“The Case for Christ: - Historic Jesus/Glorified Christ”

For some time now, we have been studying the fact of Jesus Christ. 

In the light of what we have seen of Him from the Scriptures thus far, I would like to start this evening with a question, and it is this:

Can we really bring together the history of Jesus of Nazareth Who the disciples knew and the history of the risen Christ Paul preached and apply Him to ourselves in our day? 

Can we really bring together the ‘new’ of today’s knowledge and experiences with the ’old’ of their beliefs and observations of Him?

Let us look at this together tonight.

We start with Paul’s outlook on the matter. 

It is in Phil 2:5-11, where we see him following Jesus’ example of bringing out from the storehouse ‘treasures new and old.’

There, he presented the ‘new’ of Christ in relationship with Christ’s heavenly pre-existence in His equality with God.

He brought together the historic Jesus of Nazareth with the living, risen Christ: it was the ‘new’ that was linked with the ‘old’. 

And, although he was not privileged, as the disciples were, to know Jesus in the flesh, he did learn Christ through the
first-hand experience of the revealed, glorified Christ.

Not only could he say: ‘...the Head of Christ is God’, but he could also say - from the reality of the work of Christ in himself, from what he saw of Christ in the Old Testament writings, and in what he saw in the structure of the early church - he could say that ‘...[God] gave Him[Christ] to be the head over all things to the church.’ (Eph 1:22)

Now - did the early church follow this line of Paul’s thought?

Oh, yes, it did! 

The reality of the life of Jesus and His work among men was undeniably connected with the reality of the power of the resurrected, ascended Christ to carry them through all of life. 

They believed in God, yes, but they were believers in God through Christ!

They could talk of that love of God to others, but it was because they knew about the powerful love of God in Christ!

They dared to ‘look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness’, but they knew it was the righteousness of God coming through Christ! (2 Pet 3:13) 

Beliefs, new and old, the whole movement of existence, was penetrated by the presence of Christ in the life of the church and in their individual lives!

With Him, and in Him, and of Him, there were no other examples, there were no rivals, there were no parallels, there were no additions, there were no expansions, there were no substitutes!  

He was incommensurable! By that, I mean, that He could not be measured against any nor compared with any others.

They brought Jesus and the Christ together as a matchless character in purpose and Person. 

They knew that on the one side He had opened Himself fully to the purpose of God, while on the other side, He gave His life just as fully to the service and salvation of men. 
 
On the one side there was the Incarnation, receiving God into human flesh in the full.

On the other side there was the Cross endured in His human flesh with no corresponding equal by any.

The absolute uniqueness of His death and resurrection was an event that none could replicate!

Faith in Him was the only faith that met the common need that was, and is, expressed in all religions, in all the philosophies, in all the speculations, and in all the longings of men!

Out from His Headship over the church came the reality of His ascendancy, His deity, and His saving power!

So - to the early church - Jesus Christ, the faith of Christ, the faith in and on Christ, stood alone.

Is it any wonder, then, that those in the early church, including the disciples who knew Jesus of earthly history - is it any wonder that they all were willing servants of the risen, glorified Christ?

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Now - let us go back to the question before us again. 

It is this: can we, like the early church, still hold in our day, today, not only the historic view of Jesus but also the view of a present, living Lord and Savior, Head over all, in every sense? 

Or must we bring Him down from this absolute and solitary place and put Him in a place of comparison alongside of other humanistic faiths?

One of the strongest tendencies of modern thought today is to try to separate those two facts: of the historic Jesus over and against the living Christ.

Some insist on bringing Christ into the human, ethical thought of a purely naturalistic Jesus.

He is someone to be admired, perhaps as a good example, or a superb teacher of high values and morals, but not someone to worship.

Others hold Him to a more idealized tradition: He showed such a supreme ‘spirit of love and unselfishness’, of ‘self-sacrifice and complete devotion to the truth’ that it is vogue to emulate Him.

And, by most, He is classified among those other religions as another option that we have toward reaching ‘spirituality’ - and I put that word in quotes!

In essence, we are being encouraged to ‘just separate the Jesus of history from the present, active Christ and you have a religion. That way you can be tolerant and accepting.’ 
 
But - what did Paul say to such a view?

It was anathema! It would take all hope out of life and end the Christian faith altogether.

And we would be putting Jesus Christ to death once and for all!

Look at what he said in 1 Cor 15:12-19. I will read some excerpts from it.

1 Cor 15:13-17: ‘...if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain...then Christ is still dead...and your faith is worthless and you are still in your old state of sin...’. 

John’s reply to the same challenge is in 1 Jn 4:1-3.

1 Jn 4:1-3: ‘Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

This is how we recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Incarnate Christ is of God:

And every spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.’

To both Paul and John, the separation of Christ from the Jesus of history was an impossibility!

You see - if the Son of God in heaven is not the same Jesus Whom the disciples knew on earth, then we are living a lie!

Of course, not all hold to this truth. But what was it the angel said at Christ’s ascension?

‘This same Jesus - this same Jesus - which was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven.’

He - Who had been with the disciples as their constant Guide, Teacher, and Companion, and He - Who revealed Himself to Paul - was the same Person, and none other.

Yes - I repeat - if Christ is not the living, present God, the history of the New Testament simply dissolves!

The fact of the Jesus of history, the Jesus of Nazareth, and the fact of the risen, glorified Christ present in the church today is inseparable.

And the church and all those hundreds and thousands of believers who have spread the simple faith of Christ in God for centuries would be counted among ‘all men most miserable’, if Jesus, the Christ, had died in vain.

So - we do not put a great deal of importance or emphasis on the arguments and comparisons the world lays out before us.

This we know - that, as Peter was ‘gird about’ by the living Christ, so was John, and all the others.

And so are all those who are Christ’s - yes - even today!

And, although it was stated in a negative context in Jer 13:11, it does reveal this as God’s intention for His people.

Let me read you parts of what the Lord said when He was talking about the ‘girdle’ He put around His people.

To them, it did no good since they did not listen. 

But He gave the purpose of it: ‘For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so I had intended the whole house of Judah to cleave unto Me...that they might be to Me a people, My glory, My honor, and My boast...’.

That was written in the ‘old’ - and, in the ‘new’ - it is written as ‘Christ in you, the ‘hope of glory’, the hope of that glory of being God’s people!

And - because there is this purpose unto life, His people have learned, in all of their trials and problems, to trust Him - period!

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We know that life and experience are the great persuaders of life toward faith in the living Christ!

This is why His people rely more on prayer and the power God has given in prayer than in anything else!

And this one tremendous fact alone verifies the purpose of His people in His church.

Look at Isa 56:6-7 where it speaks of those who ‘...join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants...even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer...for My house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.’

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But - do we hear someone saying: ‘The world has changed. You still cannot expect that same faith the early church had to operate in the same way today’? 

So - what good does it do to follow Paul’s example to ‘preach Christ’ in our day?

He said in Rom 10:14: ‘How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?’

It is true that we can present a crude commentary about the truth of Jesus Christ to others but that can be relied upon only to a certain extent.

And - that is because Christianity has a certain appeal to man’s conscience, weak as it is on its own: the human mind can adapt to it in a sort of practical way.

But the life in Christ will never be understood unless there is a work deep within for - what we have - is not a system: it is a life which is the experience of the true fact of a real Divine Person! 

Yes - we are well aware of the changes that have taken place in the various concepts and thought about the world around us, about the universe, about man and the power of his mind.

But do not think those things have diluted or weakened the ground on which the church has placed its faith.

Oh - no! Those things have actually strengthened it! 

We stand in awe that the power of Christ steps above and beyond the modern miracles of science, medicine, thought, and technology! 

Do not think that something like a ‘stem-cell procedure’ cannot be placed into the hands of Christ without the expectation of His activity in it! 

It works by the faith of the church that stands firm in the uniqueness, in the finality, and in the deity of the active Christ today!

So - yes - we bring the ‘new’ of today with the ‘old’ of the disciples and of Paul’s day together.

And - we emphatically declare: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!’

That was the faith of the early church and it is our faith still!

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I firmly believe that the renewing of the true, simple faith in the power and the victory of Jesus Christ operating today must come in a fuller and a greater measure than ever before.

I also firmly believe that the truth of the living, active Christ must have such a deep influence that it will be truly said that the three short years of Jesus’ earthly ministry has done more to soften and change men’s hearts than all the lectures of all the philosophers and all the appeals of all the moralists put together have done!

But coming to that realization does not come from deliberate measures of men’s devices.

It can - and will - only come from a growing power of the Spirit of God among His people!

I repeat: only a growing power of Christ through the administration of the Holy Spirit in each of His people will bring it about!

The world is facing a low tide at the moment. The times ahead are not going to be easy!

But - do not think that those who have gone through ‘hard psychological, spiritual, and physical problems’ have gone through these things in vain!

It has been through these trying times that the church has learned how living, vital, and relevant Christ was and is!

We have learned to put our past aside - to let the love of Christ - yes, the love of Christ, His actual love - constrain our actions and attitudes.

We have learned that it is the growing power of the Holy Spirit that ‘pulls together’ and nothing less nor more!

And - as we face the days ahead - we know the hard times will be no different but we will thank God that He has taught us well! 

Always remember - that low tide does not mean that the ocean has disappeared!

Believe me - Christ works just as powerfully today as He did in Paul’s day!

Yes - there are plenty of secondary expressions of this matter of the ‘Christian faith’. And there are many false expressions that would seek to replace it!

But - we stick to the matter of that central, simple conviction: that Jesus, the Nazarene, Who is the Christ, the Son of God, is the only living, active Lord and Savior!

And we pray that more people, in the steadfastness of a personal faith, and in the little groups that are all about us - which someone has termed as the ‘bundles of life’ - that we will hold fast and cling to Christ more than ever before since Jesus’ earthly ministry.

So - to answer the original question - yes, a thousand times, yes - our belief in the establishment of the kingdom of God by the activity of the living Christ is the same as it was for Paul in his day and the disciples in their day! 

I trust we are all able to agree with Paul when he said about Jesus, the Christ: ‘He is highly exalted and given a Name that is above every Name...that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’ today and forever!

Amen!  Let us pray!