Who is Jesus Christ?

Pamphlet Reference:
I Believe in Jesus Christ (p.4-5)
I Believe in Jesus Christ (p.6)

This would be one of the most interesting lessons. Our starting reference is John 1:1-14.
There are several aspects of the Person of Jesus Christ that we would like to address. We will start with the following questions. Please try to answer any of them as short as you can.

1. How much of Christ was God and how much was human when He came to earth? Would you say he was half-God, half-man? Why? Why not? Answer:Well, for starters, how can one conceive of a half-man? Much less a half-god? So there is NO SUCH thing as a half-man nor is there such a thing as a half-god. Having said that, Jesus Christ is FULLY GOD (Colossians 1:15,19) and FULLY MAN

   Jesus was a normal human being with a body like ours. He lived and died as a real person.

   Mark 4:38 * John 4:6 * John 19:33,34

   Luke 4:2b * John 4:7

   He had emotions and was tempted.

   Matthew 26:37,38 * Luke 10:21

   Luke 4:1,2 * John 11:35

2. Which part of Cardinal doctrine (use the Apostle's Creed for reference) would become false or contradicted if Christ were not God? If Christ is not God, he cannot "sit at the right hand of God", He cannot "judge the quick and the dead" because these are the rights only of God Himself. The phrase "His only (begotten) Son our Lord" cannot be true of Jesus Christ unless He is God Himself. Like begets like and only God can beget God. God will not beget pure man since He created man. More importantly, if Christ were not God, then Christ's sacrificial death on the cross is NOT PERFECT (since it is the death of an imperfect human) and God WILL NOT accept that and Christians would still be in their sins, unforgiven and condemned.
   
3. Which part of Cardinal doctrine (use the Apostle's Creed for reference) would become false or contradicted if Christ were not man? If Christ were not human, the following phrase would be false: "born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried" since this can only be true of someone who is human. If Christ were just God and NOT man, He CANNOT die! Note that if Christ never died for our sins, then Christians are still unforgiven and condemned to eternal death. It is Christ's death on the cross that satisfied the requirements of God's righteous judgments upon man's sin, "The wages of sin is death..." (Romans 6:23).
   

Now that we've answered the basic questions above, here are some more:

Read Philippians 2:5-11. This passage was written by St. Paul and he was trying to explain the circumstances by which GOD could and would become man.

1. Paul says that Christ "emptied" Himself. How can God empty Himself? What do you think Christ emptied Himself of (In other words, what part of His being God did he give up to become a man and still be God)? Let's lead your thinking, here are some sub-questions and note that the point of this discussion is NOT academic. The mission of this blog site is for members to enjoy their relationship with Christ. When Christ came in human form, was He OMNIPOTENT? Was He OMNISCIENT? Was he OMNIPRESENT? Did He become LESS than GOD???

   OK, for a clarification of terms, by "OMNI" we should mean 100% or it's not OMNI at all. In that case, Christ was not OMNIPOTENT when He came down as man. At the garden of Gethsemane, after some time of prayer He uttered, saying, (Luke 22:42). "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." If Christ were OMNIPOTENT at that point, it would have been OK to follow His Own will, since it would have been the will of GOD!! Christ was not OMNISCIENT either since he said in Matthew 24:36,Mark 13:32, ""But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father". Finally, since Christ came in human form, He most definitely was not OMNIPRESENT. He was not and could not be in China and Jerusalem at the same time. Note, however, that according to the doctrine of Kenosis (i.e., Christ emptying Himself of the divine powers BUT NOT DIVINE ATTRIBUTES AS WE WILL LEARN LATER), the emptying was Christ's own volition and He was simply living up to it.
   
   Now, the logical question in one's mind is therefore, if Christ emptied Himself of many of these powers, DID CHRIST CEASE TO BE GOD???? The answer is, NO WAY, Christ remained GOD, yes, God in the flesh. But one would ask, this seems to be a contradiction. How can Christ remain God and lose many, if not all, His divine powers? Don't despair, Christian, for the answer is actually Biblically simple and logical.
   
   God is LOVE! Yes, God is PERFECT, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. (John 3:16) This includes God being merciful, God being full of lovingkindness. If God loses the attribute of love, He ceases to be God, and this is an attribute that Christ did not lose at all nor could He give it up. God may willingly lose or suspend all His powers but He cannot lose the attribute of Love. Losing such attribute is what makes Him cease to be God.
   
   This is quite profound. All over the gospels, even to the point of death on the cross, Christ is love as God is love. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." is a clear expression of love and forgiveness to those who have thoroughly treated Him quite unfairly. It is this attribute of love which makes possible the PERFECT God subsequently forgiving AND accepting sinful man into His loving arms and granting Him undeservedly, ETERNAL LIFE!!! (Romans 5:8)
   
   God is SINLESS, perfectly SINLESS. God would not be God if He had or committed sin. Christ would not be God, if He were not sinless Hebrews 4:15, 1 John 3:3,5
   
   God is constantly Faithful. If Christ lost this attibute, He ceases to be God and Christ did not lose this nor did He empty Himself of this attribute. "If we are faithless, He remains faithful..." (2 Timothy 2:13)
   
   God is perfect and pure Truth.If Christ lost this attibute, He ceases to be God and Christ did not empty Himself of this attribute.John 5:33, John 8:32, John 14:6 are very solid verses that attest to this. God is full of grace. John 1:14 declared that Christ was "full of grace and truth"
   
   Note that Scripture demonstrates, contrary to what most theologians believe, that power does not necessarily define divinity. According to the Bible, since God was in Christ and in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, what Christ gave up and empty Himself of were not the essentials of divinity.
   

2. If Christ has the power to "empty" Himself at least to a certain extent, Could God the Father ALSO have the capability of EMPTYing Himself of something or anything?

   Wow, that question was thoroughly loaded, huh? The basic orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit ARE ALL CO-EQUAL. Each person is FULLY God. This means that what God can do, Christ CAN do. And what Christ CAN do, God CAN do!!! YES, God CAN and DID empty Himself.
   
   God the Father, according to many passages of Scripture, has decided to empty Himself of the power to predetermine our future. YES, He has predetermined a lot of things, like how man was going to be saved, How redeemed man was going to relate to God for all eternity, etc. However, God HAS CHOSEN, not to know if I am taking the bus to work tomorrow, or driving my car to work. God HAS CHOSEN not to know if I am drinking Vanilla Nut coffee from 7-11 or Latte from Starbucks 49 days from now. Our Loving God wants surprises. Like man, surprises excite Our God of Love. God also takes risks. He took a risk that man would not love Him when He thought of creating man. Note that TRUE LOVE involves RISK. If risk was never involved, true love cannot be proven.
   

3. Can Christ (or God) empty Himself of anything and still be GOD? Why? Why not? How?

   Provoking questions, huh? Please try to give any comments (or even questions) related to any of the above. We have a point here that we want you to think about (or rethink) in order to appreciate your personal relationship with the God of Love.

   The difference between this last question and the previous one is important. Now that we have seen that God has the capability and will to empty Himself of some of His powers (temporarily at least), we need to determine if with less of His powers, IS GOD STILL GOD? Although the earlier discussions have proven this both Biblically and logically, it is important to make this particular point obvious.
   
   To summarize our points so far, we know that God remains GOD, even if He decides to empty Himself of (or suspend the use of) some of His known powers, particularly the OMNI's (omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent). However, He has attributes that define His very being which He cannot empty Himself of: Love, Faithfulness, Sinlessnes, etc.
   
   And here is one of the important points of the lesson on Kenosis (Christ emptying Himself of divine powers to make Himself fully human and yet not sacrificing what would still retain His being fully God). Boy, if you understand and remember that definition of Kenosis, you beat most of the most of the learned theologians of all time in my book. Most Calvinist's try to deny this concept (because their implication of Kenosis tends to make Christ less than God) or skirt around it (they are almost claiming that Christ pretended to empty Himself and that He had ALL His powers during the incarnation).
   
   For those familiar with the following terms, Open Theism has been constantly under attack as bordering on the heretical, and perhaps, rightly so. Many of their flavors seem to portray God as powerless against some things. For example, they would say that God CANNOT know the unknowable, e.g., God CANNOT know the future. Although it seems logical that God cannot know what cannot be known for otherwise He has predetermined it, these statements should be rephrased or restated to include the implication that God has so decided to empty Himself of knowing all of the future so as not to predetermine ALL of its outcome. Declaring this as a volitional intent on God's part protects His overall sovereignty (and omnipotence).
   
   With the flavor we have proposed, the burden of proof that our view of Open Theism is wrong now rests with the Calvinists and doubting Arminians. Note that Calvinists would try to counter the implications of Kenosis by pointing out verses of Scripture that declare otherwise. However, they miss the hermeneutic point of failing to correctly interpret the specific passages we have pointed out. They also tend to forget that our view IN NO WAY contradicts those counter-passages they present.
   
   God has made the future "open". Although He has predetermined many things especially as it relates to His overall salvation plan, God has so chosen not to predetermine most things that are especially personal to each of us. If God wanted to, He could predetermine that you would use 112.345 milligrams of toothpaste when you brush your teeth 11 days from now. However, the Bible seems to demonstrate that God prefers NOT to do this. The Bible also shows that God created us with a free will, as free moral agents able to chose right from wrong and co-partners in the working out of His will in each of our lives and even His will for the rest of the world. This means that EACH OF US HAVE A PART in creating God's will for our lives or destroying it.
   
   This means that the results of our actions today have consequences which God may never intervene to change. There would be times when we can blow it for ourselves and God would not do anything about it and we could lose out on some area of our life (or perhaps all of it) forever. We as humans have been granted the power to either make or ruin our future. The teaching that we could mess up and God will always wipe the slate clean may be true ONLY in the sense of forgiveness, but RARELY in the sense of CONSEQUENCES for our deeds. This is a very important concept as we live the Christian life. This teaching, I believe, separates the Christian achievers from the Christian losers.
   
   The corollary implication of this is that God rejoices with us when we are victorious over our circumstances and He grieves with us when we blow it, AND THE ONLY REASON THIS IS POSSIBLE IS because God has so chosen to open the future such that He gets surprised in various degrees with the outcome of our actions whether they be good or bad. We will deal more extensively with the concepts of "man being a co-agent to the working out of God's will" in a future study on PRAYER. In that section we will explore how God may intervene in the Christian's life, whether God changes His mind about His will for our lives or about "detours" in His will for our lives, etc.