Declaring Christ
By The Watchman, Dana G Smith
Keywords: Christ, Jesus, Word, Yahweh, Yeshua, Messiach, Messiah, Son of God

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I stood in the hall of the Hospital as he approached. He was an older man, graying hair that formed into a pony tail in the back. He came directly to me. As He came up, he spoke as if he knew I was a believer. After some small talk about seeing me around, he said, “I died and went to heaven. I stood in front of the throne, there was God the Father and Jesus on standing on the side of him.” He told me of his wife and her trouble with collapsed lungs. “The Lord told me I would never again be sick” he said looking me in the eye. “Did you know that Jesus never did say he was God?” He waited for a response as I looked him in the eye. “You can look it up, nowhere does he say, he was God!” After a few seconds, he took off, as quick as he came up to me. I saw him only once more while I was there, but he did not give me a second glance. Now while many people such as this one have had a dream or experience, the truth is revealed in scripture. It is our final source of authority. What is written and who writes it, and under what inspiration is it? The Word of God, given to us, through the Prophets and Apostles, are given as a record and testimony to the Christ, the Son of God. It is this authority, written under God-breathed inspiration to us which should formulate for us as to what is true or not. It is not to be dictated by a dream, vision, or even a miracle we may see.

The Testimony of Christ, What did he say?

I have heard others use that same phrase, “Jesus never did say he was God”, to say Jesus was not God. There is no doubt that some people do not understand how to begin with this idea. First, let me say, Jesus did not come to testify that he was God, only that he was the Son of God, revealing the Father. Second let me also say, the word Jesus is our English transliteration for the greek is IESOUS and is the Hebrew Yehoshua or Yeshua, meaning ‘Yahweh saves’. Christ (Christos) is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah, Massiach or Mashiah, meaning ‘anointed’. So if you were on the streets of Jerusalem and saw a young preacher who many thought was the ‘anointed one’, they would not call him Jesus, nor would he respond to your calling him Jesus. That said, today in the English speaking world, we call the Jewish Messiah, the son of David, the son of God, Jesus. His Hebrew title would be Yeshua HaMassiach or Ha Massiah, meaning “Yahweh saves’, the anointed one.

Jesus did tell the Jews in John Eight, verse twenty-four b, saying “ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” In this passage, Jesus was directly referring to the prophets who spoke of the coming Messiah. In looking at this, let us see first what the Apostle John had to say about this Christ, the son of God. John describes, as does the Apostle Paul of Jesus being at the beginning of Creation, and not only being there, but instrumental in its creation.

John 1:1  ¶In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2  The same was in the beginning with God.
3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In the above phrase the Apostle John uses the verbage ‘Word’, and capitalizes its first letter. The verbage ‘Word’ is used three times in the first sentence of John as an introduction to those who would read it and what the gospel of John would be about. The apostle flatly states in the first sentence and uses the verbage ‘Word’ as a proper name or title. This book, John wrote is about the ‘Word’ being made flesh. It is about the anointed one, the Christ. Thus, the verbage ‘Word’ is a title of Christ, and is capitalized meaning a proper name.

Thus emphasizing the diety of Christ and communication of who God is and what he is like. [Strongs 3056.]

The Apostle John says in chapter one, verse one “theos en ho logos”, meaning that the Logos or Word is God. In This first glimpse of the testimony of John, we find that the Word is God. Again let me emphasize that the verbage ‘Word’ is capitalized, meaning a name. It is a title, describing that the Word was with God in the very beginning, the Word was God, and nothing was made without him. God the Father, created all things, through the Word, whom we know as Christ Jesus. This alone makes the divinity of Christ as God a legitimate aspect of his being. That said, while he was God, he was also man.

John further recounts his testimony in his first epistle referring to Christ, as being “that which was from the beginning.” It was Christ, John refers to as also saying the one “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life.” This powerful testimony directly relates to John the first chapter.

1 John 1:1  ¶That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
2  (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
3  That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul calls him “the first born of all creation” Col 1:15. From the Messianic verse found in Psalms 89:27, which states “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.”

The title “first born” does not mean that Christ himself was the first one created; what the title does mean is that Christ, existing as he did before all creation, exercises the privilege of primogeniture [Right of inheritance belongs exclusively to the eldest son] as the Lord of all creation, the divinely appointed heir of all things. [Lectures in Systematic Theology, Thiessen, p209]

Hebrews 1:2  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
Ephesians 1:4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
John 1:3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
1 Corinthians 8:6b one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
Colossians 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

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