WHO JESUS REALY IS

WHO JESUS REALLY IS

                Today we will discuss declaration number 3 of the Christian Declaration of Faith. We believe:

3.” That Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary. That Jesus was crucified, buried and raised from the dead. That He ascended to heaven and is today at the right hand of the Father as the Intercessor.”

                As the divine Son of God, Jesus came here to demonstrate for us how the Law is to be fulfilled.

                He became the true Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. He became the unleavened bread by living a sin free life and then dying in our place. He became the first fruits of the resurrection when He rose from the dead, when He presented Himself to the Father in heaven even as the earthly High Priest was waving the sheaf of barley before the Lord in the temple. He became our High Priest and our Mediator in heaven, but having fulfilled all that the Law could give us in types and shadows, be became our High Priest, not after the order of the Levitical priesthood, but after the order of Melchizedek. Heb. 6:18-20, Heb. 7:18, 19

                In every way then, Jesus was introducing us to a new way of life… one that the Old Testament could picture, but could not produce.

                We claim to believe the above declaration about Jesus, and this simple statement doesn’t even begin to tell us everything that Jesus is. Paul embellishes upon the nature of Jesus in Ephesians 1: 18-23 saying:

                “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the SURPASSING GREATNESS OF HIS POWER TOWARD US WHO BELIEVE. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of HIS MIGHT, WHICH He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, FAR ABOVE ALL RULE AND AUTHORITY AND POWER AND DOMINION AND EVERY NAME THAT IS NAMED, NOT ONLY IN THIS AGE BUT IN THE AGE TO COME. And He (The Father) put ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER His feet and gave Him as HEAD OVER ALL THINGS                to the church, which is His Body, the FULLNESS OF HIM WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL.”

                This statement by Paul would blow our minds if we really understood it and believed it. God the Father has given Jesus (A man who has become our second Adam by the power of an indestructible life) authority over everything in every realm of existence including heaven itself. As God Jesus is well able to fulfill His role as One with authority over all things, but as a man, He has place mankind into this same realm of authority, because He is training us to reign with Him on His throne.

                Yesterday I thought about today’s lesson and I prayed that God would give me a revelation of what this means and who Jesus really is. So this morning I woke with these words emblazoned across the screen of my mind. “JESUS HAS NOT TOLD US TO DO ANYTHING THAT HE HAS NOT ALSO GIVEN US THE POWER AND AUTHORITY TO DO.”

                What this means is that we as followers of Jesus must walk in His authority and His power. How are we doing so far? In our lives we tend to reflect a very limited view of who Jesus really is. For instance, when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep My commandments.” We immediately forget that all authority has been given to Him in heaven and on earth. The key word “Commandments” triggers something in us and we automatically revert to the Law of Moses.

                But I don’t think that this was what Jesus intended. He was demonstrating to His disciples how the Law is to be fulfilled in living power and love. And if Paul is right in telling us that the Law is not of faith, Gal. 3:12 then Jesus is not here telling His disciples to go back to the two tables of stone. Instead, Jesus is here instituting His authority to bring to us a new and living way. He is bringing us a new circumcision of the heart. This circumcision cuts away the flesh so that we can now live by His Spirit.

                As Paul tells us in Romans 8:1-4: The Law will now be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Jesus was not turning his disciples back to the weakness of the letter of the Law. Jesus fulfilled the Law and then He sent down His Holy Spirit so that in living by His Spirit and not by our flesh, the Law will be fulfilled.

                If we don’t believe this then we have to ask why Jesus set up the Pharisees as an example of what not to do. The Pharisees had law upon law, all designed to help us keep the Law, but Jesus said that unless our righteousness far surpassed that of the Pharisees, we could not enter the Kingdom. Mt. 5:20

                I guess this is why I have been dealing with the Law so much lately. Our belief about the Law clearly demonstrates our limited, or unlimited view of what Jesus came to accomplish and how it is that He sent His very Spirit to us at Pentecost so that we can receive and live by His power. We live under a new priesthood and where there is a change of priesthood, there is, by nature a change of law also. Heb. 7:12. “For the Law, since it was only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offered continually, make perfect those who draw near.” Heb. 10:1 Jesus brought to us a new Priesthood and a new Law, which is a new and living way, so that “When He said, “ A New Covenant, He has made the first obsolete, But whatever is becoming obsolete is growing old and ready to disappear.” Heb. 8:13

                If we truly understand both the authority and power of Jesus, we will not need to revert to the Law on Stone. Knowing who Jesus really is, we will not need to or desire to serve other gods, or make graven images or take His name in vain. We will enter into His true rest by trusting in His works instead of our own, and since we are now living by His Spirit we will not be lying, cheating, stealing and killing people, but we will love them even as we love ourselves.

                “And for this reason, He is the mediator of a New Covenant in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” Heb. 9:15

                But if we enter into this  New Covenant and the new priesthood that is not like the first covenant with external laws written on stone, we must indeed enter a new realm of existence: “For now we need to know not only the authority and power of Christ but we must also know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works WITHIN US. Ephesians 3:19, 20.

                Fulfilling the Old Covenant by living in the power of the New Covenant is only part of what makes up the Christian life. The other part is the proactive part of the New Covenant. The proactive part of this New Covenant is that Jesus has given His all surpassing authority and power to us with the intended purpose that we will carry on what He started in the world,. This we must do on two levels.

1.       We must do the works of Christ as He demonstrated them with His life

2.       We must reconcile men to God for He has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

                In His messages to the seven churches, we see two groups of believers in the last days.

1.       We see the church of brotherly love. They have a little of the power of Christ and they have not denied His name. So Jesus has given them the key of David.  (Our authority as kings and priests) And He has set before us an open door and He has given us the power to overcome and so we will receive the name of God and Jesus’ new name…     and if we have His name, we also share His authority and His power.

2.       But there is a second church in the last days. They are pictured as having a shut door with Jesus standing on the outside knocking. They think that they are rich and increased with goods, when in fact they are miserable and naked and poor and blind. They have never let the real Jesus in. They have never seen Him as sufficient for our every need. They serve a big Law and a little Christ and they have never really embraced the full extent of Jesus’ authority and power, to do in us something far greater than the Law could have ever done.

               

                We need to get acquainted with this God/Man who has received all authority in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Once we know Him we will never again resort to a weak Law carved on stone, but we will begin to live by His Spirit and as we do, we will no longer carry out the deeds of the flesh. We are called to walk in His footsteps… to do His works and even greater works… to overcome as He overcame. And if we believe what Paul said about the Law, then we will enter into the New Covenant, to live under the power and authority of the Son of God.

                This New Covenant is not like the old covenant carved on stone. Jer. 31:31-34. By His unsurpassed authority and power, Jesus has written His New Covenant in our hearts by His Spirit. As He was in the world, so are we. So we need to leave the realm of the Pharisees and to walk in the realm of the Holy Spirit.

                We have severely limited the power and authority of Christ, by constantly reverting to the Old Covenant when He has entered us into a New Covenant with a new Priesthood and new Laws… and He has placed this new and living way in our hearts.

                Somehow we need to learn once again how to live by His Spirit, His authority and His power, so that we can truly be His ambassadors in this dying world. When we truly believe who Jesus really is, we will follow Him more closely and we seek to walk in the power and the authority that He brought to us in this New Covenant.

                With all authority in heaven and on earth and under the earth, Jesus said to His disciples and to us: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another.”

                And Paul explains to us that the Law has been our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor, for we are sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Gal. 3:24-26.

               

                Is the real Jesus that big for you, or are you still strung out between two covenants? Which priesthood do we live under? What power and authority do we operate under? Our answer to those questions will let us know just how big we believe Jesus to be.

                Everything that was once pictured for us in the Old Covenant is now fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

               

                Jesus came to bring us something dynamic and wonderful. It would actually make us like Him. But we have often fallen short of it because we keep clinging to what was, rather than what is.

                The Old Covenant is indeed the foundation upon which the New Covenant sits, but they are not the same… and if we belong to Jesus Christ; then we are in the New Covenant.  

                The only One with enough authority and power to bring to us a New Covenant is Jesus Christ Himself as He is described in our Christian declaration of faith.