Who Is Jesus? by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

What Jesus Came to Do

Three major purposes define the mission of Jesus:

1. To save us from our sins. Matthew 1:21 — the angel declared that he would save his people from their sins. There is no other name given among men by which anyone can be saved. Christianity holds to exclusivism: there is one way to the Father, and that is Jesus.

   • God sending Jesus means humanity was condemned without him. If there were another way, the Son would not have been sent.
   • The best of human righteousness the Bible describes as a used, defiled rag. The law of Moses demonstrates this clearly — its requirements are impossible to keep in totality.

2. To reveal the Father to us. In the Old Testament, God desired to be known as Father, but the people were not ready to receive him as such. Jesus came to make that revelation complete.
3. To show us how we ought to be — he is our prototype. In Jesus, we do not merely see a Saviour. We see an example of humanity. Humanity is not synonymous with sin. There was a human being before there was sin. Sin was the infection that affected humanity.

   • This means that when reading the Bible, believers are not the needy person in every story. Jesus is showing us how we ought to be.
   • When Jesus walks on water, he is demonstrating what sons are capable of. When he heals the sick, he is showing what those who carry the life of God can do.

The Trinity

As Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity holds that one God exists in three equal divine persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. An error arises when the threeness is emphasised over the oneness, or the oneness over the threeness. The text in Deuteronomy 6:4 — "O Israel, the Lord your God is one" — uses the Hebrew word echad, the same word used when it says "two shall become one." Husband and wife are one, yet they are two individuals. The oneness speaks of unity, not singularity of person.

A simple framework for understanding the Trinity:

• Father — the source, the essence, the one with the will
• Son — the revelation of the Father; the Word made visible; the executor of the will
• Holy Spirit — the operation; the power by which the will is executed

Just as a person exists, and then speaks words that reveal who they are, and then acts — so the Father is, the Son reveals, and the Spirit operates.

He Is God

Jesus is not a prophet. He is not merely a wise teacher, a miracle worker, or a man sent from God. He is God who came in the incarnation.

• John 10:33 — The Jews answered, "For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God." The Jews understood clearly that Jesus was claiming to be God.
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Pastor Dolapo Lawal
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• Matthew 26:63-65 — The high priest demanded, "Are you the Christ, the Son of God?" Jesus confirmed it. The high priest tore his clothes and declared blasphemy — because Jesus accepted the title.
• John 8:57-58 — The Jews said, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus replied, "Before Abraham was, I am." The phrase "I am" is not merely a sentence. In the Old Testament, it is the name of God revealed to Moses. Jesus was claiming that eternal name.

In the Old Testament, the names of God came from experience — a revelation received after an encounter. Jehovah-Jireh, for example, was not about material provision in the first instance. Abraham received it after the substitutionary sacrifice of the ram in the place of Isaac. The revelation of God's name came after the event. Jesus comes and reframes this entirely: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He is not waiting for you to have the experience and then name him. He is declaring that he himself is now the means by which every revelation of God will come.

For a Jew hearing "I am the way," the immediate image is the wilderness — seeking the way to the promised land. The "life" he offers is not soulish existence, the kind of life lived only on the level of survival and instinct. He came to give life with meaning, essence, and divine purpose.

Isaiah 44:6 — "I am the first and I am the last. Besides me there is no God."

Revelation 1:17 — Jesus says to John, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last." The one speaking in Isaiah 44 and the one speaking in Revelation 1 are the same person.

2 Peter 1:1 — Peter refers to Jesus as "our God and Saviour."

John 20:28 — Thomas, after seeing the risen Christ, declared, "My Lord and my God." Jesus did not correct him. He accepted the title.

John 1:6 — "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." John the Baptist is a man sent from God. Jesus is not a man sent from God. He is God who came. That is the distinction.

Why Is He Called the Son of God?

Two reasons the Bible uses the title "Son of God":

1. Direct creations of God are called sons of God. Adam is called the son of God because he had no human father or mother. Genesis 6:2 refers to angels as "sons of God." Job 1:6 and Job 2:1 show the angels — including Satan — presenting themselves before God as sons of God. Anyone brought into existence directly by God, without human parents, carries that title.
2. Anywhere divinity and humanity meet, the Bible calls that situation "son of God." John 1:12 — "As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God." Believers, as those in whom the Spirit of God now dwells, are also called sons of God. Galatians 4:6 — God has sent the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of believers, crying, "Abba, Father." Romans 8:14 — those led by the Spirit are the sons of God.

So when the Bible calls Jesus the Son of God, it is because he is the ultimate meeting point of divinity and humanity — God become man.

Why Is He Called the Son of Man?

Two reasons the Bible uses the title "Son of Man":

1. It is a messianic title. Daniel 7:13 — "I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven... to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him." When Jesus called himself the Son of Man, he was claiming to be the Messiah. Throughout the Gospels, when he uses this title, it is almost always in connection with power, angels, judgment, or his second coming. See: Matthew 13:41, Mark 14:62, John 5:27, Luke 18:8, Luke 19:10, Luke 22:48, Luke 22:69, John 3:14, John 6:27, John 6:53, John 8:28, Acts 7:56, John 13:31, Revelation 1:13, Revelation 14:14.
2. It points to his true human nature. Jesus was not performing humanity. He actually lived it. Matthew 8:20 — "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" — speaks to his homelessness and vulnerability. Luke 9:22 — "The Son of Man must suffer many things." Matthew 11:19 — "The Son of Man came eating and drinking" — a real bodily life. Hebrews 4:15 — he was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

He Truly Came in the Flesh

There is a heretical doctrine — Docetism — that holds that because God is perfect and humanity is frail, God could not truly have become human. The early church fought this aggressively. 1 John 1:1 sets the context: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life." John is saying: we touched him. We ate with him. He was human.

1 John 4:2 — "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God — and this is the spirit of the antichrist."

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world must be read in this context. It is a statement about discernment of theological truth — not simply a battle cry. The greater one in you is the one who gives you the ability to recognise what is of God and what is not.

Principles for Receiving the Word

Theology is from God and for God — not a cage to contain him. There is a danger in becoming so doctrinally trained that a quickened word cannot land. A woman watching a teaching on "walk before me and be thou perfect" dropped her crutches and began to walk. The word was quickened to her by the Spirit, and she received a miracle. Doctrinal correctness, applied without wisdom, can sermonize someone out of their breakthrough.

The principle is this:

• Whoever controls your ears controls your destiny.
• A word can be subjectively quickened to you by the Spirit for a personal situation — and you appropriate it privately.
• But in community and in teaching, the objective meaning of the text must be maintained.
• Never share a privately quickened word as public doctrine.

Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac was not blind obedience — it was reasoned faith. God had produced Isaac from a body as good as dead and from a womb that was dead. If God could bring life from death once, he could raise Isaac from the dead after the offering. Abraham was fully persuaded, as Romans 4:19 shows, that what God promised, God was able to perform.

Father, we thank you for what you have done for us in Christ Jesus. Thank you for the gift of your Son — the revelation of who you are. Root your word in us. Let the power of God flow in the direction of your will in our lives. We receive the life you came to give us — not the soulish, instinct-driven life, but the life with meaning, essence, and eternal purpose. In Jesus's name, amen.