Jesus Our Triune God
By C. O. Griggs
The Bible contains many proofs of the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth. This Jesus who grew up to manhood at Nazareth was conceived by incarnation in the virgin Mary and was born, in an altogether natural manner, at Bethlehem, the city of His father, King David. This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14: "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." Jesus' humanity came from His mother, Mary, who was a direct descendant of David through his son Nathan.
As strange as it may appear to us, no
one ever later called Jesus Immanuel in the Bible. The Hebrew word is
not a proper title but a characterization. A study of the word Immanuel
in the Hebrew dictionary yields the following: Im-manu-el, where "1m"
means complete identity; "manu" means almighty; and "el" means God (I
Almighty God).
"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us" (Matthew 1 :23). The word "EI" is in the very first verse of our Bible:
"In the beginning God .... " This is
Elohim, the Creator, of Whom John tells us "All things were made by Him;
and without Him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). Only
infinite God could create anything. Jesus of Nazareth created time,
space and matter and He did this from His own energy, without materials.
God is the only source of the material universe-all of its governing
laws and all spirit beings.
Our Almighty God is presented to us in
our Bible as He appeared to Abram, by the name El Shaddai (Genesis
17:1). As El (God) He is the Almighty, and as Shaddai He is the
nourisher, sustainer, comforter; and He is the cause of continuity in
His universe. It was the El Shaddai that changed Abram's name to
Abraham; changed Sarai's name to Sarah; and supernaturally reversed the
biological impotency of Abraham and Sarah.
God's whole plan for man's redemption
demanded His intervention in this natural condition. Indeed, it seems
that God waited until Abraham and Sarah were too old, for His own good
reasons. Undoubtedly God foreknew and foreordained the entire line of
descent from Adam to Jesus of Nazareth. The Lord appeared to Abraham
over a period of twenty five years and gave to him specific promises
concerning a land and a seed. (See Genesis 12:7; 13:15; 15:5; 17:2; and
21:1-3).
When Abraham was one hundred years old
and Sarah was ninety, Isaac was born. This was a miracle birth and Isaac
was a miracle child. Isaac's birth was both natural and supernatural;
it would not have occurred without Divine intervention. Here are God's
words:
"And the Lord visited Sarah as He had
said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken." "For Sarah
conceived, and bore Abraham a son ... " (Genesis 21:1,2).
From the time that God clothed Adam and
his wife with coats of blood-bought skins (Genesis 3:20,21) until the
price of man's redemption was paid by the shedding of the priceless
blood of Jesus of Nazareth, (Son of Man, and Son of God) He, the
preincarnate Christ, intervened many times in the affairs of mankind. At
certain key points in the revelation of the coming of Israel's Messiah
and of the plan of redemption, God's intent is prefaced by use of some
form of the word visit
The physical preservation and biological integrity of Abraham's family was essential to God's plans and purposes. This was specially true of the tribe of Judah, for it was from his family that their kings and their Messiah came.
"And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence" (Genesis 50:24,25).
Surely Joseph's words here are a classic
demonstration of his faith in God's promises to his progenitors, to
himself, and to his descendants, and on until Christ rules in that land
personally. Now, Joseph tells us that God's promises were to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. These words were inspired by God, spoken by Joseph,
and written by Moses by Divine direction. But look at part A of verse
twenty five; it is not from Joseph but from Moses, and he was inspired
to use Jacob's new name, Israel. This new name occurs 2542 times in our
English Bible. Israel translates into English: "He will rule as God."
Jacob-Israel was the father of twelve
sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. These twelve
tribes eventually became the political entity known to history as the
nation Israel.
It is a historical fact that Israel has
never, for any extended period, "ruled as God." When God's predetermined
time comes He will rule the world as God, in the person of our Lord
Jesus Christ, because He is and has ever been the Almighty God.
32:24-32 records the experience of Jacob
wrestling all night with a man whom he knew to be more than a man-a
theophany. Abraham, Lot and Joshua were visited by this same "Man."
Jacob that night contended with "The Angel of the Lord" and prevailed.
He won, and he won big. Jacob was never the same after that night.
Physically, Jacob limped for the rest of his life; 'spiritually, as
Israel, he soared. The preincarnate Christ changed Jacob's name because
He changed Jacob, the "heel catcher and supplanter," to Israel as seen
here:
"And He (God) said, thy name shall be
called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with
God and with men, and hast prevailed" (Genesis 32:28).
The words "called no more Jacob" should
have been followed by only. This change is very important, for Jacob
occurs 260 times after Genesis 32:28, and in the possessive form 19
times. Hebrews 11:21 records the last mention of "Jacob."
"By faith Jacob, when he was dying,
blessed both the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning upon the top of
his staff" (Hebrews 11:21).
Jacob died in possession of two things,
his old nature with its infirmities, and his true faith in God who
changed him to Israel. True faith is obedience to God and the truest
form of worship. Jacob, with his old nature and his infirmed body, died.
He shall be resurrected with a perfect body and perfect nature because
he believed God. The reason God could give this incomparable blessing to
wholly undeserving Jacob is seen in the last use of the word "Jacob's."
"Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat by the well; and it was
about the sixth hour" (John 4:6).
This verse is from one of the most
beautiful and significant stories of the Bible (read it, John 4:5-26).
Jacob left his twelve sons in possession of God's promises, but before
he died he gave a parcel of land and a well to his son Joseph. Why to
Joseph only? Joseph and his experiences were in m~ny ways typical of
Jesus' life on earth. "Joseph" means "to act a part." Joseph's brothers
(Benjamin excepted) hated him and in their hearts murdered him when they
put him in a dry well. Jesus' brothers likewise murdered Him in their
hearts. The proof of the death of Jesus is His poured out blood and His
burial in a tomb. Hatred for Joseph and Jesus alike was without a cause.
Jacob's well was a source of life-giving
water. At the time Jesus sat by that well and met the woman of Samaria,
it had been supplying life sustaining water for eighteen centuries. But
it never gave to anyone the "living water" which Jesus offered her.
"But whosoever drinketh of the water
that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
give him shall be In him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life" (John 4:14).
God alone, in all the universe, could
give everlasting life to anyone. Jesus of Nazareth was God, the only
source of life! Jacob gave the well, the source of life, to Joseph as if
he had only one son. God gave mankind His only Son, Himself, Life!
From a thorough study of this subject
throughout the Bible, it becomes apparent that God's visits are not only
to bless but also, many times, to chastise and even to curse.
Exodus 13: 19-Moses led some two million
five hundred thousand men, women and children with all their animals,
out of Egypt. Now imagine leading this worldclass menagerie, pursued by a
hostile army on a detour to a cemetery to dig up two hundred year old
bones. Joseph said that God would visit his descendants. Moses knew that
their deliverance from the powers of darkness and out of the land of
Egypt was due entirely to God's visitation. This is no less than a
graphic view of God's rescue of.a person from his slavery to sin; from
the blinding influences of this present satanic world system, and God's
ultimate translation and transportation into His own presence. This God
is Jesus of Nazareth, Israel's Messiah, the Christ for all mankind.
Exodus 32:34-It seems that a large
majority of the Israelites had participated in the making and worship of
the golden calf "which Aaron made." Moses interceded with God on their
behalf. God gave Moses two very important revelations at that time:
" ... Whosoever hath sinned against Me,
him willi blot out of My book .... when I visit I will visit their sin
upon them" (Exodus 32:33,34).
first Scripture makes it very clear that
God cannot tolerate any sin and must punish all offenders. If the
second Scripture is an absolute decree without recourse, then every
member of Adam's race is forever doomed. But such is not the case! This
decree is restated in Ezekiel 18:20: "The soul (Lit. person) that
sinneth, it shall die." This decree is most certainly an irrevocable law
but God has provided a recourse for man. We simply must understand that
this law is neither capricious nor arbitrary. It is an expression of
the holiness, righteousness and justice of infinite God. This law is
not, in a primary sense, a warning not to sin. The Man, in "what is
man", is from a Hebrew root meaning frail, feeble, melancholy,
desperately wicked, incurable, sick and woeful. Jeremiah 17:9 says
offallen man, "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked." But this cannot be descriptive of "man" in David's second
question, for there the Hebrew word is Adam. The Apostle Paul tells us
that "the second Man is the Lord from Heaven" (See I Corinthians
15:45-47).
"The first man, Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam ... A quickening Spirit" (Verse 45).
Now we have this: The first man is the first Adam; the second man is the last Adam. He is the last in the sense that there shall never be another. And He is the last Adam in the sense of federal headship, and this position He holds by right of redemption. The last Adam is the uncreated Creator of the first Adam.
"Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat by the well; and It was
about the sixth hour" (John 4:6).
This verse is from one of the most beautiful and significant stories of the Bible (read it, John 4:5-26). Jacob left his twelve sons in possession of God's promises, but before he died he gave a parcel ofland and a well to his son Joseph. Why to Joseph only? Joseph and his experiences were in many ways typical of Jesus' life on earth. "Joseph" means "to 'act a part:' Joseph's brothers (Benjamin excepted) hated him and in their hearts murdered him when they put him in a dry well. Jesus' brothers likewise murdered Him in their hearts. The proof of the death of Jesus is His poured out blood and His burial in a tomb. Hatred for Joseph and Jesus alike was without a cause.
Jacob's well was a source oflife-giving water. At the time Jesus sat by that well and met the woman of Samaria, it had been supplying life-sustaining water for eighteen centuries. But it never gave to anyone the "living water" which Jesus offered her.
"But whosoever drlnketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).
God alone, in all the universe, could
give everlasting life to anyone. Jesus of Nazareth was God, the only
source of life! Jacob gave the well, the source of life, to Joseph as if
he had only one son. God gave mankind His only Son, Himself, Life!
From a thorough study of this subject
throughout the Bible, it becomes apparent that God's visits are not only
to bless but also, many times, to chastise and even to curse.
Exodus 13:19-Moses led some two million
five hundred thousand men, women and children with all their animals,
out of Egypt. Now imagine leading this world class menagerie, pursued by
a hostile army on a detour to a cemetery to dig up two hundred year old
bones. Joseph said that God would visit his descendants. Moses knew
that their deliverance from the powers of darkness and out of the land
of Egypt was due entirely to God's visitation. This is no less than a
graphic view of God's rescue of a person from his slavery to sin; from
the blinding influences of this present satanic world system, and God's
ultimate translation and transportation into His own presence. This God
is Jesus of Nazareth, Israel's Messiah, the Christ for all mankind.
Exodus 32:34-1t seems that a large
majority of the Israelites had participated in the making and worship of
the golden calf "which Aaron made." Moses interceded with God on their
behalf. God gave Moses two very important revelations at that time:
••... Whosoever hath sinned against Me,
him will I blot out of My book .... when I visit I will visit their sin
upon them" (Exodus 32:33,34).
The first Scripture makes it very clear
that God cannot tolerate any sin and must punish all offenders. If the
second Scripture is an absolute decree without recourse, then every
member of Adam's race is forever doomed. But such is not the case! This
decree is restated in Ezekiel 18:20: "The soul (Lit. person) that
sinneth, it shall die." This decree is most certainly an irrevocable law
but God has provided a recourse for man. We simply must understand that
this law is neither capricious nor arbitrary. It is an expression of
the holiness, righteousness and justice of infinite God. This law is
not, in a primary sense, a warning not to sin. The primary warning was
given to Adam by his Creator, "Thou shall not," but he did. The
relationship of all mankind to Adam was so complete that this curse of
death came upon all his descendants. This means that each and every
person is born without a proper relationship to God because of their
relationship to Adam.
"Wherefore, as by one man sin (the
condition) entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed
upon all men, lor that all have sinned (in Adam)" (Romans 5:12).
As a result of ou~ relationship to Adam we are sinners. "For all have sinned, and come short 01 the glory 01 God (His glorious standard, Christ)" (Romans 3:23).
Now we have seen that man must lose his
relationship to Adam and gain a relationship to another Adam, the last
Adam, Christ. Dear reader, please understand that to accomplish this
task of extracting any member of Adam's race out of his lost condition
and translating him into an eternal relationship with Himself is the
most difficult demand ever made of the Almighty God. The following
Scripture contains proof ofthe means and person God used to accomplish
this translation
"When I consider thy heavens, the work 01 thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, What is man, that thou art mindful 01 him? And the Son of Man, that thou visitesl him?" (Psalms 8:3,4).
The term "Son of Man" occurs about
ninety times in the New Testament. "Son" in this term is from the Greek
"Huios" which means just that--a son. But the term as a whole with "Son"
capitalized is always and only, applied to our Lord and Saviour. It was
as "Son of Man" that He came down from Heaven, and it was as "Son of
Man" that He ascended up into Heaven.
Man, in "what is man", is from a Hebrew
root meaning frail, feeble, melancholy, desperately wicked, incur. able,
sick and woeful. Jeremiah 17:9 says offallen man, "the heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." But this cannot be
descriptive of "man" in David's second question, for there the Hebrew
word is Adam. The Apostle Paul tells us that "the second Man is the Lord
from Heaven" (See I Corinthians 15:45-47).
"The fIrsl man, Adam was made a living soul: The lasl Adam ••. A quickening Spirit" (Verse 45).
Now we have this: The first man is the first Adam; the second man is the last Adam. He is the last in the sense that there shall never be another. And He is the last Adam in the sense of federal headship, and this position He holds by right of redemption. The last Adam is the uncreated Creator of the first Adam.
Now we have this: The first man is the first Adam; the second man is the last Adam. He is the last in the sense that there shall never be another. And He is the last Adam in the sense of federal headship, and this position He holds by right of redemption. The last Adam is the uncreated Creator of the first Adam.
The second man is the pattern Man of
eternity (the prototype) but He became a true member of the human family
by a special creative act of God. He did not become man by mundane
biological process-He had no human father. The first Adam was a son of
God only because he was a direct creation. The last Adam is and always
has been God the Son. Only as man did the Son of God have a beginning
and this entirely supernatural act of God formed an everlasting union
between Himself and mankind in the historical Jesus of Nazareth.
"Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten Thee" (Psalms 2:7).
This does not refer to the birth of Jesus. The word begotten is used in several ways in the English Bible. The Hebrew word translated begotten in this Scripture means "to bring forth." He, our Lord and Saviour, was brought forth out from among the dead. Christ's resurrection is God's proof to mankind and to all beings throughout the universe that the all sufficient death of Christ has accomplished redemption. The debt is paid and it was paid by God, to God. Christ's resurrection is the receipt and it was given by God to God. The facts have been published by God in the Word of God. PSALMS 8:4
What is man? Man is a lost and helpless creature living in a condemned world system which cannot lend help. The world has nothing to offer of value beyond the grave-not even its religion can help. Man's reli. gions are actually harmful, for their function is as a sedative and thus blind him to his need of a Saviour. Man's help must come from a source outside of himself and his environment.
Who is the Son of Man? He is the
incarnation of the eternally existent God. Man is not God, God is not
man, but a supernatural reality brought man and God into union in the
Person of Christ Jesus. And this union of God and man did not, in the
least, violate either person or his personality.
What is the Son of Man? He is the
ultimate goal to whom the God ordained law and religion led. He is the
Seed of the Woman (Genesis 3:15). He is the covenant maker. He is the
eternal Word (John 1:1). He is David's Lord. He is the Lily of the
Valley, the Rose of Sharon, the Morning Star, the Rock of Ages, the
Mighty Fortress, the High Tower, the Hom (Source) of David's Salvation.
He was, and is, the way shower, the way maker and "the Way."
"Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (John 14:6).
These words of Jesus, the Son of Man,
are preceded by this: "1 and My Father are one" (John 10:30); and
because in His humanity He was Son of Adam. And this He was by way of
the "Seed of the woman." Beyond this, man's finite mind cannot go.
Because of the identity of Jesus of
Nazareth as both infinite God (The Creator of the First Adam) and
perfect man, He is the Last Adam. And as such He is the only Being in
the universe who could head up the redeemed from the lost and condemned
race of the first Adam. The identity of Jesus the Christ is very
important. And His identity with mankind is supremely important to God
and to us mortals.
God, by incarnation, identified Himself by becoming one of us. And by every facet of His life on earth He became increasingly more identified with mankind. The final humiliation was His submission to death on the cross, at the instigation of His own people whom He had come to rescue from certain and eternal doom. In the infinite wisdom of God and motivated by His infinite love, He devised His plan of redemption. The price to be paid was, like God Himself, infinite. He gave Himself for our sins (Galatians 1:4); for me (Galatians 2:20); for the Church (Ephesians 5:25); gave Himself for us (Titus 2:14).
"For there is one God, and one Mediator
between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom
for all, to be testified in due time" (I Timothy 2:5,6).
This Christ Jesus, this one Mediator is
mediator because He is the perfect union (oneness) of God and man.
Because Christ perfectly identified Himself with man in his lost and
sinful condition, He the sinless One could and did accept man's guilt
upon Himself. This Christ gave Himself into our condition and position
before the just and holy God. The inevitable result was: "Christ died
for (on account of) our sins." When any person accepts, by simple faith,
this provision which God in Christ made for him so freely, God saves
him and identifies Himself with the believer. So complete is the
identity of all believers with Christ, that they are repeatedly said to
be in Him. There can be no closer union, nor any other secure position.
We are now in a position to understand a
previously inexplicable thing in Paul's quotation of Psalms 8:4 in
Hebrews 2:6. In the Old Testament, two different Hebrew words were
translated as "man" in Psalms 8:4:
first, "what is man" is the Hebrew
equivalent of the Greek anthropos, or the common word for man; the
second "the Son of Man" is from the Hebrew word "Adam." Paul was
inspired to use "anthropos" both instances in his quote of Psalms 8:4.
The second usage of the word man in Psalms 8:4 is literally "son of
Adam." Some words are best untranslated. Romans 5:14 tells us that Adam
was the figure of Him (Christ) who was to come. Figure is the Greek word
tupos. In this sense Christ was the antitype, but He is much more. He
is the prototype--the pattern Man of eternity.
Paul used no fewer than seven Greek
words which are properly translated man, but he was divinely inspired to
use one common word in his quotation of Psalms 8:4. Why? God and man
had become one; redemption had been completed by Christ in His
substitutionary death; the price had been paid in full; the way to God
had been made as free and clear as infinite power, wisdom and love could
provide. The results: (1) the resurrection of Christ, whom death could
not hold because He, in His death, conquered all death, and (2) eternal
life for all who will accept Him and His provision for them. God
provided the (all-sufficient) Christ.
"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (I Corinthians 15:3).
The reason there is perfect accord and harmony in all Scriptures and every facet of the sacrificial religion of Israel with the death of Christ is because of the sinfulness of mankind. This accord within the Scriptures holds true because man's lost condition and his need never changes, and because God has only one plan of redemption which was revealed progressively. God required man's acceptance of, and obedience to, His revealed will at whatever time he may have lived.
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PLAN FOR HEAVEN
KING JAMES VERSION
KING JAMES VERSION
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