The Person of Christ (eBook)

Introduction

Who Do You Say That Jesus Is?

The question Jesus asked his disciples many years ago is still alive and well today: “Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27). As in the first century, so today there is much confusion regarding Jesus’s identity, even though from a merely historical perspective, Jesus is the most towering figure in all history.1 The disciples responded to Jesus’s question by listing some of the diverse answers of their day: “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets” (Mark 8:28 NIV). What all these answers have in common is the acknowledgment that Jesus is extraordinary, but they all keep him in the category of a mere human.

Today, similar to the first century, people continue to answer Jesus’s question with diverse and confused answers. For some, Jesus is viewed as a great prophet or a wise philosopher, an important religious leader or even a social-justice revolutionary who took on the establishment. But again, what current views have in common with the older answers is that Jesus is merely a noteworthy man. So as various polls demonstrate, people have diverse views about Jesus but views that are confused, often contradictory, and, sadly, not what Scripture says about him.2

In stark contrast to the diverse views of Jesus in the first century and today, Scripture, along with the creeds of the church, presents a consistent, clear answer to Jesus’s question. Jesus is the divine Son, the second person of the triune Godhead, the Lord of glory, who in time assumed a human nature, so that now and forevermore he is the eternal “Word made flesh” (cf. John 1:1, 14). And he did this because it’s only one individual—God the Son incarnate—who can bring about God’s eternal plan by securing our redemption, executing judgment on sin, and establishing a new creation by the ratification of a new covenant in his life, death, and resurrection.

For this reason, the Jesus of the Bible who is the true Jesus is unique, exclusive, and the only Lord and Savior: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). This is also why confusion about him is a matter of life and death. Nothing is more important than getting right who Jesus is. The question of Jesus’s identity is not merely academic, something for theologians to ponder; it’s a question vital for all people to consider—and especially for the contemporary evangelical church.

We live in a day when people are greatly confused about Jesus’s identity. We are surrounded by a growing rejection of Christian theology, a rising militant secularism, and a rampant philosophical and religious pluralism. All this has contributed to people’s confusion regarding who Jesus is. But sadly, this confusion is not merely outside the evangelical church; it’s also within. In 2018, Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research conducted a poll among self-identified evangelicals and issued the results in their State of Theology report.3 Reflected in many of the answers is evidence that our churches suffer a serious lack of biblical and theological knowledge, especially regarding who Jesus is. Two questions are especially alarming. When given the statement “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God,” 78 percent agreed. Yet anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Scripture and Christological orthodoxy should have recognized that this is a denial of Christ’s deity and an embrace of the ancient heresy of Arianism (or the current view of Jehovah’s Witnesses). Not surprisingly, when given the statement “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,” 51 percent agreed. If Jesus’s identity is misunderstood, inevitably Jesus’s exclusive work will also be compromised.

No doubt, polls are often tricky to judge, but regardless, it does reveal a serious need for the ongoing careful teaching and exposition of who Jesus is from Scripture and the church’s confessional standards. Repeatedly, Scripture exhorts the church in every generation to faithfully “preach the word” and to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). Our goal in doing so is to see the church built up “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Eph. 4:13). We do not want the church to be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14), especially in regard to who Jesus is!

For this reason, a study in Christology that seeks to explain who Jesus is from Scripture and historical theology, why Jesus is unique, and how we are to think theologically about the incarnation is always necessary but is especially urgent today given the serious confusion that exists both outside and within the church. Despite this book being only a “short study” in Christology, my goal is to equip the church to know the basic biblical teaching about who Jesus is and how the church has theologically confessed the identity of Jesus throughout the ages.4 If a longer treatment of the person of Christ is required, the reader is encouraged to consult my larger work on the same subject: God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ (Crossway, 2016). In that work, I place the study of who Jesus is within various debates of Western intellectual history and at every point give a more detailed exposition and defense of orthodox Christology. This shorter work, however, is designed to be more accessible to the average reader and thus is ideal for pastors, church leaders, and Christians who want to know what Scripture says about our Lord Jesus and how the church has consistently proclaimed Christ Jesus as Lord. Although some of the material in this volume is adapted from my book God the Son Incarnate, owing to parallel arguments and a similar arrangement of topics and material, it’s not a mere abridgment of the earlier work. This work not only thoroughly develops the previous material but also expands on a number of points that the previous work only hinted at, especially regarding the relations of persons within the Trinity and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the incarnate Son.5

To accomplish the goal of equipping the church to know the basic biblical teaching about who Jesus is and the confessional tradition of the church, the book is written in three parts. Part 1 lays out the basic biblical data regarding Jesus’s identity as presented across the Bible’s storyline, after briefly discussing some important methodological points on how to construct a biblically faithful, theologically orthodox Christology. Part 2 turns to historical theology and thinks through how the church faithfully “put together” the biblical data and made theological judgments about Christ consistent with Scripture. In light of various false ways of thinking about who Jesus is—heresies still with us today—the church confessed Jesus’s identity in faithfulness to Scripture and with theological precision, a confession and orthodoxy we need to follow today. Part 3 offers a systematic theological summary of who Jesus is as God the Son incarnate from Scripture and in light of the confessional orthodoxy of the church. In a summary way, it attempts to answer questions often asked about Christ’s identity and the nature of the incarnation.

Ultimately, my goal in writing this book is to help the church know the Lord Jesus according to Scripture and thus in all his glory and majesty, to lead the church to trust him more as our only Lord and Savior, and to equip the church to articulate a Christological orthodoxy in continuity with the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).