Pt3, Back to the School of Faith: Jesus Christ

September 16, 2018                               NOTES NOT EDITED

Pt3, Back to the School of Faith:  Jesus Christ

Jn. 1:1-18; 47-51

SIS: The most important person you will ever know is Jesus Christ because He alone can give you eternal lfie.

Today, I want us to jump right into our study of the Doctrine of Jesus to squeeze out everything we can about Him in the few minutes we have together.  We will examine the Eternal Jesus, the Historical Jesus, and the Triumphant Jesus.

1.  The Eternal Jesus (Gen. 1:1; Jn. 1:1)

Last week I told you that God was a title, and that God had a name.  His Name was “Yahweh,” meaning the Eternal One.  Yahweh is introduced to us in the first verse of the Bible by the title:  El’Ohim, or God the Creator.  We read in Gen. 1:1: In the beginning  God created the heavens and the earth.

Recall that the little word, “the,” that appears in English translations does not appear in the Hebrew.  It simply says, “In beginning God.”  The, “the,” is missing to stress the eternal nature of Yahweh.  He was “before” the beginning.  He was “eternal.” Notice how John 1:1 parallels Genesis 1:1: In the beginning  was the Word

Again, take special note that the “the” we have in English translations does not appear in this part of John.  It simply says, “In beginning was the Word.”  This again stresses the eternal nature of Jesus Christ.

In mathematics we have a principle called Euclid’s General Axium  that states, “Two things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.”  Mathematically the formula is:  A=C; B=C; therefore, A=B.  Theologically we have the same principle:  Yahweh equals Eternal God; Jesus equals Eternal God; Jesus equals Yahweh.  There is absolute equality between Yahweh and Jesus.  They are the same Being, yet separate persons.  Likewise, the Holy Spirit, as we will see is also God.  Immediately, we come to one of the most important, yet most difficult to comprehend concepts in the Bible—One Being Who Exists in Three Persons.  There is no model for this nor even a word for this concept in human experience or human language.  Oneness and Threeness are two completely separate concepts in human experience.  To say that “Three is one” sounds completely illogical and absurd.  Yet, lets see what the Scriptures say about this relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

First, nothing is more solidly set in stone in regard to God than that “Yahweh is One God and the Only God” (One and Only).  The most significant verse of Scripture to an orthodox Jew is Deuteronomy 6:4

Shema Yisrael, YHWH nu elohe, YHWH ehad.  Hear O Israel, Yaweh Our God, YHWH [is] one.”

Any attempt to explain the essence of God that “divides” the Three Persons of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) or diminishes any of the Three Persons in any way is at the least incorrect and at the worst heresy.  God is One!  This is the most significant concept in Judeo-Christian theology and the concept that revolutionized religion in the Ancient Middle East.   God is one, yet the Bible from the very beginning describes Him using plural terms.  Return again to Gen1:1:

¹In the beginning  God created the heavens and the earth. 

The word used for this One God is the word, “El’Ohim.”  The word, “El,” is a common Middle Eastern description for God.  The significance is that in this verse the One God is described with a plural term.  The suffix “im” in Hebrew is the equivalent of adding an “s” to the end of a word to make it plural in English. 

So, a plural word describes a single Being.  This has been called by various descriptions in scholarly literature such as the “Plural of Majesty.”  Often, in Middle Eastern languages, the plural can denote an enhanced quality, rather than an increased quantity.

Throughout the Bible, we see the Threeness of the One True God represented.  When we come to the formal introduction of Jesus to the world at His baptism by John we read (Mk. 1:10-11):

¹⁰ As soon as He came up out of the water, He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending to Him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven:  You are My beloved Son; I take delight  in You!

Jesus, God the Son, comes up out of the water.  The Spirt, in some wistful, fleeting manner (like a dove) descends or is present.  The Father speaks from Heaven.  We do not know exactly what the Spirit appeared like in a form in this passage—if they saw any distinct form at all. The text expresses a unique union between the Son and the Spirit.  The words, “to, or on Him,” have significant meaning in regard to the idea of union (Theological Dict. of N.T.).

What we do know about God is that He is One Being Who Reveals Himself as Three Persons—a Being for which we do not have the mental capacity to fully comprehend nor adequate words to fully describe.  The best word used to describe One Being in Three Persons comes from about 200 years after Jesus died and rose again.  A theologian by the name of Tertullian first used the word, “Trinity.”  Earlier theologians, as early as at least 110 A.D. described the Threeness of the One true God (Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, 100-165 A.D.).  The word, trinity, does not appear in the Bible but the concept of God’s Oneness and Threeness appears from Genesis 1:1 throughout the rest of the Bible.  By 325 A.D. the Early Church established once for all that the Doctrine of the Trinity is a fundamental—the fundamental—doctrine of the Church. The Nicene Creed describes Jesus as,  “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.”

What applies to Jesus Christ and His being coequal to God also applies to the Holy Spirit, but we will deal with that later.

There are two major heresies in regard to the Deity, (that is, full equality of Jesus with God the Father), of Jesus Christ.  The mark of any false Christ will be that they follow one of these two great heresies (or both).  The first is the heresy of “modalism.”  (Associated with Sabellius in the 3^rd century).  This heresy has God taking three different roles in regard to man.  In one mode, God plays the part of the Father.  In another mode, He plays the part of the Son.  In yet another mode, He plays the Holy Spirit.  In some of these heresies, the Holy Spirit is not even a person but a “mysterious power.”  The second great heresy is that of “demigods.”  A demigod is a being, or person, God creates for some purpose—a subordinate assistant if you will.  In this heresy, Jesus is “less than Almighty God.”  Jesus may be extremely important, but He is not co-equal with God.  Arius is associated with this heresy (about 350 A.D.)  Nearly every modern cult has some version of this heresy in their dogma, including Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons. 

In regard to the doctrine of Jesus Christ it is essential to affirm that whatever applies to God the Father in regard to nature and essence, applies to Jesus, and further, whatever applies to God the Father and Jesus, applies to the Holy Spirit.  Any Jesus who is NOT affirmed as the Co-equal, Eternal God is a false Jesus leading you straight to hell.

2.  the Historical Jesus (14-18)

Look at verse 14:  ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and took up residence  among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only  Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Most people do not have a great appreciation for the historical Jesus because they don’t have a real appreciation for the value of history in general.  Let me give you a little history test to see how you do. We may get by if we don’t have a great grasp of the history of the world, but we will fail eternally if we do not have a sufficient grasp of the historical Jesus.  Jesus came into our history so that we could become a part of “His Story” of redemption.  All we need is to surrender to Him.

Q: What kind of lighting did Noah use for the ark?
A: Floodlights! Q: What do Alexander the Great and Kermit the Frog have in common? A: The same middle name! Q: Why were the early days of history called the dark ages? A: Because there were so many knights!  Q: Who made King Arthur's round table? A: Sir-Cumference  Q: Why is England the wettest country? A: Because the queen has reigned there for 65 years!  Q: Where was the Declaration of Independence signed? A: At the bottom!

History is important.  The story of the redemption of mankind is not some fanciful myth created in the mind of a cross-legged, humming guru but is a story firmly established in the concrete of human history.  Had Jesus remained merely the Eternal God of Heaven, there would be no salvation.  No more succinct and stunning verse in all the Bible so vividly describes the essence of Christianity, and the distinctive difference between Christianity and all other world religions than the phrase:  “The Word became flesh.”  It would be correct to say, “The Word burst into human history.”  He was born of flesh.  He lived in the flesh.  He was crucified in the flesh; and He split the grave wide open in the flesh.

Jesus was born into history; walked through history; died at a moment in history; rose from the grave in history; and one day in history He is coming again to “receive the elect as His own” (Jn. 14:3).

Jesus, as we examined briefly, is Almighty God.  The life of Jesus depicted His deity from the first miracle of turning water into wine.  His Divine Holiness was demonstrated when He refused to surrender His righteousness to the Devil simply to fill His empty stomach with a loaf of bread made from a rock (Mt. 4).  Jesus demonstrated His deity at every turn from “creating meals for multitudes from two fish and five loaves to a feast feeding 15,000 Mt. 14).

Jesus never ceased to be Who He was—that is God.  Someone said, “Jesus became what He never was without giving up what He has always been.”  Jesus is the God-Man.  Not part God and part man.  Jesus is All God and All man All the time!  Jesus is not a “third” kind of being.  Jesus is one being with two complete natures—God and Man.  John makes it abundantly clear:  “The Word was God” and, “the Word became flesh.”

Jesus was not “mostly God and partly human.”  Jesus was totally God and totally human.  Because Jesus was totally human, He can completely UNDERSTAND our human frailties and failings.  Paul describes this understanding of the human condition when He says of Jesus Christ (Heb. 4),

¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are,  yet without sin.  ¹⁶ Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.

Because Jesus was fully human, He can understand our frailties and our sin.  Because Jesus is fully God, he can actually do something about our sin—He can give us “mercy and grace.”  We will say more about the importance of Jesus human nature when we study the Doctrine of His Death next week, Lord willing.

It is a heresy to make Jesus less than Almighty God.  It is equally a false teaching to make Jesus less that absolutely human.  Jesus is not only the God OF history, but more importantly, the God IN history.

Most church-goers do not truly follow a “historical” Jesus.  Many more church-goers follow what I call a “hysterical” Jesus. “Hysterical” is described as, “a psychoneurotic condition marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychogenic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions.”  Now, let me break that down for you.  Most church-goers follow a Jesus that provides momentary opportunities to escape thinking and get warm and fuzzy feelings in their bellies.  People love an “hysterical Jesus” that does not actually interrupt their lives by making real-life, everyday demands, but simply gives them an opportunity to escape reality for a moment to get a weekly fix of “hysterical feel-goodness.”  That’s the “hysterical Jesus,” not the “historical Jesus.”  The historical Jesus came to show us the Way of sacrifice and obedience.   In fact, the first nickname for the followers of Jesus was not “Christians,” but, “The Way.”

Acts 24:14 But I confess this to you: I worship my fathers’ God according to the Way,  which they call a sect, believing all the things that are written in the Law and in the Prophets. (see Acts 9:2).

Jesus walked in history showing us “the Way” to love and serve God as we walk through our little stretch of the historical countryside.  A great preacher once said this, “Many church-goers want to SERVE God, but only in an advisory position.” (AR). The defining moment of the life and ministry of the historical Jesus was not His inauguration as a king among men, but His death on a cross between two common thieves.  It is the historical event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that defines the importance of His place in our lives.  Sacrificial obedience, even to the death on the cross, is the essence of the life of Jesus Christ in history.

The historical Jesus changed history.  All of history has been divided according to the life of Jesus Christ:  B.C., before Christ; A.D. In the Year of Our Lord.  Jesus changed history forever, but more than that, Jesus came into history to change “us” forever.  When we could not get to Him with thousands upon thousands of sacrifices and thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions of failures, God came to us.  History is “His Story.”  That’s what the historical Jesus means to us. 

We must know the Eternal Jesus.  We must know the Historical Jesus.  And we must know:

3.  The Militant Jesus (Jn. 1:47-51)

The same Jesus who came into history, the first time, will just as certainly, come a second time. The Jesus Who came first as a Suffering Servant, will come again Sword-swinging King on a Great White Stallion.  John chapter 1, which introduces us to Jesus Christ, ends with a peculiar encounter between Jesus and a future disciple, Nathaniel. Philip had told Nathaniel about Jesus and invited Nathaniel to come meet Jesus.  Here’s what took place when Nathaniel met Jesus for the first time:

⁴⁷ Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him and said about him, “Here is a true Israelite; no deceit is in him.” ⁴⁸ “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁹ “Rabbi,”  Nathanael replied, “You are the Son  of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰ Jesus responded to him, “Do you believe only because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” ⁵¹ Then He said, “I assure you: You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Basically, Jesus told Nathaniel, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” The best is yet to come. This passage could easily be a sermon by itself.  It causes us to think back to the O.T. when God visited Jacob one night in a dream (Gen. 28:12-17).  In that dream Jacob saw a ladder with angels going up and down from heaven.  I used to sing a Sunday School song:  We are climbing Jacob’s ladder // We are climbing Jacob’s ladder // We are climbing Jacob’s ladder // Soldier of the cross.

That’s a sweet song, but the theology is a bit weak.  It was actually an old slave song.  We don’t climb a ladder up to God, but God climbed the ladder down to us.  Remember, we talked about the historical Jesus who climbed down the ladder to us in a moment in history.  Jesus came to us BECAUSE we could never get to Him on our own.

Well, the first time He came as the Suffering Servant.  He is coming down the ladder again, but the next time He is coming as the Militant King.  Jesus promised He would come again

 Acts 1   ¹⁰ While He was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them.  ¹¹ They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen Him going into heaven.”

When most people think of Jesus, they think more of someone like Mister Rogers than someone like General George Patton driving tanks over the enemy as they pressed Eastward over Europe smashing both the resources and the resolve of German troops.  We prefer a “tame” Jesus to a “Triumphant” Jesus.  We want a Jesus like Mister Rogers, the kind of person you want to climb up onto his lap and be cuddled.  Jesus for many is “Mister Rogers with a beard.”  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Mr. Rogers.  I also know that Jesus does give us cuddles and comfort when we need it.  But a Mr. Rogers, Jesus is not!  When He comes again—and He will come again as He promised as surely as He came the first time as promised—and when He comes, He will come with “fire in His eyes and sword in His hands!” (Rev. 19:11-15)

¹¹ Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse. Its rider is called Faithful and True, and He judges and makes war in righteousness.  ¹² His eyes were like a fiery flame, and many crowns  were on His head.  He had a name written that no one knows except Himself.  ¹³ He wore a robe stained with blood,  and His name is the Word of God.  ¹⁴ The armies that were in heaven followed Him on white horses, wearing pure white linen. ¹⁵ A sharp sword came from His mouth, so that He might strike the nations with it.  He will shepherd them with an iron scepter.  He will also trample the winepress of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty.

Jesus came into history exactly as it was recorded by the prophets of the O.T.  According to the very same prophets—and with the exacting, certainty, Jesus is coming again as the Militant King of Kings to crush Satan once and for eternity.  Jesus didn’t come to tame us and make us religious lap dogs for the Kingdom.  Jesus came to set us free to be “soldiers of the cross” wielding the sword of the Spirit to set free those enslaved by sin. 

The Christian life is a battle for souls.  I think it is far past the time that we get a little “militant” about the Devil and his evil plans.

There have been 3520 Medals of Honor given in the history of our military.  Most of them have been given “posthumously,” that is, after death.  When we bestow this high honor, we remind ourselves what it takes to win a war.  April 8, 2008, President Bush presented the Medal of Honor posthumously to Navy Seal Michael Monsoor. On Sept. 29, 2006, Michael Monsoor made the ultimate sacrifice. Mike and two teammates had taken position on a rooftop when an insurgent grenade bounced off Mike’s chest and landed on the roof. Mike had a clear chance to escape, but he realized that the other two SEALs did not. In that terrible moment, he had two options: to save himself, or to save his friends. For Mike, this was no choice at all. He threw himself onto the grenade, and absorbed the blast with his body.

We are in a war against evil as followers of Jesus.  He is our Supreme Commander.  We need to know Him.  We need to trust Him.  We need to serve Him.  He is Eternal.  He is Historical.  He is Militant.

There is no one more important in this life or in all of eternity than Jesus Christ. 

Pt2, Back To the School of Faith: God

September 9, 2018                                 NOTES NOT EDITED

Back to the School of Faith, Pt2: God

Hebrews 11:6, et. Al.

SIS:  God is a Person and wants to have a personal relationship with you forever.

It takes faith to “please” God, that is faith is fundamental to a relationship with God which is the foundation for eternal life.  Faith in this sense equals eternal salvation.  Salvation, therefore, rests on two mighty pillars:  the existence of God and the Nature of God—that is, to know that God “is” and to know “Who” He is.  These are the twin pillars of reality and identity.  God is both real and personal, for there cannot be one without the other.  Now all that is technical, but necessary if we are going to rightly understand the Doctrine of God and the Nature of Yahweh. 

Our exploration into this introduction to the Living God will be guided by three questions:  1. Is there a God?  2. Who is this God?  3.  What is His plan?

1.  Is there a God? (Heb. 11:6a)

Theology, rightly done, is not a sterile, lifeless academic exercise. It is the building of a relationship with Almighty God.  In a word, theology done properly, is a matter of faith.  Faith includes reason but is prior to and superior to reason.  True faith is reasonable, and correct reason is faithful.  Paul speaks of faith as based upon two fundamental questions.  He says,

⁶ Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near to Him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.

“We must believe He exists; and He is a rewarder.”  That word, “exists” is a theologically loaded word.  It means much more in Christian theology than we normally associate with it in philosophy in general.  Existence is associated with the verb, “to be.”  This is the most used verb in the English language.  It is also the primary verb used in formal logic.  The verb “to be” is immortalized in Shakespeare’s aphorism, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”  Paul is telling us that the path to eternal life begins with acknowledging God’s existence—but not merely the abstract concept of God, but a personal relationship with God.  Salvation begins at the crossroads of acknowledging God’s existence and God’s identity.  These two concepts are inseparably linked in Christian theology. 

The word translated, “exists,” literally means, “He is.” That is the “third person, singular” construction of the verb to be.  The “first person, singular” construction is what gives the theological term, “exists” it’s theologically weighted meaning.  Paul says that the beginning of understanding the doctrine of God is to know, “He is.” God first used this term (in the Hebrew) of Himself in Exo. 3:13-14:

¹³ Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”  ¹⁴ God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  ^f This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

We will say more about this verse later, but for now we want to see that God identified Himself by saying, “I am the Eternal One.”  God says, “I am the God Who Is,” as contrasted with all other gods who “are not.”  Yahweh (again, we will look at this more later) is the God Who is, was before all that is, and exists wholly apart from all that is.

We live in a world that we often hear people say, “I don’t believe in God.”  On the surface this is an intellectual statement meaning, “there is no reasonable evidence for the existence of God.”  In other words, there is no proof, “God is."  I cannot go into all the evidence for the existence of God, but let me say very strongly, there is an abundance of reasonable evidence supported by both science and other forensic and historical studies that “prove” beyond any reasonable doubt that not only “does God exist,” but in fact, “God MUST exist” or nothing else COULD exist.  The Psalmist (19:1) says, that creation declares the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. the handiwork.”  Paul says, “what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world,  being understood through what He has made” (Rom. 1:19-20).

There is one philosophical argument that provides an ironclad argument for the necessity of God’s existence.  Throughout recorded history the primary premise upon which all philosophical study was based is the premise known as, “Ex Nihilo, Nihil Fit,” meaning, “From nothing, nothing could ever be.”  If there ever were a time when nothing exists, nothing would exist today.  This is the fundamental premise of all intellectual thought in regard to “existence” or anything else for that matter.  This is also why the very first verse of the Bible addresses the issue of “How or why there is something rather than nothing.”  The Creation account describes how Yahweh created, ex nihilo, or from nothing.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1).

The word, “the,” does not appear in Gen. 1:1.  Literally it says, “In beginning [with nothing] God created.”  Before there was a “beginning” there was God, or Yahweh.  Yahweh is the “God Who Is.”  Yahweh is the “Living God.”  Until you acknowledge that God is—in fact, God MUST be—then, you cannot begin to move toward salvation, or even make sense of the most basic issues of life.

As I said, I do not have time here to give all the intellectual, reasonable evidence for the existence of God.  I can only emphasize, that without something (we know, Someone) existing totally independent of even time and space, there could NEVER be anything else.  God is—He MUST be.

Let’s turn our attention from the “existence” of God to the “identity of God.  Acknowledging God, or a Higher Power, is absolutely insufficient in understanding life or entering eternal life.  Know that God is only gets us started.  We must also know:

2.  Who He Is.

Let’s read Paul’s admonition of faith again (Heb. 11:6),

⁶ Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near to Him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.

Let’s concentrate on what Paul says after the, and: “and rewards those who seek Him.”  This goes to the matter of God’s Person.  “God” is a title—Yahweh is His Name.  Names in the Bible refer to the character and nature of a person.  For example, take my name, Jack.  It is related to the Jewish name, Jacob.  Jacob character is set forth at the time of His birth (Gen. 25:26) :

²⁶ After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand.  So he was named Jacob.

The word, “Jacob,” is similar in Hebrew to the word for, “heel.”  Jacob was called, “heel catcher,” which later Esau came to give the meaning of “trickster” or “manipulator” (Gen. 27:26).  Throughout the story of the patriarch’s we see Jacob “manipulating” his circumstances to get what he wanted, beginning with manipulating his hungry brother into giving him the birthright for a bowl of beans (Gen. 25:29-34).  Names in the Bible reveal something of the character of those to whom the name is given.  The same is true with God’s Name.

One of the key problems many church-goers have is that they don’t know God has a name—that he is a Person.  For most, He remains a transcendent, unapproachable, sterile “concept or idea.”  God is a title. It is not a name.  Let’s revisit the time that God made a “covenant, a contract, or established a personal relationship” with the nation of Israel by giving Moses His Name (Exodus 3:14):

¹³ Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what should I tell them?”  ¹⁴ God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  ^f This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

The words translated, “I Am Who I Am,” are the four Hebrew letters (all consonants and no vowels), Yod-He-Waw-He, or in English, YHWH.  It’s simply referred to in theology as the “tetragrammaton” or, “four letters.” It is considered so holy according to Jewish tradition that they never spoke these words when they show up in the Hebrew text.  They usually speak the word, “Adonai,” instead which means, “Lord.”  In fact, so holy was the Name of God that the Third Commandment warns against the wrong use of God’s name.  “Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses His name” (Ex. 20:7).  In modern English translations, the tetragrammaton is represented by the word, LORD, all in capital letters.

God is a Person with a Name.  In fact, He is THE person from which mankind gets our personhood, or identity.  The Bible says (Gen. 1:26),  ²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us  make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.

Volumes have been written speculating about the meaning of image and likeness (which are synonyms).  Whatever it means, it means that our “personhood” resembles that of God.  Our capacities represent the capacities of God—yet in a greatly diminished manner such as a plastic model of an airplane represents an airplane.

As a person God has “personal characteristics”—love, wisdom, justice, mercy, truthfulness, holiness, wrath, freedom, and the like—are all personal characteristics of God “mirrored” to a lesser degree in man somewhat like a reflection in a mirror.

What characteristics we possess in a finite degree, God possesses in perfect, infinite degree.  I wish I had time to discuss all the characteristics of God’s person, but that is not possible in one sermon.  I do want to focus, however, on God’s personhood as reflected in the meaning of his personal Name.  Yahweh, God’s Name, has great meaning and importance for our eternal life.  Essentially, the idea of personhood refers to the ability of one being to interact meaningfully to a high degree with another.  Rocks and plants do not have personhood.  It is not proper for animals to be discussed as “persons” though they have a limited capacity to interact with others, and even humans.  In giving us His Name, God established the possibility for a “personal” relationship with us.

God is given many names in the Bible that amplify and expand our understanding of His character.  He is called in the Bible, “Yahweh-Nissi, The LORD My Banner; Yahweh-Raah, The Lord My Shepherd; Yahweh-Rapha, The Lord That Heals; Yahweh-Tsabboaoth, The Lord of Armies; and Yahweh-Yireh, The Lord Will Provide, to name a few.  There are also names of God using the more general term for God, El, as in Elohim, the Creator.  Yahweh is also called, El Shaddai, or God Almighty.  While many descriptive names are given to God in the Bible, the one He gives Himself is, Yahweh.

This is His “covenant” Name.  This Name sums up all the other names given Him in the Bible—it is the “Salvation Name.”  It is also the name Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, gives to Himself (Jn. 8:58-59):  ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am.”  ⁵⁹ At that, they picked up stones to throw at Him.

By identifying Himself with the Name, Yahweh, or “I am,” Jesus identified Himself as Almighty God, which is why the Jews were going to stone Him for blasphemy.  Jesus is the ultimate expression of God in the flesh.  Jesus fulfills the “covenant of grace” implied in the name, Yahweh.  God’s Name reveals His deliverance of people from sin. God “personally” engages in our lives to bring about our victory over sin.  By referring to God as Yahweh, instead of His title, God, a person begins to understand that the doctrine of God is personal matter, not an academic exercise.  Yahweh is a Person, not an abstract idea or principle.  God thinks, God feels, God wills.

We have now answered two fundamental questions about God:  1) Does God exist; and 2) Who is He?  This brings us, then, to a third important question related to the Doctrine of God:

3.  What is God’s Ultimate Plan?

Why would God Who needs nothing and is completely fulfilled in Himself want to have a personal relationship with anybody?  You can accept all there is to know in regard to God’s existence, and even His nature and still miss the importance of the Doctrine of God altogether.  You can study all there is about God and still end up saying, “So what?”  How does this relate to me in my life today?  It relates in the most important of ways.  As we have seen, God is a Person, and His personhood is most fully revealed to us in the Person of Jesus Christ—the God of Heaven in human form.  Jesus is 100% God and 100% human.  What then does Jesus reveal to us about the plan of God.

Not only does God have a Name, but God has a plan.  Jer. 29:11 tells us, as he first told Israel when it seemed God’s plan for them had failed.  He said, For I know the plans I have for you” —this is the LORD’s declaration—“plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

God’s plan is perfect.  Not all plans are perfect.  I recall the story of an Army ranger learning to parachute for the first time.  His jump sergeant barked out the instructions to the group of first-timers:  (1)  Jump when you are told to jump. (2) Count to ten and pull the rip cord. (3) If the first chute does not open, pull the second rip cord. (4) When you land, a truck will bring you back to the post.  Good luck.  The plane took off and when it arrived over the jump zone the soldier jumped up and waited for the jump master to shout jump.  Then, he jumped and began counting to ten as instructed.  Then, he pulled the first rip cord according to the plan.  Nothing happened.  According to the plan, he pulled the second rip cord.  Again, nothing happened.  The young soldier was really worried and said to himself, “Oh great!  I’ll bet the truck won’t be waiting for us either!”

Some plans work out better than others, but God’s plan will work out perfectly.  What is God’s plan?

Let me say at this point . . . just as a reminder, “There are 107 shopping days until Christmas!”  Already, the Dollar Store has Christmas decorations on the shelf and we are over a month away from Halloween.  Christmas is an important time, obviously.  The Christmas Story begins at the Birth of Jesus and finds ultimate fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Christmas introduces the Plan of God.  What is that plan.  Luke tells us clearly,

^2:11 Today a Savior,  who is Messiah  the Lord,  was born for you in the city of David.

The Doctrine of God is so very important, but only if we come to a ful understanding of what Paul meant when he said, “and God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).  As I said earlier, or at least intended to say, “One can learn everything there is to know about God and still split hell wide open when they die!”  God reveals Himself to us so that we can know Him personally and by surrendering in gleeful obedience, we can enjoy Him forever.

God exists.  His Name is Yahweh.  His plan is to save you.  His plan  is for you and I to accept His free gift of salvation to spend time enjoying Him in heaven, forever. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith Catechism’s—the training manual for Presbyterians—widely accepted by many other Protestants—asks in the very first question (the catechism follows a question and answer format):  Q:  What is the chief and highest end of man?  The answer in the catechism is:  A: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever.  The Catechism includes the appropriate Scriptures.

God created man so that we could enjoy each other forever.  Until we recognize that God’s plan for us is to bless our lives with His Presence for all eternity, we will continue to wander like a lost sheep in the desert always thirsting but never being satisfied.  Augustine, the great church teacher, once wrote in his classical work, The Confessions:  “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”  

Most people live small, insignificant lives punctuated perhaps by fleeting moments of happiness but never defined by a true, lasting, fulfilling spirit of joy because they do not align themselves with God’s plan for their lives.

Most people suffer from Sinatra Syndrome—you know, “I did it MY way!”  That might make a great song but it is horrible theology.  If we are to experience real joy—not just fleeting flakes of frivolous happiness—we must discover and surrender to God’s plan for our lives.  We must embrace Him as Yahweh, and not just acknowledge Him as God.  James tells us,  even the devils acknowledge that God is and know who He is but the fear and tremble (2:19) because they are not aligned with God’s purpose as His elect.

There is much to the Doctrine of God that I have not mentioned.  I’ve not even exposed the “tip” of the icberg of God’s Being and Nature.  One list of the attributes of God has 32 entries, and other lists may have even more.  Each attribute could easily be a sermon in itself.  My goal was to scratch the surface of the Doctrine of God in such a way as to create an itch in your heart to know Him, and know Him better.

God has a name.  His Name is Yahweh.  He is a “Rewarder” and wants to reward you with eternal life—if you will only “diligently seek Him.” He wants you to know Him, and more importantly He wants to know you.