“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. God gave.

God, the generous giver of good things for the benefit of mankind, gave the most precious thing that a father could give. He gave his only begotten Son.

He’s a generous God, a God who not only created a beautiful world with such an intricate ecosystem, and has not only provided all that’s necessary for our well being, but a God who gives because he loves. God richly provides us with everything to enjoy, Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:17. Luke writes in Acts 17:25, he says,

And Psalm 86:5 says,

And James writes in chapter one of his letter. He says,

We don’t need to go far to find proof of God’s benevolence. The evidence of His loving-kindness is all around us in this beautiful world. For God so loved the world that He gave gave what? He gave His only begotten Son. This is the ultimate evidence of God’s love for you and me, the fact that He was willing to give His beloved Son to take our place, to bear the punishment for our sins. This is a divine act of sacrifice, and it’s beautifully illustrated in the Old Testament record of Abraham and Isaac. So we’ll go to Genesis 22, where it says there, that “God did prove Abraham and said to him, ‘Abraham’, and he said, ‘here am I’.

This was a test of Abraham’s faith in God. It was a test that was so out there, so unusual, so extreme. that God would not have asked it if He thought Abraham would fail the test. That’s a divine principle. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10,

God doesn’t tempt or try a person beyond what he has made them constitutionally able to bear. God knew that Abraham would not fail him because he knew the spiritual caliber of the man. He knew that Abraham’s faith in him was such that he would follow wherever God led him. How many of us are willing to trust God no matter where He leads? We sometimes sing, “Where He may lead me, I will go, For I have learned to trust Him so” But the secret lies in that little word trust, and we only trust people if we’ve learned to trust them. People who will never let us down. People whom we’ve learned by experience never deceive us. They never say one thing and do another.

Abraham had learned to trust God, and over many years he proved God’s faithfulness to him in the practical things of life. Through crisis after crisis in his life, he found out by first-hand experience that God was on his side. God was rooting for Abraham. God was looking after him, and Abraham learned that this God did not lie, he always kept his word - in contrast to the gods of the nations, some of whom according to the religious beliefs of the time, demanded human sacrifices in order to appease them or to ensure their continuing support.

But this God, the God that Abraham trusted in, cared deeply about his welfare. And because of God’s gracious dealings with Abraham, he came to an unshakable personal understanding that this Almighty Being who had revealed himself to Abraham as El Shaddai, (God Almighty), Abraham came to know in his heart that God always had his best interests at heart.

So then, after he had been on this progressive journey of faith, during which Abraham had proved God’s unfailing care and protection and blessing, it says this “God did prove Abraham”. He tested him. It says,

After God had proved his love to Abraham, God tested Abraham’s love for him. But what a thing to ask! “Take now your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him there for a burnt offering”!

Why did Abraham meekly obey such a request? A request that on the face of it appeared to completely contradict the promise God had given Abraham about Isaac? Because God had said to Abraham, In Isaac shall your seed be called, which meant that although Abraham was to be the father of many nations, there was only one nation in particular - Israel - that would be directly descended from Isaac. And yes, God said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” - ‘that miracle son who was born to Sarah and yourself in your old age. that son upon whose life so much depends’ And God is now telling him to offer Isaac as a human sacrifice? What a test of that man’s faith in the promise that God had made about Isaac. Why did Abraham not argue with God? Why did he just do as he was asked, even when the request must have come as a bolt from the blue? How could he square this apparently contradictory direction from the very same God who had blessed and protected him and his family until this day?

The only explanation that makes any sense is the one given in the letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church of God in Rome. where he spoke about

That was Romans 4: 16-21. So the answer to the question why did Abraham not argue with God? The answer is this. Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. He must have. That’s why as they climbed the mountain together, Abraham, the father, said to Isaac, the son, God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And that’s why when they got to the top of the hill and built the altar together, that’s why God stopped him doing the deed.

At the very moment when Abraham stretched out his hand to take the knife and kill his only son, that’s when the angel of God said to Abraham ‘Enough!' Stop!’ Verse 12: “Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do you anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me”.

And Abraham turned round, and he found a ram caught in a bush by its horns, and he killed it in place of Isaac, and offered it up as a burnt offering on the altar instead of his son. Abraham was convinced that even if he killed his only son, God was going to keep his promise.

But then we ask, why? Why did God put Abraham through such a traumatic experience? Surely it was to lay down a marker, a symbol that would help Abraham and all who came after him to have some understanding, dim as it might have been to Abraham, some understanding of what God Himself was going to do for mankind. It was to underline in our minds the enormity of the sacrifice that God the Father was going to make around 2000 years later, when His only son, the Son of God, walked up that very same hill, Mount Moriah, to the place called Golgotha, where God gave - God the Father gave His beloved Son, His only begotten Son, whom He loved, He gave Him as a sin atoning sacrifice for this guilty world; for this world of sinners that includes you and me.

There was no ram caught in the bush at Golgotha that day. Golgotha, (the place of a skull,) that ugly place of execution, the place of death. There was no substitute for him, because he was the substitute for sinners like you and me. God revealed through John the Baptist that Jesus was “the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus had to endure the cross if we were to have any hope of redemption, because he was holy and we were not. And He gave Himself for us, voluntarily, out of love for our souls; and the decision was made within the counsels of deity, in the eternal foreknowledge of God before ever the world existed, God gave His Son, and the Son gave Himself.

The hymn says,

Who is the Son of God? The Bible tells us that he was God in human form, God incarnate, virgin-born. He was the person through whom God made the worlds. “In the beginning was the word”, John says in John 1, “and the word was with God, and the word was God”. And then he goes on to say that “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”.

So he was co-eternal and co-equal with God, and God did not withhold his only begotten Son, his beloved one.

How did God give? He gave freely, it says in Romans 6.

That means you can’t work for it, and you can’t pay for it. In John 10, Jesus said,

God gave the Son, and the Son gave himself, so that those who put their trust in him who accept by faith the free gift of God so that they will have eternal life.

What did men give to God in return for such a generous, undeserved gift? They gave him undeserved hatred, brutality and violence, a crown of thorns, nails through hands and feet. Scourging, rejection. John tells us that “he came to his own, and they that were his own did not receive him. “ The miserable religious leaders of the Jews despised and rejected their Messiah. It says in Micah 6,

And it says in Hosea 4,

And then if you read in Hosea 5 from verse 15 through to 6:2

it says,

I will go (This is God speaking)

Now notwithstanding the fact that in God’s foreknowledge his Son would be despised and rejected, and by their rejection the Lord Jesus would become a sacrifice for all mankind - notwithstanding all that, God still has a case, a controversy against both Jew and Gentile for the abominable way that men treated his son.

It says in Jeremiah 25,

“The Lord has a controversy with the nations. He will plead his case with all flesh.”

So God has a case against you and against me if we dare to turn our back on the Son of God and spurn this Mighty One who loved us to the uttermost. You know, he is the heir of all things, it says. “He has all authority in heaven and on earth.” It says of him, He is “the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.” And Jesus said,

In the face of man’s hatred and rejection, God gave His Son; Jesus gave His life for you and for me, and so each one of us must respond to God’s mercy. We must decide whether to surrender - surrender our pride at the feet of the man who had no pride, or to turn away from the love of God and turn away from the eternal lover of our souls who died for us on the cross, and go on in our blood guiltiness. Because it was your sins and mine that nailed them to the cross. He died to take away our sins, to save us from eternal destruction.

Will you say from your heart “thank you,” thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying for me” - “thank you for dying for a sinner like me” - ?

So we’ll close again with the words of John 3 :16,

The old hymn says,

Oh, what will you do with Jesus?

The call comes low and sweet,

As tenderly He bids you your burdens lay at His feet

O soul so sad and weary,

That sweet voice speaks to you.

Then what will you do with Jesus?

O what shall the answer be?

O what will you do with Jesus?

The call comes loud and clear

The solemn words are sounding in every listening ear.

Immortal life is in the question, and joy eternally.

Then what will you do with Jesus?

What shall the answer be?

O think of the King of glory,

From heaven to earth come down,

His life, so pure and holy,

His death, His Cross, His Crown.

Of His divine compassion, His sacrifice for you.

Then what will you do with Jesus?

O what shall the answer be?

NEXT ADDRESS: FAITH

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In 1971 the American astronaut James Irwin said,

And one of our hymns says,

Last century - (sounds like a long time ago!) - before I was born, in late 1950, my dad’s mother said to him, “There’s a Mr Joe Lindsay holding special meetings in the Caledonia Hall in Greenock. Would you not like to go and hear him?” So he went along, and he said that he heard a preacher with a rich voice speaking about the Deity of Christ night after night. It’s no exaggeration to say that that was a turning point, a pivotal moment in my father’s spiritual life. Well, I only have half an hour tonight, and I’m not Joe Lindsay, but the Word of God is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). So in spite of my human failings, the Word of God still has the same dynamic power to inspire and awaken the hearts of those who are yearning for something more than the shallowness that this world can offer.

I’m going to read from several Bible translations tonight to illustrate my points, mainly the New King James Version and the English Standard Version, but also the NIV (New International) and the Revised Version.

The deity of Christ is central to our understanding of everything in the Bible, but it’s a very sacred subject and we must approach it with reverence. We’re on safe ground if we confine ourselves to what God has revealed about Himself in His Word. The Bible describes God as a Trinity. Three distinct persons, yet essentially one. And that’s a concept that’s beyond our human minds to fully comprehend. For example, in Deuteronomy chapter 6 (v. 4) it says,

But the Apostle John writing to first century Christians said,

Father and Son, two distinct persons. And in John’s Gospel chapter 14, the Lord Jesus spoke of the Helper, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name (John 14:26) He said, (in chapter 16):

So the Lord Jesus, God the Son, tells us that both God the Father and God the Son would send God the Spirit. So here we have the three individual persons of the Godhead, the Holy Trinity, acting together as one. Then again in Matthew 3 (13-17), at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, the Spirit of God descended from heaven in the form of a dove and rested on the Son of God, and the voice of God came out of heaven saying,

So there’s the Trinity again. God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and God the Son. Three distinct persons, three eternal persons, three equal persons. The plurality of our Creator is clearly implied in Genesis chapter 1 (v. 26):

These are plural words, more than one. And in Matthew 28 (v. 19), the risen Christ commands his disciples to baptise converts into the name (singular ) of the Triune God:

Three separate, equal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, as I said, the reality of the Eternal Almighty God is far beyond the capacity of our finite minds to comprehend. So either we reject what we could never fully understand, or we take God at His word.

But it’s not simply a matter of blind faith. God has given us a mind with which we can weigh up the evidence that He has given us. So firstly, I want to look at four things in the Word of God that bear witness to the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And secondly, I want very briefly to examine the eternal purpose for which the Son of God was sent. And lastly, thirdly, if the man who was put to death on a Roman cross two thousand years ago was God in human form, what should my response be to that unique event?

So firstly, let’s look at four things in Scripture which testify to the deity of the Lord Jesus.

First of all, the audible testimony of God the Father. Three times during the Lord’s public ministry, God spoke in an audible voice from heaven. twice to confirm the equal and eternal identity of the Lord, and once in response to his Son’s request. The first time it was at his baptism, as we’ve read already, a voice came from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

The next time was on the Mount of Transfiguration, Matthew chapter 17, where The Lord had taken Peter, James, and John up into a high mountain, and he was transfigured before them. And then when Peter, as we know, said, let’s build an altar for Moses and Elijah as well, That voice came from heaven, the voice of God the Father: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Or, as Luke puts it, “a voice came out of the clouds saying, This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5).

And then the third time that God spoke in an audible voice from heaven, in answer to a request from our Saviour in John chapter 12, the Lord said this - He said his soul was troubled.

The Lord Jesus spoke on such intimate terms with God, the Almighty God, he called him his Father, and God answered him. So three times God validated the sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ. He declared that Jesus is his Son. And by doing so he confirmed that Jesus was equal in status and by implication equal in authority to himself.

The second testimony I want to look at is the testimony of God through the inspired writings. The following statements were given by God to the Hebrew prophets, and they were endorsed by the Lord and by his disciples. In Isaiah chapter 9, it says, “For unto us” … - a well-known verse often quoted at Christmas time:

Then in Micah chapter 5 we read, (and this is what the Jewish religious people looked up when Herod asked where this child was to be born:

So He’s an eternal person. And the angel Gabriel said to Mary in Luke chapter 1,

There is the Triune God again, God the Holy Spirit - the Most High God shall overshadow you, the Holy Spirit shall come upon you and that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God. So the Triune God acted in divine unity to bring about the miraculous virgin birth of the Lord of Glory. The child that was born to Mary in Bethlehem, (the Hebrew for Beth-lechem literally means the house of bread) - the child that was born in Bethlehem was none other than the mighty God, the everlasting Father, whose goings forth have been from of old from everlasting. And that’s why. He, when He was grown up, said to the Jews:

He was the eternal God in a body of flesh and blood. And the writer to the Hebrews quotes from Psalm 45 in Hebrews 1 when he says,

“But to the Son he says “- that [is] God says to the Son:

God the Father speaking to God the Son about the eternal duration of his kingship and his absolute authority. In Colossians chapter 2, Paul writes this about the Lord Jesus. He says:

Writing to Titus in Titus chapter 2, he calls him

So both the old and the new sections of the Word of God clearly identify Jesus as God in human form. His name, as Isaiah said, was to be Immanuel, (God with us) - (Isaiah 7:14)

And then we come thirdly, to the testimony of the Lord Jesus Himself.

In John 5, Jesus said:

So Christ claimed that the intention of God the Father in giving all judgment, all authority, to the Son of God, is that all mankind should give equal honour to both the Son and the Father. Paul says exactly that in his letter to the church in Philippi He says in Philippians 2:

Equality with God. Now I want to read a slightly longer passage from John chapter 10 to underline what Jesus said about himself, and to look at the meaning that his Jewish contemporaries took from what he said. So we’ll go to John 10, starting at verse 22.

So the question the Jews asked was, if you’re the Christ, tell us plainly. The Jews were waiting for the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament scriptures. In Greek, the word for Messiah is Christ. In the original Hebrew, it’s Mashiach. It means the Anointed One. That is, the God appointed Saviour, the one in whom is vested divine authority, the person that God has appointed to establish the kingdom of God, the rule of God on earth. Jesus’ answer did not sit well with the religious leaders of the Jews, because he claimed that his miraculous works proved that he was indeed the Christ, their Messiah, and that God the Father had sent him. He couldn’t have made it any clearer. He said, I and my Father are one. The Jews did not misunderstand that statement. They took such violent exception to it that they took up stones to stone him to death. Because they said, you being a man, make yourself God. The Lord Jesus didn’t refute their accusation, no. He doubled down on his claim to deity. He said,

So he challenged them to explain away the evidence of his miracles as being anything other than proof of his deity. Believe the works, that you may know, and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.

So let us just very quickly skim (fourthly,) over some of the mighty works that he did. I’m not going to say much about them, I’m just going to list them. The testimony of the Lord’s miracles, and just some of them.

• He turned water into well-aged good wine in a moment of time (John 2).

• He anointed the eyes of a blind man with clay made from his spittle, and gave him 20:20 vision (John 9).

And the man who had been blind from birth said to the unbelieving Jewish leaders:

• The Lord put his fingers in the ears of a deaf man and made him hear (Mark 7:33)- I’ve got hearing aids to help me hear better - But the Lord put his fingers in a stone-deaf man, fingers in his ears, and immediately the man could hear.

• With one brief command, he immediately regenerated the flesh and sinews of a man who had a withered hand in the synagogue. (Matthew 12:9-13)

• And on another day he multiplied five barley loaves and two small fish, and amply satisfied the hunger of five thousand men plus women and children (John 6:9). The poet summed up that miracle so well when he wrote:

• And in the middle of a howling gale on the Sea of Galilee he commanded the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still “ and they obeyed. Immediately there was a great calm. (Mark 4:39).

And you know, Jesus is the only one who can bring real and lasting peace to the troubled soul. Only recently we learned how antiques expert David Harper came to faith, because he witnessed the lasting transformation that faith in Jesus had made to his daughter Hattie, who suffered from severe depression for years. He’s just finished writing a book about his journey to faith - “The God Conundrum”, published a month or two ago. Well worth the read.

In the passage we just read in John 12, the Lord contemplated what lay ahead for him and it troubled his soul deeply. Yet he restated his commitment to the great redemptive purpose for which he had come. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). And less than a week later, on the night of his betrayal in an upper room in Jerusalem, he took a loaf and he said This is my body, which is given for you (Luke 22:19). He took a jug of wine, he gave God thanks for it, and he poured it out into a cup. And passed it round his disciples with the words, This is the new covenant in my blood (Luke 22:20). Because on the cross, the very next day, He was going to be cut off out of the land of the living (Isaiah 53:8). And in that sense, He, the bread of life, was broken. He was cut off at thirty-three and a half years of age. As Son of God, he was and is an eternal, almighty being. As Son of Man, He was a young man in his prime. Great, profound mystery!

God the Father ensured that no bone of him was broken. Because he was the antitype, the fulfilment of the Passover Lamb, and no bone of that lamb was to be broken. God told Moses to instruct the Israelites in the land of Egypt. You’ll not break any of its bones, he said in Exodus 12. Because, in the words of John the Baptist, the last Jewish prophet, Jesus was the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). There was no imperfection in the Lamb of God, nothing damaged about him. He was flawless, spotless, the sinless one. He was the sacrificial Lamb whose life was given so that you and I could be forgiven, so that we can be part of that tremendous harvest of souls that he has reaped, and will yet reap, through his death and triumphant resurrection.

So we’re talking about miracles. Apart from the miracle of the incarnation, when the Word who was with God in the beginning and who was God - became flesh (John 1:1-14), became a man - apart from that astounding event, there’s no greater miracle than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the fact that He raised people from the dead when He was here on earth is proof positive of His deity, for only God can raise the dead.

• He raised a three-day old corpse, Lazarus, from the dead (John 11).

• He raised the dead son of a widow from the village of Nain (Luke 7).

• He raised Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter (Luke 8).

Because, as he said to Lazarus’s sister Martha, he said:

This is no mere man, dear friends no, no! This is the one who said:

So his miracles are clear evidence of the supernatural, creatorial power of this unique person who was both God and man.

Secondly, I want to just ,very briefly, try and say something about the eternal purpose for which the Son of God was sent. Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesian church, he said that we, disciples of the Lord Jesus, were

predestined, [or foreordained], according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ, [that’s the Jewish followers of Christ he’s writing to] might be to the praise of his glory. [And then he says to the Ephesians, who were mainly Gentiles, he said:] In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:11).

So that’s the first part of God’s eternal purpose in sending His Son to die for sinners like you and me - it’s so that we could be an eternal witness to the love of God, so that we might be to the praise of His glory. The glory of our Saviour and our Creator.

And the second part of God’s purpose is found in chapter 3 of Ephesians. where the Apostle Paul talks about the plan of the mystery that was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him (Ephesians 3:11-12).

Boldness and access - To whom? and to what? To the thrice holy Triune God. To enjoy communion with our Creator, to be invited to have fellowship with God here on earth and in His eternal dwelling place. Because the letter to the Ephesian church is all about God’s intentional purchase of a people, a people who were redeemed, paid for, with the blood of the Lamb of God; a bride for his son, a people who will belong to him and enjoy fellowship and companionship with the Triune God forever. That’s a relationship that begins here on earth, and reaches into the ceaseless ages of eternity. (And I believe it’s what the Song of Songs is all about! )

Ultimately, the tabernacle of God, the house of God, the place where God lives will be with man. For we read about the new heaven and the new earth revealed to John, the Lord’s faithful disciple, when he was in exile for his faith on the Isle of Patmos in the Mediterranean, in Revelation chapter 21.

John writes:

That’s the eternal purpose which God the Father carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, so that we would be to the praise of his glory. So that we would live forever in communion and harmony, in fellowship with this generous, merciful, compassionate, thrice holy, all-loving God, the God of supreme love.

So lastly, what should my response be to the reality that Jesus Christ is God? Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Jerusalem, asked a vital question when the Jews called for the release of a terrorist murderer called Barabbas, instead of Jesus. Pilate said,

What shall I do then with Jesus who is called the Messiah? (Matthew 27:22).

And the Jewish leaders shouted out, Crucify him, crucify him! (John 19:6).

And Pilate was forced to make a decision about the innocent person who stood before him that day. We talked about it a little earlier. Every year, down through the centuries, in every observant Jewish household, a lamb was sacrificed. This was Passover time when Jesus was crucified. And that Lamb was to remind them that God had redeemed them from captivity in Egypt by the blood of a lamb. And countless lambs were offered on Jewish altars year after year, so that men could be forgiven their sins and draw near to the Holy God of Heaven who lived in their midst in the tabernacle and later on in the temple in Jerusalem.

And when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to him to be baptized in the River Jordan He said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was talking about the anti-type of the Passover Lamb, and he was talking about the anti-type of thousands of lambs that were offered on Jewish altars. so that men could not only be redeemed, but also enjoy fellowship with God. The prophet Isaiah spoke of him in Isaiah 53:

That was the dignity of our Saviour.

That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ did for you and me. As the writer to the Hebrews said, He tasted death for every one of us. so that sinners like me wouldn’t have to suffer eternal separation from the Triune God. This glorious person gave himself as an atoning sacrifice for my sins and yours, to redeem us, to bring us into a right relationship with God. That’s divine love, that’s love with a capital A! The Greek word for love, agape, means the highest form of love, the love which loves where there’s no love in return. On the cross of Christ, where Immanuel, (God with us), gave his life for my salvation. The cross of Christ is the evidence of such incomprehensible love. And the Lamb of God, in whom all the fulness of the multifaceted character of God dwells - the One who is meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29), who allowed men to spit in His lovely face and hammer nails through his hands and his feet - He’s also the risen Lamb whom the Apostle John saw on the Isle of Patmos in his vision. In Revelation chapter 5 he says:

And in Acts chapter 17 (v. 31), it says:

That was the words of Paul. But Pilate rejected him, condemned an innocent man to be crucified. One day the roles will be reversed. Christ will pronounce judgment on Pilate.

How should you and I respond to the reality that Jesus Christ is God, and that He died and rose again to bring such eternal blessing to me? Should we not be like Thomas, who when, eight days after the resurrection, the Lord showed him the nail prints in his hands and the spear wound in his side, Thomas simply said:

I’m just going to finish by quoting the words of that well-known old camp hymn that we used to sing at Auchenfoyle. Probably still sing it! It calls us to a life of worship - A lifetime of worship!

Next address: FAITH

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