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The newspaper account of a recent civic assembly included a statement by a Christian athlete in which Our Lord Jesus Christ was described as "our marvelous Middle-Man", and "Front Runner in God's Great Game".
I doubt not that who so named Jesus is a sincere Christian simply parroting what he's learned at the feet of his teachers. He may even have been rather pleased with the expression of what he believes to be self-abasing wisdom--but he certainly was not expressing an awareness of the believer's relationship to God in, through, and by Jesus Christ.
The application to our Lord of various names such as "Superstar", "Great Giver and Taker", "God's Number One Kiddo", "The Big Guy in the Sky", "Big Boy on the Block", etc., is evidence of a church that either does not know the Lord or who, knowing, fails to feed the flock anything except the milk of the word. Such appellations applied to the Supreme Being that we know as God, show a great lack of appreciation of man's relationship to HE WHO IS, and especially a misapprehension of the nature of God Almighty, our Father and Saviour.
Further, this mawkish naming reveals a stunted spiritual comprehension, evidence of a sad lack of understanding of what God accomplished at Calvary and the heights to which Jesus ascended at His resurrection from among the dead.
We've heard and read the witness: Jesus of Nazareth came out of God's bosom, where he enjoyed the utmost of God Himself, being one with Him. This Jesus took upon Himself the nature of man, OUR flesh, OUR form, OUR humanity -- yes, the WORD, GOD HIMSELF , became flesh and dwells among and in us! Yes --he died a death that the world and religious people of the day looked upon as punishment of a criminal, a man who dared to blaspheme by calling God his Father, thus making himself equal with God.
This death seemed to be just and equitable punishment; a man on a gibbet racked with pain, thirst, humiliation, rejection -- and deserted by his most trust companions. A passerby might have looked on Him and seen a condemned, heretical, unorthodox opponent of religion, HE WAS.
The things that happened on that cross are beyond human understanding; man's languages could not express them even if he did understand.
We know, though, that Jesus' shed blood erased our sin, wiped it from memory and declared it to be forever NOT. We know that God reconciled us to Himself through Jesus EVEN WHEN WE WERE ENEMIES -- our "short falls" forgotten, never to be recalled because they don't exist. Having accomplished this He arose from among the dead and gave, has given, is giving, and will continue to give us HIS life that we might become HIS people in the earth and that He may become one with us. We have no life but His (John 14.19-20).
Middle-Man? Superstar? An idol is variously described as (1) a false god, (2) an image, (3) a figment of the imagination, (4) a false conception or notion. By applying silly names and human motives to God we reveal idolatry of our own making! Any image of God produced by the mind of man is false, and by definition, an idol - - and we are told in I John to avoid idolatry. Idol worshippers become like the idol they worship, according to the Psalmist (Psalm 115.8).
So who is Jesus and what is His name?
Isaiah 9.6, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace".
Big Boy on the Block? Guy in the Sky? Hardly! For more than 1900 years God has allowed the religious community to break Him up and reduce Him to three or more working and workable parts. Then some segments of the church arrange these parts to their liking and surround them by lesser "saints", and then try to manipulate the fragments, usually one against the other. The scriptures plainly witness Him as ONE God, whole, united, and in perfect, unchangeable harmony with Himself. There is no God save Him, and we know that Jesus witnessed that he and the Father are ONE, and that we are ONE with Him.
Yes, Jesus said it, and whether people believe it or not doesn't change its truth. It's real folks, - - not just religious, play-church mystique.
John 14.7-11, "...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." John 14.20, "...I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you". John 17.20-23, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they ALL may be ONE, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be ONE IN US: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be ONE, even as we are ONE: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in ONE...".
The demonic (quite human, in fact) attempt to reduce our Lord and Christ to the status of Big Brother, fine-payer, or go-between-good-guy is failing, even though from the appearance of things the attack seems to prosper. Remember, God is Spirit, and Spirit is reality and truth; those things that batter our human senses are temporal and are even now passing away.
Are you really concerned about the movies, books, and plays currently being touted that enlarge the baser humanity ascribed to Jesus, that put lies in His mouth and make Him less than we know Him to be? Do you not know that man, especially the religious confederacy, has been presenting Him in all kinds of silly ways for nearly 2,000 years? Have you ever seen or heard of a movie or novel or play that presents Jesus as He is ? Don't fret about the way the world sees Jesus! He said in John 12.32, "But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself". He said it! He knows all about the movies and sermons and other human failings that burden His people and He knows the present truth will swallow up all ungodliness IN GOD'S DUE TIME. Apostasy and anti-Godliness aren't new.
(How about this good news? 1 John 3.2 says, "...but we know that when He appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is").
John tells us, in the same letter written about the middle of the first century, that there were already many anti- (instead of/against) Christs in the world. That man of sin who sits in the temple of God has been gleefully misrepresenting our Lord for many centuries, and he uses books, plays, movies, schools, newspapers, politics, people, economics, SCIENCE (?), and even preachers and prophets to do the job. Isn't it great that God knows all about this and has it all fitted into His plan of the ages for us? Isaiah 14.24 says, "...surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass: as I have purposed, so shall it stand."
So someone steeped in anti-Godliness, religious tradition, and the filth of the carnal mind produced a movie, book, play, or something else that's evil! So what?
Do we not know what kind of fruit to expect from an evil tree? What should we expect the world to produce? Carnality can only produce carnality, a mind un-renewed and wallowing in vanity can only produce the filth and folly in which it is bred. Everything produces after its own kind according to the law promulgated by our Father in the beginning.
If we are at all disturbed by the events produced by this "worldly, morally decadent age", let us consider some of the preposterous, downright idiotic nonsense the "church" has brought forth. There are those calling themselves by His name who believe that they can get favors from Him by going through intermediaries, or fasting, or burning candles and so on. I once had a booklet, written by a prophet of this age, which plainly taught that the reason we can't get everything we want from God is because we don't use His right name when talking to Him. Apparently, God doesn't hear you if you don't call Him by the right name. Several names were listed, but the one I recall the best is the one used to insure a plentiful supply of mutton: "Jehovah-Jireh".
Middle-Man! At least the man who used that term had some scriptural reason to do so, and he sure didn't portray our Lord as the milquetoast meddler and public relations man that a large percentage of our Chrisian assemblies think he is. Nor did he shove Jesus off into a corner of the heavens after He accomplished only a little bit of what He came to do. And there He sits, just waiting for the right moment to zap creation, sift out a chosen few and torture the remainder in an endless orgy of unspeakable suffering.
Neither does the term "Middle-Man" make our Lord inaccessible by anything but a liturgical labyrinth of supplications made to a bevy of dead sinners who have been revised and edited and then promoted to "sainthood". And promoted by whom? The world, of course.
Just recently I heard a popular preacher, a "Doctor of Divinity" (whatever that is), tell his huge congregation that this Christ of ours who said he came to do the Father's will and declared "It is finished!" failed. And why? Because man hasn't taken the gospel to the farthest corners of the earth! (And then the pitch for money, of course -- because God is fiscally incompetent and can't produce converts without the right program, correctly financed).
How small we make our God!!
We know God can't fail, just as we know man without Him can't succeed. God knows Adam is a loser -- that's why He destroyed Adam's nature on that cross. Adam can't win and Christ can't fail -- and Christ in man, one with the Father is successful, more than a conqueror -- he's heir of the Kingdom of the Living God.
Don't give a second's credence to a gospel (which is no gospel) that is not sure of Jesus Christ's victory and His life in you. HE IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD AND HE IS LORD!! CHRIST IN YOU IS THE HOPE OF GLORY.
The religious world has presented us with many false conceptions of our God and Saviour, imaginations bred in the abominably profane mind of man that, being hostile to God, can't perceive or hold the things of God.
God is displayed by the "church" variously, as a helpless babe, a pitiful dead man hanging on a gibbet, a corpse in his mother's arms or a wimp sitting next to God off in the Ozone somewhere! And there he sits while the world into which He lowered Himself, for which He died and lives, goes its insane way, completely messing up His plan of the ages; out of control and bound for everlasting destruction and torment (except for a few select souls). Much of churchanity would have you believe that the Father and the Son oppose one another -- a wrathful, hateful Father bent on our destruction and "eternal" torment, and a Jesus just sitting there saying "No, Father, Don't hurt them, please! Remember my blood! Remember I died for them. Come now, Repent!"
Should we be upset about a worldly, unregenerate, ungodly cosmos that produces evil, unregenerate fruit? The movies I mentioned earlier are reputed to be blasphemous, and I don't doubt it, but you can hear blasphemy on TV and radio daily, and at church on Sunday and Wednesday if you care to. Blasphemy has been rampant many millennia AND JESUS CHRIST IS STILL LORD .
So we see that both church and non-church, the called and the yet-to-be-called, have vague, often hateful, stupid and even ludicrous conceptions of our Lord, and THAT'S IDOLATRY.
Who then, is Jesus Christ our Lord? Well, we have the witness of the scripture and the Spirit.
You recall what Jesus said to the religious people of his time, in John 5.39-40 (NIV):
"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to ME to have life".
We have seen that the scriptures name Him, "The Almighty God", "The Everlasting Father", "The Prince of Peace". Jude, in the closing verse of his writing calls God our "Saviour", so our Saviour is God! Peter speaks of "the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" and admonishes us to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (The word "Lord" used in the New Testament is, in the Greek, "kurios", equivalent to Yahweh, God Almighty, and the other names of God used in the Old Testament).
In Isaiah 43.3, God says that He is "the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour", and in verse 11 of the same chapter he states plainly, "I, even I am the LORD; and beside me there is no other saviour". Same book, chapter 45, verse 21 says, in part, "...and there is NO God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour: There is none beside me." Isaiah 49-26, "...and all flesh shall know I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy REDEEMER, the MIGHTY ONE of Jacob."
There's more! Isaiah 60.16, "...and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer...". Hosea 13.4, "...there is no Saviour beside me." Mary identified God as Saviour in Luke 1.47. In Luke 2.11 the messengers of God say that a Saviour is born which is Christ the Lord.
The scriptures abound with witness of Jesus Christ's true identity. Paul equates our Lord Jesus with God the Saviour in many of his opening remarks; he plainly calls God our Saviour in 1 Timothy 2.3 and wonderfully says in 1 Timothy 4.10 that God is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe --"every man in his own order", (1 Corinthians 15.23).
Isn't He great?? How can one do other than love this Almighty God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Head of our Body?
More witnesses: In Titus 1.3 Paul names God our Saviour and in verse 4 names Jesus Christ our Saviour. Chapter 2.13 of the same book says we're to be "awaiting the blessed hope and glorious appearing (epiphany, manifestation) of our Great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ". Chapter 3 verse 4 and 6 again equate God, Jesus Christ, and Saviour.
Search the scriptures! Not to establish or refute what I say here but to find God in Jesus Christ.
Tell me, who is the spirit that quickens you? The Holy Spirit? Yes--and who do you think that Holy Spirit is? God, right? There is ONE God, ONE Spirit, ONE power, ONE life, ONE way, ONE truth in all creation--and He is LORD!
When you are joined to the Lord you're one spirit, and there's only one body and one spirit! 1 Corinthians 6.17 and Ephesians 4.4. Look it up!
My intention is to proclaim this mighty God in such a way that your love for Him will cause you to seek Him in prayer more assiduously than you do in scriptures--a seeking that will reveal His true nature, tearing down all the vain imaginations, the false ideas of God that lurk in the recesses of your church or non-church experience. I don't wish to harangue and cajole--just reveal what has pleased Him to reveal in me.
Look at Acts 2.32-36: God is speaking through Peter, and, as it were, putting the icing on the cake. "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, (let the reader understand!!) and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my LORD, sit thou on my right hand (i.e. a place of power, authority and honor that is active, living and spiritual) until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both LORD AND CHRIST ". (Parentheses mine).
Another layer of icing: Phillipians 2.5-11 (Literal), "For let this mind be in you which (was) also in Christ Jesus. Who in (the) form of God subsisting, esteemed it not rapine to be equal with God; but emptied himself, having taken a bondsman's form, in (the) likeness of men having become; and in figure having been found as a man he humbled himself, having become obedient unto death, even the death of (the) cross. Wherefore also God him highly exalted and granted to him a name which is above EVERY name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of (beings) in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ (is) Lord to (the) glory of God (the) Father." (See also Isaiah 45.22ff)
"...a name which is above every name." If it's above every name then all other names are below it. (Keep that in mind.)
Eschew the teachings of man; resolutely shun the harlotry of the street corner, the TV set and radio, the money-grubbing, self-ordained prophets of the age, BUT DO NOT CONDEMN THEM! You and I must, as Christ's Body, fill up His sufferings with our patient vigilance, awaiting His time to change this vile adversary into a friend. This world that dashes about wildly after weird gods that are not God; that sacrifices, exposing it's carnal nature under every green tree and on every hill is the creation God gave Himself for, the world He loves and that we must come to love with enChristed hearts.
And "be of good cheer! I've overcome the world", said our Saviour-God. Beloved, there is no God but God and His name is Jesus--condemner of none, Saviour of ALL!
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols."
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