Jesus is God – Merry Christmas. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh. He was the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Lion of Judah, the son of David, and born of the virgin. This is the season where we celebrate the event where the 2nd Person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ – the eternal Word of God became human. Through the virgin Mary the Christ entered the world, was lauded by shepherds and angels, was illuminated by the star, and was worshipped by Magi. In that humble manger the child-Christ gloriously fulfilled the prophecies of old. The child grew up, and became a man – THE Man. He is Daniel’s Son of Man; He is Isaiah’s Man of Sorrows, who died a man and was raised up a man. But He is not only a man, as we will see today. When His earthly career was over He returned to heaven to His glory, and He has been building His Church ever since by the sending out of His servants. One of those is the Apostle Paul – sent to the Galatians by Jesus Christ.
I have 3 gifts for you today: 1) the Deity of Jesus, 2) the Death of Jesus, and 3) the Deliverance of Jesus. Merry Christmas!
THE DEITY OF JESUS CHRIST (1, 10-12)
The NT is overwhelmingly forceful in teaching that Jesus is God.
- Paul says he was not sent by men, but by Jesus. Jesus is “not a man,” meaning he is not merely a man but more than a man – He is equal with God the Father. Jews would have stoned Paul for so breathlessly speaking of Jesus on the same level as God the Father.
- Paul’s greeting says that grace and peace come from God the Father AND Jesus. It does not come from a man, but this divinely supplied grace and peace are said to come from not only God the Father, but from Jesus
- Look at verses 10-12 with me and see how Paul teaches the deity of Jesus just as forcefully…. Look at how Paul contrasts mere men with Jesus: Paul serves Jesus – not men, and Paul did not learn the Gospel from any man but he received it from Jesus – who is not a mere man. In other words Paul is asserting that he had the Gospel revealed to him from a divine source: Jesus Christ. Jesus is God.
The doctrine we are encountering is the Triunity of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible reveals God to be one God, but three distinct Persons: Father, Son and Spirit. The errors on this doctrine are numerous:
- Modalism – God is one person changing into each person
- Jefferson & Adams – considered the Trinity a stupid teaching, made up by the disciples
- Islam – calls Christians “polytheists,” rejects God having a son
- Jehovah’s Witnesses – Jesus and the Spirit are not God, Jesus is a created being and is actually Michael the archangel, and the Spirit is an impersonal energy
- Arianism – ancient heresy from Arius who said Jesus was not God but instead created by God
Each one of them insists that because the teaching is not logical to human understanding it must be something else. But do not limit divine revelation with human reasoning. It is not “irrational,” but supra-rational. Meaning it is not inconsistent with human rationality, but it goes beyond human thinking and transcends our rationality. Our minds are little spoons trying to hold the whole ocean of God’s Being!
APPLICATION: Here is a test: When the Bible teaches something that does not make sense to you, what will you do? Will you believe it and accept it, as being revelation from God? Or will you reject it, reshape the meaning of what is said because you don’t like it?
The Bible clearly teaches the Trinity. Look just here in Galatians:
- The Father: sent Paul, treated equal with the Son as God, raised Jesus from the dead, willed the death & resurrection of His Son, gives grace & peace to believers, glory to Him forever
- The Son: co-sent Paul along with the Father, treated as equal with the Father as God, truly died, truly was raised up, willingly went to death, died for us, alone rescues us from this present evil age, submitted to the will of God the Father, gives grace and peace to believers
- The Holy Spirit (later in chapters 3, 4 and especially 5)
The Trinity is the teaching that there is ONE GOD, and that one God is THREE PERSONS, who have existed together forever.
The Trinity is a non-negotiable for the Christian faith. We can disagree on other doctrines of lesser importance. But the Trinity is a hill we die on. It is the clear teaching of Scripture, it is essential to every other doctrine, and you cannot be a Christian without believing it.
APPLICATION: Go to the Father. The entire point of Jesus coming is that we can go to the Father – the first Person of the Trinity. I amd the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Through Him we approach the Father Ephesians 3 says. A time is coming when you will ask the Father yourselves… Jesus said in John 16.
Christians we need to be specific in our faith – specific in the way we relate to the Triune God. It is through the Son that we go to the Father. Let us express our belief in the Trinity by relating to each Person the way the Bible says for us to.
THE DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST (4a)
Paul also emphasizes the death of Jesus Christ here in his greeting. Look at verse 4, grace & peace to you from the Lord Jesus Christ, “who gave himself for our sins…”
The death of Jesus is the most central part of the Gospel (along with his resurrection). This whole letter is written to anchor the Galatian Christians in the Gospel – so beginning with the most essential, non-negotiable truth of the Gospel makes perfect sense.
I want us to see two important things about His death. First, He gave Himself. He voluntarily gave up His life. He was not a victim. Note carefully Paul’s words, “who gave Himself…” Jesus told the disciples in John 10, “No one takes my life from Me, But I lay it down on my own authority.” The voluntary surrender of Himself to death was heard when He prayed, “If possible let this cup pass from me Father. Yet not my will, but your will be done.” Voluntary. Or when He was arrested and Peter drew His sword and Jesus rebuked Him, “Do you think I’m unable to call on my Father right now and have 12 legions of angels immediately at my disposal?” Voluntary. Not against His will – but it was His will.
APPLICATION: Jesus was not a victim. Do not mistake the death of Jesus as somehow being a horribly “gone wrong” plan. He was not the victim of forces greater than Himself. The very next words to end verse 4 smash such an idea, “according to the will of our God and Father.” The plan from eternity was that Jesus would come at the right time in order to die! Peter told the Jews in Acts 2:23, “[Jesus] was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge…” First Peter 1:19 says “He was chosen from before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times.”
But notice secondly, not only did He die voluntarily, he died “for our sins” Paul says in verse 4. He died as our Substitute.
- Turn to 1 Corinthians 15:3 with me….READ. His death was FOR OUR SINS. “According to the Scriptures…” What Scriptures?
- Turn to Isaiah 53:5-6 with me……He died for our sins.
- When Gabriel came to Joseph, betrothed to Mary, he told Joseph to name the child “Jesus.” Why? The angel says in Matthew 1:21, “Becuase he will save His people from their sins.” Merry Christmas! The child born this Christmas day is the child who grew up to be the man who saves us from our sins!
APPLICATION: The death of Jesus negates our living good enough. The one who was born in a manger came to die on a cross. The one who was born “one of us” came to die FOR us! The purpose of Jesus’ death was to save us from our sins by dying for our sins.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: come to the One who came to you! The One who died for you is the One who can give you true Life!!
APPLICATION: His love for you is why He died for you. Jesus explained it this way, “There is no greater love that a man has for his friends than that He would lay down his life for his friends.” Love. For God so loved the world that He __(GAVE)__ His one and only son…” Its not about you loving God enough to be saved. It’s about accepting that He loves you enough for you to be saved.
DELIVERANCE
So we’ve seen the deity of Jesus, the death of Jesus, and now the deliverance of Jesus. There are two deliverances of Jesus here in these verses: one is of Jesus being delivered, and the other is Jesus delivering us. o be rescued from. To be taken out of a dangerous situation.
First, Jesus was delivered from death. He was resurrected. Look at verse 1, “…by God the Father, who RAISED him from the dead…”
Second, Jesus delivers us. Look at verse 4, “who gave Himself for our sins TO RESCUE US from the present evil age…” The word “rescue” is a word that means to pluck out, to deliver, to save from…to rescue. Jesus rescues us. We were in the danger of all dangers – the danger of our sins. Our sins would not be a problem were it not for a Holy God who is the Judge and will judge our sins. Because there is a Judge, who is Holy, and because our sins are against Him, we are in eternal danger.
I want to point out to you that Jesus died for our sins to rescue us from this evil age. Our sins and this evil age. You must see they are connected: the sin in us that animates us to sin is the sin that animates this evil age we live in. It is not just “out there,” but it is also “in here,” inside of us. The sin that has corrupted this world is the sin that has corrupted us. To condemn out there is to condemn within.
But Jesus rescues us. This God who will bring the full force of His wrath up on sin sent His Son to die for our sins. And this so that we could be He rescues us from our sins by dying for our sins; He rescues us also from this evil present age. God is going to judge this evil world and the evil that rules it. And He will judge EVERYONE who is part of it. But those who take the rescue that Jesus offers will be saved. Do not be swept away with this evil age by the Judgement of God, but be rescued from this evil age, and the coming wrath against it, by turning to Jesus.
Jesus came into this world humbly, in a manger. It says in Philippians 2 that when He came he set aside His divine glory to come humbly. He didn’t stop being God, but He hid his God-glory. The only way to come to Him is the same way: humbly. Set aside your “glory,” your pride, and lower yourself before the Lord and Savior, Jesus.