"Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can no nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.
"For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
"For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
"For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,
"that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
"For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,
"and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
"Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in graves will hear His voice
"and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
"I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge: and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me."

Message:
The accusation...HE MADE HIMSELF EQUAL WITH GOD!
And for this claim...they killed Him.
When we summarize the teaching of Scripture, we come to the conclusion that the biblical teaching about the person of Christ is this: JESUS CHRIST WAS FULLY GOD AND FULLY MAN IN ONE PERSON, AND WILL BE SO FOREVER.

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Some years ago a Christian minister was preaching in a Midland town, when he was interrupted by a man in the audience who loudly challenged the preacher's emphasis on the deity of Christ.
As the interrupter was insistent, the preacher felt obliged to address him directly for a moment, telling him that if he really wished to ask a serious question he could do so, on the understanding that there were no more interruptions from him.
The man proved to be a "Millennial Dawnist"; and this was his objection: "You say that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, and co-equal with the eternal Father; but He cannot be, for if He be God's Son He cannot be as old as the Father, since no son is as old as his father; and if Christ is not as old as the Father, then He is not eternal; and if He is not eternal, then He cannot be God, as you say He is."
What would the preacher say to that?
Well, he paused for a moment, and then gave this devastating reply: "Out of your own mouth will I condemn you. You yourself have just called God the eternal Father. Does it not strike you that God can only be the eternal Father by having an eternal Son? Eternal Fatherhood demands eternal sonship. Moreover, you have said that Christ, the Son, cannot be as old as the Father because no son is as old as his father, and that Christ, therefore, cannot be eternal. You are wrong there too, for strictly speaking, no father, as such, is older than his son, and no son is younger that his father. When did my own father begin to be my father? He began to be my father at the very same moment that I became his son. He is therefore exactly as old as a father as I am as a son! The very terms 'Father' and 'Son', as used of the Godhead, imply co-equality in nature, and co-eternalness."
There were no further interruptions!--and we can leave the preacher's reply to make its own impression.
As I have noted in the previous lesson, the deity of Jesus Christ is profoundly important as one of the foundational doctrines of our Christian faith. We have also noted that the deity of Christ is the first thing that cults seek to destroy with their teachings, and thus it is important to have a good understanding of this doctrine in order that we might defend our faith with those who challenge this biblical doctrine.

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Paul writes to the Christians in Philippi these words: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5-11)

This early hymn of the church celebrates Jesus as the One who, because of His willing submission to humiliation and death, has been elevated by God to a position of supremacy over the universe and invested with the title 'Lord'--'the name high over all'. This hymn opens with a statement that goes back before the time when Jesus' human life began. 'He always existed in the form of God', it says, 'but did not regard His equality with God as something to be exploited for His own advantage. Instead of that, He divested Himself of all that he had and took the form of a servant. These words do not mean that He exchanged 'the form of God' for 'the form of a servant', but rather that He manifested the form of God in the form of a servant. Jesus Christ did not become less than God when He took upon Himself human flesh.
The word 'form' does not imply that He was an actor playing a variety of parts, now the part of God and now the part of a servant; it implies that He shared the true nature of God and displayed that nature on earth. Paul is here declaring that Jesus, in coming to earth, only changed role and status, not essential attributes or nature.
Between the years of 1860 and 1880, in Germany and in England, a group of theologians advocated a view of the INCARNATION that had not been advocated before in the history of the church. This new view was called "THE KENOSIS THEORY" and the overall position it represented held that Christ gave up some of His divine

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attributes while He was on earth as a man. According to the theory Christ emptied Himself of some of His divine attributes, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. This was viewed as a voluntary self-limitation on Christ's part, which He carried out in order to fulfill His work of redemption.
If it were true that such a momentous event as this happened, that the eternal Son of God ceased for a time to have all the attributes of God--ceased, for a time, to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, for example--then we would expect that such an incredible event would be taught clearly and repeatedly in the New Testament, not found in the very doubtful interpretation of one word in one epistle! You see...this theory is based upon the translation of one word found in verse 7 of Philippians 2...the word is KENOO. The King James translates the word..."made Himself of no reputation, the NIV translates the phrase..."made Himself nothing." The Greek word KENOO generally means, "to empty." The reason why the theory is called the KENOSIS THEORY is because it is taken from the words..."to empty."
The KENOSIS THEORY ultimately denies the full deity of Jesus Christ and makes Him something less than fully God. We reject this theory!
JESUS CHRIST WAS FULLY GOD AND FULLY MAN IN ONE PERSON, AND WILL BE SO FOREVER.
"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son:
In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.
For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." (Colossians 1:13-19)

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In this passage from Colossians, Paul says that Jesus Christ is the IMAGE of the invisible God. Here he uses a word and a picture which would awaken all kinds of memories in the minds of those who heard it.
The word is EIKON, and IMAGE is its correct translation. An IMAGE can be two things which merge into each other. It can be a REPRESENTATION: but a representation, if it is perfect enough, can become a MANIFESTATION. When Paul uses this word, he lays it down that Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God! To see what God is like, we must look at Jesus.
John 14:8-11 says: "Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.
Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for the very works' sake."

Jesus Christ perfectly represents God to men in a form which they can see and know and understand.
In the Colossian passage, Paul said something else very interest about Christ. He said that He was the firstborn of all creation. We must be very careful to attach the right meaning to this phrase. As it stands in English, it might well mean the Son was the first person to be created, but in Hebrew and Greek thought the word FIRSTBORN has only very indirectly a time significance. There are two things to note. FIRSTBORN

it very commonly a title of HONOUR. Israel, for instance, as a nation is the firstborn son of God (Ex. 4:22). The meaning is that the nation of Israel is the most favored child of God.
Second, we must note that FIRSTBORN is a title of the MESSIAH. In Psalm 89:27, as the Jews themselves interpreted it, the promise regarding the Messiah is "I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. Clearly, FIRSTBORN is not used in a time sense at all, but in a sense of special honour!

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So when Paul says of the Son that he is the FIRSTBORN of all creation, he means that the highest honour which creation holds belongs to Him. It was for the Son that all things were created. The Son is not only the agent of creation, He is all the goal of creation. That is to say, creation was created to be His and that in its worship and its love He might find His honour and His joy.
Paul uses another interesting phrase in this passage. He says: "In Him all things hold together." This means that not only is the Son the agent of creation in the beginning and the goal of creation in the end, but between the beginning and the end, during time as we know it, it is He who holds the world together. That is to say, all the laws by which this world is order and not chaos are an expression of the mind of the Son. The law of gravity and the rest, the laws by which the universe hangs together, are not only scientific laws but also divine.
SO THEN, THE SON IS THE BEGINNING OF CREATION, AND THE END OF CREATION, AND THE POWER WHO HOLDS CREATION TOGETHER, THE CREATOR, THE SUSTAINER, AND THE FINAL GOAL OF THE WORLD!
In Paul's opening comments to the church at Corinth, he has these very interesting words to say: "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:22-24)
Then he continues this thought in chapter 2. "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
Which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1 Cor. 2:7-8)
IN THIS PASSAGE, CHRIST IS CALLED...THE WISDOM OF GOD. In the Old Testament, especially in those documents which make up the "wisdom" literature (notably Job, Proverbs, and a few of the psalms), the wisdom of God is credited with the creative agency which is elsewhere ascribed to the word of God. Psalms 33:6 says that "by

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the WORD of the Lord the heavens were made', Proverbs 3:19 says that 'The Lord by WISDOM founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens." In this statement WISDOM is simply an abstract noun, parallel to 'understanding'; it is an attribute of God. But there are other places in the wisdom literature where WISDOM is personified. The most notable of these places is Proverbs 8:22-31. There WISDOM speaks in the first person singular as the eldest and best-loved child of the ALMIGHTY, His companion before the world was made, serving Him as Master-workman when creation's work began.
John the evangelist launches his Gospel with the threefold declaration that the Word existed in the beginning, that the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Then he repeats part of that declaration in the next sentence by saying that 'He was in the beginning with God' (John 1:2) But when he does that, he is not indulging in mere repetition for the sake of repetition. He is concerned rather to say, 'This "WORD" that I have just spoken about is identical with the WISDOM which, according to the Book of Proverbs, was at God's side as "the beginning of His way." When Christ was called THE WISDOM OF GOD, the wisdom of God was identified as a real person and that person was Jesus Christ!
Now, with this explanation, let’s read the Proverbs passage (8:22-31) from the Amplified Bible and we see that it is an Old Testament description of Jesus Christ "The Lord formed and brought me [Wisdom] forth at the beginning of His way, before His acts of old.
I [Wisdom] was inaugurated and ordained from everlasting, from the beginning, before ever the earth existed. When there were no deeps, I was brought forth, when there were no fountains laden with water.
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth.
While as yet He had not made the land or the fields or the first of the dust of the earth.
When He prepared the heavens, I [Wisdom] was there;
When He drew a circle upon the face of the deep and stretched out the firmament over it,
When He made firm the skies above, when He established the fountains of the deep.
When He gave to the sea its limit and His decree that

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the waters should not transgress [across the boundaries set by] His command, when He appointed the foundations of, the earth--
Then I [Wisdom] was beside Him as a master and director of the work: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always,
Rejoicing in His inhabited earth and delighting in the sons of men."

The same WISDOM background is presupposed in the opening words of the letter to the Hebrews, where the Son of God is said to be the one 'through whom also He created the world' (Hebrews 1:2). The unknown writer of this letter goes on to describe the Son of God as ‘upholding the universe by His word of power (Heb. 1:3) this is paralleled in Colossians, as we have noted, 'in Him all things hold together."
We now come back to the first verse of our lesson which says: "Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God."
John 10:30 says: "I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE."

I close our lesson today with the words of a beautiful poem:
Ancient of Days, radiant hope of peace, Expected long, to bring divine release,
Portrayed in every phase of power and love, Christ our Saviour, sent from heaven above!
Before all time, Designer of the years, molder of world history and the spheres;
Dividing nations, limiting their bounds, ordaining kings, who wear their golden crowns.
The Covenant Maker, and the Faithful God, Who lives to sway the everlasting rod;
Foretold by prophets to appear on earth, submits and enters by a virgin birth.
Wondrous thought! Emmanuel, God with men! Such condescension lies beyond ken,
The Glorious God assumes a human form, and in our midst, the Prince of Peace is born!
Awake my soul and bow in rapturous praise, with anthem, hymn, and psalm thy voice upraise!
The Saviour conquers death and cancels sin, Earth's final battle He is sure to win! Amen!