“Who Do You Say That I Am?”

Our Lord Jesus asked His disciples that question. Their answer is all-important. To paraphrase what A.W. Tozer wrote, “What we believe about Christ is the most important thing about us.” Religious groups have opposing views about Him. For example, one group denies that He is God and insists that He is a man. Another counters that by saying that He is a god and not man. A group believes that Jesus is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Then another group teaches that Jesus and Satan were spirit brothers. But they became enemies because God the Father chose Christ’s plan of salvation over Satan. And the divergent views go on. Thus, we need to know what we believe about Jesus and why we believe it.

Second Corinthians 11:3-4 gave this warning, “And now I’m afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ. It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different message—you put up with him quite nicely.” (The Message) We must make sure that our view of Christ is consistent with what the Bible teaches.

“Gods of our making, whether radically different from the God of the Bible or akin to Him, are false. Even good Christians can fall into the trap of trying to mold God according to their own thinking or wishes or pleasure. The result may be a god not dissimilar to the God of the Bible, but it will not be the true God… Beware of creating a god!” (Charles Ryrie, “A Survey of Bible Doctrine”)

According to the Bible, Jesus is both undiminished deity and perfect humanity. Simply put, He is both God and man. If we say Christ is God but not man, we are mistaken. If we say He is man but not God, we also err. When we say He is God, we are not saying that Jesus is God the Father. But, He is equal with God. Without ceasing to be God, He became man. “He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:6-7, Good News Bible) Any view less than or different from this view is presenting a counterfeit Christ. When asked about our faith, I pray that we will answer, “Jesus is ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God.’” (Matthew 16:16b, ESV)

Brethren, what God is, Christ is.

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