Who is Jesus Christ?

Copyright 1986 Kyle H. Miller

Many of us can produce an impressive collection of theological knowledge about who Jesus is, but our theological knowledge is often bigger than our personal knowledge. Why did Jesus come to our planet and say and do what He did? We can give accurate responses, but why do those words so often seem not to help? Not only are these challenging questions, but they are the ones that must be individually addressed if we are to truly be "in Christ."

Our impersonal and impotent information about Jesus is a clear example of how we can possess Biblical information and not let it come close enough to us to change us. We can know the facts of what Jesus said and did on earth for His 33 years, but, while "knowing" we can still deftly evade allowing God to conform us to Jesus' image (Romans 8:29).

The answer to this dilemma is for us to study Jesus Christ's life in such a manner that we understand who He is and why He is. Once we accept by faith that Jesus is the perfect image of the invisible God, we then have God's Holy Pattern by which to shape our lives. This is certainly not a simplistic "role-modeling" task. To say and do what Jesus said and did requires us to exist in the same constant, vertical (spiritual) relationship with the Father in which our Lord Jesus existed while on earth. This fact explains why neither non-Christians, and Christians living in their own fleshly power, can speak, respond, and act as He did.

Two essential aspects about the person of Jesus must be acknowledged and accepted before this vertical relationship with God can be accomplished: (1) Jesus was a real Person in history who lived on earth for 33 years. He came to live among us in order to be our model in human form. (2) Even Jesus did nothing by His own power, initiative, will, or authority, but only by that of the Father who sent him.

We can only know God by being in relationship with His Son and following Jesus' example of following the will of the Father. Once we truly know Christ, we will no longer substitute the joy of relationship with Him for dry and ineffective information about Him. Jesus Christ is God's Word incarnate; to study God's Word means to study Jesus. The Bible commands us to be "Christ-like". It was God's intent that Scripture would draw us into a relationship with His Son so that we would be transformed into His image.

Biblical Quotes

"And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light." Matthew 17:2

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being... He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him... No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He (Jesus) has explained Him." John 1:1-3, 10, 18

"I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and my judge is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me." John 5:30

"He (Jesus) Himself gives to all life and breath and all things... For in Him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:25, 28

"...that is, the summing of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth." Ephesians 1:10

"And Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.... And He is before all things and in Him all things hold together." Colossians 1:15, 17

"...attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2:2b, 3

"...but Christ is all, and in all." Colossians 3:11e

"God...in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power..." Hebrews 1:2, 3

"By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God (Jesus), so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." Hebrews 11:3

"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and excellence." 2 Peter 1:2, 3 NASB

"'I AM the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.... I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Revelation 1:8; 22:13

Quotes

"Today the greatest single deterrent to knowledge of Jesus is His familiarity. Because we think we know Him, we pass Him by." Winnifred Kirkland

As the print of the seal on the wax is the express image of the seal itself, so Christ is the express image - - the perfect representation of God." Saint Ambrose

God never gave man a thing to do concerning which it was irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it. George MacDonald