Written by Pastor Jack Wellman– S.D. Gordon
Forgiving Sins
When Jesus was invited by one of the Pharisees to dinner, a woman came who was known to them as a sinner (Luke 7:39), so “Jesus said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this, who even forgives sins'” (Luke 7:48-49). In an earlier such case when Jesus forgave someone’s sin, again the self-righteous said, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone” (Mark 2:7), to which Jesus replied, so “’that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic—’I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home’” (Mark 2:10-11a). Clearly, Jesus is saying I AM God because He can forgive sins.
The Alpha and Omega
Jesus is described as the Word of God Who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1). Jesus was God and is God and was before anything ever existed. As such, He has always existed, being the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 22:13), which is the A to Z for us. Jesus is described similarly with Melchizedek, who “is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever” (Heb. 7:3).
Seeing the Father in Christ
Philip once asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us” (John 14:8), and Jesus replied, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14:9b-10). We can know what God the Father is like by looking (reading) what Jesus is like.
Suffering as Man
Want to be more Christ-like? Then suffer more like Christ did. We might desire the one but not the other. However, Paul connected knowing Christ with knowing His sufferings in writing “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10). Many Christians may not realize that it is “to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). Suffering for Jesus’ sake is actually a good thing from God’s perspective, “for as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Cor. 1:5).
Conclusion
The demons were actually the first to publicly confess that Jesus was God, but the Jews couldn’t handle that truth. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” but “the Jews picked up stones again to stone him” (John 10:30-31). They said, “We are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33). If only the Jews had access to the Gospel of John because if you want to really know about the divinity of Jesus Christ, then I suggest you read his Gospel, as it’s the clearest revelation and demonstration of Jesus as God that I know of, perhaps next to the Book of Revelation, and it is still in plain enough human language to be understood.
