Christ the Lord: Jesus' Person and Kingdom

Christ the Lord: Jesus’ Person and Kingdom

PART I

by Benjamin Dean

Contents Outline

The Main Thing
A Fivefold Pattern
Five Words
Five Phrases
Five Sentences
The Sum and Substance of the Gospel
- The Person of the Gospel
The Real Jesus
- The Story of Jesus
- The Identity of Jesus
- Three Ways to Identify the Genuine Jesus
- This Jesus: The Specific Christ of the Apostolic Witness
The Many Names of the One Christ
Christ’s Main Names
- (1) Jesus – the Savior
- (2) Jesus is Lord
- (3) Christ, Messiah, King
- (4) Son of God
- (5) Son of Man
  - Son of God and Son of Man
- (6) Word of God
Incarnation
- ‘The Word Became Flesh’
- The Eternal Son: Pre-existence, Creatorship, and Messianic Promise
- Westminster and Chalcedon
- Born of a Virgin
- Why Did God Become Human?
The God-Man
- Deity
- Humanity
- The Mediator
Jesus’ Miracles
- The Nature of Jesus’ Miracles
- Belief in Miracles
- The Purpose of Jesus’ Miracles

The gospel centers on Jesus Christ as Lord by his life, death, resurrection, reign, and return.

Earlier we touched on the nature of the gospel at some length; it is worth pausing to register its heart again here, allowing the impression to settle afresh.¹

The Main Thing

The gospel can be cast in both careful formal language as well as in everyday informal language. It is something that addresses and speaks to all of us, something that all of us can grasp hold of, understand, and relate to at whatever level we will. Additionally, the gospel is a broad specific category, embracing multiple aspects with far-reaching implications and numerous impacts. There is a comprehensiveness and an immensity to the Biblical good news. Yet all its elements are interlinked, gathered around a central strand, unified by a single person. The core content of the Christian gospel – as declared by Jesus himself, and then believed and promoted about him by the first Christians – may be straightforwardly summarized.

In simplest terms, the gospel announces, ‘the Christ’ (Acts 8:5); it states, ‘the good news about Jesus’ (Acts 8:35); ‘proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 28:31).

In fewest words, its substance may be boiled down further to the brief declaration, ‘Jesus is Lord’ (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3), ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (2 Cor 4:3-5; Phil 2:11), ‘Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom 1:4).

Of ‘first’ and fundamental ‘importance’ regarding the nature of Christ’s Lordship is his death for our sins ‘in accordance with the Scriptures,’ his resurrection from the dead (1 Cor 15:3-4), his all-powerful appointment as Son of God (Rom 1:4), and his super-exaltation ‘above every name … in heaven and on earth’ (Phil 2:9-10).

The ‘essential ingredients’ of the Christian message are therefore, in brief, the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified, resolving sin by God’s grace, offering forgiveness for guilt, new birth, and eternal life through the gift of the Holy Spirit.²

The declaration of this message includes the demand following from it. An obligation is bound up with it. This message we should believe and express by repentance and faith. That is the gospel’s consistent focus. That is its constant theme.

A Fivefold Pattern

So, ‘the gospel’ can refer to a person (our Lord Jesus Christ), to actions and events (his saving work), to their accomplishments, status, and ongoing operations (Jesus’ Lordship and Kingdom), to the benefits of these achievements (salvation), to a certain set of written narratives (the canonical Gospels the New Testament contains), and to a wider message (a body of news, truths, facts, to be communicated, stated, expounded, heard, received, and appropriately responded to).

Moreover, the gospel in the New Testament is set forth in a variety of moods, styles, and genres. There is narrative and proclamation, biography and autobiography, story-like presentation and detailed conceptual analysis, letters and visions, facts and interpretation, events plus message, persons, ideas, promises, and commands. The good news is a thought-pattern, a framework, a matrix, a worldview, an announcement, an argument, a logic, a summons.

We seek to explore the suggestion that among all the ‘gospel’ material in the Bible it is possible to trace a five-part pattern, set of themes, and talking points. These five great overarching truths are expressed and taught over and over repeatedly. Taken together they form ‘the doctrinal components of the gospel.’³ They distil, clarify, and communicate the common core contents and concepts of the Christian good news.

For clarity’s sake, our consideration will develop gradually, moving from drastically short and simple expression onward to greater complexity and length. We shall try to lay out the nature and structure of the Biblical gospel in a fivefold pattern, beginning as briefly as possible with just five words. These are followed – step by step, piece by piece – with five phrases, five sentences, five paragraphs, and (finally) five longer parts containing fuller clarifications.

Five Words

The shape and structure of the gospel may be indicated, very simply and straightforwardly, in the following five words:

God

Sin

Christ

Forgiveness

Faith

Taken together these five words offer a clear, uncomplicated, non-technical outline of the Biblical gospel’s contents, an outline which can be easily digested, comfortably memorized, and used without difficulty as a set of headings for fuller explanation and instruction.⁴

Five Phrases

By way of expansion, the gospel tells us:

About God’s character and relationship to us

About sin and its consequences

About Christ’s identity and action

About salvation, based on forgiveness, issuing in eternal life

About conversion, full-hearted faith, life-long trust, and turning to God from sin

Five Sentences

The shape and substance of the gospel may be next expressed in five theses, five statements that are foundational to our understanding of the gospel:

The gospel is a totally positive life-changing word from the God who speaks, creates, rules, judges, and saves

The gospel includes a warning of judgment to come on sinful humanity

The gospel centers on Jesus Christ as Lord by his life, death, resurrection, exaltation, and return

The gospel of salvation has immediate impact now through the forgiveness of sins and the creation of new spiritual life in relationship with God, but its strongest stress is on promised outcomes in the eternal future

The gospel demands conversion – faith and repentance – in response to God’s grace and mercy⁵

The Sum and Substance of the Gospel

The huge beating heart of the Christian gospel is ‘the excellency of Christ and his kingdom.’⁶ Who Christ is – his person and identity – is the axis around which God’s good news revolves; what Christ has done, and is doing – kingdom and work – is the focus upon which God’s good news concentrates. The sum and substance of the gospel is, in other words, the person and work of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ – Christ and all his benefits.⁷

To put matter as starkly and concisely as possible: the gospel is Jesus Christ; and Jesus Christ is the gospel. The great question we shall therefore explore is this: ‘Who is the Jesus Christ who IS the gospel, and how is he equipped to save us?’⁸

Before providing an answer, however, it is worth pausing to register just how fundamental this question is to the whole of Scripture’s testimony. ‘[T]he great work of redemption by Jesus Christ,’ wrote Jonathan Edwards, ‘I suppose is to be the grand design of all God’s designs, and the summit and ultimate of all the divine operations and decrees.’⁹ This judgement is undoubtedly correct: all God’s works, words, and actions – in creation, redemption, and completion – are accomplished by Christ, through Christ, and for Christ (Col 1:16). Indeed, the Bible’s central claim is perhaps this: that ‘our creator wants to meet us through Jesus Christ.¹⁰

Again and again in his letters the Apostle Paul acutely draws our attention to Christ as the foundation and outworking of God’s actions in the world. Listening to Paul, we can feel the depth and breadth of the way God has embraced us and all of his creation in his Son, Jesus Christ:

‘The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col 1:15-20)’

So, we see that these comprehensive claims about Christ’s place in the cosmic order are not left at the level of abstraction, hovering thirty thousand feet above us. The gospel draws our attention to and tells us who Jesus was, and is, and to what Jesus did, and does, to save sinful men and women from sin and all its consequences. More particularly, the good news directs us to what was achieved by his death and resurrection – and most of all, the gospel fixes upon the accomplishment and value of that death for our sins, reckoning it the very greatest of his many great and glorious works.¹¹

There are, of course, four written Gospels in the New Testament canon. Yet these are not four different gospels, but one gospel, the story of which is set forth in four canonical accounts – those according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What, then, is the substance of this one gospel that the four accounts, together with the rest of the New Testament, proclaim?

Again, the one and only gospel is good news from God in two unfolding steps. First, it is about Jesus Christ – who he is, and what God has already done in and through his Person and work, particularly his substitutionary death and resurrection, to achieve humanity’s personal and collective eternal salvation. Second, it is about what that all means and amounts to – what God intends to do, as a consequence of what he has already accomplished, for each one of us, and for everyone and everything else in the universe.

What follows is a series of valuable summaries, beginning with Calvin:

‘Scripture is also called gospel, that is, new and joyful news, because in it is declared that Christ, the sole true and eternal Son of the living God, was made man, to make us children of God his Father, by adoption. Thus he is our only Saviour, to whom we owe our redemption, peace, righteousness, sanctification, salvation, and life; who died for our sins and rose again for our justification; who ascended to heaven for our entry there and took possession of it for us and [made is to be] our home; to be always our helper before his Father; as our advocate and perpetually doing sacrifice for us, he sits at the Father’s right hand as King, made Lord and Master over all, so that he may restore all that is in heaven and on earth.’¹²

This is Millard Erickson:

‘the gospel [is to be understood] as centering on Jesus Christ and what God has done through him. The essential points of the gospel are Jesus Christ’s status as the Son of God, his genuine humanity, his death for our sins, his burial, resurrection, subsequent appearances, and future coming in judgment. It may well be said that … Jesus Christ is the gospel … [he] is to be understood as both the object and the author of the [true gospel] message … that one is justified by faith in the gracious work of Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. … [W]e must not think of the gospel as merely a recital of theological truths and historical events. Rather, it relates these truths and events to the situation of every individual believer. Thus, Jesus died “for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). Nor is the resurrection of Jesus an isolated event; it is the beginning of the general resurrection of all believers (1 Cor 15:20 in conjunction with Rom 1:3-4). Furthermore, the fact of the coming judgment pertains to everyone. We will all be evaluated on the basis of our personal attitude toward and response to the gospel: “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess 1:8).’¹³

And this is D. A. Carson:

‘This one gospel [told in the four canonical Gospels], this message of news that was simultaneously threatening and promising, concerned the coming of Jesus the Messiah, the long-awaited King, and included something about his origins, the ministry of his forerunner, his brief ministry of teaching and miraculous transformation, climaxing in his death and resurrection. These elements are not independent pearls on a string that constitutes the life and times of Jesus the Messiah. Rather, they are elements tightly tied together. Accounts of Jesus’ teaching cannot be rightly understood unless we discern how they flow toward and point toward Jesus’ death and resurrection. All of this together is the one gospel of Jesus Christ, to which the canonical Gospels bear witness. To study the teaching of Jesus without simultaneously reflecting on his passion and resurrection is far worse.’¹⁴

Lastly, Billy Graham – the evangelist who through the course of six decades addressed a larger live audience than any other figure in history, some 210 million people living in 185 countries and territories – put matters with characteristic directness:

‘God has done everything possible to reconcile us to himself. He did this in a way that staggers our imagination. In God’s plan, by his death on the cross, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, taking the judgment of God that we deserve upon himself when he died on the cross. Now, by his resurrection from the dead, Christ has broken the bonds of death and opened the way to eternal life for us. The resurrection also confirms for all time that Jesus was in fact who he said he was: the unique Son of God, sent from heaven to save us from our sins. Now God freely offers us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life. … No matter who we are or what we have done, we are saved only because of what Christ has done for us. I will not go to heaven because I have preached to great crowds. I will go to heaven for one reason: Jesus Christ died for me, and I am trusting him alone for my salvation. Christ died for you also, and he freely offers you the gift of eternal life as you commit your life to him.’¹⁵

The Person of the Gospel

God himself is both its substance and its proclaimer, and all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are active within it.¹⁶ The Father is its principal author, architect, and initiator. The Son is its central agent and actor. The Spirit is its chief applier and implementer. Yet ‘Scripture specially identifies distinct Persons of the Trinity with distinct works of the Trinity because certain works more specially manifest certain persons of the Trinity.’¹⁷

It is the Lord Jesus Christ himself who is the content of the gospel. He is its bearer, herald, and instrument — the one through whom the gospel and the God of the gospel reaches out to us — and in this sense a prophet of the gospel. But he is no mere prophet, even of the gospel. He is the gospel. The message of the gospel is a message about Jesus, and may never be divorced or separated from him — from who he is, what he experienced, what he said, what he did, and what he continues to do.

‘Jesus is not a function of the gospel; he is its sum and substance. His person and act, his proclamation, his humiliation and exaltation and rule over all things constitute and do not simply illustrate the gospel. “If we were to sum up the content of the gospel is a single word, it would be ‘Jesus the Christ.”’ Jesus is the gospel because in, and as, him God intervenes decisively in the history of sin and death. In and as Jesus, God reconciles all things to himself, putting an end to our hostility and alienation and restoring us to freedom, fellowship, and hope. In and as Jesus, God makes all things new, and ensures that the creation, broken by disorder and condemned to perish, will attain its true end and be glorified. In and as Jesus, ‘the gospel of God’ becomes reality.’¹⁸

The gospel is thus a summary of Jesus’ identity and significance — of his person and his work. It explains where he came from, who he was and is, what he did and said, what he is doing and saying now. It combines claims concerning his person and work in the accomplishment of the world’s salvation: ‘the person of the Son engaged in the work of the servant-messiah.’¹⁹ ‘Only this person does this work, which constitutes God’s good tidings to human history.’²⁰

The gospel accordingly declares the perfection of Jesus Christ: the integrity of his person and the completeness of his work. The perfection of his Person means that he is the God-man — fully divine and fully human, two natures equally united in his one singular Person, without division or confusion. At the level of being, Jesus is completely united to both God and humanity; he is included in, and inherent to, the very identity of God. The perfection of his work means that he, and he alone, fulfils the offices of prophet, priest, and king.

The stupendous goodness of Jesus’ suffering and death for us — in our place, as our God-given Saviour and substitute — breaks against the backdrop of our very great badness and its misery. Being in the state of sin, ‘the human race was bound in a just doom and all men were children of wrath’²¹ (Job 14:1; Psa 90:9; John 3:36; Eph 2:3).

Because of this a Saviour was required — a Redeemer, Mediator, and Reconciler — one who would offer a sacrifice sufficient to appease God’s righteous anger at our hostility towards him, and so make peace between God and rebellious humanity. By the death of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, human enemies of God are ‘justified by his blood,’ reconciled to God, and saved from his wrath (Rom. 5:9–10). The greatest good of the great good news rests upon this, and upon nothing else: ‘God’s action in Christ to redeem people’ from enmity with him, ‘from the dehumanization it brings,’ from death, from the devil, and from final Divine judgment.²²

The Real Jesus

Our approach proceeds on the assumption that the four canonical Gospels and the remaining New Testament documents are completely accurate, historically truthful, and entirely reliable sources for knowing a great deal about the real Jesus. Scholars understandably continue to debate this and cognate questions, and readers are warmly encouraged to form their own judgements — weighing the evidence as they find it — as to whether what follows presents ‘a coherent and convincing portrait of a remarkable historical figure’²³: one whose influence and significance in the history of the world remains, by any measure, without parallel.²⁴

The Story of Jesus

It is the four Gospels that display Jesus’ character and nature most fully, that present ‘the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor 4:6) most clearly and vividly. Each portrays his Person and kingdom in its own distinctive way. Elsewhere in the New Testament, his earthly career is briefly outlined (Acts 10:37-43), and the Epistles offer lengthy elaborations of its doctrinal meaning and ethical significance. But it is the four written Gospels that tell Jesus’ story.

They set before us detailed reports of his public life, ministry, sayings, and teachings — complementary pen-portraits that together tell of who he was, and is; what he was and is like; what he said and taught; what happened to him; what he did; and what he is doing now to save, rule, and sustain all who personally believe in him and rely upon him for everything. From the very beginning in Jerusalem, and then through the missionary labours of Paul and the other Apostles, accounts of Jesus’ life were provided by those who either knew the story at first hand or received it through eyewitness testimony and careful research. Their substance was essential to the earliest and ongoing preaching and instruction of the church (Acts 13:1–5, 13; 15:36–41; 16:10; Col. 4:14). For people to understand the gospel, the four Gospels remain indispensable.

The four Gospels, of course, do not stand alone within the New Testament. The meaning and implications of the story they tell require very considerable supplementary material — commentary, explanation, and interpretation — from the other Apostolic documents. Yet through their introduction to Jesus’ identity, their record of his birth, baptism, temptations, deeds, collected teaching, and the key events surrounding his ministry, their sustained stress upon his suffering and death, and their account of his resurrection and ascension, these narratives tell the story of the Saviour-King of God’s Kingdom — and of how that Kingdom was established.

It was therefore entirely fitting that the early church should call these four narratives ‘Gospel(s).’²⁵ And yet, as has been well observed, ‘The early Christians did not view them as four separate “gospels,” but as the one gospel according to four different authors.’²⁶ John expressed his own purpose in terms entirely complementary to the other three ‘synoptic’ accounts: ‘These things have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20:31).

The Identity of Jesus

But how may we be confident that the Jesus we believe in and commend to others is the real Jesus, and not some imagined or constructed figure? This question was live virtually from the outset. Paul expressed concern about the damage wrought by those promoting ‘another Jesus’ than the one proclaimed by him and his associates (2 Cor. 11:4). Genuine gospelling, it is plain, is not merely the utterance of the name ‘Jesus.’

The matter was well framed by Augustine:

‘As for the certain and distinctive foundation of the catholic [universal] faith, it is Christ. “For no one,” said the apostle, “can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11). Nor should it be denied that this is the distinctive basis of the catholic faith, just because it appears that it is common to us and to certain heretics as well. For if we think carefully about the meaning of Christ, we shall see that among some of the heretics who wish to be called Christians, the name of Christ is held in honor, but the reality itself is not among them.’²⁷

Clearly, using the mere name of Jesus does not guarantee speaking of the real Jesus. What is meant and what is implied is what counts. So, again, how may we be sure that the Jesus in whom we believe, whom we follow and worship, of whom we speak and commend to others, really is the true Jesus and not ‘another Jesus’ – some concoction of ideology, ignorance, culture, or imagination? The answer, I want to suggest, lies not in subjective ‘homespun’ certainty but in fidelity to a given, public revelation – and it is precisely this conviction that lay behind James Denney’s robust insistence that the uniqueness of the Biblical gospel admits of no rival versions:

‘As there is only one God, so there can only be one gospel. If God has really done something in Christ on which the salvation of the world depends, and if he has made it known, then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies, or explains it away … Intolerance in this sense has its counterpart in comprehension; it is when we have the only gospel, and not until then, that we have the gospel for all.’²⁸

Three Ways to Identify the Genuine Jesus

The New Testament identifies the genuine Jesus in three principal ways: first, by what he said; second, by what he experienced and did; and third, by what was said about him. ‘When these three converge in the preaching of the gospel, the evangelist is speaking of the true Jesus and not some other.’²⁹

First, the real identity of Jesus is verified by what he said. The four Gospels are abundantly clear that Jesus ‘is the one by whom certain things were said.’ Although the precise details of the process are unknown, his sayings and teachings ‘were carefully recorded and transmitted’ -and the reportage of Jesus’ words formed a body of material by which first-generation Christians identified him. What he said encompassed many direct statements about his own person and mission: claims about his identity, what he professed to be, what he intended to do, and why — together with a rich combination of promises, parables, encouragements, instructions, observations, and moral teaching. Moreover, the things Jesus said ‘formed the basis of the Christian relationship with Jesus after his death; they enabled him to continue to be the Lord of his disciples.’ His commands provided the main substance of the Apostolic preaching programme (Matt 28:20), and in time the written records of Jesus’ words formed the principal substance of the New Testament Scriptures – documents bearing ‘the fresh word of God.’

Second, the true identity of Jesus is determined by the things he did, by what he experienced, and by what happened to him. The real Jesus is not only ‘Emmanuel’ — God incarnate, God with us, though he is certainly that. He is not merely the God-man — fully divine and fully human, though he is assuredly that. He is not simply a supreme moral exemplar and teacher, though he is that also. We may go further still and say that the real Jesus is not only Lord of all and Saviour of the world — though he is, beyond all question, precisely that. Each of these affirmations is true; yet without reference to, and confession of, the full Biblical witness concerning Jesus, they may in isolation amount to ‘another Jesus.’ The real Jesus — in direct contradiction, for instance, of Islamic teaching — suffered and died upon the cross, was bodily raised from the dead, and only by so doing is he Lord and Saviour.

‘It is … possible to confess that Jesus Christ is “true God and true human” and yet to preach “another Jesus” by failing to confess him also as Christ crucified, risen, and ascended for our salvation. The Jesus Christ of whom the gospel speaks is the one who was truly God, was born truly human, lived among us, died, rose again and was exalted to the right hand of God, whence he sent his promised Holy Spirit.’

Third, the identity of the true Jesus is verified by what was said and written about him. The New Testament writings comprise the eyewitness testimony of Apostles and their associates — produced either by those who knew Jesus at first hand, or by those who knew those who knew him.³⁰ ‘[T]he witness of those who knew him, and of those who met the ones who knew him, is of prime importance.’

‘This Jesus’: The Specific Christ of the Apostolic Witness and Gospel

In their portrayal of Jesus, the New Testament Scriptures display very specific concerns and particular interests. The four written Gospels introduce Jesus’ identity and mission in distinct and various ways, yet none of them betrays the slightest interest in his physical appearance, complexion, height, build, accent, or dress. Only one episode from his childhood is recorded. His private life is largely unreported. What they do provide is a sustained record of his public words and deeds, together with an account of what occurred during the final three years of his life. Their overwhelming emphasis falls upon Jesus’ exclusive identity, his unique relation to God, and his special God-given mandate and mission. The written Gospels pursue this in a range of ways, of which we shall here consider just two.

First, there is their record of God’s direct spoken endorsement and validation of Jesus’ person and mission. Three Gospels report that at his baptism a voice from heaven declared, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’ (Matt. 3:17; cf. Mk. 1:11; Lk. 3:22). They likewise record that at the Transfiguration a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him’ (Mk. 9:7; cf. Matt. 17:5; Lk. 9:35–36). John’s Gospel records that on a separate occasion God’s audible voice came from heaven, declaring, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’ (Jn. 12:28). All four Gospels thus bear witness to God’s own voice, spoken directly from heaven — literally from the sky or open atmosphere — introducing and endorsing the identity and mission of Jesus Christ.

Second, a shared concentration of the four written Gospels is upon identifying Jesus as the one who fulfilled the patterns and promises of the Old Testament Scriptures. Indeed, the resurrected Jesus himself directed his disciples’ attention to those very writings — ‘he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures’ (Lk. 24:45) — singling them out as critical to recognising and comprehending him. ‘Everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled’ (Lk. 24:44). Jesus declared that he alone embodied what the Hebrew Scriptures had long promised and anticipated: ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations’ (Lk. 24:46).³¹ The Old Testament Scriptures, responsibly interpreted, therefore contribute vital and irreplaceable information about the true identity of the real Jesus. In these and other respects, the overriding intention of both Testaments is to bring readers to know and personally receive the good news that Jesus is ‘the Son of the living God’ (Matt. 16:16) — ‘a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’ (Lk. 2:11).

‘Thus the authenticity of any alleged reproduction of the gospel depends on the identity of the Christ who is preached in that gospel. It must not be assumed that, merely because the words “Jesus Christ” are prominent, the gospel that is the power of God for salvation is thereby being communicated. We must know the identity of this Jesus; there needs to be a consistency, a demonstrable continuity, between ancient and modern gospels in the testimony they bear to what he said, what happened to him and what was said about him. … When we say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” we are referring to a specific person, who comes to us in specific words, who did specific things and who makes specific demands.’³²

The gospel message does not, then, consist of general — even genuinely Biblical — truths about God and humanity, though it assumes them. Nor does it promote generic or general truths about Jesus Christ, whatever those might be. Rather, the gospel makes specific claims and particular assertions about him. Those claims do not primarily concern Jesus’ moral example and teaching, though they presuppose it. They do not focus even upon his many mighty miracles — though his mighty works certainly signalled who he was and what he had come to do. Instead, the gospel sets forth Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as the divine-human Saviour, as the living and reigning Lord, as the King of kings. In so far as the gospel commends Jesus as our ever-present friend and companion, it does so principally in terms of his saving and atoning work — wherein the eternal Son and Word of God became human and, through his death and resurrection, redeems, rescues, reconciles, restores, and renews our ruined humanity. The gospel presents Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, as God’s own and only appointed Servant-Saviour-Prophet-Priest-King: the one and only figure through whom the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life are accomplished and offered. The good news presents him in these terms: ‘the man Christ Jesus’ is ‘the one mediator between God and men … who gave himself as a ransom for all’ (1 Tim. 2:5–6; cf. Heb. 9:15; 12:24).

‘This, then, is the true knowledge of Christ, if we receive him as he is offered by the Father: namely, clothed with his gospel. For just as he has been appointed as the goal of our faith, so we cannot take the right road to him unless the gospel goes before us.’³³

The Jesus of faith and the Jesus of history are not to be separated. The New Testament record of Jesus’ experiences, words, and deeds is what gives us access to his identity and nature. Without it — and without its historical accuracy and reliability — we would have no knowledge of the real Jesus. The historical Jesus is known only through the Apostolic witness: the preaching, teaching, and testimony of the Apostles

The real gospel must be focused upon the real Jesus Christ. For those of us who rely upon the written witness of the Apostles for knowledge of the genuine Jesus, this means Jesus Christ as defined by that Apostolic and Biblical witness — that is, the Jesus and the gospel preached by Paul and the other Apostles (2 Cor. 11:4–6; Gal. 1:6–9). The real Jesus was identified as ‘this Jesus’ (Acts 1:11; 2:23, 32, 36; 4:11; 17:3) — the one whose life, death, and resurrection had fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures. ‘If faith in Christ is the central response to the gospel, the Christ to whom response is made must clearly be the true one … to the particular Jesus who is the one mediator between God and human beings.’³⁴

The Many Names of the One Christ

The four written Gospels, together with the rest of the New Testament documents, indicate that ‘[t]he gospel can be boiled down to a three-word statement: “Jesus is Lord.”’³⁵ The main Biblical names for him who came to be called the Second Person of the Trinity are ‘Lord,’ ‘Jesus,’ ‘Christ,’ ‘Messiah,’ ‘King,’ ‘Savior,’ ‘Son of God,’ ‘Son of Man,’ and ‘Word of God’ – each of which we shall soon consider each in some detail. Yet the broad sweep of Scripture also contains a very considerable number of names for Jesus besides these. In keeping with the many and varied names for God in the Old Testament, Jesus’ many names tell of who he is, what he does, and what he is like. Jesus ‘is designated by these various names because no one name contains the totality of who [he] is.’³⁶ Each elaborates a different dimension of his identity, character, deeds, and status. It might be supposed that so large a number of names would produce a fragmented understanding of his Person and kingdom; yet taken together within the context of the New Testament as a whole, a careful survey of his names should reveal Jesus as he truly is.

As with the names of God, the numerous names of Jesus are revelatory. They generate knowledge of God and of Christ by speaking of their identity and works.

Drawn from both Testaments, the fuller extent and range of names for Jesus may be set out as follows:

Redeemer (Job 19:25); Cornerstone (Psa 118:22); Branch of the Lord (Isa 4:2); Immanuel (Isa 7:14); Wonderful Counsellor (Isa 9:6); Mighty God (Isa 9:6); Everlasting Father (Isa 9:6); Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6); Arm of the Lord (Isa 51:9); Man of Sorrows (Isa 53:3); Witness (Isa 55:4); Leader (Isa 55:4); Commander (Isa 55:4); the Lord is our Righteousness (Jer 23:6); my Messenger (Mal 3:1); Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2); Ruler (Matt 2:6); Beloved Son (Matt 3:17); Beloved Servant (Matt 12:8); Horn of Salvation (Luke 1:69); Lamb of God (John 1:29); Bread of life (John 6:32); Light of the World (John 8:12); I Am (John 8:58); the Door (John 10:7); the Good Shepherd (John 10:11; cf. Eze 34:23); the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25); the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6); the True Vine (John 15:1); God (John 20:28; Rom 9:5); Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14); Author of Life (Acts 3:15); Righteous One (Acts 7:52); Deliverer (Rom 11:26); Lord of Glory (1 Cor 2:8); our Passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7); the Rock (1 Cor 10:4); Last Adam (1 Cor 15:45); Sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Tim 6:15); Founder and Perfector of our faith (Heb 12:2); Overseer of Souls (1 Pet 2:25); Faithful Witness (Rev 1:5); Firstborn of the Dead (Rev 1:5); Ruler of kings on earth (Rev 1:5); Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:8); Lord God (Rev 1:8); the Almighty (Rev 1:8); the Amen (Rev 3:14); Faithful and True witness (Rev 3:14); Beginning of God’s creation (Rev 3:14); Lion of Judah (Rev 5:5); Root of David (Rev 5:5); Faithful and True (Rev 19:11); Root and Descendant of David (Rev 22:16); Bright morning Star (Rev 22:16).³⁷

Christ’s Main Names

(1) Jesus – the Savior

The birth of Jesus was the birth of one who ‘is indeed the Saviour of the world’ (Jn 4:42) — the unique ‘Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’ (Lk 2:11).

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke introduce us to Jesus, whose name was given because ‘he will save his people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21, 25; cf. Lk 1:31; 2:21). The name ‘Jesus,’ derived from the Hebrew ‘Joshua’ by way of Aramaic, means ‘The Lord saves’ — or, more fully, ‘Yahweh saves.’ At the time of Jesus of Nazareth, this name was common enough and borne by others (Luke 3:29; Col 4:11). Yet the truth embodied in it — ‘Saviour’ or ‘salvation’ — finds its full and exclusive meaning in him alone.

Through the angel’s announcement, God made clear to his parents that ‘this “Jesus” would be the one’by whom he would definitively save his people.³⁸ The name thus expresses not only his identity but his unique and singular role in the saving purpose and work of God. ‘Although it is a proper human name, Jesus identifies him as Saviour, an identity that characterises God alone. In rescuing us, Christ reveals the true God.’³⁹

So central and so weighty is the meaning attached to the name of Jesus that it led Peter to declare: ‘there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus — the Christ and Son of God — is the one whose name must be believed in order to receive eternal life (Jn. 20:31). Paul likewise proclaims that his is ‘the name that is above every name,’ and that ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow’ in heaven and on earth, confessing him as both ‘Christ’ and ‘Lord’ (Phil. 2:9–11).

‘You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21).

In this declaration, Jesus’ identity and mission — Immanuel, ‘God with us’ — are inseparably bound to the meaning of the name given to him by God through the angel. The name ‘Jesus’ is not merely descriptive but revelatory, disclosing both who he is and the purpose for which he has come. The word ‘save’ here does not refer to deliverance from human hardship in any general sense, but to the deeper and more decisive problem of sin — to the corruption of human nature and the consequent acts of disobedience against God, for which ‘his people’ stand responsible and guilty before him. The name ‘Jesus’ thus signifies his unique identity and exclusive role as the one who deals definitively with sin and accomplishes the saving purpose of God.

The Hebrew root of the verb ‘to save’lies behind the name ‘Jesus.’ In the context of first-century Judaism—under Roman occupation—expectations of ‘salvation’ were often directed toward national and political deliverance: the liberation of Israel and the restoration of the Davidic kingdom in visible, earthly terms. Yet the mission given to Jesus redefines and deepens this expectation. He comes not to address merely external conditions, but to confront ‘sins’—the underlying cause of Israel’s, and indeed all humanity’s, misery and alienation from God and one another. His name therefore expresses both who he truly is—the eternal Lord—and why he has come: to save the human race from sin and its consequences of death, ruin, destruction, and judgment. As has been insightfully expressed:

‘[W]e are dealing with the matter of God’s Son, receiving the name that the Father laid on him by command, the mission that he bore in coming down to us. … Thus God’s Son, when he came to us in the garment of flesh, took from his Father a name which should show openly the purpose of his coming, and what was duly to be expected of him. … God’s Son is commended to us under the name Jesus as the author of salvation.’⁴⁰

It is noteworthy that Matthew presents Jesus’ birth primarily in terms of a Saviour rather than a king. In the Old Testament, it is God himself who is the Saviour; the name ‘Jesus’ — from the Hebrew Yehoshua, meaning ‘Yahweh is salvation’ — therefore carries an implicit yet profound claim to his deity. The emphasis in the naming of Jesus falls accordingly upon his role within God’s saving work. What this entails is unfolded throughout Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus’ public ministry begins with a call to repentance (3:2, 6; 4:17), issued by one who possesses ‘authority on earth to forgive sins’ (9:6). The nature of this saving work is further clarified in terms of the Son of Man’s mission: he comes to serve and to give ‘his life as a ransom for many’ (Matt. 20:28), and to pour out his ‘blood of the covenant … for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matt. 26:28).

More broadly across the New Testament, the name of Jesus stands at the centre of all aspects of the Christian life and mission. Repentance, faith, baptism, and the forgiveness of sins; the reception of the Holy Spirit; healing, signs, and wonders; the proclamation of the kingdom of God; the gathering of the church; and even faithful speech and conduct in the face of persecution—indeed, everything that is done in relation to God—is to be carried out deliberately and exclusively in his name. This is not merely encouraged but commanded (1 John 3:23; cf. Acts 2:38; 3:6, 16; 4:10, 18, 30; 5:40; 8:12, 16; 10:48; 16:18; 19:5; 1 Cor 1:2; Col 3:17; 2 Thess 3:6).⁴¹

(2) Jesus is Lord

‘The Christian message confronts us in the first place as good news that makes certain claims about Jesus.’⁴² Basic among these is that Jesus is Lord.

To restate the point with fresh emphasis: the New Testament indicates that ‘The gospel can be boiled down to a three-word statement: “Jesus is Lord.”’⁴³ This was ‘the earliest, tersest Christian confession’ (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:11).⁴⁴ The second article of the Nicene Creed begins by confessing faith ‘in one Lord, Jesus Christ.’

In the Bible the term ‘Lord’ appears more than six thousand times as the proper name and title for God. Its identification with Jesus of Nazareth — kyrios, the Greek rendering of Yahweh, the Hebrew special name for God — occurs more than one hundred times in the New Testament, drawing him into the very ‘identity of the God of Israel through the word’s equivalence in the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) with Yahweh.’⁴⁵ Jesus himself employed the title to speak of his own absolute authority in matters of God’s law and entry into God’s kingdom (Mk. 2:28; Matt. 7:21). The confession that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ is inseparably bound up with the proper confession of the name Jesus (Phil. 2:10–11); and the public proclamation of ‘Jesus Christ as Lord’ (2 Cor. 4:5) is nothing less than a summary of gospel preaching itself.

In the present cultural moment, no value stands higher than self-autonomy. Self-focus and self-rule are the reigning watchwords, both psychologically and socially. Yet the articulation of the Christian gospel requires attention to two distinct but inseparable aspects of the confession that Jesus is Lord. First, there is a Lord — one who rules, judges, and saves his people. Second, Jesus Christ is this Lord. Together, these affirmations restore the vertical, God-ward dimension to human self-understanding, and identify the Lord Jesus as the one who stands over all.

Rather more fully, the gospel speaks of the ‘glory,’ identity, and character of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ reveals the ‘image,’ identity, and character of God (2 Cor 4:4). The immediate and obvious sense of calling Jesus Christ ‘Lord’ is thus to attribute to him full deity and divinity. More fully, the gospel speaks of the glory, identity, and character of Jesus Christ — and Jesus Christ reveals the image, identity, and character of God (2 Cor. 4:4). The immediate and plain sense of calling Jesus Christ ‘Lord’ is thus to attribute to him full deity and divinity: it is a direct, one-word way of declaring that ‘in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell’ (Col. 1:19). His Lordship regards his total supremacy as the God-man. He is the one and only human being whose Person bears ‘the exact imprint’ of God’s nature, and who ‘upholds the universe by the word of his power.’ Having made ‘purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high’ (Heb. 1:3), to be invested with complete authority, headship, sovereignty, and rule both in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18; Col. 2:10).

‘The simple formula, “Jesus is Lord” carries a heavy payload. Aside from his earthly career, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again, we have a king on the throne in heaven, who is building a community which will one day possess the universe. He is also directing a world-wide mission, pouring out his Spirit, restraining enemies, interceding for and protecting his people, maintaining the lives of countless others, governing the nations, and driving all history to its appointed goal. All this is implicit in the gospel … though of course it is more than can ever be served up in one helping.’⁴⁶

(3) Christ, Messiah, and King

Vital to the Christian confession of Jesus is the recognition that he is the Christ—the Messiah and King promised in the Scriptures. This title is not merely an addition to his name but a declaration of his office, mission, and identity within God’s redemptive purposes. Indeed, ‘The route by which Jesus came to be known as Lord was via the confession that he is “the Christ,” that is, the promised Messiah’⁴⁷ (Mark 8:29; Acts 17:2-3).

The term ‘Christ’ (christos in Greek) means ‘anointed one,’ as does ‘Messiah’ (messias in Greek; mashiach in Hebrew). Its origins lie in the Old Testament practice of anointing Israel’s kings with oil as a sign of their divine appointment as rulers under God (1 Sam. 10:1; 16:13; cf. Isa. 61:1). Over time — and with particular intensity from around the fourth century BC — this concept developed into a focused expectation of a future figure: an ultimate leader sent by God to bring about a decisive intervention on behalf of his people. Through this anointed King, this promised coming Messiah, God’s purposes would be realised in both judgment and salvation.

‘Christ’ specifies ‘the divinely anointed human being who fulfils the offices of prophet, priest, and king.’⁴⁸ This expectation was quickly understood to be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. From the earliest encounters recorded in the Gospels—‘We have found the Messiah (which means Christ)’(John 1:41; cf. 4:25) – to the consistent witness of all the Evangelists, Jesus is identified as the Christ, ‘the Messiah of Israel’s hope.’⁴⁹

The word ‘Christ’ appears 531 times in the New Testament. Peter’s ground-breaking confession – ‘You are the Christ’ (Mark 8:29) – stands as a pivotal moment of recognition, whilst his first recorded sermon pressed the same theme, declaring that the crucified and risen Lord Jesus is indeed the Christ, the promised Messiah (Acts 2:36, 38). The persistence of this proclamation is evident in the early church’s life: ‘Every day… they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus’ (Acts 5:42).⁵⁰

Yet the nature of Jesus’ Messiahship both fulfils and transforms prior expectations. Most strikingly, Jesus redefined the role of the Messiah to include suffering, death, and resurrection. He taught that the Christ must suffer ‘many things’, be killed, and then be ‘raised’ – before ultimately coming in glory to establish his kingdom and execute final judgment – returning ‘with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done’ (cf. Matt 16:21–28). This was a profound and unexpected development: the anointed King would achieve victory not through immediate political conquest, but through sacrificial obedience and redemptive suffering. Beyond this, the scope of his Messiahship extends beyond Israel to encompass all nations. Jesus is not merely the Messiah of Israel but the Christ of the world – one whose lordship is universal, and whose identity as Christ is inseparable from his exaltation, divine status, and sovereign saving authority.

This understanding is reflected in the doctrinal articulation of the church. As The Westminster Larger Catechism expresses it: ‘Our Mediator was called Christ, because he was anointed with the Holy Spirit above measure, and so set apart, and fully furnished with all authority and ability, to execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king of his church, in the estate both of his humiliation and exaltation.’⁵¹

Significantly, the confession of Jesus as Christ and Lord belongs to the earliest strata of Christian belief. The first Christian community, rooted in an Aramaic-speaking context, and the subsequent Greek-speaking churches, both identified Jesus with titles that in the Old Testament were reserved for God alone. Paul’s use of both Greek and Aramaic expressions for Lord – kyrios and mar (1 Cor 16:22) reflects this continuity, and demonstrates that the confession of Jesus’ Lordship and with it his identity as the Christ was not a later theological development but a foundational element of the earliest Christian proclamation, grounded in Jesus’ own claims and vindicated by his resurrection.

This is further illustrated in Paul’s ministry at Thessalonica. Reasoning in the synagogue, he argued that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead, and that ‘this Jesus… is the Christ’ (Acts 17:2–3). The response reveals the radical implications of this message: whilst many believed, others reacted with hostility, recognizing that to proclaim Jesus as Christ was to declare him King in a way that challenged all earthly authority. The charge brought against Paul and his companions—that they were ‘acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus’ (Acts 17:7)—lays bare the inherently subversive and transformative nature of this confession.

The title ‘Christ’ gathers together the full scope of Jesus’ identity and mission as the anointed King of God’s kingdom. Rooted in the hopes of Israel, it finds its true and complete meaning in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, who fulfils and surpasses those hopes through his suffering, resurrection, and exaltation. To confess Jesus as the Christ is to acknowledge him as the divinely appointed Savior-King, whose reign extends over all nations (not just Israel) and whose authority calls for both faith and allegiance.⁵²

(4) Son of God

This title appears at the very opening of Mark’s Gospel, announcing the identity of Jesus Christ from the outset (Mk. 1:1), and subsequently on the lips of a wide range of figures — Satan, demons, John the Baptist, Jesus’ disciples, angels, and the centurion who witnessed his crucifixion (Matt 4:3; 8:29; 14:23; 27:54; Luke 1:35; John 1:34). It figures prominently in Jesus’ own self-understanding (Matt. 11:27), and was declared by God’s own voice at his baptism and transfiguration (Mk. 1:11; 9:7). The Gospel of John was written with the express purpose of demonstrating that Jesus is indeed ‘the Christ, the Son of God’ (Jn. 20:31).

‘Son of God’ is therefore an extremely rich title, used of Jesus Christ across the New Testament in a wide range of senses:

(1) as expressive of Jesus’ unique status in relation to God (e.g., Matt. 11:27; 14:33; Mk. 9:7; Lk. 1:35; 10:22; Jn. 5:23);

(2) as pointing to his identity and role as God’s promised Messiah — the ultimate anointed King from the line of David (2 Sam. 7:13–14; Isa. 9:6–7; cf. Matt. 16:16; Lk. 1:32–33; Jn. 1:49; Rom. 1:2–4; Col. 1:13);

(3) as indicative of Jesus being and embodying the ultimate and true Israel, the chosen people of God (Deut. 6:13; 8:3; Ps. 91:11–12; cf. Matt. 2:15; 3:17; 4:1–11);

(4) as articulating the full deity of Jesus — his very God-ness — at times coupled with assertions of his eternal pre-existence (e.g., Jn. 1:1–18; 5:16–30; Heb. 1:1–14).⁵³

Taken together, these senses describe both Jesus’ divine nature and status and his messianic office and role as God’s ultimate king, prophet, and priest (Jn. 5:23; 10:36; 11:4). ‘Son of God’ points to Jesus as the Davidic king (Matt. 1:1), whose government and rule would endure for ever (2 Sam. 7:14, 16; Isa. 9:6–7) — ‘of his kingdom there will be no end’ (Lk. 1:32–33).

The title designates Jesus’ position on the basis of his eternal Sonship. He is God the Son in everlasting relation to God the Father (John 5:26). He is the One whom God has ‘appointed the heir of all things and through whom he created the universe’ (Heb 1:2-3; cf. Col 1:16). He is Son of God also through his saving work, confirmed through his resurrection from the dead (Rom 1:3-4). As David Wells puts it, this title ‘describes the unique relationship of Christ to God. Christ comes from the depths of God himself; he is God. But he is God in human form, a form which hides his Godness and which requires of him obedience to the Father whose being he shares.’⁵⁴

As Son of God, Jesus’ divine nature did not come into existence either at the creation of the world or at the moment of his human birth. Jesus’ divine Sonship refers to his absolute equality of being with God (John 5:17-18). He is God the Son, ‘the eternal second person of the Godhead’ – yet ‘our salvation and eternal destiny depend on his being the incarnate one.’⁵⁵ ‘He came as the God-man, which means that he was the Son of God not only ontologically (in his essence) but also functionally (in his mission and calling as the God-man). In his function as Messiah, Jesus must always be identified as the Son of God, for that defines him eternally.’⁵⁶

As we shall consider further, ‘Son of God’ encompasses both Jesus’ full divinity and his true humanity.⁵⁷

(5) Son of Man

The title ‘Son of Man’ appears more than one hundred times in the Gospels, almost entirely on the lips of Jesus himself. It is his most frequently preferred self-designation, encompassing both his identity and his mission: ‘For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost’ (Lk. 19:10).⁵⁸

Like ‘Son of God,’ ‘Son of Man’ encompasses both Jesus’ humanity and his deity. Its background is Daniel 7:13-14, where the ‘Son of Man’ is presented before ‘the Ancient of Days’ as an unmistakably human figure – yet one who shares in God’s own characteristics of absolute and everlasting authority, dominion, glory, and kingdom, a kingdom ‘that shall not be destroyed.’ The Son of Man is further said to be served by ‘all peoples, nations, and languages.’

The Son of Man is, in other words, a human yet fully divine figure. This was why, when Jesus’ used the title to identify himself at his trial before Caiaphas the high priest and the council of chief priests, he was immediately found guilty of blasphemy and condemned as worthy of death (Matt 26:64-68). In Jesus’ own self-definition, ‘the Son of Man’ possessed God-like authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10) and exercise God-like lordship over the Sabbath (Mark 2:28); yet he was also one who would be misunderstood and rejected (Luke 7:34), without a home (Luke 9:58), murdered yet raised from the dead (Mark 9:31) – and so fulfilling his mission to ‘seek and save the lost’ (Luke 19:10). He would eventually come in great power as Judge and Savior (Matt 10:23; 24:30), accompanied by ‘all the angels with him’ (Matt 25:31), to take up ‘his glorious throne’ in ‘the new world’ (Matt 19:28).

The title Son of Man therefore embraces every dimension of Jesus’ identity, life, and ministry – humiliation and service as suffering Saviour, and exaltation and rule as divine Lord (cf. John 13:31).

Son of God and Son of Man

In John 5:25-29, the two titles ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’ converge in Jesus’ own self-understanding. Like God the Father, the Son of God has ‘has life in himself’ – he is therefore fully divine – yet it is as Son of Man that he has been given authority to raise and judge the dead (5:27-29). The Son of Man bears a fully divine status and office, yet carries this in genuine and complete humanity, for as Son of Man the Lord Jesus Christ is ‘man with a definite origin.’⁵⁹

The centrality to the gospel of Jesus’ divine-human Sonship can hardly be overstated. For through the gospel,

‘God calls us into fellowship with his Son (1 Cor 1:9), who was sent into the world (Gal 4:4-6) to be delivered to death by God himself (Rom 8:32), in order to bear our sins, to effect our reconciliation, to bring new life (Rom 5:10; Gal 2:20), and to be raised from the dead (Rom 1:4). It is this Son and his work which is the subject of the gospel and the means of salvation (Rom 1:9; 2 Cor 1:19; Gal 1:16). He is now the goal for Christians in their life of spiritual growth (Rom 8:29; cf. Eph 4:13). He will return in glory (1 Thess 1:10) and will yield up to his Father a cleansed universe (1 Cor 15:24, 28). The pre-existence of the Son was as fundamental to Paul’s thought (Gal 4:4-6; Rom 8:3) as it was to John’s (John 3:17; 1 John 4:9, 10, 14). More than any other title in the New Testament … “Son of God connects the figure of Jesus with God.” … the Son comes from the depths of God where he pre-existed. He is God, and while on earth he holds intimate communion with the Father, a fellowship without human parallel. He does what only God can do in overcoming sin, death, and the devil, and through his conquest he raised those who trust in him to newness of life.’⁶⁰

Regarding the origin of his human nature, Jesus Christ the Son of Man was born of the Virgin Mary. Regarding the origin of his divine nature, Jesus Christ the Son of God is ‘God without origin,’⁶¹ – ‘the only-begotten Son from the Father’ (John 1:14). In time, Jesus Christ came to understood and spoken of as one Person with two distinct yet complete natures, the divine and the human.

Here, then, in these two names – Son of God and Son of Man – we find direct and unadorned expression of both Jesus’ full divinity and his true humanity, without theological technicality, on the very surface of the Biblical text. There are not two sons, one of God and another of Man, but one Son — the Lord Jesus Christ — who is both Son of God and Son of Man in one unique divine-human Person. ‘God’s only begotten Son … assumed human nature into such a personal unity that he himself because the Son of Man as well.’⁶²

Regarding the fully divine and truly human identity of Jesus, a Biblical line of reasoning may be elaborated as follows:

‘Now, we could not be redeemed, even through “the one Mediator between God and man, Man himself, Christ Jesus,” if he were not also God. For when Adam was made – being made an upright man – there was no need for a mediator. Once sin, however, had widely separated the human race from God, it was necessary for a mediator, who alone was born, lived, and was put to death without sin, to reconcile us to God, and provide even for our bodies a resurrection to life eternal – and all this in order that man’s pride might be exposed and healed through God’s humility. Thus it might be shown man how far he had departed from God, when by the incarnate God he is recalled to God. … that even the resurrection of the human body – itself promised to the redeemed – might be previewed in the resurrection of the Redeemer himself.’⁶³

(6) Word of God

Relatively few passages use ‘Word’ (logos in Greek) as a direct title for Jesus (Jn. 1:1–18; 1 Jn. 1:1–4), though such language is indirectly present elsewhere (Heb. 1:1–3; Col. 1:15–20). Perhaps the simplest way of capturing its meaning is this: in calling Jesus Christ God’s Word, the New Testament declares that in Jesus, God is with us and speaks to us. In Jesus, God is personally and communicatively present with his people. In Jesus — the essential, eternal, objective, living Word — God speaks to us in Person and discloses his very being as Word.

It is not merely that Jesus shows us a God who uses words to communicate with human beings, though this is true. It is that God is Word – eternally, on the inside, in his innermost Being – and in addressing us in the Person of his incarnate Son, he aims to bring about a life of fellowship with us which consists of his ongoing verbal presence and communication. That God speaks and writes, that he communicates verbally, using words as creative, life-giving, and relationship-generating realities, has been discussed in another place.⁶⁴ In the Old Testament, the Word and speech of God combines three main realities: God’s creativity, his revelation, and his eternity. ‘God’s Word is the original reality, which lies at the basis of all reality.’⁶⁵

In the prologue to John’s Gospel, these Divine qualities and actions are directly attributed to the person of Jesus. To call Jesus Christ the ‘Word of God’ is to imply that he is God’s mind, thought, intention, and speech in Person. As such, he is intelligent and intelligible, all-knowing and knowable. He fully possesses and expresses the entire revealed truth about who God is, what God does, and what that therefore means for us. ⁶⁶As David Wells has written:

‘In the Word, then, we are met by the personal and eternal God who has joined himself to our flesh. In Jesus, the permanent and final unveiling of God has taken place, and the center of this truth is coincidental with the life of this man. Jesus is the means through which, and in conjunction with whom, God has made known his character, his will, and his ways.’⁶⁷

Incarnation

‘The Word Became Flesh’

The term ‘incarnation’ derives from the Latin, meaning ‘becoming-in-flesh.’ It intends to capture the truth of the following statements: ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14); ‘God [sent] his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom 8:3); ‘Jesus Christ has come in the flesh’ (1 John 4:2; see also 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 1:2; 2:14). This does not mean that through incarnation God’s nature changed into human ‘flesh,’ but rather that human nature was ‘assumed by Divinity,’ taken on by God himself, such that ‘in that assumption nothing was lacking that belongs to human nature.’⁶⁸

Incarnation means that in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Word and Son of God became man – for our health and salvation – implying both his full deity and his full humanity. At a particular point in historical time and space, the One who had his life and being eternally together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit became fully human, possessing in the ‘flesh’ both a physical human body (Matt 26:26) and a whole, real human soul (Matt 26:38), a human spirit (Luke 22:42), as well as human mind and will (Luke 2:52; 22:42) – a complete human personality, like ours in every respect except sin – without relinquishing his unity of nature with God.⁶⁹

The Eternal Son: Pre-existence, Creatorship, and Messianic Promise

It follows that

‘the Person who became incarnate, had already existed before his human birth. He preexisted, in the absolute sense of the term. This is not true of any other human beginning, and it is the chief difference between Jesus and the rest of the human family (more foundational than his virgin birth or his sinlessness). All other humans come into existence from a state of non-existence, and can be said to preexist only in the improper sense that in the hearts of their parents, or in the providence of God, plans and provisions have been made for them. But when it comes to the Son of God, we have a case of actual preexistence. It is not a paradox, for we do not say that Jesus preexists his own existence; we only say that the Son preexists his incarnation.’⁷⁰

Christ’s life as a human creature began at his conception and birth.⁷¹ Yet his existence precedes these, for from eternity he was the Father’s only-begotten Son. The Father sent him into the world (Matt 10:40; John 5:24); he came from the Father, in the Father’s name, descending from heaven into the world (John 3:13; 5:43; 6:38; 8:42; 12:46; 18:37). Before Abraham lived, he declared, ‘I AM’ (John 8:58), sharing glory and love with the Father before the world’s foundation (John 17:5, 24–26).

Prior to his incarnation, the only-begotten Son of God was the eternal Word (John 1:1, 14), an eternal King (Heb 1:3–13), always rich (2 Cor 8:9), equal with God (Phil 2:6–8), the first and the last, the living one, Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:17; 22:13). He comes into the world and appears on earth — yet his life and work precede creation itself, for he is Creator, acting together with the Father and the Spirit. Through him all things were made (John 1:3; Heb 1:2, 10). He stands supreme, before and above all creatures; and all things were made for him (Col 1:15–17; cf. Rom 8:17; Heb 1:2). Christ is, truly, a creature — yet before that, and at the same time, he is the Creator: the inexhaustible, eternal source of light, life, and truth, shining in the darkness, enlightening everyone (John 1:5, 9–10, 14).

Although we cannot explore it in much detail at this point, the New Testament teaches that the pre-incarnate Christ was also active through the history of God’s relation to Israel – ‘he existed and worked also in the days of the Old Testament’⁷² – woven into the fabric of Messianic promises and expectations. The Hebrew Scriptures bear witness to him (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

Westminster and Chalcedon

In 451 A.D. the church Council of Chalcedon produced a definition of the incarnation that proved authoritative and enduring. The Council stated that, in the person of Jesus Christ, Divine and human natures are to be understood as really and fully united, ‘perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body; of one being with the Father according to the Godhead, and of one being with us according to the Manhood; in all things like us, yet without sin.’ The incarnation of the Word of God means that in the person of Jesus Christ two natures – divine and human – are to be acknowledged, ‘without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and occurring together in one Person.’⁷³

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) expresses matters this way:

‘The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.’

Born of a Virgin

In the man Jesus of Nazareth, God became human. The Lord Jesus is both God and man – ‘since in the unity of his Person a rational soul and body is joined to the Word.’⁷⁴

The means and method of the incarnation was Jesus’ conception in the womb of his mother Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, without the agency of a man. Both Matthew (1:23) and Luke (1:27) say that Mary was a virgin (parthenos) at the time of Jesus’ conception; yet she was his biological mother. Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, but he was the legal father, as Mary’s husband (Matt 1:16), and the one who gave the newborn child the name ‘Jesus’ (Matt 1:25).⁷⁵

This event was unprecedented, unrepeated, and wholly unique – an act of God without analogy. And because it is without analogy, it can only be understood on its own, unique terms. The incarnation of God’s Son in Jesus is one hundred per cent miracle: indeed, the grand central miracle of Christianity. ‘Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.’⁷⁶ It was the occurrence of a new thing on earth, breaking the cycle of sin within the reproduction of the human race and family.

‘The Gospels present the virginal conception of Jesus as a supernatural intervention. It therefore belongs with the miracles of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead as distinctive elements that mark him out as the unique revealer of the unseen God, his only mediator with humanity.’⁷⁷

Unlike his resurrection, for which there were eyewitnesses, the historical evidence for Jesus’ conception and birth cannot be investigated by the same means. Nor is there any analogy or explanation adequate to express how it could be so — beyond the straightforward statement of that it was so, and when, and where, and to whom (Matt. 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–2:7). Consistent with the Gospel accounts of the virginal conception of the Son of God, the New Testament everywhere assumes his pre-existent deity (John 1:1; 8:23; 2 Cor. 8:9; Gal. 4:4–6; Phil. 2:5–8; 1 Pet. 1:19–21; Heb. 1:1–4). These two teachings — his virginal conception and his eternal existence with God as God — together explain his coming into the world.

‘Jesus who dwelt among us was as it were compounded of these two; the one nature from the earth, which he received from the Mary, the other nature from heaven, which descended on the Virgin at his conception.’⁷⁸ It is as if, through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, the divine nature of God’s Son penetrated and united itself to human nature in the man Jesus of Nazareth. Because God made human beings in his own image and likeness, he could ‘reveal himself in a human life’ accurately, correctly, and unambiguously.⁷⁹ So, ‘when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman … so that we might receive adoption as sons’ (Gal 4:4-5).⁸⁰

Why Did God Become Human?

Indeed, humanity itself was created with the incarnation in mind. From the beginning, the intention was for God’s only begotten Son to share our human nature so that ‘by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ’ we ‘may become partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:1,4). Athanasius the Great famously expressed the matter with characteristic force:

‘He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God. He manifested himself by means of a body in order that we might perceive the mind of the unseen Father. He endured shame from men that we might inherit immortality. He himself was unhurt by this, for he is impassible and incorruptible; but by his own impassibility he kept and healed the suffering men on whose account he thus endured.’⁸¹

As the wider context shows, what Peter means by ‘become partakers of the divine nature’ is that in Christ we receive the gift of ‘godlike’ immortality that has the power to say ‘no’ to corruption and blindness and ‘yes’ to true knowledge of God and lives of self-control and love.⁸²

So, to the classic question ‘why did God become human?,’ the New Testament suggests a range of replies:

‘(1) To reveal God to humanity (John 1:18; 14:7-11). (2) To provide a high priest interceding for us, able to sympathize with human weakness (Heb 4:14-16). (3) To offer a pattern of the fullness of human life (1 Pet 2:21; 1 John 2:6). (4) To provide a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of all humanity (Heb 10:1-10). (5) To bind up the demonic powers (1 John 3:8).’⁸³

The God-Man

‘Though he is very and true man, Jesus is aware from the beginning that he is more than man and he is acknowledged and confessed as such in an ever growing sense by all his disciples.’⁸⁴

Romans 9:5 captures this concisely, binding together Christ’s humanity and his deity in a particularly explicit and striking expression: ‘According to the flesh,’ Christ is from the race of Israel; from that Jewish ethnicity he took his human nature. Yet at the same time he is ‘God over all, blessed forever.’ This union of the human and the divine in one person is no passing paradox but the very foundation of all that follows — for it is precisely as the God-Man that Jesus Christ acts, speaks, and saves.

Deity

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is truly God – for he is God the Son become human (Mark 1:1; 3:11; 15:39). His deity is entailed, implied, and stated throughout the New Testament. He announced God’s kingdom as the domain of salvation through judgment, introduced by the arrival of his own person. He is the Christ (Mark 8:29), Messiah and Servant and King and Savior and Lord, the One long predicted in Hebrew prophecy. He overthrew Satan, freeing those tyrannized by evil powers (Mark 1:27, 34; 3:26-27; 9:34). He calmed the waves and commanded the weather (Mark 4:39; 6:51). He walked on the surface of the sea (Mark 6:48-49) and enabled Peter to walk across the same stretch of deep water (Matt 14:28-29). He fed crowds of thousands with tiny amounts of food (Mark 5:30-44; 8:1-10), raised the dead (Mark 5:41), healed ‘the sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons’ (Mark 1:34; 6:53-56).

Further, there are some 16 passages where the Greek word for God, theos, may be applied to Jesus by the New Testament writers. Of those 16, 7 are strongly direct in referring to Jesus as God. The following are taken from the ESV:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

John 20:28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Rom. 9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen

Titus 2:13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ,

Heb. 1:8 But of the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,

the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of your kingdom.

2 Pet. 1:1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.⁸⁵

He is the Son of Man, the obviously human yet fully divine figure, granted total dominion forever over God’s everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:9-14; Mark 14:62). As Son of Man, he is the supreme Servant, whose reason for being and living is costliest service to others, even to the extent of giving ‘his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). The Son of Man’s suffering and death is the central substance of his saving work (Mark 8:31; 9:12, 31; 10:33; 14:41). ‘After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs’ (Heb 1:3-4). On this basis he possessed and still possesses authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10). He is Lord of the Sabbath (2:28) and, as God’s ‘beloved Son,’ shares in a divine authority superior even to God’s own law and prophets (Mark 9:2-6). He spoke with gravity and solemnity of sin’s inevitable outcome in eternal death and hell (Mark 9:42–48).

Yet he promised ‘eternal life’ to anyone and everyone following him (Mark 10:28-30). He knew his death would be followed by resurrection and his unchallenged saving rule over God’s kingdom forever (Mark 14:62) He said that he will eventually return in victorious judgment (Mark 8:38; 13:26; 15:62). He accomplishes all this based on being the pre-existent Creator who brought all things other than God into life and being from nothing (John 1:1-3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2). ‘If Christ in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, he must be from ETERNITY.’⁸⁶ He achieves all this — being ‘the firstborn from the dead,’ reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to himself — whilst remaining the One who continues to uphold and sustain in their existence all creatures whom he called into being (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3).⁸⁷

Humanity

Jesus Christ is not only the pre-existent Creator and ever-present Lord, King, and Saviour. In and through all this, he is completely and entirely human. Indeed, ‘for us and for our salvation Christ’s humanity is as important as his divinity.’⁸⁸ It is Christ’s humanity which revealed his divinity, and it is through his humanity that God acted to bring about our salvation.

His real humanity is emphasized in various ways. He is descended from the partriarchs (Matt 1; Luke 3; Rom 9:5), being Abraham’s offspring (Gal 3:16), and David’s son (Rom 1:3), born of woman (Gal 4:4)

The written Gospels describe his feelings and experiences – anger, hunger, pity, affection, pain, tiredness, joy – while recounting the events of his (obviously human) birth, life, and death (e.g., Matt 4:2; Mark 3:5; 7:34; 8:12; Luke 2:7; 10:21; 19:41; John 4:6; 11:35; 19:20 Acts 2:30; Rom 1:3; Gal 4:4). His needs for food and drink, for rest, sleep, and relaxation are described (John 4:6-7): ‘Everywhere and always Jesus manifests himself in the New Testament as a human being to whom nothing human is strange. … His contemporaries, accordingly, did not for a moment doubt his real human nature.’⁸⁹ The Saviour shared the lot of all human beings ‘in every respect’ (Heb 2:17), having ‘in every respect been tempted as we are, yet without sin’ (Heb 4:15). ‘The man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim 2:5) experienced ‘flesh and blood’ and the very ‘same things’ that we all do, so ‘that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery’ (Heb 2:14-15).

Having said this, it is important to realize that in the incarnation the eternal Word of God became flesh in such manner that he was – and is – not contained within human nature or confined to it. Having become incarnate, the eternal Son is truly and locally present in his human nature through his divine Person, yet he remains beyond and transcendent of that nature, even as he is forever fully united to it. According to his divine nature, he retains all the attributes of his Being and Person as God the Son. This is Calvin:

‘They thrust upon us as something absurd that if the Word of God became flesh, then he was confined within the narrow prison of an earthly body. This is mere impudence! For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning!’ (Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.4; Battles ed., 481).

On the same point, at more length, here is Athanasius:

‘There is a paradox … which we must now examine. The Word was not hedged in by his body, nor did his presence in the body prevent his being present elsewhere as well. When he moved his body he did not cease also to direct the universe by his Mind and might. No. The marvellous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being himself contained by anything, he actually contained all things Himself. In creation he is present everywhere, yet is distinct in being

from it; ordering, directing, giving life to all, containing

all, yet is he himself the uncontained, existing solely in

his Father. As with the whole, so also is it with the part. Existing in a human body, to which he himself gives life,

he is still Source of life to all the universe, present in

every part of it, yet outside the whole; and he is revealed

both through the works of his body and through his activity in the world. It is, indeed, the function of soul to behold things that are outside the body, but it cannot energise or move them. A man cannot transport things

from one place to another, for instance, merely by thinking about them; nor can you or I move the sun and the stars just by sitting at home and looking at them. With the Word of God in his human nature, however, it was otherwise. His body was for him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that he was both in it and in all things, and

outside all things, resting in the Father alone. At one and

the same time — this is the wonder — as man he was

living a human life, and as Word he was sustaining the

life of the universe, and as Son he was in constant union

with the Father. Not even his birth from a virgin, therefore, changed Him in any way, nor was he defiled by

being in the body. Rather, he sanctified the body by

being in it. For his being in everything does not mean

that he shares the nature of everything, only that he

gives all things their being and sustains them in it.’⁹⁰

Thus, Christ’s divine and human natures remain ‘unchangeably distinct.’ Through the Spirit’s work in Mary’s womb, the Son assumed a nature that is itself ‘unchangeably human and unchangeably localised’ nature. Yet, ‘Christ’s divinity, being true divinity, was infinite and immense when incarnate’⁹¹ – his full deity is not enclosed or shut in at the incarnation but expressed within it and united to it. According to his divine nature the Incarnate Son sustains the universe, rules the cosmos, and is present everywhere, filling heaven and earth.

By way of conclusion here, again, is Calvin:

‘The … requirement of our reconciliation with God was this: that man, who by his disobedience had become lost, should by way of remedy counter it with obedience, satisfy God’s judgment, and pay the penalties for sin. Accordingly, our Lord Jesus Christ came forth as true man and took the person and the name of Adam in order to take Adam’s place in obeying the Father, to present our flesh as the price of satisfaction to God’s righteous judgment, and, in the same flesh, to pay the penalty we had deserved. In short, since neither as God alone could he feel death, nor as man alone could he overcome it, he coupled human nature with divine that to atone for sin he might submit the weakness of the one to death; and that wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, he might win victory for us. … But we should especially espouse what I have just explained: our common nature with Christ is the pledge of our fellowship with the Son of God; and clothed with our flesh he vanquished death and sin together that the victory and triumph might be ours. He offered as a sacrifice the flesh he received from us, that he might wipe out our guilt by his act of expiation and appease the Father’s righteous wrath.’⁹²

The Mediator

Christ is called ‘mediator’ in only three New Testament passages, but the concept and the reality it names are hugely important and have featured prominently in the history and practice of Christian reflection. He is the ‘one mediator between God and men’ (1 Tim 2:5), and ‘the mediator of a new covenant’ (Heb 9:15; 12:24).⁹³

The Westminster Larger Catechism (Questions 38-40) draws out the necessity and fitness of this office with great care and clarity:

Why was it required that the Mediator should be God? It was required that the Mediator should be God, that he might sustain and keep human nature from sinking under the infinite wrath of God, and the power of death, give worth and effectiveness to his sufferings, obedience, and intercession; and to satisfy God’s justice, procure his favour, purchase a special people, give his Spirit to them, conquer all their enemies, and bring them to everlasting salvation.

Why was it required that the Mediator should be man? It was required that the Mediator should be man, that he might advance our nature, perform obedience to the law, suffer and make intercession for us in our nature, have a fellow-feeling of our infirmities; that we might receive the adoption of sons, and have comfort and access with boldness unto the throne of grace.

Why was it required that the Mediator should be God and man in one person? It was required that the Mediator, who was to reconcile God and man, should himself be both God and man, and this in one person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us, and relied on by us as the works of the whole person.⁹⁴

Each nature, then, contributes what the other cannot, and only their union in a single person secures the whole of our salvation.

The importance of this needs to be appreciated. The book Hebrews is written to Christians, likely from Jewish background, whose faith is being undermined by doubt about whether Jesus is a sufficient saviour to cover all of life. They are feeling insecure as Christians. Moses and the law acted as mediators between God and Israel. Is Jesus a better mediator between us and God than Moses and the law, or is he just another mediator beside them? In our wider human experience we know that a mediator has to be a bridge between two contrasting parties. Hebrews chapters 1 and 2 makes it plain that Jesus is the perfect mediator both from God’s side and ours. In Hebrews chapter 1 the writer states that Jesus is fully God, the Word of God, the upholder of all things, who has made purification for our sins. In chapter 2:4-18 we are told that Jesus is fully human, and in a ground breaking way. He is the second Adam, the new founding ancestor of the whole human race, but not just as head of the family, he is also our brother, our great high priest, and therefore he is fully qualified to be our mediator.

Jesus being fully God and fully man brings true salvation to us, in our weakness. ‘Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (v 18)’. As our mediator he is praying for us at the right hand of the Father (Heb 5:7, 7:25; 9:24; Rom 8:24; Luke 22:31-32).

We shall explore Christ’s mediation as prophet, priest, and king later.

Jesus’ Miracles

The Lord Jesus cannot be assessed apart from his miracles — indeed, he can only be properly understood by close attention to them. The Gospels of the New Testament are replete with accounts of Christ’s ‘mighty works’, and the Acts of the Apostles extends this testimony through repeated, smaller scale yet still astonishing miraculous deeds.

The Nature of Jesus’ Miracles

The number and diversity of Jesus’ miracles recorded in the Gospels is formidable. Miracles are recorded on more than thirty different occasions, ranging from exorcisms, healings, resurrections, to nature miracles.⁹⁵ The summary that follows is as good as any:

‘[Christ’s] own wonderful works show forth his most excellent power. The sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the paralytic, lepers, lunatics, demoniacs, and even the dead raised by him have carried the emblems of his power. By his power, he has given life; in his name the works he has had given him to do were sufficient witnesses to him (John 10:25). … At his command, the winds ceased, the raging sea subsided, the fish brough two drachmas in his belly, the stones (to render him witness) were broken to pieces, the veil of the temple was torn in the middle, the sun was darkened, the graves were opened, the many bodies restored to life. There has been nothing in heaven or on earth which has not witnessed that Jesus Christ is God, Lord and Master, and the great Ambassador of the Father sent here below to accomplish the salvation of mankind.’

The Basis of Belief in Miracles

Belief in their reality varies according to culture and intellectual climate. But the notion that smart and educated people may admit belief in the Biblical miracles only with embarrassment is so far from the truth as to be, frankly, laughable — there are plenty of brilliant people who hold precisely such belief.⁹⁶ The oft-allied suggestion that people living in earlier ages were generally gullible, ignorant, and unscientific is, likewise, without foundation.

Christian conviction about the miraculous rests upon the more basic prior belief in the existence, power, goodness, intelligence, and sheer ability of the Creator. It requires, in brief, faith in God. As with Christ’s incarnation and resurrection from the dead, belief in all the Biblical miracles – and in a fully miraculous Jesus – ,operates according to worldview: according to ‘what we regard as possible or impossible prior to any evaluation of the details.’⁹⁷

The sophistication, ease, and restraint characterizing the written Gospel reports of Jesus’ miracles is remarkable. His mighty works are at once effortless, astonishing, extraordinary, vast in scope, strange, and striking. They are narrated in a manner that simply assumes their truth and reality — the writers do not argue for the miracles; they merely record their happening.

The Purpose of Jesus’ Miracles

One good way of regarding them is as ‘divine interference,’ interventions in the natural order and normal processes of the created world, ‘as tangible evidence that the kingdom of God has materialized in Jesus.’⁹⁸

‘The miracles focused on Jesus – his virginal conception and his resurrection – were God’s way of marking him out as unique, as a prophet, but infinitely more than a prophet: as the incarnate Son of God. So too the miracles by Jesus point to him as the heaven-sent Son of God, Son of Man and Messiah.’⁹⁹

There is a good deal of historical evidence for their occurrence in precisely the manner in which the New Testament describes.¹⁰⁰ Clearly, Jesus’ miracles hang together with his words and teaching.

‘To assess them fairly you must ask why they occurred. They were not mere wonder-works, magicians tomfoolery, charismatic ego-trips or demonstrations intended to silence sceptics about the supernatural; they were experiences of the world to come, reflecting the very abundance and grace of the Father-God about whom he preached.’¹⁰¹

Thus it is their sheer beauty, kindness of character, staggering power and scale, and clarity of purpose that is most telling.

‘Jesus’ miracles were invariably done out of compassion for the diseased, the hungry and the fearful. Furthermore his miracles did not violate the ‘good’ in creation, where healing routinely occurs within the body and where storms eventually cease. Under Jesus the good purposes of God were focused and accelerated for the benefit of others. Jesus’ miracles pointed to the goodness of the Creator, to his unique sonship of that Father, and were signs that his kingdom had indeed come, and of hope that it would come in its fullness, when injustice, pain, crying and death will be no more.’¹⁰²

—

1
The full discussion is available here – https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/
2
J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (IVP, 2010 [Orig. 1961]), 66.
3
David Wells, Turning to God (Baker Books, 1989 / 2011), 20.
4
For comparison, the reader may wish to consult the learnable gospel outlines offered in John Chapman, Know and Tell the Gospel. 4^th edition(Matthias Media, 2005), 150-162.
5
These five sentences are partly verbatim and partly developed from Peter Jensen, The Revelation of God (IVP, 2000), 46, 49, 53, 58, and 61.
6
Edwards, WJE 16:761.
7
The combination of Christ’s person, work, and benefits appears in Calvin, Institutes, 3.1.1; Battles ed., 537. Excellent treatments of the person and work of Jesus Christ include Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith (Eerdmans, 1958), 280-385; idem, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Baker Academic, 2011), 393-469; idem, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 2, Sin and Salvation in Christ (Baker Academic, 2006), 193-482; Joel Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Man and Christ (Crossway, 2020), 499-1080; Brandon Crowe, The Lord Jesus Christ (Lexham Academic, 2023); John S. Hammet and Charles L. Quarles, The Work of Christ (B&H Academic, 2024); Robert Letham, The Message of the Person of Christ (IVP, 2013); Peter F. Jensen, The Life of Faith, 165-217; Stephen J. Wellum, The Son of God Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ (Crossway, 2016); idem, Christ Alone: The Uniqueness of Jesus as Savior (Crossway, 2017); idem, The Person of Christ: An Introduction (Crossway, 2021); Derek Tidball, The Message of the Cross (Inter-Varsity Press, 2001); Daniel Treier, Lord Jesus Christ (Zondervan, 2023).
8
Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ (Crossway, 2016), 49; emphasis is in original.
9
Edwards, WJE, 16:727.
10
Rico Tice and Barry Cooper, Christianity Explored (Christian Focus, 1998), 6.
11
Stott, ‘The Gospel for Today,’ in Acts [BST], 79-81.
12
John Calvin, ‘Preface to Olivétan’s New Testament,’ in Calvin: Commentaries, trans. Joseph Haroutunian (Westminster, 1963), 64. For a further valuable summary, wee F. F. Bruce, ‘The Fourfold Gospel,’ in D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer eds., New Bible Commentary, 3^rd edition (IVP, 1970), 64-70: Bruce’s summary of the New Testament gospel is valuable: ‘In the earliest preaching … as reflected in the Pauline and other NT Epistles, we can distinguish the following elements: a. God has visited and redeemed his people by sending his Son the Messiah, at the time of the fulfilment of his purpose revealed in OT scripture. b. Messiah came, as was prophesied, of Israel’s race, of Judah’s tribe, of David’s royal seed, in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. c. As the prophets had foretold, he died for men’s sins upon the cross, was buried, and d. rose again the third day thereafter, as many eyewitnesses could testify (this note of personal ocular evidence is specially emphasized). e. He was exalted to God’s right hand, whence, f. He sent forth his Spirit to those who believed in Him, while g. He himself was later to return to judge all men and consummate his redemptive work. h. On the basis of these facts remission of sins and ‘the life of the age to come’ were offered to all who repented and believed in the good news; and those who believed were baptized into Christ’s name and formed a new community, the Christian church’ (66).
13
Erickson, Christian Theology, 2^nd edition, 1072-73.
14
D. A. Carson, ‘What is the Gospel: The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ,’ available at https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/what-is-the-gospel-the-life-and-teachings-of-jesus-christ.html
15
Billy Graham, Just as I Am (Harper Collins, 1997), no page number.
16
See Benjamin Dean, Great Truths – The God of the Gospel; https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-god-of-the-gospel/
17
Scott R. Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction (Crossway, 2020), 111; emphasis supplied.
18
Webster, ‘What is the Gospel?,’ 111.
19
Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:11.
20
Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:11.
21
Augustine, Enchiridion, 10.33; Outler ed., 359.
22
Carl Trueman, The Desecration of Man (Crossway, 2026), 192).
23
Richard Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 6.
24
On the impact of Jesus Christ in the history of global culture, see for example Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries (Yale University Press, 1985); Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2003); Gabrielle Finaldi, The Image of Christ (National Gallery Company, 2002); Ian J. Shaw, Christianity: A Global History. Richard Carrier has recently presented his case for mythicism, the view that concrete evidence is substantially lacking for Jesus’ actual historical existence, and that it is therefore more likely than not that Jesus never lived at all. See Carrier’s, Why I am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith (CreateSpace, 2011); Proving History: Bayes Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Prometheus, 2012); Bart Ehrman and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (American Atheist Press, 2013); On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014). A comprehensive recent rejoinder to Carrier’s type of approach is Colin Brown with Craig A. Evans, A History of the Quests for the Historical Jesus. 2 Volumes (Zondervans, 2022). Other fine contributions to this central topic include: Richard Bauckham, Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, 6-34; idem, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Second Edition; idem, ‘The Gospels as Testimony to Jesus Christ: A Contemporary View of Their Historical Value,’ in Francesca Aran Murphy ed., The Oxford Handbook to Christology (Oxford University Press, 2015), chapter 4; Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, second edition; idem, Can We Still Believe the Bible? An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions (Brazos Press, 2014); idem, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament: Countering the Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs (Broadman and Holman, 2016); idem, Resurrection: Faith or Fact? A Scholars’ Debate Between a Skeptic and a Christian (Pitchstone Publishing, 2019); idem, Jesus the Purifier: John’s Gospel and the Fourth Quest for the Historical Jesus (Baker Books, 2023); Simon J. Gathercole, The Gospel and the Gospels: Christian Proclamation and Early Jesus Books (Eerdmans, 2022); Michael Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn From Ancient Biography (Oxford University Press, 2016); idem, Jesus, Contradicted: Why the Gospels Tell the Same Story Differently (Zondervan Academic, 2024); James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary, Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture (Crossway, 2012); Larry W. Hurtado, Why on Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries? (Marquette University Press, 2016); John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 5 Volumes (Doubleday, 1991-2015);Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Eerdmans, 2009); idem, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 Volumes (Baker Academic, 2012); Robert B. Stewart, The Reliability of the New Testament: Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace in Dialogue (Fortress Press, 2011).
25
Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 103.
26
Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 105; slightly amended. Seccombe offers some helpful suggestions about using the four Gospels in presentations of the gospel (pages 106-110). More broadly, refer to ‘The Gospels: One Story, Many Dimensions,’ in Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, fourth edition (Zondervan, 2014), 132-153. Also, see Köstenberger and Coswell, Biblical Theology, 407-493, 718-720.
27
Augustine, Enchiridion, 1.5; Outler ed., 338-39. Calvin refers to this passage, commenting that ‘we will find Christ among the heretics in name only, not in reality’ (Institutes, 2.15.1; trans. Battles, 494).
28
James Denney, The Death of Christ (The Tyndale Press, 1951); cited in Jensen, Life of Faith, 192.
29
Jensen, The Revelation of God, 55-58. Quotations in this and the following paragraphs are from these pages.
30
Refer to Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.
31
Again, ‘He can be estimated and understood only as part of a particular culture that was prepared for the preaching of the kingdom of God by the existing written word of God. The gospel, therefore, depends for its very life, now as then, on the prior existence of the written word of God, and issues in the preached and then written words of Jesus. Even when Jesus as Christ was preached to those without the written word, the Gentiles, the activity itself was justified and explained by the promises of the Old Testament (Acts 15:15ff.; Gal 3:6-9; Rom 15:7-9); and the new converts were inducted into a congregation that regarded the Scriptures as God’s word written, and written for them, both Jews and Gentile: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come’ (1 Cor 10:11; cf. Rom 15:4).’
32
Jensen, Revelation of God, 57-58.
33
Calvin, Institutes, 3.2.6; 548.
34
Jensen, The Revelation of God, 55.
35
Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 92. The present paragraph follows pages 94-110 of Seccombe.
36
Weinandy, ‘The Eternal Son,’ 391.
37
Much of this material is adapted from Jones, Knowing Christ, 217-18; and Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 2:739-56.
38
Jones, Knowing Christ, 211.
39
Treier, Lord Jesus Christ, 45.
40
John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Volume 1, trans. A. W. Morrison, eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (St. Andrew Press, 1972), 64.
41
‘Through Christ’s name,’ wrote Augustine, ‘humanity is rescued from the hellish yoke and penal society of unclean powers and is brought over from the dark night of destructive impiety to the bright light of saving piety’ (The City of God: Books 1-10, 2.28; trans. William Babcock (New City Press, 2012), 119).
42
Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ EDT, 747.
43
Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 92. [The present paragraph follows pages 94-110 of Seccombe.]
44
Treier, Lord Jesus Christ, 45.
45
Treier, Lord Jesus Christ, 45; slightly amended.
46
Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 233.
47
Jensen, ‘God and the Bible,’ 482.
48
Treier, Lord Jesus Christ, 45.
49
L. W. Hurtado, ‘Christ,’ in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, First Edition (IVP, 1992), 117.
50
Of note, when the Greek work Xristos occurs on its own the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible translates it ‘Messiah’. This is helpful because in English ‘Christ’ has become a proper name rather than a descriptive title. Using ‘Messiah’ reveals Jesus’ role as the long-awaited King, prophet, and deliverer of Israel. Google, response to ‘What is the benefit of the New International Version of the Bible when it occurs alone translating the Greek work Xristos as Messiah?’, June 25, 2026.
51
The Westminster Larger Catechism, 42; Van Dixhoorn ed., 348.
52
L. W. Hurtado, ‘Christ,’ in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, First Edition (IVP, 1992), 117.
53
Carson, Jesus the Son of God, chapter 1.
54
Wells, The Person of Christ, 70.
55
Goldworthy, The Son of God and the New Creation, 129.
56
Jones, Knowing Christ, 214.
57
Refer to D. A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God (Crossway, 2012); Graeme Goldsworthy, The Son of God and the New Creation (Crossway, 2016); Sanders, The Deep Things of God, 91-92.
58
Note how lostness is compared and equated with deadness by Jesus in Luke 15:24, 32.
59
Augustine, Enchiridion, 10.35; Outler ed., 361.
60
Wells, The Person of Christ, 71.
61
Augustine, Enchiridion, 10.35; Outler ed., 361.
62
Augustine, Enchiridion, 10.35; Outler ed., 362.
63
Augustine, Enchiridion, 28.108; Outler ed., 404-5, slightly amended.
64
See Benjamin Dean, Great Truths – The God of the Gospel, ‘The God Who Speaks: The Fundamental Importance of That Speech’; https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-god-of-the-gospel/#6
65
Hans-Martin Barth, as cited by Robert Kolb in Carson, Enduring, 93.
66
Thomas Weinandy, ‘The Eternal Son,’ in Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 2011), 390.
67
David Wells, The Person of Christ (Crossway, 1984), 69-70.
68
Augustine, Enchiridion, 10:34; Outler ed., 360.
69
This is Calvin: ‘so skillfully does [Scripture] distinguish Christ from the common lot that he is true man but without fault and corruption … For we make Christ free of all stain not just because he is begotten of his mother without copulation with man, but because he was sanctified by the Spirit that the generation might be pure and undefiled as would have been true before Adam’s fall. And this remains for us an established fact: whenever Scripture calls our attention to the purity of Christ, it is to be understood of his true human nature, for it would be superfluous to say that God is pure. … For the generation of man is not unclean and vicious of itself, but is so as an accidental quality arising from the Fall. No wonder, then, that Christ, through whom integrity was to be restored, was exempted from common corruption!’ (Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.4; Battles ed., 481). A helpful discussion is Mark Jones, ‘“Distinguished Among Ten Thousand,” The Sinlessness of Christ,’ in David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson eds., Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Persepctive (Crossway, 2024), 779-799.
70
Sanders, The Deep Things of God, 90.
71
The paragraph and the next is guided by Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 281-3.
72
For a summary of Christ’s active involvement in the history of Israel before his incarnation, and his place as the subject of Old Testament Messianic expectation concerning Israel’s future, see Bavinck, ORF, 283-297.
73
The Symbol of Chalcedon (October 22^nd, 451); Schaff ed., Creeds of Christendom, 1:62, language lightly updated for clarity.
74
Augustine, Enchiridion, 10:35; Outler ed., 361.
75
Barnett, Gospel Truth, 98-99.
76
Lewis, Miracles, 173.
77
Barnett, Gospel Truth, 98.
78
Edwards, WJE, 13:532; slightly amended.
79
F. F. Bruce, ‘The Person of Christ: Incarnation and Virgin Birth,’ in Carl F. Henry ed., Basic Christian Doctrines (Holy, Rhinehart and Winston, 1962), chapter 19, final paragraph, no page number.
80
Useful discussions of various aspects of the incarnation include Stephen Duby, Jesus and the God of Classical Theism. Biblical Christology in the Light of the Doctrine of God (Baker Academic, 2022); Brian Leftow, ‘A Timeless God Incarnate,’ in Stephen T. Davies, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins SJ eds., The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (Oxford University Press, 2002), 273-202; and T. F. Torrance, Incarnation (IVP Academic, 2008).
81
Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, 54; trans. St. Vladimir’s, 93.
82
‘Although v 4b has been a classic prooftext for the Greek patristic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine of deification, in its own historical context it does not refer to a participation in the life or essence of God himself, but to the gift of “godlike” immortality’. Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, vol. 50 of Word Biblical Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 193.
83
Thomas C. Oden, Classic Christianity (HarperCollins, 1992), 271; emphasis original, numbers supplied (as cited in Cole, Against the Darkness, 143).
84
Bavinck, ORF, 297.
85
Because these applications are most often part of complex sentences, how we decide to punctuate the sentences in both Greek and English determines their meaning because it determines to whom the phrase containing theos applies. Note that the vast majority of the original Greek manuscripts contain little or no punctuation. In the ancient world that was not an uncommon phenomenon when a widely spoken language was committed to writing. Most good English Bibles give the alternative punctuations, and thus the alternative applications of theos in the footnotes.
86
Edwards, WJE, 23:131.
87
Letham’s account of Christ’s deity (Systematic Theology, 79-91) repays attention.
88
Jones, Knowing Christ, 43. Jones’ broader discussion of Christ’s humanity (43-52) is well worth attention.
89
Bavinck, ORF, 296-7.
90
Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 17; 45-46.
91
Paul Helm, Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed (T & T Clark, 2008), 121.
92
Calvin, Institutes, 2.12.3; Battles ed., 466-67.
93
See Bavinck, ORF, chapter 15
94
To aid clarity, the language has been slightly amended.
95
Relevant article in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second edition; Keener, Miracles; J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume 2.
96
Against Dawkins, The God Delusion, 187 [check]. Popular treatments include John Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (Lion, 2009); C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (Collins, 2012); Neil Shenvi, Why Believe? A Reasoned Approach to Christianity (Crossway, 2022). Academic analytic consideration might begin with George I. Mavrodes, ‘Miracles,’ in William Wainwright ed., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press, 2005), 304-322.
97
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (T&T Clark, 1994), 2:362. See further Benjamin Dean, Great Truths – The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, ‘Resurrection Depends on Omnipotence’; available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ-part-i/
98
Barnett, Gospel Truth, 125.
99
Barnett, Gospel Truth, 126.
100
See the discussion in Barnett, Gospel Truth, 114-127.
101
Peter Jensen, ‘Jesus – was he miraculous?’, in The Future of Jesus, 49.
102
Barnett, Gospel Truth, 121.

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