WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? (3 of 3)

Unchanging Faith ❧ Part 10

Selected Passages ❧ Pastor, Dr. John Denney

Almost a hundred years ago a pastor by the name of James Allen Francis sat down one day and began reflecting his thoughts about Jesus on paper.  Little did he know the impact his words would have on the world for many years to come. Here’s what he wrote: He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in still another village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was 30. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He didn’t go to college. He never traveled more than 200 miles from the place He was born. He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He was only 33 when public opinion turned against Him. His friends deserted Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. When He was dying, His executioners gambled for His clothing, the only property He had… on earth. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. [(I would add…) Yet, He arose triumphant from this borrowed grave three days later]. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race, the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on earth as much as that One Solitary Life. Do You Know Who He Is? 

We know, of course, he is speaking about none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.  No single figure in all of human history has been a greater source of inspiration for authors, poets, artists, musicians, or humanitarians alike than the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  His entrance into our world literally split our calendars from B.C. to A.D.  Each time we or even the fiercest atheist looks at the calendar or write the date down are reminded of Jesus birth.  When you think about it, we not only measure every day and year of our lives by Jesus’ entrance into humanity, but we measure our eternity by Him as well.  But the real question of Jesus is why? Why Did Jesus Come to Earth? One person humorously answered: Jesus Coming To Earth Is The Ultimate Episode Of ‘Undercover Boss’

This morning we’re going to look at: Who Is Jesus Christ?  Up to this point we’ve looked at the Person of Jesus – He is both God and Man.  Last week we saw a Portrait of Jesus – He is our substitutional atonement, that is our Scapegoat. Today, we’re going to look at the Purpose of why He came.   

Why did Jesus come to earth?  Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t leave us guessing.  In what is known as Jesus’ greatest sermon, The Sermon on the Mount, He answered this question. Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose(Matthew 5:17, NLT). Jesus’ mission was to fulfill the promises of God about Him in the Old Testament. There are literally thousands of promises about Him in the Bible.  God is The Master Communicator.  He did not juts give us His promises about Jesus, He gave them to us in pictures we would remember and understand who is by them.  There are three major pictures or roles Jesus fulfilled in the Bible: Prophet, Pries, & King.  Each of these pictures deepens our understanding of Who Jesus is and why He came.   

1. Jesus is our Prophet. Key word: Repent.  A prophet in the Bible is someone who speaks for God – period. Their role was primarily to call God’s people realign their lives with His Word.  That meant to repent. To repent literally means to change directions.  Stop living for sin and start living for God.  That meant there was zero room for a prophet’s personal opinions, suggestions, or interjections.  What a prophet said had to be completely from God – no exceptions. Whatever they spoke had to be 100% accurate.  Zero room for mistakes.  If someone said they claimed they could tell the future with 99% accuracy, as impressive as that may seem, they were nonetheless to be put to death (Deut. 13, 18). I once knew of a lady claiming to be a prophetess who was said to be 80% accurate in her predictions. She’s fortunate she did not live in the days OT Israel!  A prophet is someone who spoke for God and they had to be 100% accurate – period.  

In the Bible there some 88 prophets in all (sixty-three in the OT and twenty-five in the NT).  Of the sixty-three prophets in the OT Moses, hands down, was the greatest.  But even as great as Moses was, he said there was going to be a day when God would send a Prophet still greater than himself.  Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him (Deuteronomy 18:15, NAS). That Prophet is Jesus. Peter declares this in Acts 3:22 in his message to the people of Jerusalem. Peter reminds them that Moses further told them And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people (Acts 3:23). In other words, Whoever this Prophet was, He would speak with the greatest possible authority – the very authority of God Himself. Jesus pointed this out to the Jewish religious leaders: if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. If you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?(John 5:46-47).  Unlike the prophets in the OT who spoke from God’s authority as mere men, Jesus spoke with God’s authority as God incarnate.  Instead of appealing to God’s authority like the prophets of old, Jesus simply said, You have heard the ancients were told (Israel’s ancestors through the prophets)…But I say to you…(Matthe 5:21,22).  No one ever spoke with the power and authority as Jesus did.  And one of the greatest themes of His words was repent! I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). 

I recently read about a young man who was a new Christian that was struggling to read his Bible.  Every time he read it; he felt overwhelmed by his sin.  The more he read the Bible, the more depressed it left him feeling.  Finally, he had a conversation with a pastor.  The pastor explained to him Jesus is still a Prophet today and was speaking to this young man through Scripture pointing out sin in his life.  What he was really feeling was not depression but conviction that if accompanied by repentance would lead to joy. Jesus was “putting a finger on his chest” so to speak telling him to go and sin no more.   I don’t know about you, but I can relate.  I remember being in the same shoes as that young man. Someone has said the truth will make you free, but first it will make you feel miserable.  What I needed to learn, as well as this young man, was that Jesus is not only our Prophet who calls us to repent, but He is our Priest who rescues us from our sin.  

1. Jesus is our Priest. Key word: Rescue. A priest in the Old Testament was a flesh and blood person who understands all of life’s fears, struggles, temptations, weaknesses, and failures, and is uniquely called to stand between the people and God. He heard their confessions and prayed for them.  He offers acceptable sacrifices to God for their forgiveness.  He asked God to rescue them, to set them free from the punishment their sin deserved and in turn, he asks for God’s grace and blessing on their lives. 

No other book in the Bible shows us Jesus is our Priest quite like the book of Hebrews.  Hebrews reminds us Jesus is both fully Man and fully God and He alone is able to stand before God as our Mediator. Stepping down from His Throne of Glory, Jesus humbled Himself becoming one of us to serve as our Priest. Hebrews reminds us as well that all of the priests of the OT and all their sacrifices pointed to the One true Priest Jesus Christ and His ultimate sacrifice on the cross.  But He does even more, far more.  Listen to what Hebrews says: Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying…Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested (Hebrews 2;14-17,18, NLT). 

Did you catch that? Jesus not only rescues us from our sins, but He rescues us from the fear of death as well! No other priest could do that! Only God can rescue us from both the consequences of our sin and our fear of death.  

Yesterday there were a number of us who came together to remember Connie McKay.  I’ve shared about her not too long ago and am reminded again as I think about Jesus being our Priest who rescues us even from the fear of death. Before she passed away, Pastor Danny and I visited with her a number of times.  One of the things Connie struggled with a great deal was knowing she was forgiven.  She only saw Jesus as her prophet and didn’t understand Him to be her Priest.  Knowing this, I tried to assure her of Christ’s forgiveness on several occasions.  Connie, like so many of us, feel as though we must do something for our forgiveness.  We forget that something was already done on the cross two thousand years ago.  One day while I was trying to bring assurance through God’s Word to her, I was reminded of the thief on the cross.  I asked Connie what he did to earn God’s forgiveness.  Nothing. All he could do was trust in Jesus and it was because of that trust Jesus said, I assure you, today you will be with Me in paradise(Luke 23:43).  Her whole demeanor changed from fear to peace.  Connie got it.  She understood Jesus is her Prophet and her Priest. 

1. Jesus is our King. Key word: Ruler.  If we were to take a brief survey and have each one of us write down what comes to our minds when we think of Jesus as King, I wonder what many of us would write.  One word we’d probably not find would be “rule.” Yet, the Bible tells us as King of Kings Jesus is Ruler of all.  He rules both over the physical world and the spiritual, the visible as well as the invisible.  He rules everything from the greatest to the least.  He rules over our lives, our days, our minutes, our thoughts, our relationships, our marriages, our choices, our cell phones, our finances, our homes, our jobs, our retirement.  He rules over our clothes, over our food, over our sleep, our health.  He rules over our times, over governments, over nations, over the past, the present, and the future.  He rules over the living and the dead.  He even rules over the number of hairs, or lack of hair, you have on your head!  There is nothing He does not rule over.  Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords! (1 Tim. 6:15). Yet, it’s an odd thing that when we think of Jesus as being King, we don’t think about His Ruler.  

If Jesus is truly our King, then that means there is no part of my life that He does not have the right to rule over. As believers, our lives are not our own.  This means we can’t compartmentalize our lives.  That’s a fancy way of telling God, “You can have this part of my life, but that part is off limits.” The Bible says as believers we were bought with a price, and we are not our own. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NLT). Jesus asked, Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? (Luke 6:46).  If we fail to see Jesus as the Ruler over our whole life, it will lead to living in a miserable world of guilt, shame, secrecy, and hypocrisy. He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out(Proverbs 10:9, NAS). 

Three major pictures of Jesus in the Bible.  He is our Prophet, Priest, and King.  As our Prophet, He calls us to repent, to turn to Him.  As our Priest, He rescues us from our sin, even the fear of death.  As our King, He rules over every detail of our lives.  In all of this, He gives us a new life, enabling us to walk in freedom, security, and joy. 

Why are all three of these pictures important to our walk with Christ? Sometime ago I came across what noted Bible teachers Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears call a “Tri-perspective” view of Jesus. They point out that when we think of Jesus in the Bible, we need to understand Who He is in all three of His roles which most believers would agree.  But then they do something that really jolted my thoughts.  They briefly explore the danger of what can happen if we don’t see Jesus in all three of His roles.  The Importance of Following Jesus as Prophet, Priest, & King Let me briefly walk us through them. I think they’re going to hit home for each of us.  

1. Prophet + King – Priest = Jesus of fundamentalism.  Fundamentalists only see Jesus as the prophet with his finger in your chest and king with a never-ending list of rules to keep.  They have either never learned or forgotten what love, forgiveness, and grace are.  There foreign to their vocabulary and their nature.  God seems cold, distant, stern, harsh, even cruel. Their Jesus sits on a throne far away and yells at them but never gets off that throne to help.  He’s just sitting there disappointed, waiting for us to mess up. In short, this is a God that we are more prone to run away from than toward in a time of need… There is no worship, humility, or joy.  Because God is a boss who yells at us, this is a form of religion [that] traps us into a cycle where if we think we’re doing well, we get proud, and if we think we’re doing poorly, we get depressed.  At no point do we receive loving help because Jesus is not fully valued as a priest.  We’re closed to Jesus being our Priest because we’re blind to it. 
2. Prophet + Priest – King = Jesus of Evangelicalism.  The curious fact of modern evangelicalism,authors Driscoll and Breshears note, is that there is both a general assent to basic Christian truths, and a moral life that is virtually indistinguishable from the average non-Chrisitan in areas such as sexual sin.  They ask, Why does this happen? Because the role of Jesus as King diminished or dismissed.  When Jesus is seen only as a Prophet and Priest, but not King, people know they are forgiven and loved, but they still rule over their own life.  When they need help, they read their Bible’s or ask Jesus to help to serve them. But practically, they don’t see Jesus ruling over them…. The result is a double-life of hypocrisy in which we call Jesus Lord, call His Word true, and do whatever we want in some areas of our life… Jesus is not King but a “trusty assistant” in times of need.  
3. Priest + King – Prophet = Jesus of Liberalism. Liberal Christianity sees Jesus as our Priest and King who is filled with love and grace, tolerance and patience.  He is our king who rules over people to extend His grace, love, and mercy. However, the weakness of typical liberal Christianity is that it fails to appreciate the hard-edged role of Jesus as Prophet.  The sad result is that Jesus is seen as someone who would never offend us, raise his voice, hurt our feelings, speak harshly, or command individuals to repent with a sense of urgency because he is only infinitely patient, tolerant, and understanding. …When Jesus is not seen as prophet, sinful beliefs and behaviors are blessed because to speak truth and command repentance would require a prophetic voice.  Consequently, liberal Christianity is mired in such things as homosexuality and universalism, as if every sexual practice and every religious belief were acceptable in the eyes of Jesus (Driscoll & Breshears, Vintage Jesus, pp. 82-85).

Why did Jesus come to earth? He came to reveal Who God is and meet our greatest needs.  As our Prophet, He calls us to repent from our sin.  As our Priest, He comforts us in His forgiveness.  As our King, He commands us to follow Him wholeheartedly.