(Ver 1.2)  This is Part 3 in a Bible Study series of unlocking the Myths of Jesus taught in the modern Church.  If you have not read all of the series you might like to start with “Part 1“.   My subject today is an introduction to a basic Bible truth of the deity of Christ.  Was Christ a man or was Christ God in the flesh?   I have recently had a few people ask me a question in implied terms that they did not understand who Jesus was.  Some look at Jesus as being only the Son of God and certainly He was this.  Some look at Jesus as being a Prophet of God and certainly He was this.  Still others look at Jesus as being the Son of Man and again He was this also.  However, the basis of salvation is hinged upon a much larger truth that states Jesus Christ was God coming to the earth personally in the flesh and dying for your sins.  That is what is important to know from studying the Bible.  The foundational basis of the entire New Testament is the Old Testament prophecies that state God will come to the earth in the flesh.  Jesus Himself when confronted by the religious leaders of His day spoke some very interesting and important words that affirm man’s ignorance:

Joh 5:39  Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

As you can clearly see Jesus Christ was telling the religious leaders that their books of the Law written by Moses contained words that identified Him.  Clearly this revelation took the religious leaders by surprise and they did not believe Jesus.  However, here was God in the flesh speaking to His people and telling them I have come and they wanted to kill Him because He claimed to be the Son of God making Himself equal to God according to John 5:18.   What does it mean to be equal with God?  Who was Jesus claiming to be?  Exactly what verses is Jesus referring to that testifies of God coming in the flesh?  This is the problem that the Jews did not understand that this information was in the Bible.  This information was not clearly presented in natural terms because it was hidden spiritual information and they could not comprehend it with their human minds.  I am going to show you a few of the hidden references to the fact that Jesus is prophesied to come in concealed terms starting with Genesis 1.  I have written on this fact before so I will not cover it in-depth, but I will just give you an overview of the concepts.  2 Peter 3:8 says that a day is as a 1000 years and 1000 years is even as a day to the Lord.   This is a basic clue to the fact that every day mentioned in Genesis 1 is a prophetic day of human history.  Since Adam was created, it has been approximately 6000 years and that would correspond to the 6 days of creation.  On Day 4 God establishes two great lights to rule the day and the night.  These great lights are the sun and the moon and the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night.  Using 2 Peter 3:8 we can multiply 1000 by 4 days and get a period of 4000 years when this was to occur.  What happened 4000 years after Adam?  Guess what, Jesus came into the earth and was born in a manger in Bethlehem.   Jesus is revealed to be the “Sun of Righteousness” in Malachi 4:2.  Jesus Himself claimed to be the “Light of the World” (John 9:5) and this was a clear reference to God who is Light (1 John 1:5) coming into the world on Day 4 of human history.  Therefore, Jesus was encoded within creation in the first chapter of Genesis to have an exact prophesied entrance into the world at the precise time that was written about by Moses many hundreds of years before it happened.  I have written about this in other Bible lessons in more detail so if you did not understand it, you should go and search my blogs and find these lessons and study them.  What I want you to see is a designed plan of God being revealed in hidden terms, but yet when discovered it is very profound and almost impossible to deny the deity of Christ.

Next, I want to give you another hidden prophesied statement found in the Bible that speaks of God coming to the earth in the flesh.  Again it is hidden, but yet you can find it if you dig deep enough for it.  This hidden prophecy comes in Genesis 5 and this chapter is widely ignored in the Bible, but yet it contains some very powerful evidence that you should see.  Genesis 5 contains a genealogy of the first 10 descendants from Adam, stating the generations from Adam to Noah.  Of course this is not all of the children of Adam and it does not include the vast majority of the descendants of Adam and Eve, but these are the selected people that God put in the Book for a reason.  It is important to note that all of these people are real individuals that actually lived on the earth.  God did not make up this information nor did He orchestrate it to force it to happen this way.  Yet when you see what I am about to show you, you will wonder how this is possible.  Let’s look at the list of these people who God gives in this chapter of Genesis and see what they say to us.  Did you know they were speaking to you?   If you understand how God writes the Bible, you already know that you will not find the information on the surface that you are looking for.  If you could do that you would have no further choice, but to believe in the God who wrote the book.  No, you have to dig deep and examine every word if you want to discover the hidden truths.  Jesus gave us a law from God that states “He who seeks finds”.  The opposite of that truth would be “He, who does not seek, does without”.   What I am going to do is give you a chart of each name found in the Genesis 5 genealogy and then list the definition of that Hebrew name from the Strong’s concordance.  Did you know that Hebrew names almost always have a meaning attached to them?  This is one way that God uses to hide information in the Bible for us to find.  Here are the 10 names:

These are the first 10 names in the Bible from Adam to Noah along with their Strong’s definitions.  All but one name has a known Hebrew meaning.  We know from reading in Luke 3 that these names are repeated as fathers of Jesus, who was the son of Mary.  I want to focus in on just the first 8 names in the genealogy of Adam and what they say to us using the Hebrew definitions of their names.  If you combine them and read the Hebrew definitions all together as a sentence you get a basic decree that says something like this:

Man substituted mortal dwelling, but the Praise of God will come down to initiate a man sword.

This statement is the fall of man and the basic plan of redemption of God in a nutshell.  Man failed, he sinned becoming a mortal resulting in him substituting the eternal for the temporary.   But, God comes down personally as a human man to initiate a dividing force to be the sword of the Almighty that brings to us salvation.  You may not understand what that means, but nonetheless it is very important.  There are some words of Jesus in the book of Matthew where Jesus tells us why He has come down here on the earth and He says this:

Mat 10:34  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Why would Jesus claim to bring a sword into the world and not peace?  This is a paradox when analyzed with other statements in the Bible.  Jesus is called the “Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6) and yet Jesus says this is not why I have come.  What does a sword do?  I will do a teaching on this subject soon, so I will not explain it right now.  However, you can clearly see the reference to the sword that was prophesied in Genesis 5.  In Revelation 19:15, Jesus is described as having a sword that comes out of His mouth and this is not an accident or a coincidence.  This is the location of the sword that Jesus brought into the earth with Him.   You can clearly see by looking at the Genesis 5 name definitions a specific statement that shows us that God comes down and becomes a man with a sword.  This is just another example of a hidden reference to God becoming a man.

Next, I want to show you another example of God coming to the earth using a story found in Genesis 22 and again we will see a story with hidden meanings.  Here in this chapter of Genesis, Abraham is taking his only begotten son Isaac on a journey to a hill near the future city of Jerusalem.  Abraham is taking everything that he needs to make a sacrifice to be obedient to what God has instructed him to do.  On the way up the hill Abraham’s son Isaac asks his father a very specific and direct question:

Gen 22:7  And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

Isaac brilliantly notices there is no animal to sacrifice and says “Father, where is the lamb?”   Obviously Isaac understood what they were doing and they must have done this before and he knew that you needed a lamb for a sacrifice.  UH OH?  That is a problem if you were the child.  It would appear that you were the sacrifice.  Isaac was not stupid.  I can personally hear it in his voice as he asks the question.   I’m sure that the words pierce his father’s heart since this is the promised son that he waited for to come and after many years he was born on the earth.  Does any of this sound familiar to you?  Do you see how Abraham is a type of God?  Do you see how Isaac is a type of Jesus the Son of God?  Here was Abraham’s response to his son’s difficult question:

Gen 22:8  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

Wow, this is a faith statement if I have ever heard one.  Abraham tells his son Isaac that God will provide the sacrifice.  In fact what it says is that God is the sacrifice.  So they continue up the hill getting ready to make the sacrifice for God.  Abraham builds God an altar and is about to slay his son when an angel stops him and this is what happens next:

Gen 22:13  And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

It just so happens that there is a ram that is caught by his horns near where Abraham is, so Abraham goes and gets this animal and sacrifices it to God.   The implications to this story are far reaching.  Jesus is called the Lamb of God in the New Testament in John 1:29 and 36.  Jesus is also referred to as the Lamb in Revelation several times.  So Jesus is clearly the Son of God (1 John 5:20).  Who is always the father of a lamb?  In the natural world a ram is always the father of a lamb.  So symbolically speaking this story in Genesis is about God coming to the earth in the flesh to die for the sins of mankind.  There are many difficult and complex things to try to wrap your minds around in the Bible and this is certainly one of them.

You see the problem comes in when you think only naturally and you ignore spiritual truths.  The Bible tells us that God is one (Deu 6:4)!  Meaning there is only One True God.  But, now we have to make the transition that this one God who is a Spirit, can be the Father and the Son simultaneously.  That is the part of the Bible that starts getting people a little confused.  In the natural this is not possible, but in the spiritual realm, it is entirely possible.  When God becomes a man born in the world, he is equally human and divine at the same time.  This is just another example of how God does things that are purposefully confusing to us to accomplish a greater spiritual goal.  The trinity of God is a difficult subject to fully grasp.  I have tried to do a lesson on this subject so I will not repeat that information here.  If you do not understand the Triune nature of God you should go read “Understanding the Trinity of God”.   What I want to do now is to demonstrate some definite scripture verses that clearly show us that Jesus was God come to the earth in the flesh.

Isa 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Here is a famous Christmas verse that is often read concerning a prophetic statement of the birth of Jesus Christ.  This verse clearly says that a virgin human female will conceive a son.  This right there informs us in implied terms that God is coming personally into the world.  It is impossible in the days of Jesus for a virgin girl to become pregnant.  That is just not how God created it to work, but yet God says this is what will happen.  Finally, this verse ends in the statement you will call his name “Immanuel”.  As I described to you earlier, Hebrew names almost always have a meaning behind them.  In other words people named their children based upon something important that was happening in their lives and this is the name that they were given.  We will see that this name Immanuel is no different, it represents something important that is happening in the life of God and it conveys a hidden message.  The Hebrew word transliterated as “Immanuel” consists of two root words that you can look up the definitions to.  The first word is H5973 and it means “is with us”.  The second Hebrew word is H410 and this is a name for God.  So the meaning of this name “Immanuel” is “God is with us”.   That is pretty self-evident to me that God is saying I will come down and be with you.  So Jesus Christ was the Son of God, but it is very apparent that He was also God in the flesh.

Let’s explore briefly some statements that Jesus made and see if He confirms what I am trying to teach you today.  I want to go to the fourteenth chapter of the book of John and listen to some words that Jesus is speaking to His disciples.  Pay very close attention to the words for they are important:

Joh 14:1  Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Here is Jesus again making Himself equal to God.  Jesus is using words that are indirect, but yet very revealing when He is telling His disciples if they believe in God they better believe in Him.  This is an indirect way of saying I am God.  Let’s continue reading down in the chapter and see what else Jesus says:

Joh 14:7  If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

Again we have some very difficult words to comprehend because of the indirect references being made.  Jesus is telling his disciples “I am the Father God”.  These are difficult words and the disciples could not gather their meanings with their natural minds.  Jesus was a man, like they were but Jesus is inferring He was God.  Look at the question that one of the disciples asks:

Joh 14:8  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.

Phillip is basically saying “we will be very happy if you take us and show us the Father”.  Clearly this disciple did not know who He was talking to.  This is a pattern still found in the world today.  There are clearly many Christians in the world who do not really know who Jesus was and here is Jesus answer to this request:

Joh 14:9  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?

If it is possible for Phillip to walk and talk with Jesus for three years and not recognize who He was, then it is still possible to read about Him and not understand this either.  Jesus told Phillip I have been with you a long time and still you do not see?   Why are you asking me, “Show us the Father”?  

Joh 14:10  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.

If you do not understand the concepts behind “seeds” then you will probably miss what Jesus is saying in these words.  Jesus tells the disciples that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  This is one of the basic laws of seeds given to us in Genesis 1.  You should probably go and read my Bible study series on “Understanding Seeds” so that you will better relate to what God is saying here.  The net results of these words spoken by Jesus, is saying to us, that He and the Father are One God and you cannot separate the Father from the Son.  Jesus was clearly saying that when you have seen the Son you have also seen the Father.  Let me end this lesson with one more example of what I have been trying to teach you today.  If you go to the first chapter of the book of John you will see a parallel N.T. scripture verse about the Genesis 1:1 creation.  In John 1:1 it is says this:

Joh 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In the beginning was the Word and the “Word” is capitalized as a Name for God.   It continues to say that the Word was with God and then it ends with the confirmation that the Word was God.  So we have a perplexing puzzle of trying to figure out how the Word can be with God and still “be” God simultaneously.  It is just another mystery of God, but one that has been repeated already several times in this lesson.  How can the God of creation become a part of His creation?  How can the Father of Spirits become the Son?  How can a Spirit become human?  These are just a few of the many difficult questions found in the Bible.  But, we understand that the Bible says that which is impossible for man, is still possible for God (Mat 19:26).  This chapter actually gives us a clue to the reality of how this is all possible by another verse found later in the chapter:

Joh 1:14  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Here we have God saying to you personally that He came in the flesh.  Remember what the Word was?  According to John 1:1 the Word was God.  So if God = Word and Word = God, by the law of mathematics you can substitute these two words interchangeably and still have the same results and meaning:

Joh 1:14  And God was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

God the Word became flesh and bone and walked among us physically.  This is how a Spirit becomes flesh.  God speaks words and the words come to pass and manifest physically.  You can see this principle demonstrated in Genesis 1 where God creates our world using His words.  Did you know that you cannot separate anyone from their words?  The words that anyone speaks reveals to us their character, their nature, their internal deepest thoughts and these Words of God are what comes down to become flesh that humans can see and feel.  This is why Jesus could stop and look at His disciples and ask them “Have I been this long with you and you do not know who I am?”   Jesus revealed God physically in the earth for the first time.  Before, this appearing the men of Israel only had some words written on scrolls from God that were not understood.  But, when the Word walked and talked among them, they killed Him by hanging God’s Word on a tree.  This was Satan’s greatest mistake that he has ever made and it sealed his fate.  If you have never read my Bible lesson on the “Top Ten Reasons Jesus Came to the Earth” you should do that.  I do not give a lot of details, but I do introduce you to some of the reasons of why God became a man.

I hope that you have learned the importance of seeing who Jesus is.  I did not say who Jesus was, because He is still the same God today alive in heaven forever more that He was before.   There is only One True Living God who created everything that we see and this God became flesh and bone so that we could behold His glory personally.  God became a man and even though God is not a man as the Bible states, it does not keep God from becoming what He was not.  Only natural human reasoning limits what God can do and this never stops Him from doing it anyway.  So I pray that you learned who Jesus was and is still today and what the Bible says on this subject.  I know I did not cover every scripture that I could have in this lesson, but I think I gave you enough witnesses to the truth to get you to see them.   May God continue to Bless you as you study His Word!

If you would like to continue readin in the series about unlocking the myths of Christ please continue with “Part 4“.