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John 1:35-46
So yesterday we were talking about who do you and I believe Jesus to be. Is Jesus simply a good teacher or is He indeed both human and divine. And when we started this we talked about how in our minds we want Jesus to be 50% human 50% God, but in reality we learned that Jesus is 100% human and 100% God. And to say any different would interfere with Him being the Sacrifice to end all sacrifices.
Hebrews 2:14-18 (NIV) Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
So again we can agree, that Jesus had to be 100% human and at the same time He had to be 100% God. So what do we do with this strange thought because the math doesn’t work? We remember that God is always more – more beautiful, more majestic, more loving, more gracious.
John 1:35-46 (NIV) The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter). The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip.
I love that how Nathanael asks can anything good come from Nazareth?! But again – that’s one of the prophecies that Jesus fulfils from the Old Testament, so that we indeed to know He is Messiah.
Here we can see that the disciples who followed John the Baptist, turned and followed Jesus. Why – because John the Baptist, had convinced them of that very thing in his teachings.
When John the Baptist is asked about Jesus, he talks about how Jesus surpasses him in everything. John the Baptist talks about how he is only the one calling out in the wilderness. Basically John the Baptist, is pointing everyone to Jesus. John the Baptist knows who Jesus is, and John the Beloved Disciple is showing us that in his account of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I want to leave you with this today, it’s a quote from CS Lewis that might help you come to a conclusion about who you believe Jesus is.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (c) 1952, renewed (c) 1980, p.52).
Wherever you are today on this journey of discovering, I pray that God will indeed open the eyes of your heart to Who Jesus truly is.