"Truly This Man Was The Son Of God!"
Mark 15:39
Every believer, every Christian, when
speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, asserts with confidence and joy what the
centurion who helped to crucify him said with astonishment and fear: -- "Truly
this man was the Son of God." We assert the fact of Christ's divinity
with confidence because it is plainly revealed in Scripture and because there
is simply no other way to reasonably explain his existence. We assert this fact
with joy because he who is both God and man in one glorious person is able to
save our souls.
When
the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, it is declaring to us that
Jesus Christ is God the eternal Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity (1
John 5:7), in every way equal with the Father and the Spirit. We who believe
are the sons of God by adoption. But Christ is the Son of God by nature. To say
that he is the Son of God is to declare that this Man, whose name is Jesus, is
himself God over all, blessed forever. He is not just a God, a likeness of God,
or a creature of God. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh (John 1:1-3).
All the attributes of divinity belong to him. He is the Creator, Sustainer,
Ruler, and Disposer of all things.
We
acknowledge and rejoice in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the
Revelation of God (John 1:18). He alone is the image of the invisible God. He
reveals God fully. And he alone reveals God. God cannot be known and will not
make himself known, God cannot be approached by and will never approach any
creature, except in the person of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We
cannot know, trust, worship, or serve God apart from Christ. However, we must
never imagine that those who speak of Christ only as a revelation of God honor
him. They do not. They blaspheme him! Jesus Christ is much more than the
revelation of God.
Our
all-glorious Lord Jesus Christ is himself God. If Jesus Christ is not God, if
he is anything less than almighty God, we have no Savior. He is an impostor, a
fake, a charlatan. None but God could make atonement for our sins. That man who
was born at Bethlehem, who died upon the cross, who rose again the third day,
and now sits upon the throne of heaven is God (Col. 2:9). He is as fully God as
though he was not man, and as fully man as though he was not God.
Modern
theologians, who think they are smarter than God, may not be able to understand
his words, but those who heard him speak understood him perfectly. When the
Jews, determined to execute him as a blasphemer, told him plainly why they so
despised him. "Because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God"
(John 10:33). Thomas understood his words. He beheld his Redeemer and joyfully
confessed, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). The Apostle
Paul, writing by divine inspiration, declares that the man Christ Jesus is
"over all, God blessed for ever" (Rom.9:5). And God the Father
himself, as he welcomed his Son back to heaven, declared him to be God (Heb.
1:8).