Who Is Jesus?
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through Him. . .
.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not comprehend it. . . .
He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
JOHN 1:2-5, I'
Who IsJesus \
€ha@§ti©im§ inn This Section:
The prophecy concerning the birth of Christ comes from Isaiah 7.14:
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be
called Immanuel." Why was he then called Jesus?
How can a person have a divine nature and a human nature at the
same time in the way that we believe Jesus Christ did?
When Paul wrote that Jesus emptied himself and became a servant
and yet he was God, in what ways did he retain or not retain his
powers of being God?
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "The Father is greater than I." What
does he mean by that?
Was Christ capable of sinning?
Why did Jesus say some people wouldn't die before he came back?
What did Jesus mean when he said we would do greater work than
he did?
What was God's answer to Jesus' question "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?"
Did Jesus ever laugh?
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Who IsJesus ?
The prophecy concerning the birth of Christ comes
from Isaiah 7:14: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and
bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel."
Why was he then called Jesus?
That does, on the surface, seem like a flat-out contradic-
tion, doesn't it? The prophecy in the Old Testament is that
his name will be Immanuel, and then we go to the New
Testament, and they don't name him Immanuel; they
name him Jesus. How do we deal with that?
First of all, let's not assume that Isaiah is radically mis-
taken. If we look at the full import of his prophecy, we
stand in utter amazement at the detailed way in which the
prophecies of Isaiah do in fact come to pass in the life of
Jesus. If we go just two chapters past the "Immanuel"
prophecy, we find another familiar passage that we repeat
virtually every Christmas during our times of worship.
Isaiah went on to say that the Messiah who would be born
would be given the name "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." How many
names does he have? In chapter 7 he says his name is
going to be Immanuel, and in chapter 9 he says it's going
to be Prince of Peace, or Mighty God, or Everlasting
Father. So in his own writing, Isaiah was calling attention to
the fact that the Messiah would have a multitude of names.
He does not reduce Jesus' titles to one, so I don't think he
is using the word "name" to refer to the family name or the
proper name ofJesus, but he is referring to a crucial title
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that would be given to Jesus, and in fact it was. Immanuel
is one of his titles in the New Testament — Immanuel,
"God with us."
The name Jesus is given to him by God by means of the
evangelical messenger who announced the Father's choice
to name the Son, and he's called Jesus because that name
means "Savior" — one who will save his people. His name
indicates his mission, his ministry. I think one of the most
fascinating studies is to go through the Scriptures and list
the names that are attributed to Jesus.
I attended a convocation at a theological seminary
once at which a Swiss theologian gave an address. At an
academic occasion like that, one expects to hear a very
technical, sophisticated, boring piece of theology. This
professor simply got up before the assembly and began to
recite the names ofJesus, saying, "Alpha and Omega, Son
of Man, Lion ofJudah, Lamb without Blemish, the Mes-
siah, the Son of God, the Rose of Sharon ..." He went on
for forty-five minutes and still didn't exhaust all of the
names and titles that the New Testament attributes to
Jesus—Jesus, the most titled man in human history.
How can a person have a divine nature and a human
nature at the same time in the way that we believe
Jesus Christ did?
One of the great crises in evangelical Christianity today
is a lack of understanding about the person of Christ.
Almost every time I watch Christian television, I hear one of
the classical creeds of the Christian faith being denied bla-
tantly, unknowingly, unwittingly. And of course, part of the
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reason is that it is so difficult for us to understand how one
person can have two natures. You are asking me the ques-
tion "How?" I don't know how; I know thatJesus is one per-
son with two natures. How can that be? Long before there
was a human nature, there was a second person of the Trin-
ity. Here the second person of the Trinity, very God of very
God, God himself, was able to take upon himself a human
nature. No human being could reverse the process and take
upon himself a divine nature. I cannot add deity to my
humanity. It's not as if Christ changed from deity into
humanity. That's what I hear all the time. I hear that there
was this great eternal God who suddenly stopped being God
and became a man. That's not what the Bible teaches. The
divine person took upon himself a human nature. We really
can't understand the mystery of how this happened. But it is
conceivable, certainly, that God, with his power, can add to
himself a human nature and do it in such a way as to unite
two natures in one person.
The most important council about this in the history of
the church, whose decision has stood for centuries as the
model of Christian orthodoxy and is embraced by Luther-
ans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Baptists
virtually every branch of Christendom — is the Council of
Chalcedon. It was held in the year 451, in which the
church confessed its belief about Jesus in this way: They
said that we believe that Jesus is verus homus, verusDeus —
truly man, truly God. Then they went on to set boundaries
for how we're to think about the way in which these two
natures relate to each other. They said that these two
natures are in perfect unity, without mixture, division,
confusion, or separation. When we think about the Incar-
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nation, we don't want to get the two natures mixed up and
think that Jesus had a deified human nature or a human-
ized divine nature. We can distinguish them, but we can't
tear them apart because they exist in perfect unity.
When Paul wrote that Jesus emptied himself and
became a servant and yet he was God, in what ways
did he retain or not retain his powers of being God?
The concept of "emptying" was a raging controversy in the
nineteenth century, and elements of it remain today. The
Greek word used by Paul in the second chapter of Philip-
pians, kenosis, is translated as "emptying" in most Bible ver-
sions. The question is, Of what did Jesus, in his human
(incarnate) state, empty himself?
The popular view in certain circles in the nineteenth
century was that at the time of the Incarnation, the eternal
God, the second person of the Trinity, laid aside — emptied
himself of — his divine attributes so that he could become a
man. And in becoming a man in the very real sense, he
stopped being God. And so there is the transformation
from deity to humanity because he set aside his omni-
science, his omnipotence, his self-existence, and all of
those other attributes that are proper to the nature of God.
There was one orthodox theologian during the middle
of that controversy who said somewhat caustically that the
only emptying that theory proved was the emptying of the
minds of theologians who would teach such a thing as God
stopping for one second to be God. If God laid aside one
of his attributes, the immutable undergoes a mutation; the
infinite suddenly stops being infinite; it would be the end
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Who Is Jesus ?
of the universe. God cannot stop being God and still be
God. So we can't talk properly of God laying aside his deity
to take humanity upon himself. That is why orthodox
Christianity has always declared that Jesus was verus homus,
verusDeus — truly man, truly God; fully man and fully God.
His human nature was fully human, and his divine nature
always and everywhere was fully divine.
Nevertheless, the apostle Paul does speak of Christ emp-
tying himself of something. I think the context of Philippi-
ans 2 makes it very clear that what he emptied himself of
was not his deity, not his divine attributes, but his preroga-
tives — his glory and his privileges. He willingly cloaked his
glory under the veil of this human nature that he took
upon himself. It's not that the divine nature stops being
divine in order to become human. In the Transfiguration,
for example (Matt. 17:1-13), we see the invisible divine
nature break through and become visible, and Jesus is
transfigured before the eyes of his disciples. But for the
most part, Jesus concealed that glory. I think Paul is saying
in Philippians 2 that we're to imitate a willingness to relin-
quish our own glory and our own privileges and preroga-
tives.
In the Gospel ofJohn, Jesus says, "The Father is greater
than I." What does he mean by that?
Sometimes when Jesus makes straightforward statements
that appear to mean one thing on the surface, they require
that we go a bit beneath the surface to resolve the appar-
ent difficulty. In this case, that kind of extra labor is not
required. Jesus meant exactly what he said: "The Father is
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greater than I." That's somewhat distressing for Christians
because we have this sacred doctrine of the Trinity that
describes the unity of the three persons of the Trinity
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here the Son of God is saying
that the Father is greater than he is. This is one of the rea-
sons the church has always confessed a doctrine called the
subordination of Christ. Notice that it's not called the infe-
riority of Christ. I stress that because in our culture some
people conclude that subordination necessarily implies
inferiority.
The reason Christian theology contains a doctrine about
the subordination of Christ is that even though the second
person of the Trinity is coessential with the Father (he's of
the same essence, "very God of very God," eternal in his
being) there is a distinction among the persons of the God-
head. In the economy of redemption and even of creation,
we see certain works attributed to the Father, others to the
Son, and others to the Holy Spirit.
The traditional view is that the Son is begotten of the
Father — not created, but eternally begotten. The Father'is
not begotten of the Son. The Son is sent into the world by
the Father; the Son does not send the Father. Jesus said,
"I do nothing on My own authority, only that which the
Father tells me to do." His meat and his drink were to do
the will of the Father. He was commissioned by the Father
to come into the world for the work of redemption. In that
plan of redemption in the Godhead itself, one sends the
other, and the one who sends is said to be greater than the
one who is sent in terms of the economic distinctions and
the structure by which the Godhead works.
By the same token, the church historically, except for
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Who Is Jesus ?
the filioque dissenters, has stated that, as the Father sends
the Son, so the Holy Spirit is sent by both the Father and
the Son. As the Son is subordinate to the Father in the
work of redemption, so the Spirit is subordinate to both
the Father and the Son. But again, that does not mean
an inequality of being or dignity or divine attributes. The
second person of the Trinity is fully God; the third person
of the Trinity is fully God. In that work of redemption we
see the expression of superordination and subordination.
Was Christ capable of sinning?
Did Jesus have the ability to sin? The problem hidden in
that question is that if Jesus did have the ability to sin, does
that mean he had original sin and participated in a fallen
nature? If that were the case, he wouldn't even be qualified
to save himself, let alone us. If he did not have the ability
to sin, was his temptation (so central to God's giving him
the crown of glory for his obedience) just a charade — was
he really not subjected to real temptation?
The New Testament tells us that Jesus was like us at every
point save one: He was without sin. It tells us that Jesus
became incarnate and took upon himself sinful nature. It
also tells us that he is the second Adam. Generally, classical
Christology teaches that when Jesus was incarnate and
became the new Adam, he came born with the same
nature that Adam had before the Fall. Adam didn't have
original sin when he was created. So Jesus did not have
original sin. So we would ask the same question: Was Adam
capable of sinning? Yes, he was. Christ, the second Adam,
was also capable of sinning in the sense that he had all of
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the faculties and all of the equipment necessary to sin if
that's what he chose to do.
Could Jesus have sinned if he had wanted to? Absolutely.
Of course, he didn't want to. So if you ask it a different
way, could Jesus sin if he didn't want to? No, he couldn't
sin if he didn't want to any more than God could sin
because God doesn't want to sin. Wanting to sin is a pre-
requisite for sinning.
But then we have to push it one step further: Could
Jesus have wanted to sin? Theologians are divided on this
point. I would say yes, I think he could have. I think that's
part of being made after the likeness of Adam. When we're
in heaven and are totally glorified, then we will no longer
have the power and ability to sin. That's what we look for-
ward to; that's what Jesus earned for himself and for us
through his perfect obedience. Christ's perfect obedience
was not a charade. He actually was victorious over every
conceivable temptation that was thrown his way.
Why did Jesus say some people wouldn't die
before he came back?
This question had a dramatic influence on Albert Schweitzer
when he was studying New Testament theology. Jesus said,
"This generation will not pass away until all of these things
come to pass. . . . You will not go over all the cities of Israel
until all of these things come to pass. . . . Some of you will
not taste death until all of these things come to pass."
Schweitzer looked at those passages, and he thought of
them as obvious cases where Jesus blew it, where Jesus
expected his return in the first century. Schweitzer saw this
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Who Is Jesus ?
expectation of the early return ofJesus in early writings of
Paul. Then there was an adjustment in the later writings of
the Bible to account for the great disappointment that
Jesus didn't show up in that first generation. That's been a
matter of great consternation for many people.
Jesus didn't say, "Some of you aren't going to die until I
come back." He said, "Some of you will not taste death
until all of these things come to pass." The difficulty lies in
the structure of the language. The disciples are asking
Jesus about the establishment of the kingdom. Jesus talks
about two distinct issues. He talks about what obviously
involved the destruction ofJerusalem when he said that
the temple would be destroyed. Then at the end of the Oli-
vet discourse, he talks about his return on clouds of glory.
Some of the best New Testament scholarship that I've
seen is on the meaning of the Greek words translated "all
of these things." An excellent case can be made that when
Jesus used that phrase, "these things" of which he was
speaking pertained to the destruction of the temple and of
Jerusalem. It's amazing that Jesus of Nazareth clearly and
undeniably predicted one of the most important historical
events in Jewish history before it took place. This wasn't
just a vague Nostradamus or Oracle of Delphi type of
future prediction; Jesus vividly predicted the fall ofJerusa-
lem and the destruction of the temple, which indeed took
place in a.d. 70, while many of his disciples were still alive.
It was also before the missionary outreach had reached all
of the cities of Israel and before that generation had, in
fact, passed away. Those cataclysmic events that Jesus had
predicted on the Mount of Olives did, indeed, take place
in the first century.
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What did Jesus mean when he said we would do
greater work than he did?
First of all, he said that to his disciples and only to us indi-
rectly, if at all. He is speaking to the first-century church,
and he makes the statement that the works they do will be
greater than the works that he performed.
Let me tell you what I don't think it means. There are
many today who believe that there are people running
around this world right now who are performing greater
miracles, performing miracles in greater abundance, and
actually doing more incredible acts of divine healing than
Jesus himself did. I can't think of any more serious delu-
sion than that, that somebody would actually think they
have exceeded Jesus in terms of the works he has done.
There's nobody who comes close to the work that Jesus
did. Some say that perhaps we can't do greater works than
Jesus individually but that corporately we are able to
exceed in power the things that Jesus did.
We see amazing things happening in the first-century*
church through the power that Christ gave to his apostles.
We see people raised from the dead through Peter and
Paul. But at the same time I would challenge people by tell-
ing them to add up all of the miracles that, according to
New Testament records, were wrought through the hands
of Paul, Peter, and the rest of the disciples corporately, put
them all together, and see if they measure a greater degree
than those which our Lord performed.
IfJesus meant that people would do greater miracles
than he performed in the sense of displaying more power
and more astonishing things than he did, then obviously
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one of the works that Jesus failed to perform was sound
prophecy, because that just didn't happen. Nobody
exceeded Jesus' works. That's what leads me to believe
that's not what he meant.
I think he's using the term "greater" in a different way.
I heard a church historian say that he was convinced that
when Jesus made the statement "Greater works than these
will you do," he was referring to the whole scope of the
impact of Christ's people and his church on the world
throughout history.
I know a lot of people look at the history of Western civi-
lization and say that the bulk of the church's influence has
been negative — the black eye of the Crusades, the Galileo
episode, and holy wars, etc. If you look at the record, you
will see that it was the Christian church that spearheaded
the abolition of slavery, the end of the Roman arena, the
whole concept of education, the concept of charitable hos-
pitals and orphanages, and a host of other humanitarian
activities. I think, personally, that that's what Jesus meant
when he talked about greater works.
What was God's answer to Jesus' question
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
We can look at this in two ways. On the one hand, there
was no answer. Jesus screamed that question to heaven. He
screamed it audibly, and there was no audible reply. As far
as the New Testament indicates, there are only three occa-
sions on which God speaks audibly, and this was not one of
them. The Son of God was screaming in agony, and the
Father remained silent.
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On the other hand, we could say that three days later
God screamed an answer with the empty tomb, bringing
forth the Holy One. I think that plaintive cry from Jesus
on the cross is one of the most important and misunder-
stood verses in all of sacred Scripture. The explanations
for it have run the gamut. Albert Schweitzer was filled
with consternation and saw in it a clue that Jesus died in
a spirit of bitter disillusionment, that he had spent his
ministry expecting God to bring the kingdom of God
dramatically through Jesus' ministry — and God did not
do it. Schweitzer believed that Jesus allowed himself to be
arrested and led right to Golgotha, expecting that God
was going to rescue him at the last moment from the
cross. Suddenly, when Jesus realized that there was not
going to be a rescue, he screamed in bitter disillusion-
ment and died a heroic death, but with an embittered
spirit nevertheless. That was Schweitzer's view, but others
have taken a different one.
We realize that the words Jesus cried on the cross are an
exact quotation of what David penned in Psalm 22. Some
people say that here in his agony Jesus fell back on his
knowledge of Scripture by reciting it. I don't think Jesus
was just quoting Bible verses on the cross, but it certainly
would have been appropriate for him to use a statement of
Scripture to express the depth of his agony.
When I was ordained, I was given the opportunity to
choose my own ordination hymn. I chose "'Tis Midnight;
and on Olive's Brow." There's a verse in that hymn that
says that the Son of Man was not forsaken by his God. As
much as I love the hymn, I hate that verse because it's not
right. Jesus didn't just /^/ forsaken on the cross; he was
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totally forsaken by God while he hung on the cross because
that's exactly what the penalty for sin is. As the apostle Paul
elaborates, sin cuts us off from the presence and benefits
of God. Christ screamed, "Why have I been forsaken?" It
wasn't just a question; it was a cry of agony. Christ knew the
answer. The answer was given to him the night before, in
Gethsemane, when the Father made it clear that it was
necessary for him to drink that cup.
Did Jesus ever laugh? What do the Scriptures tell us
about his character and sense of humor?
I've heard some people answer this question in the nega-
tive by saying that laughter is always a sign of frivolity and a
thinly veiled attempt to make light of things that are sober.
They say life is a sober matter; Jesus is described as a man
of sorrows. He's described as one who was acquainted with
grief. He walked around with enormous burdens upon
him. Add to that the fact that there's not a single text in
the New Testament that explicitly says Jesus laughed.
There are texts, of course, that tell us he cried. For exam-
ple, John 13 tells us that in the upper room Jesus was
deeply troubled in his spirit. We know that he experienced
those emotions, and yet it's strange that nowhere does it
tell us that he actually laughed.
You also asked if he had a sense of humor. When we
translate any language into another, we will often miss sub-
tle nuances of speech. If we don't have a knowledge of the
original language and its idioms, we might miss the humor.
Also, different cultures have different ways of being humor-
ous. Jesus used one form of humor we call sarcasm. In his
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responses to Herod, for example, he called him a fox and
made other statements that I think had a touch of oriental
humor to them. It's purely speculative whether or not
Jesus laughed, but I can't imagine that he didn't laugh for
this reason: He was fully human, and he was perfect. We
certainly wouldn't attribute to Jesus any sinful emotions or
forms of behavior, and it would seem to me the only rea-
son to think he didn't laugh would be if we first came to
the conclusion that laughter is evil.
The Bible does say that God laughs. In the Psalms it's a
derisive laugh. When the kings of the world set themselves
against God and take counsel against God, it says that he
who sits in the heavens shall laugh. God will hold them in
derision. It's sort of a "huh!" kind of laughter. It's not a
jovial response of happiness, but nevertheless it's laughter.
In the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament — for
example, in Ecclesiastes — we're told that certain things are
appropriate at certain times. There's a time to plant, a
time to reap, a time to build, a time to tear down; there \s a
time to dance, a time to sing, a time to laugh, a time to cry.
Since God has, in his seasons, appointed appropriate times
for laughter, and Jesus always did what was appropriate, it
would seem to me that when it was time to laugh, he
laughed.
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