We tend to work through our series on Christology, thinking about fleshing out this statement that our Lord Jesus made, or the question that he made, and the answer which follows from Peter, and affirmed convincingly by the Lord Jesus Christ. Who do you say that I am? And of course we know, Peter answered, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and to which Jesus answered, he commended Peter. that flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but only from my Father in heaven do you know this." This has come to you from heavenly divine inspiration with respect to the identity of the Son of God. So what we looked at last week was some of the statements that Jesus makes about His own mission. We've been thinking about the mission of Christ. And so we looked at some of the things that the Scriptures say about, from the Old Testament, the Old Testament witness of the mission of the Messiah who would come. Last week we looked at some of the statements that Jesus Himself makes, statements about His descent, statements where He says, I have come, and so forth. What I want to do today is to look at some of our Lord's statements about His own identity. Not only what He has done in terms of, I have come, but His own statements with respect to that question, who do you say that I am? I mean, He asked for the testimony of the disciples, but He also testifies about His own identity. He doesn't just leave it to their own speculation or even to their own divine inspiration apart from His immediate speaking into who He is. So let's pray. Let's seek the Lord's favor for His help and for the grace to be able to worship our triune God and to understand and know the second person of the Trinity in a deeper way. Father, we're thankful for Your Word. We're thankful for the Word made flesh. You are our God Almighty, most glorious, most powerful, most wise, most good, most holy, and you've called us to be holy. We cannot be holy unless we know the one who is holy. Unless we know both with our minds and our hearts, we know Him experientially as holy. so that we may draw near to you by your spirit and be conformed to the image of the one who is the full human expression of holiness. We thank you and we love you and we praise you and we ask for your help now as we open your word, as we consider a number of statements that our Lord has made about himself. May you cause our hearts to wrestle with these things, to delight in them, to ponder them in our hearts, to store them up in our hearts. May You guard us and protect us, and train us by Your Spirit to fix our eyes upon Christ and the hope that is ours in Him. We ask this in His name. Amen. Let's look together to start with at Ephesians chapter 4. In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul is speaking here of the risen Christ, the risen and exalted Christ. But Paul, drawing from the Old Testament, makes the argument that the only one who has ascended to heaven is the one who first descended. Now, I'm going to read this for kind of two reasons. One is to remind us what we looked at last week as we think about and we read about passages in the Scriptures that speak of descent, for example. We want to discipline our minds not to think positionally as if he was in the proximal location of heaven, and that he left that place and entered a different place for a time, three years roughly, and then left that place and went to another place, exalted in heaven and enthroned at God's right hand. We need to think of the divinity of Christ as always existing. never changing, and so that his omnipresence is never interrupted, it never ceases even for an instant. So in Ephesians chapter four, I'm gonna read one through 16. Paul makes this conclusion after laying the groundwork in the first three chapters. He says, I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things. And He, this He here specifically, the risen, exalted, glorified Christ, He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to perfect the saints for the work of the ministry. for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Now I said I wanted to read this passage for two reasons, the first of which is a way of reminder with respect to how we understand descending and ascending and having these ideas, our concepts about our Christ entering into the world not being only locational. This isn't just a geographic change. There's something far more profound. It's not just a means of changing from one location to the other. But the second reason that I wanted to look at this text is because as we think about our Lord Jesus' statements about His own identity, think about the importance that Paul places upon this. In verse 14, all of this is true. He says, or this is for this purpose, for this reason, because we may no longer be children. Tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. You know, one of the characterizations of children, and this isn't a matter of sin, this is a matter of just their youthfulness. Children can be persuaded of just about anything. and quickly, and within a course of a short period of time, go back and forth between even two extremes, either emotionally or even just in terms of what they want. I wanted ice cream just a minute ago until I saw my friend with the brownie. Now I want the brownie more than anything else in this world. And that's one of the marks of childhood, or I was just fine playing with this truck until I saw my friend with the G.I. Joe. And now there's nothing in the world that I want more than the G.I. Joe. And so, you know what I'm saying. And so, Paul is saying that to know Christ, and to be found in Him, and to understand who He is, understand His eternal identity, is a means of guarding us from being tossed like such children. We no longer vacillate between two extremes. We no longer are like those carried to and fro by the waves, by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. And then Paul says, here's the antithesis of that. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ. from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when every part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." One of the overarching themes in this letter to the Ephesian church is this theme of head and body. Christ is the head. He is the head of his church. But he is not a bodiless head. He is not a disembodied head. He has a body. He has a church that exists in him. In fact, if we think through the Scriptures, one of the most frequent characterizations that Paul makes, the most frequent descriptions that Paul makes of Christians is the phrase, in Christ. If you are a Christian, you are in Christ. And this is what Paul says here, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him. There's a growing into Christ who is the head, and from whom the whole body, which is every member. Everyone who has been blood-bought, born again by the Spirit of the living God, is grafted into Him. grafted into his body, and that body is growing. And Paul uses this illustration frequently in his writings. He takes this idea of a body and he illustrates it with something we all can relate to. We have a tangible physical body, and it has various parts which serve various purposes. And he wants every joint which is equipped to work properly, and so the body will grow itself up in love. Now, if we're going to think about this into Christ, this is where we are, if you're in Christ, and where you are also going if you are in Christ, is being grown and matured as a body together. And so we want to think about what does Christ say about himself with respect to his identity? Paul uses this phrase, who is that we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head into Christ." This is a proper title. It's not a name, per se. It's a title. His name was Jesus, Emmanuel. Christ is a title. It's the title for Messiah, for the long-awaited King, the one who is that God had promised to be enthroned on the throne of David. So let's think about some times where Jesus makes this specific claim about himself to be the Christ. Because Paul could not say that we are growing into Christ if Jesus did not personally testify that he is the Christ. Otherwise, those statements would make no sense. So for example, in John chapter four, and kind of like last week, I'm going to give you a series of texts that, kind of in rapid fire, that testify to these very things. So John chapter four, verses 25 to 26, the woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am he?" So here he's speaking with a Samaritan woman. I mean, he's doing at least two things at once that ought not be done so the social etiquette folks would tell him. He's talking to a woman publicly. And he's talking to a Samaritan. And it's to her. She says, I know the Messiah is coming. I mean, she knows what the Bible says. She knows that the Old Testament has borne witness. The Messiah is coming. and that when he comes, he will tell us all things. I mean, this is the, even the Samaritan woman knew this. So kind of thinking about, if you argue from the lesser to the greater, if a woman and a Samaritan knows something this profound from the scriptures, then surely any self-respecting Jew should know that, right? And she says, I know. I know the Messiah's coming. The one who's called the Christ. And when He comes, He will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I am. The one to whom you're speaking am He. And then in John 17, Jesus says, And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. This is in His high priestly prayer as He is praying to the Father on behalf of all of His people, on behalf of all those that God had given into his hand. It says, you are the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So even in his most intimate conversation with the heavenly Father, Jesus refers to himself by his own title, Jesus the Christ. Let's look at three other ones in Mark chapter 14. Verses 61 and 62, the high priest asked him again, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Now, do you remember what happens after this? How does the crowd respond? How do the Jews respond? This is blasphemy. He's worthy of death, because they knew very well what he was claiming here. They understood him clearly. And then of course, the statement we've been thinking about throughout this series, who do you say that I am? In Matthew 16, Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, no, Peter, you don't have that quite right. I'm not that one. There's still another one coming. No, it's not exactly, not at all what Jesus said. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And one more statement, back to John's gospel. In John 11, verse 25, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? And she said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. And Jesus affirms her testimony. So what does Jesus say about his own identity? At multiple places in the scriptures, both publicly and privately, He affirms that He is the Christ. He uses that proper title, that kingly title, to describe Himself. But that is not the only way in which Jesus speaks of Himself as the fulfillment of the Old Testament witness about His mission. We also see, and I'm working through, once again, Dr. Golezal's material here, these various I Am sayings. the various I am sayings. And some of these, when we first read them, we might pass over them and fail to weigh them properly, fail to grasp the weightiness of what he is saying. And the way in which, because as Christians, we're more familiar probably with the Gospels, the Gospel accounts than we are other passages of Scripture. And so sometimes in our familiarity to them, we don't in a sense feel the weight of his statements in the same way in which perhaps a Jew, particularly a religious Jew, who was eagerly waiting upon the Messiah, who understood what God had said about himself in the Old Testament. they were conversant with sort of the dialect or the language of God speaking to his people about himself and the way that God describes himself. And so when this Jewish rabbi shows up on the scene from a no-account town like Nazareth, Galilee, and begins to speak of himself in language that is identical to the way in which God speaks about himself in the Old Testament, you can see why. the Jews' ears perked up, and in the hardness and disbelief of their heart, they attacked him. They rejected that this could be true, but they were not mistaken in the nature of the claims he was making about himself. So listen to some of these statements. Again, weighing heavily in John's gospel, that's the gospel that is, in a sense, most theological in its intent. In John 6, verse 35, these I am statements which further illuminate his supernatural origins and his redemptive mission and the fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures. John 6, 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. John 8, verse 12, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8, 23, he said to them, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. And in John 8, 58, perhaps the most unambiguous witness to his identity, identifying himself as the God of Israel. Not just known of or known by the God of Israel, but his claim to be the God of Israel. Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. The implications of this statement for understanding Jesus as true God are beyond our estimation. Continuing on through the Gospel of John, in John 10, verse 7, Jesus again said to them, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.'" And two verses later, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. So Jesus says, I am the door. And again, when he's saying I am, he doesn't say I presently exist to be, or I presently are fulfilling this role. He's saying eternally, essentially, by nature, I am. I am, I was, I will always be. Continuing John 10, a few more verses later after this, in verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Then in chapter 11, verse 25, Jesus again, speaking to a woman, said, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 15, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Now all of these I am statements, he's not just picking metaphors out of the air. All of these are allusions to the prophetic witness of the Messiah from the Old Testament, to say that I am the true vine. As you work through the prophets, you'll see many times the idea of God the Father being the source of all good things, being a vine dresser. being the one who cares for his people and produces the harvest. To say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. To say, I am the resurrection and the life. To say, I'm the good shepherd. To say, I am the door. I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. All of these are borrowing from images in the Old Testament. We don't have time today to tease all of those out, but I'd encourage you, it'd be a fruitful study to work through in the Old Testament where these concepts appear and how Jesus is saying, I am not only just a representative of these things, or I am in the present moment, you know, aping those ideas or borrowing those ideas. He's saying, I am the fulfillment of all of it. I'm the sum total of all of it. And then lastly, I want to look today, so we've seen his statements about himself being the Christ. And then we look at these I am statements. But there's one other sort of category where we want to look at it. This is Christ's own testimony about his sonship. And not just being a son of God, the Bible speaks, uses the term son of God in many ways. Israel is sometimes called a son. David was called a son. Israel was called a son. Some of the prophets were referred to as sons of God. His people in general were referred to as sons. But there's a unique way in which Christ speaks of himself as the son, the divine son, the eternal son, the begotten son. And we'll look next week about this eternal generation of the Son, the begottenness of the Son, what is understood by that. But let's just take it in more bite-sized chunks for today. What does Jesus say about his Sonship? And again, John's Gospel is where we find most of this, of the richness of his statements about himself. John 1. Verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. And then down to verse 18, no one has seen God at any time, the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father. He has explained Him. So here, Jesus is referred to as only begotten God. He is the Son who is the begotten God. John 5, beginning at verse 17, But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I am working. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God." Do you see what's happening here? John, the apostle John, who was an eyewitness to these things, now under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is testifying to us and giving us an infallible interpretation of that historical event. As John looks at this, and he recalls to mind, he writes down these events that happen in the history of Jesus dealing with the Jews. John says it's not only because he was breaking the Sabbath that they wanted to put him to death. It's because when he called God his own father, he wasn't speaking in the general sense, like the Jews would say, we're sons of Abraham. And so it's possible that Jesus was saying, I'm a son of God in the same way that the Jews were sons of Abraham. But John doesn't let us think that. He doesn't let us interpret Jesus' words in a less significant and less meaningful way. John says he makes himself equal with God. That's the divine Holy Spirit interpretation of Jesus' words. John goes on, and this is again continuing in John chapter five. So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the son, the son who is making himself equal with God, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise. For the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will He show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son. Just as they honor the Father, whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Now, this is a profound passage, because Jesus here is speaking both of his divinity and of his humanity. We have one mediator, one Christ, one person who has two natures, divine and human. And here, as Jesus says, my Father is working till now, and I am working. I am. See, he's expressing and articulating and proclaiming his divinity. And, of course, John adds, that's why they were seeking to kill him, because he was making himself equal to God. Well, then Jesus goes on to say, truly the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. Now, that sounds like there's a different will involved. Does Jesus have two wills? Yes. And no. But yes, I mean, yes is the better answer. According to His divinity, God has one will. The Father does not have one will, and the eternally begotten Son have another will. But Jesus, according to His humanity, had a true and full human nature, including a human will, which was distinct without composition or confusion, no commingling, of the nature's human and divine. He remained truly human and truly divine, and yet one mediator, one Christ, one person. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing, and greater works than these He will show, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, now He's going to speak again of His divinity. So also the Son gives life to whom He will, the Son according to His divine nature. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent them. Two more, John 10, verse 30 to 33. I and the Father are one. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which of them are you going to stone me? Listen to the answer from the Jews. The Jews answered him, it is not for the good works that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God. You know, it really amazes me that among scoffers and skeptics of the scriptures, but even among those who are in fact scoffers and skeptics but claim to be Christians. The liberalism of sort of the mainline Christianity and other groups that deny that Jesus was truly God. And they say, well, he never really said that. I don't know how you can come away with that conclusion. On many occasions he did, and in fact the crowd makes note of the fact that he did. The Jews who knew their Bibles understood what he was saying. They understood he was using language that God reserved for himself to describe himself. And so the Jews say, it's not for any good work you've done. It's because you're making yourself out to be God. John 19, the Jews answered in verse seven, we have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God. So it was Jesus' claim to unique sonship, because the Jews themselves would have considered they were sons of God. on the authority of their scriptures, on the authority of the Old Testament, any faithful Jew, if you've asked, sir, can I ask you a question? Are you a son of God? Well, yes, I'm a son of Abraham, which makes me a son of God. But that's not how they understood Jesus' words when he said he was the son of God, begotten from eternity, equal with God, of like authority, of like nature, of like authority to judge. of like authority to forgive sin. This was the unique aspect of sonship that specifically angers the Jews. When Jesus claims, I'm not a son in the same way that you men are organically by being genetically descended from Abraham or from David. I am a son because I always existed. as the only begotten of the Father. I want to close with this. We turn with you to the book of Hebrews. We've looked at this passage already, but I want to look at it again with this particular light in mind. Hebrews 1, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. 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. And thus begins a lengthy theological argument in the epistle to demonstrate the superiority of Christ in every respect. To the angels, to Moses, he's a better mediator, he brings a better covenant. In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son, and not a son like other prophets were sons. He has spoken to us by his Son in a distinct way, in a unique way, making the Sonship of Christ entirely different than the Sonship of Israel, or even the Sonship of those imminent within Israel, for example, Moses or the other prophets. The uniqueness of the Son's divine affiliation is something we'll consider next time as we think about His eternal generation, His eternal begottenness. Any thoughts or questions as we think about our Lord's statements that He is the Christ, as we think about His statements about being the I Am, and His statements about being the Son? We've thought about the Old Testament witness. We've looked at the New Testament witness, the apostolic witness, the identity of Christ. We've looked at the testimony of Jesus about his mission, what he came to do. And then today we've considered, what does he say about who he is? He is the I am. He is the Christ. that all the prophets foretold, and He is truly God, the Son. Any thoughts, any questions? All right. Well, I will close us there for today. I thought about going ahead and beginning on eternal generation, but I think that we need to look at that by itself to get a better grasp of what's going on there, not to cloud that or confuse ourselves any further. So let's pray together. Father, we're so thankful that you have given us your certain, sufficient, and infallible scripture. We thank you that we have this perfect rule to describe yourself to us, to describe the Son, your own Son, whom you have sent into this world, the Son into whom you are conforming us. Holy Spirit, will you help us to consider these things in such a way that it's not just to fill our minds with true things, which is good, but that as Paul prayed for and instructed the Ephesian church, that this would produce in us the fruit of being growing up together into full maturity, into a mature body. in which each part is doing what you've called us to do. Each part praising together and delighting in our true Head, the Christ, the I Am, the long-awaited Son. We ask this in Christ's name.