{"id":1217,"date":"2011-08-13T08:14:45","date_gmt":"2011-08-13T08:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2011-08-13T08:16:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-13T08:16:55","slug":"1217","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=1217","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJesus\u201d \u2014 Who Is He?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cJesus\u201d \u2014 Who Is He?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.\u201d (Matthew 1:21)<\/em><\/p>\n

Who is this one called \u201cJesus\u201d? That may appear to be a very strange question. You have heard about Jesus all your life. You may think, \u201cPastor, everyone knows who Jesus is.\u201d If you do, you are very much mistaken. The fact is, very few people in this world know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. The Jesus \u201cworshipped\u201d in most churches is nothing but the idolatrous figment of man\u2019s depraved imagination (Matt. 24:23-24). Who is this Jesus? Who is the Christ of the Bible? Will the real Jesus please stand up? Read the Book of God, and he will.<\/p>\n

We must know, worship and trust the Christ of God, if we would know God, and be saved and accepted of him (John 17:3). If we trust a false Christ, no matter how sincere and devoted we are, we are lost, under the wrath of God, and utterly deceived. Allow me to show you from the Scriptures who this Jesus is of whom it is written, \u201cHe shall save his people from their sins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Eternal Son<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Jesus, who is the Christ, is God the Son, the second person of the holy trinity. When the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, it is declaring that he is himself God the eternal Son, one with and in every way equal with the Father and the Spirit (1 John 5:7).<\/p>\n

We who believe are the sons of God by adoption. He is the Son of God by nature. To say that he is the Son of God is to declare that this man who is called \u201cJesus<\/em>\u201d is himself\u00a0\u201cover all God, blessed forever.\u201d<\/em> That is not the language of a theological creed, but the very words of Holy Scripture (Rom. 9:5). He is not just a god, a great creature of God, or someone like God. Jesus Christ is himself God.\u00a0\u201cGod was manifest in the flesh\u201d <\/em>(1 Tim. 3:16;\u00a0John 1:1-3;\u00a01:18;\u00a0Col. 2:9-10).<\/p>\n

All the attributes of divinity belong to him. He is the Creator, Sustainer, Ruler and Disposer of all things. He is the Revelation of God. He is the very embodiment of God. Those who speak otherwise speak blasphemy. If Jesus Christ is not God, he is not a good man, but an imposter, a charlatan, a fake, and a liar. If he is anything less than the almighty, infinite, eternal God, then we have no Savior, and we are yet in our sins. None but God could satisfy the wrath and justice of God to make atonement for our sins. That man who was born at Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago, who died upon the cross, who rose again the third day, and now sits upon the throne of glory, is himself God. The child born of Mary\u2019s virgin womb is the Son of God given to save his people from their sins (Isa. 9:6).<\/p>\n

The Everlasting Substitute<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Jesus, who is God in human flesh, is the sinner\u2019s Substitute. He is the Daysman, the Representative, the Surety, the Mediator, the Substitute, by whose obedience unto death chosen sinners are reconciled unto God, without whom we could never be accepted of God.<\/p>\n

The key to understanding the Word of God is understanding the gospel doctrine of substitution. Christ stood before God in the covenant of grace as our Substitute before the world began. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). He is the Mediator in whom we were chosen and blessed (Eph. 1:3-6). He is the Surety trusted by God to save us, upon whose pledge we were saved from everlasting (Eph. 1:13-14;\u00a02 Tim. 1:9).<\/p>\n

The Lord Jesus lived in obedience to God as our Substitute in this world to fulfil all righteousness for his people (Rom. 5:19). He died in the place of his chosen sinners under the wrath of God as our Substitute upon the cursed tree (Gal. 3:13;\u00a02 Cor. 5:21). The Christ of God, \u201cJesus<\/em>,\u201d that man who is God, intercedes as our Advocate in heaven, as our great High Priest, as our Substitute before the throne f grace (1 John 2:1-2). And this same \u201cJesus<\/em>\u201d will stand before the bar of God\u2019s strict, inflexible justice as our Substitute in the day of judgment, as that One by whose merit justice demands the everlasting salvation of all for whom he lived, and died, and rose again.<\/p>\n

Be sure you understand this glorious, gospel doctrine of substitution. If Jesus Christ is indeed God (and he is!), then all which he undertook to do as our Substitute must be effectually and completely accomplished by him. Those he undertook to save must and shall be saved.\u00a0\u201cHe shall save his people from their sins!\u201d \u201cHe shall not fail!<\/em><\/p>\n

Many who claim to believe that Jesus Christ is God, and would fight you if you said they do not, in reality deny his deity, just as certainly as those who say he was not really virgin born. By denying the infallible efficacy of his substitutionary work, by asserting that he tries to redeem and save multitudes who are in fact lost in hell, they deny his very Godhead. The Jesus they \u201cworship\u201d is no Savior at all, for he lacks the essential character of God.<\/p>\n

The Effectual Savior<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, who is himself the Mighty God, is the Savior of his people. \u201cHe shall save his people from their sins.<\/em>\u201d \u201cHe shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.<\/em>\u201d It is nowhere written that he tries to save! A god who tries to do anything is no God at all. Christ alone is our Savior. He is our able, competent Savior (Heb. 7:25). He is our complete Savior (1 Cor. 1:30). And he is our effectual Savior. When he cried,\u00a0\u201cIt is finished,\u201d he meant it.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Enthroned Sovereign<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Jesus, this man who is God, in order that he might save his people, now reigns upon the throne of universal monarchy to give eternal life to all who were given to him in covenant mercy to save (John 17:2). By virtue of his eternal Godhead and as the reward for his obedience as our Substitute, \u201cHim hath God exalted with his right hand <\/em>to be\u00a0a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins<\/em>\u201d (Acts 5:31). \u201cFor to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living<\/em>\u201d (Rom. 14:9).<\/p>\n

Do you know this Christ? Do you understand who this Jesus is? Do you see why they called him \u201cJesus<\/em>\u201d? He is the Son of God. He is the sinner\u2019s Substitute. He is the Savior of his people. He is the sovereign Monarch of the universe.<\/p>\n

Don Fortner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cJesus\u201d \u2014 Who Is He? \u201cAnd she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.\u201d (Matthew 1:21) Who is this one called \u201cJesus\u201d? That may appear to be a very strange question. You have heard about Jesus all your life. You may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,61,64,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-don-fortner","category-believers-assurance","category-successful-saviour","category-christ-his-person-and-excellencies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/1219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}