|
Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
|
||
|
Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity |
||
|
Saints Simon and Jude October 28, 2007 St. John 15:17-27 Does It matter What I
Think About Jesus? The Divinity of Christ is under attack. From Hollywood film lots to the halls of academia, the essential doctrine of the Deity of Christ is ridiculed and refuted. Even the “church” has joined the attack. You are probably aware that many “Christian” theologians and clerics deny that Jesus of Nazareth was God in any way. Many are exploring ways to talk about Jesus as a central figure in their faith, without calling Him God. Recently I have encountered several people who question or deny the divinity of Christ. Some of them live in Powhatan and Amelia, so this is not just a “big city” thing believed by the self-proclaimed elite. It is a widespread movement that reaches even into traditional and independent thinking areas like ours. This leads to our question for today, does it really matter what I think about Jesus? My friend, it is one of the most important matters on earth. Here is why. It matters because the Bible teaches us who Jesus is. If the Bible truly is the word of God we are bound to believe what it says, and the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus is none other than God in the flesh. Notice that all three Persons of the Trinity are mentioned in the Gospel Lesson for this morning. This is very significant. We know that the Holy Spirit is none other than God. No one has any problem with that. No one familiar with Christianity says we have made two Gods by recognizing the reality of the Spirit. It is the same with Christ. He is the Second person of the Trinity, and as fully God as the other two. Jesus’ unity and oneness with the Father is asserted plainly in our Gospel Lesson for this morning. “Now have they both seen and hated both me and my father,” (Jn. 15:24). Why? Because Jesus and the Father are one. It is asserted again in John 10:18, which tells us Jesus has the power to raise Himself from the dead. He has the power to lay down his life and the power to take it up again. Only God can do that, so the Bible is teaching the Divinity of Christ. The deity of Christ is the whole point of John’s Gospel. The entire book builds to a climax, like a good novel. It is designed to bring the reader to the conclusion reached by Thomas in John 20:28. You recall that, in that verse, the disciples had been cowering in fear in the Upper Room when the Living and Resurrected Lord miraculously appeared in the room with them. But Thomas was not there, and when the others told him they had seen the Lord he said he would not believe it unless he could put his hand in the side the spear had pierced and touch the holes where the nails had been driven. He got his chance. The Lord came back, back to that same room, the same people, and He came to Thomas and offered Himself to him, saying, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing,” (Jn. 20:27). Here, face to face with the Risen Christ, amazed and frightened, Thomas uttered the words that are the climax of the Gospel of John, “My Lord and my God” (Jn. 20:28). The point? Jesus and the Father are one. Remember, the Old Testament is stubbornly monotheistic. The Jews knew intensely that, “the Lord our God is one,” (Dt. 6: ). So for Thomas to call Jesus “my God,” can only mean that He and the Father are one God. What you think about Jesus matters because our salvation depends on who Jesus is. This truth shines forth in the Bible from cover to cover; namely, if Christ was not God, His death had no effect on our sins. Let me show you why this is so. Any time one person offends another it is necessary for the offended person to bear the offense in himself, if reconciliation and forgiveness are to occur. He has to bear both the offense and his reaction to it. What is his reaction? What do you feel when someone really wrongs you? Suppose someone clubs you over the head from behind, causing you to fall face-first into the mud. Then he puts his foot on the back of your head and stomps your face into the mud, and walks away laughing. What do you feel? Pain, yes, but what else? Anger? Maybe even rage? Resentment? Even hatred? Shame? Vulnerability? How long will these feelings last? Will you just jump up and laugh it off? Probably not. You will probably feel that way for years. Maybe the rest of your life. The point is that the injury is more than just physical. It is total. It hurts body, mind, and soul. What if that person sees you two weeks later. You have a fractured skull, a broken nose, and an infection from the dirt you swallowed. You have been in pain for two weeks and are not well yet. You are not able to get out, but he comes to your door and says, “I’m the man who did this to you, and I want you to forgive me.” Can you do that? It would be difficult wouldn’t it? Why? Because of all those feelings that well up inside of you because of what he did. To forgive him you have to crucify those feelings, and you have to put them in a tomb and seal it with the biggest stone you can find. You have to bear all the pain. You have to bear all those feelings. You have to bear the entire cost of forgiving him. Can you transfer those feelings to another person? No. Can another person bear the cost of forgiving that person for you? No. You have to bear it, or it will never come to pass. It is the same with God. He cannot transfer His hurt and pain to a mere man, and let that man bear it for Him. He can’t create a “Son” who is not Himself, and send Him to bear our sins. He has to bear them Himself. That is what the Cross is all about. That is what God did on the Cross. Listen, the atonement is not as much about punishing Jesus in our place, as it is about God bearing His anger in Himself. It is not so much that God is so mad at us He has to crucify somebody, and, rather than crucify us He crucified Jesus, as it is that He chose to turn His wrath upon Himself rather than unleash it on us. That’s what the Cross of Jesus is all about. There, on the Cross, God, the offended party, publicly bore the entire cost of our forgiveness. He bore the sting of our sin, He bore our rejection of Him, and He bore the reaction our sin caused in Him. He bore His own wrath, in Himself. Therefore, Jesus must be God. Not a separate God, not a different God, not “a God,” but fully and completely the One God as much as are the Father and the Holy Ghost. Only God can secure our forgiveness and bear our sins. That is why it matters what you believe about Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, One God in Three Persons. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
|
||
Copyright © 2006 Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church. All rights reserved For website information contact: E-mail Webmaster |
||
http://www.holytrinityanglicanorthodoxchurch.org/HolyTrinityHello.htm