Worship Through The Son

 Last week we started to answer the question of who it is that we worship, and we saw that God reveals himself as one God in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I also explained that to understand the Trinity, we have to consider what the Bible says about the roles of each person of the Godhead. So, we saw that God, first, is a purposeful Creator and a loving Father.

We are still swimming in deep waters, as today we move on to consider the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. To better understand who this Son of God is, I want to start by going back to Ephesians 3:14-21, which I said would be our jumping off point for looking at each person of the Trinity. So, let’s read that passage together and then get into the characteristics of God the Son.

There are two points about God the Son that I want you to notice from this passage. First, notice that in verses 16-17, Paul prays that God the Father would give the Ephesian Christians the power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of Christ. Then, down in verse 20, he prays that God the Father will do great things in the Ephesian church through the power now at work in them. This connection that Paul makes between the purpose of God the Father and the presence of Christ helps us to understand the doctrine of the Trinity just a little better. What we find in the New Testament is that God the Son “proceeds from” the Father. For example, Philippians 2:5-11 tells us that God the Son was “in the very form of God”, and yet he humbled himself to the point of becoming human and dying on the cross. From this we find that God the Son does the will of his Father. God the Father purposes it, and the Son carries it out.

Second, notice back in Ephesians 3 that every time Paul refers to God the Son, he calls him “Christ”. Now, we are so used to saying “Jesus Christ” that I think sometimes we may assume that “Christ” is just Jesus’ last name. But, the word “Christ” is a title. In the Greek, it just means “king”, but for the Jews it meant far more. “Christ” is a reference to the Old Testament idea of the “Messiah”. There are hints of this figure thoughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 3:15, he is the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent, once and for all putting an end to the rule of Satan. In Genesis 49:10, Jacob prophesies that a king will come out of lineage of his son, Judah. Later, a ruddy shepherd boy named David, of the lineage of Judah, is promised, in 2 Samuel 7, that his throne will last forever. The Israelites took all of these links and more and came to understand that God, all along, was promising a once-and-final ruler who would not just rule over Israel, but over the whole world.

The Jews also came to understand that this Messiah would hold three different offices: Prophet, Priest, and King. Moses prophesizes in Deut. 18:15 that God will raise up a prophet one day who will teach the people everything about God.  God prophesies through Psalm 110:4 that the Messiah will be a priest after “the order of Melchizedek”. Melchizedek is a mysterious, early priest that we find all the way back in Genesis 14, long before the Levitical laws or the descendants of Aaron.  And, God promised through David’s Psalm 110:1 that there would come another king after him who would rule over all of God’s enemies.

When Jesus was born, the people of Israel were anxiously watching for the Messiah. They knew from the prophecies of Daniel that the Messiah should be born at that very time. So, when Joseph and Mary take the baby Jesus into the temple to be dedicated to the Lord, Simeon and Anna are led by God to greet them with joy and declare that this little baby is the promised Messiah who will rule over the whole world. Later, his disciples would also come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter would profess in Matt. 16:16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” These disciples would later teach that there were three ways that Jesus revealed himself to be the Messiah, and these three ways connect to the ideas of Prophet, Priest, and King. They also reveal to us the full nature of Jesus Christ as God the Son. Those three roles are Word, Image, and Son. So, in the time we have left, let’s consider each of those roles.

First, flip over to John 1:1-14 as we look at Jesus as the Word of God. For John, to tell the story of Jesus, you have to start all the way back before the creation of the world. He starts by using the same language as Genesis 1, and he introduces Jesus as the Word who was with God and was God. The Greek word that our English Bibles translate to “Word” actually has so much more meaning than just what we have. The Greek word is “Logos”. To the Jews and Greeks who originally read John’s Gospel, they would have immediately understood that John was referring to the Divine Wisdom or Reason behind all things. In the Old Testament we find that God’s Word actually does things. When God speaks, the world is created. When he withholds His Word, the land withers. Isaiah 55:11 says that God’s Word will not return to him void but accomplish what he has sent it out to do. Now, John reveals that this Word of God is actually a person who was present with God in creation, and not only that, but he was active in creating the world. This same Word has become flesh, and by becoming flesh he reveals to us who God truly is.

The second way that God the Son is revealed is as the Image of God. To see this, look with me at Col. 1:15-20. Here, Paul says that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God”. Jesus is the true picture or embodiment of who God is. Notice down in verse 19 he even goes so far as to say that the fullness of God dwelled in him. Paul gives us two ways that this characteristic of Jesus is significant. First, it means that Jesus is “preeminent.” He says that Jesus is the firstborn of creation, firstborn of the dead, and head of the church. Now, when we read the word “firstborn” we might fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus was the first created being. But, the word firstborn can also refer to the position of authority that Jesus has. In fact, you see that just in the way that Paul uses the word in verse 18 by saying that Jesus was the “firstborn from the dead”. Was Jesus the first to rise from the dead? No! He actually raised several people from the dead during his ministry. Paul is saying that Jesus is first in preeminence, first over all creation, first over those who will be raised from the dead, and first over the church.

The idea of Jesus as Image also refers to his role as our high priest. Paul says that it is because he is the very image of God made flesh that he is able to reconcile us to God. Because Jesus is both fully God and fully man, he is the only one who can bridge the divide between God and man.

The last way that God the Son is revealed is as the only begotten Son of God. As I mentioned earlier, in Matt. 16:16, Peter declares that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. There are plenty of examples throughout the New Testament where Jesus is called the Son of God. When we read those, I’d bet most of us think of his miraculous birth and the fact that he was created by a supernatural work of God. But, the phrase “Son of God” actually refers to his position as the King of Kings. In the Old Testament, the judges and kings of Israel were called the “sons of God”. But, even though they held this title, none of them was truly a son of God. However, Jesus is both. Jesus is the only begotten of the Father. He is the beloved Son. He is the true heir of heaven.

All of this may seem like theological mumbo jumbo to you but let me explain how this really matters. I recently finished listening to a documentary series called “The Rabbit Hole.” This series took a deep look at how people can get sucked into conspiracy theories and extremist groups through what seems like benign mediums like Social Media and YouTube. One of the conspiracies that the documentary traced was the Qanon conspiracy, which we have heard a great deal about lately. Qanon actually started back in 2015 when emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign were leaked to the public. While most of us shrugged our shoulders and went on with our lives, there was a small group of people who took those emails and started looking for patterns. What they came up with from that was a conspiracy called “Pizza-Gate”. They found that the Clinton campaign talked a great deal about pizza, and that they always seemed to order pizza from the same place. They then theorized that “pizza” was a codeword for child sex trafficking. People took this so seriously that one man actually went to the pizza joint and held it up at gun point. He told police that there were children trapped in the basement, and he was trying to set them free. The trouble was the pizza joint didn’t even have a basement. Then, in 2017, President Trump had an oval office meeting with the joint chiefs, in which he suggested that the meeting could be the “calm before the storm”. After the meeting, a mysterious character named “Q” posted on a social media platform that he was an insider at the white house who knew what this meant. He claimed that all of the conspiracies about child sex trafficking were true - that it was worse than previously thought - and when Trump said that there was a storm coming, it meant that he was about to expose everything. “Q” would release new information every so often, and people ate it up. People would try to decipher what every little detail meant, and they would try to read into small details at Trump’s press conferences, like counting the number of flags behind him and interpreting that to mean something. What is so strange about Qanon is that the folks who hold to it are completely distrustful of everyone (politicians, the news media, government bureaucrats), and yet, they waited with bated breath for every cryptic word from a person they didn’t even know! They wanted a prophet to reveal the truth about the world. They wanted a priest who would drive out the corrupt religious leaders and politicians. They wanted a king who would once and for all bring justice and peace. As crazy as this conspiracy theory seems, we all have a deep longing for a true prophet, priest, and king who speaks the very word of God, rightly represents God, and will rule over our lives as the true Son of God. And, we all look for these things in worldly men who will ultimately let us down. We want these things because there is a true Messiah who has come to give us the word of God, to redeem us from our sins, and to rule over our lives, and he is not Q or Donald Trump or Joe Biden. He is not the next celebrity pastor or social media superstar. He is Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Son of God. May we this day, delight in him as the only prophet we listen to, the only priest who can give us peace, and the only king we truly serve.