Preached by Gregory W. Lee
27 May 2006
I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Phil 2
5. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7. but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
9. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11. and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
-- this morning we are continuing in our series inspired by the book, "The Da Vinci Code" -- just this week, I was driving around the base with my student, and we were discussing the Da Vinci Code movie
-- my student is not a Christian and has not been in a church for over 15 years, so it's a great opportunity to share with him the Christian faith -- I was telling him that I really enjoyed the movie, but that I felt it was a little too real -- that the part where Sir Leigh Teabing is discussing the formation of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, and the story of Christ marrying Mary Magdelene, was a little too believable and that I thought it might cause some in the church confusion and concern
-- and then he asked me the question that sums up what this series is all about -- "So what if it's true? What would it really matter?"
-- and that, my friends, is the crux of the issue -- I answered him back, "If what Dan Brown wrote in that book is true, then Christianity would cease to exist, and we would still all be in our sins"
-- I went on to explain to him that Christianity hinged on the divinity of Christ -- on His death on the cross as an atonement for our sins and on His resurrection on the third day -- I told him that if you take away the divinity of Christ, then there is nothing left
-- you see, Christianity hinges upon the divinity of Christ -- this is our foundation -- our cornerstone -- it is upon this truth that our entire faith is built -- when Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He was, Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" -- Jesus commended Peter for saying that and said, "on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" -- the divinity of Christ is the rock of our foundation, and it is upon this truth that our church and our faith rests
-- let me give you another example -- the divinity of Christ is the keystone in the arch of our religion -- as you probably know, the keystone was the center stone in an arch -- if you remove the keystone from an arch, the arch cannot support itself and the whole thing crumbles
-- that is exactly what would happen if what Dan Brown alleges in his book is true -- that Jesus was not divine and that He was only a man
-- as the Apostle Paul put it when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:13-18 about the resurrection of Christ, "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. -- And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. -- More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. -- For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. -- And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. -- Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost."
-- this thought of Paul holds true for the resurrection, for the atoning death of Jesus on the cross, and for the divinity of Christ -- if any of these are not true, then we are all lost in our sins, forever separated from God, and destined for an eternity in hell
-- that is why it matters whether Dan Brown is right in The Da Vinci Code or not -- so, this morning, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the divinity of Christ and Brown's allegations in his book that Jesus was not considered divine by his followers until a vote was taken at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD
II. The Divinity of Christ
-- so, was Christ divine or is Dan Brown's allegation correct? -- if you just glanced through the New Testament and read the writings of the early followers of Christ -- if you read the words of Jesus Himself -- you would quickly come to the conclusion that Jesus' followers believed that He was divine -- that He was God
-- Jesus is directly called "God" seven times in the New Testament, and He is referred to as "Lord" in the divine sense numerous times -- in addition to these, the writers of the New Testament and Jesus Himself used prophetic words and meanings and understandings to refer to Jesus as God
-- for instance, in the first verse of the first chapter of John's gospel, we read, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God" -- later on, in verse 14, John wrote, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling place among us" -- there is no doubt in John's mind that Jesus -- the Word -- was God
-- in other places, the claim by Jesus' followers that He was God is more direct
-- in Romans 9:5, referring to the Jewish people, Paul writes, "Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!"
-- in Hebrews 1:8 it reads, "But about the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom."
-- and in 1 John 5:20 we read, "We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."
-- Jesus Himself, while not directly just coming out and saying "I am God," proclaimed His deity and divinity in discussions with the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin
-- for instance, when the paralytic man on the mat was dropped in front of Jesus by his four friends, Jesus said to him, "your sins are forgiven" -- the teachers of the law who were there thought that Jesus was blaspheming, because only God could forgive sins -- in Matthew 9 it says, "Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, `Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." -- in this event, Jesus is clearly saying that because He was God, He had the authority to forgive sins -- He condemned the teachers of the law for having evil thoughts in their heart because they did not recognize Him as God
-- likewise, when Jesus was on trial before the Sanhedrin on the night He was betrayed, the chief priest asked Him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" -- and Jesus replied, "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked. "You have heard the blasphemy" -- Why did the High Priest say that Jesus was blaspheming? -- because He had claimed to be God by using the title that God used with Moses -- God told Moses that His name was "I Am" -- "Yahweh" -- and that is what Jesus said when the High Priest asked Him if He was the Christ -- also, the priests alleged blasphemy because Jesus used the title, "Son of Man," which Daniel used in a prophetic sense to refer to the coming of Christ
-- throughout the four gospels, there are many other instances where Jesus claimed to be God by using terms such as these
-- Brown would have us believe that the divinity of Christ was an invention of the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, but these references in the New Testament clearly shows this is not the case -- all of the 27 books in the New Testament were written in the first century AD -- in other words, all of the books that we have in our Bible were written within 65 years of the death of Christ, and they make it clear that the early Christians and the early Church unswervingly held to the belief that Jesus was God
-- in this passage in Philippians that we opened with, we read the words of an early hymn -- a confession of the faith that was shared in the early church
-- just to confirm the belief of the church in the divinity of Christ, let's look real quick at this passage -- look back at verse 5
5. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7. but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
-- verse 6 clearly says that Jesus was God -- that being in very nature or in the form of God, He was equal to God -- it goes on to say that Jesus made Himself nothing, taking on the form of man -- these verses are a clear declaration by the early church that it considered Jesus to have been God -- and that God Himself, in the form of Jesus, became a man, humbled Himself, and died on a cross to save us from our sins
-- then, in verses 9-11, we see the risen Christ reclaiming the glory and the prerogatives of deity that He had emptied Himself of when He became a man -- verse 9
9. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11. and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
-- what is the name that is above all other names? -- that can be nothing less than the very name of God
-- and at that name, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord -- the Greek word for "Lord" here is "Kurios" -- it means "supreme in authority" -- it means "God"
-- there is no doubt that the early believers of Christ believed that He was God -- there is no doubt that Jesus Himself believed that He was God -- for no one but God Himself could have lived a perfect, sinless life and offered Himself for us as an atoning sacrifice on the cross -- no one but God Himself could have given His life up willingly for us and then take it up again three days later at the resurrection -- and no one but God Himself could forgive us of our sins and offer us eternal life with Him
-- do you know that Jesus is God? -- do you believe that He died on the cross for your sins? -- do you believe that He rose from the dead on the third day and that He ascended into Heaven? -- believing that -- knowing this as a fact and basing your eternal life on this truth -- is all that is needed for salvation -- as it says in Romans 10:9, "if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
-- this is the foundation of our faith -- and this is why it matters very much that Dan Brown and his allegations in The Da Vinci Code are wrong
III. The Council of Nicea
-- very briefly, I want to address the allegation by Brown that the divinity of Christ was voted on at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD -- we have already addressed his first allegation, that the divinity of Christ was not proposed until that time -- now let's look at the other part
-- the Council of Nicea was the first ecumenical church council -- it was held because of a heresy called "Arianism" that was being taught and was gaining a lot of followers -- in fact, 28 of the 318 bishops who attended the Council believed in this doctrine
-- basically, Arius was teaching that Jesus was not one with God the Father -- but that He was a lesser God who was created some time before the creation of the world -- in other words, Arius was teaching that Jesus was divine, but still created
-- the church whole-heartedly opposed this teaching and affirmed that Jesus was one with God -- they did, as Brown states, vote on the issue -- but the vote was hardly a close one -- it was 316 to 2 in favor of Christ being co-eternal with God the Father -- not a created being -- not a lesser God -- but one with God -- in other words, the Council affirmed the traditional teaching of the church that Jesus was God
-- out of this Council came the Nicene Creed, which we have in our hymnals on page 880 -- the main concern of this creed was to reject any notion that the Son was a creature or less divine than the Father -- the creed affirmed the beliefs of the church that Jesus was of one substance with the Father, and that He was just as divine as the Father
-- if you would, turn to page 880 in your hymnals and let's read the Nicene Creed together
IV. Closing
-- concerning the deity of Christ, C.S. Lewis once wrote: "I am trying to prevent anyone [from] saying the really foolish thing people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God [which is exactly what Dan Brown is saying in The Da Vinci Code].'"
-- Lewis goes on, "That is the one thing we must not say -- A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher -- He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice -- Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman, or something worse"
-- "You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God -- but let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher -- He has not left that open to us -- He did not intend to."
-- make no mistake about it -- Jesus was and is God -- and that is what matters most of all
-- let us pray
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