CHAPTER NINETEEN

JESUS BEING GOD

Scripture Reading: John 1:1-4, 14, 18; 3:31; 10:30; 14:9

In this chapter we want to consider who Jesus is. Stanza 2 of Hymns, #84 says, “Christ, by
highest heav’n adored, / Christ, the everlasting Lord: / Late in time behold Him come, /
Offspring of a virgin’s womb. / Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, / Hail th’ incarnate Deity! /
Pleased as man with man to dwell, / Jesus our Immanuel.” Immanuel in Hebrew means “God
with us.” God became a man to live with man. Stanza 3 says, “Hail the heav’n-born Prince of
Peace! / Hail the Sun of righteousness! / Light and life to all He brings, / Ris’n with healing in
His wings: / Mild He lays His glory by, / Born that man no more may die; / Born to raise the
sons of earth; / Born to give them second birth.” This shows that God became a man in order to
bring salvation to man.

God speaks and communicates to man through the Bible, but He also wants to be with man.
Because He has given us the Bible, God does not need to speak directly to every believer, and if
we pay attention to the words in the Bible, we can hear God’s speaking. Nevertheless, even
though God communicates through the words in the Bible, He personally came to be among
man. However, He did not come in the greatness and glory of His position as the God who
dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). If He came in this way, no one would dare come
near to Him. There is no way for us to approach the glorious light of God’s holiness, because we
are defiled and evil. As filthy sinners, we cannot see God, much less approach Him. Therefore,
God became a man like us in order to come to us.

Once a brother in Kuling was recuperating from an illness. He was lonely and wanted to talk
with someone. When he saw a flock of sparrows nearby, he walked toward them, but they all
flew away. As soon as he walked away, the sparrows came together once again. Then he
scattered some rice on the ground to lure them forward, but once he approached them, the
sparrows flew away again. He thought, “Little sparrows, I do not have any intention to hurt you.
I earnestly want to be friends with you, but you misunderstand my intentions.” Then he said to
himself, “If I could become a sparrow like them, they would not be afraid when I approached
them. It is a pity that I cannot become a sparrow.” Then he realized how difficult it is for God to
have a relationship with man. Since God wants to be with man, He had no choice but to leave the
greatness and glory of His high position and become a man so that we could approach Him.

Jesus is God. He is the One who is great, holy, and bright, but He did not come to us according
to His high position. If He had come to us in this way, we certainly would have run away and
hidden like the sparrows. John 1:1 and 14 say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among
us...full of grace and reality.” This shows that Jesus is God who became flesh. In the beginning
refers to eternity past before time even existed. The Word was with God in the beginning (v. 2),
that is, before time began. Moreover, the Word was God. Verse 3 says, “All things came into
being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being which has come into
being.” Even though He created all things in the universe, He became flesh to be among men (v.
14).

Jesus means “Jehovah the Savior,” or “the salvation of Jehovah” (Matt. 1:21). He is also called
Emmanuel, meaning “God with us” (v. 23). Jesus is both God and man. He became a man so that
He could be near to man and so that man could be near to Him. When Jesus was on the earth, no
one was afraid of Him, including adults, children, prostitutes, and tax collectors, because He was
a man. Even though He also was God, He did not appear to be powerful, and people were not
afraid of Him. Furthermore, His visage was marred, and He did not have an attractive form or
beautiful appearance (Isa. 53:2). He was the son of a lowly carpenter (Matt. 13:55). Hence,
everyone could approach Him. Although He appeared to be only an ordinary man, He performed
miracles. When He performed miracles, people were amazed, saying, “Is not this the carpenter’s
son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” (vv. 55-
56). Nevertheless, some people did not believe that Jesus was God. Therefore, we need to see
who Jesus is based on His own words.

JESUS DECLARING THAT HE IS GOD

I have to ask, “Who is Jesus?” If you reply that He is a Savior, I need to ask, “For whom did He
come to save?” If Jesus were merely a man, He could not be man’s Savior, because a man cannot
save man. Every man has sins, and a sinful person cannot save sinners. If Jesus were merely a
man, He could not save us. The only One who can save us is God. But is Jesus God, or is He just
a man? Let us see what Jesus said concerning Himself.

In the Gospel of John, Philip asked the Lord Jesus to show the disciples the Father, and it would
be sufficient. Jesus answered and said, “Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not
known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how is it that you say, Show us the
Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say
to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works” (14:9-10).
He also said, “I and the Father are one” (10:30). Other than Jesus, no one has said that he was
God. No sage in the history of China has said that he was God. Sakyamuni, the founder of
Buddhism, did not say that he was God, and even Mohammed said that he was only a prophet.
Other than Jesus, no one in history has dared to say that he was God. Many people, who consider
Jesus to be the same as the idols that they worship, do not realize that the title of god is given to
the idol by people only after the death of the person upon whom the idol is based. Can anyone
who has been given the title god be God? Do people have the power to make someone God?
Jesus is not God because He was declared to be God by man. God is God, yet He came to the
earth to be a man. Only Jesus said that He was God. The God who has come to the earth is Jesus.

If a person claims to be God but is not, there are only two possible explanations for his error: he
is either speaking nonsense, or he is lying. Jesus, however, did not speak nonsense, nor did He
lie. From ancient times to the present and from the East to the West, no one has been able to
credibly call Him a madman. Then, if He is not a madman, His claim to be God must either be a
lie or the truth. Since Jesus had the highest standard of morality, who can say that He was a liar?
If Jesus was not crazy and was not a liar, then He was truthful in His declaration that He is God.
When He was arrested, He did not say a word, and at His trial He acknowledged that He is the
Son of God. He was killed because He acknowledged that He is the Son of God. If He had been a
liar, would He have lied knowing that it would result in His death? Furthermore, none of the
miracles that He performed, including healing the sick, casting out demons, resurrecting the
dead, and calming the wind and the sea, could have been accomplished by an ordinary man.

The words that Jesus spoke were full of wisdom, containing the highest standard of morality that
has ever existed in the world. A philosopher once said, “The philosophy in the four Gospels is
extraordinary. If these words are fabrications, then the fabricator must be God.” Jesus also spoke
prophetically of His own death and resurrection. Could any human being do this? All Jesus’
words and deeds prove that He is God.

BELIEVERS PROVING THAT JESUS IS GOD

During the first century, the Roman emperor Nero slaughtered many Christians because they
confessed Jesus as God. If Jesus were not God, there would not have been so many people
willing to sacrifice their lives because of their belief in Him. Almost two thousand years have
passed since the time of Jesus’ ascension; if He were not God, how could He still listen to
prayers, heal the sick, and perform miracles today?

Many years ago Dr. John Sung went to Shantung to preach the gospel. There was a woman who
had been paralyzed for eighteen years and was unable to walk. She was carried to Dr. Sung, and
he was asked to lay his hands on her. At the time three saints who were present began to pray for
the woman. At the end of their prayer, one of the brothers ordered her to get up and walk. To
everyone’s amazement, she got up and walked. She later testified that she felt a warm current
going through her body when the saints were praying. When the husband of the woman received
the telegram notifying him of his wife’s ability to walk, he could not believe the news. As a
result of her healing, the whole family was full of joy. If Jesus were not God, how could miracles
occur when people pray?

When gospel preachers go to the countryside to preach the gospel, they often encounter demons.
Nevertheless, all the demons are afraid of Jesus. Demon-possessed people, whether male or
female, have enormous strength and can easily break the restraints upon them. However, even
these strong demons are afraid of Jesus. Christians can cast out the demons just by praying in the
Lord’s name. Once there were two brothers who went to the countryside. When they knelt down
to pray, a demon-possessed woman tried to frighten them by jumping around with a pair of
scissors in her hands. When they did not cease in their prayers, the woman suddenly trembled.
Through their prayer, the demon was cast out, and she was healed. When Christians are present,
demons often dare not come, even when people are performing works of divining.

In cities demons use different kinds of entertainment, such as dancing and movies, to possess
people, causing them to be beside themselves in dancing and watching movies. They dance until
they forget who they are. This is Satan’s work. He pretends to be civilized in order to deceive
people. Demons possess people and cause them to resist Jesus because they are afraid of Jesus. If
Jesus were not God, why would demons be afraid of Him? Whenever people speak of Confucius,
they feel as if they are being honorable, and when they speak of different kinds of “isms,” they
feel as if they are being scholarly. However, when they speak of Jesus, they feel ashamed. Some
try to blame this sense of shame on the fact that teachings about Jesus come from a foreign
country. It is strange, however, that they do not have a similar sense of shame when they
promote foreign businesses, foreign education, and foreign goods. This shows that their shame is
really an issue of the work of demons. Demons cause people to feel shameful in order to turn
them away from Jesus. Demons want to possess man. Consequently, demons do not want people
to believe in Jesus, because once a person believes in Jesus, the demons’ desire is frustrated.

Jesus is God, the omnipresent and omniscient God who created all things. When we pray to Him,
He listens. When we entreat Him, He perfects us. People who are in darkness receive light when
they pray to Him, and those who are lost receive salvation when they open to Him. He is the true
God.

< Contents | Top | Chapter 20 >