2:23). The judgment on satan included a veiled reference to Jesus’ own death: ‘…and you shall bruise His (i.e. My) heel.’

4. The Passover lamb spiritually points to Jesus, The Messiah, Who John, moved by The Holy Spirit, called The (sacrificial) Lamb of (Father) God. (John 1:29, 36) The purpose of His sacrifice was not because of anything Jesus did wrong, but because of our sinful nature. How generous is that? Ponder these references to ‘The Lamb’ in Revelation, stated in a way that affirm the equivalence between Father God and Jesus:

--But I saw no temple in it, for The Lord God Almighty and The Lamb are its (single) temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for The Glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its (illuminating) light. (Revelation 21:22-23)

--And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the Throne (shared/singular!) of God and of The Lamb. And there shall be no more curse, but the (shared/singular!) Throne of God and of The Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. (Revelation 22:1, 3) NB: Strategically and purposefully, the plural pronouns, they're and them, are not used. 

5. Jesus boldly asserted:

My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father. (John 10:17-18)

In doing so, He was fulfilling His own veiled statement to satan in Eden. (Genesis 3:15)  

6. Since Father God created all things through and for Jesus, this confirms Jesus created Lucifer as well as all other angels, including those who, like satan, became demons when they elected to rebel. As The Creator, Jesus is in no way satan’s equal or sequel. Rather than rebelling, as Lucifer did, He willingly obeyed The Father, even to the point of planting Himself as  an embryo in Mary’s womb, a baby, and a man, and a corpse. He died as our sin substitute, and was raised from the dead to signify that ALL human beings who die will likewise be raised in an IM-mortal body to spend eternity in one of two places - in Heaven with Him, or in the eternal lake of fire that burns with sulfur, both of which are on a brand new Earth Jesus promised to Isaiah (some 700 years before He became a human) that He was then creating. (See: Earth 5.0 The Final Version)

7. Heaven revealed to Paul that, ‘Jesus, Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.’ (Philippians 2:6) Father God was in no way diminished by anything Jesus ever did or said, whether in his pre-incarnate, incarnate, or post-incarnate state.

Conclusion

From Genesis 1-to-Revelation 22, Jesus is undoubtedly revealed as the core/central figure, both in Heaven and across Father God’s entire physical creation, including Earth. He is revealed as Creator, Counselor, Christ (Redeeming Savior/Sacrificial Lamb), Mediator, Conqueror, Ultimate Judge, Earth's pending millennial King, and lastly as The Lord, sitting on The Throne of God for all eternity. Reaching any other conclusion can only be based on a totally different book other than The Bible. While The Bible is quintessentially a spiritual book that conveys God’s multi-millennial, strategic plan for mankind, even a casual reading of it with a strictly carnal mindset could hardly miss this conclusion. His Spirit, Hand, presence and righteous character are consistently evidenced across its pages. And since He carefully and meticulously INSPIRED its writing by His Spirit, it literally is ...'The Mind of Christ', revealed to mankind. There literally or figuratively is NO OTHER matching or equivalent resource on Earth, period!

The assertion that ‘…many people died before He came, therefore Jesus should not be our focus’, reveals a narrow focus on Jesus’ 33-year life as a mortal man. It denies the overwhelming abundance of evidence of his pre- and post-incarnate existence. The Bible reveals all who died before Christ, but in faith toward God, were reserved in Paradise, the upper region of hades, reserved for what would happen as depicted in Ephesians 4:8 -10. Jesus gave to Paul a clear, behind the scenes understanding of what happened AFTER Jesus died: He preached His Gospel to those in Paradise. Then He led them into Heaven. En route, Matthew 27:52 affirms they were resurrected as immortal beings and, presumably, then raptured into Heaven (the promised new Earth, per Isaiah 66.) This confirms there is no getting into Heaven apart from faith in The Gospel of Jesus as Christ. Jesus very emphatically and iteratively declared Himself to be 'The' Door or Way to God and to Heaven. 

In the only recording of Jesus publicly reading from what we call The Old Testament, He purposefully searched for, then read this passage: 

The Spirit of The Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach The Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. (Isaiah 61:1-2)

While we typically regard ‘recovery of sight to the blind’ as referring to healing physical blindness, a major ministry of Jesus was healing people from their spiritual blindness. Many embraced this healing, but many more did not. About the latter group, Paul later wrote:

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age (satan) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the Light of The Gospel of The Glory of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

NB: Counterfeits (religions and prophets) can only follow that which is first real and TRUE!