Who is Jesus Christ?

Jesus is the pre-announced name of the Son of God as man. It signifies 'Jehovah the Saviour.' Matt. 1:21.

1. "In the beginning was the Word." He did not begin to be in the beginning, but He was, i.e., He existed in the beginning. The Word has eternal existence. 2. "The Word was with God," and if with then He must be distinguished as having a Personality of His own. The Word has distinct Personality. 3. "The Word was God." Though distinct as to His Person yet none the less God. The Word has essential Deity. 4. "The same was in the beginning with God." He is not, therefore, merely a manifestation of the Deity in time. The Word has eternal Personality. 5. "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made." He was the active Creator and nothing originated apart from Him. The Word had creatorial originality. 6. "In Him was life." … The Word has essential vitality.

In the first place, there are the direct passages — John 1:1: "The Word was with God, and was God." This is in every way a striking passage: when every thing began, He was — that is, had no beginning, was God, as indeed it must be, yet was a distinct personality; He was with God, and always such, was so in the beginning, that He created everything.

Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Thus John 12, Isaiah saw His glory, and spoke of Him, quoting Isaiah 6. Whose glory was seen there? Jehovah of hosts.

If Christ be not God, I do not know Him, have not met Him, nor know what He is. No man can by searching find it out.

"For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9). What marvellous, matchless fulness is here! It is far beyond the ability of the creature to understand the fulness of its significance, far beyond our understanding how this great manifestation can be true.

Consider Matthew 8:23-27. On board a sailing vessel the Lord Jesus calmly slept. He is certainly therefore Man, for God does not sleep (Ps. 121:4). But when awakened by the disciples because of their fear of the raging storm capsizing the boat, He calmly rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. He demonstrated that He is God, the master of the elements. His sleep can be attributed only to the fact that He is Man; but His authority over wind and sea is attributable to His being God.

He said, "my Lord and my God." There before him in bodily form was the Lord Jesus, the wounds too bearing witness to the fact of His true manhood; but Thomas unhesitatingly calls Him, not only "my Lord," but "my God." And the Lord received this supreme adoration without question. Blessed, holy, eternal Son of God! Blessed, spotless Son of Man!

Higher and higher yet we soar. The Jesus who has endeared Himself to our hearts by dying is declared to be the Creator, the Sustainer, and the ultimate Finisher of all things. He is THE SAME. Here we reach — so it seems to the writer — a point beyond which it is impossible to go. The mind fails, and spiritual affections alone come to the rescue. When we can no further investigate we can worship.

The only possible answer to our total ruin is God's perfect remedy. … The true secret of peace is to get to the very end of a guilty, ruined, helpless, worthless self, and there find an all-sufficient Christ as God's provision for our very deepest need.

God not only sent His only begotten Son into the world, but He bruised Him for our iniquities, and raised Him from the dead, in order that we might know and believe that our iniquities are all disposed of in such a manner as to glorify Him infinitely and everlastingly.

Though rejected here by men, He was "raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father," and "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."