"Truly This Man Was The Son Of God!"

Mark 15:39

Every believer, every Christian, when speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, asserts with confidence and joy what the centurion who helped to crucify him said with astonishment and fear: -- "Truly this man was the Son of God." We assert the fact of Christ's divinity with confidence because it is plainly revealed in Scripture and because there is simply no other way to reasonably explain his existence. We assert this fact with joy because he who is both God and man in one glorious person is able to save our souls.

When the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, it is declaring to us that Jesus Christ is God the eternal Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity (1 John 5:7), in every way equal with the Father and the Spirit. We who believe are the sons of God by adoption. But Christ is the Son of God by nature. To say that he is the Son of God is to declare that this Man, whose name is Jesus, is himself God over all, blessed forever. He is not just a God, a likeness of God, or a creature of God. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh (John 1:1-3). All the attributes of divinity belong to him. He is the Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, and Disposer of all things.

We acknowledge and rejoice in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Revelation of God (John 1:18). He alone is the image of the invisible God. He reveals God fully. And he alone reveals God. God cannot be known and will not make himself known, God cannot be approached by and will never approach any creature, except in the person of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot know, trust, worship, or serve God apart from Christ. However, we must never imagine that those who speak of Christ only as a revelation of God honor him. They do not. They blaspheme him! Jesus Christ is much more than the revelation of God.

Our all-glorious Lord Jesus Christ is himself God. If Jesus Christ is not God, if he is anything less than almighty God, we have no Savior. He is an impostor, a fake, a charlatan. None but God could make atonement for our sins. That man who was born at Bethlehem, who died upon the cross, who rose again the third day, and now sits upon the throne of heaven is God (Col. 2:9). He is as fully God as though he was not man, and as fully man as though he was not God.

Modern theologians, who think they are smarter than God, may not be able to understand his words, but those who heard him speak understood him perfectly. When the Jews, determined to execute him as a blasphemer, told him plainly why they so despised him. "Because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God" (John 10:33). Thomas understood his words. He beheld his Redeemer and joyfully confessed, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). The Apostle Paul, writing by divine inspiration, declares that the man Christ Jesus is "over all, God blessed for ever" (Rom.9:5). And God the Father himself, as he welcomed his Son back to heaven, declared him to be God (Heb. 1:8).