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Study Questions

Jesus-God perfectly represents Father-God in all that He says and does. If you want to know what God the Father is like, get to know Jesus. God the Father healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, opened the eyes of the blind, fed the multitudes, had compassion for the multitudes and it was He who sent Jesus to become Man so He could pay sin’s penalty in His own flesh on the cross for us in our place. This is who God is and what he is like: Jesus! Jesus tells us in John 5:19,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner."

Jesus does nothing except what He sees God the Father doing, so to see Jesus is to see the Father; that is whatever Jesus is doing is what the Father is doing. To know what Jesus is like is to know what the Father is like. To know what Jesus is doing is to know what God the Father is doing and thus to know what God is like. Do You want to know what God is like? Study the life, character and deeds of Jesus. This is who and what God is like and what God is doing: Jesus Christ!

*Jesus Is Yehovah — "I AM" — hw:hoyÒ

As we have already discussed the significance of the name Jesus is that it means Yehovah is Savior. Yehovah is the name God gave to Moses in Exodus 3:14. Moses asked God what answer he was to give to the Israelites when they would ask him who had sent him to lead them out of slavery from Egypt. The answer was to tell them that Yehovah had sent him. Yehovah is a form of the Hebrew verb to be and means "I am that I am." God told Moses to tell the Israelites that I AM has sent you. God speaking through Isaiah in Isaiah 43:10-13 tells us about Himself,

"You are my witnesses," declares Yehovah, "And My servant whom I have chosen, In order that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was NO EL¹¹⁷ formed⁴¹ and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am Yehovah; and there is NO SAVIOR besides Me. . . . So you are My witnesses," declares Yehovah, "And I am El. Even from eternity I am He."

Yehovah God tells us several things about Himself in this passage:

1. Before Him there was no God formed.

2. Two, there will be no God formed after Him.

3. Three, that there is no Savior besides Him.

4. Four, that His existence is from eternity past.

This passage forever dispels the myth that a created man can become God as is taught by Mormonism and other religions. Yehovah God tells us through Isaiah that He is the Only God, that there was no God formed before Him and that there will be no God formed after Him. Yehovah God tells us that He is the only God that exists, that He is the only God who has ever existed and that He is the only God who will ever exist.

Yehovah tells us something else about Himself. He states, "...there is no Savior besides me." Yehovah God tells us that He also is the only Savior that exists.

The Angel of the Lord tells Joseph to name the child Jesus because he will Save man from his sins. Matthew and the angel of the Lord tell us that Jesus is Yehovah God who will save us from our sins. Jesus is God and Jesus is Savior. Jesus is Yehovah God of the Old Testament who became human flesh, man, to save us from our sins. Yehovah God tells us that He is from eternity and Isaiah in Isaiah 9:6 tells us that Jesus is the Father of eternity. Jesus is Yehovah God because only Yehovah God is Savior and Jesus is our Savior. Yehovah God of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ of the New Testament are one and the same person. Jesus is Yehovah God our creator and Savior. That is the meaning and significance of the name Jesus.

We have already established that Jesus is the one through whom all things that exist were created. Jesus is our creator. Jeremiah the prophet records about Yehovah,

"Ah Lord Yehovah! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You." (Jer 32:17)

Yehovah God later states in Response, "Yehovah who made the earth, Yehovah who formed it to establish it, Yehovah is His name." (Jer 33:2). Isaiah the prophet records Yehovah God as saying, "But now, thus says Yehovah, your Creator. . . . I am Yehovah your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." (Isaiah 43:1, 3). Jeremiah and Isaiah tell us that Yehovah God is the Creator and the Savior and since Yehovah God tell us that He alone is God and Savior, for Jesus to claim to be the Creator and Savior of man is for Jesus to claim to be Yehovah God, the Creator and Savior, in the flesh.

Jehovah Witnesses will tell you that Yehovah created through Jesus, but that Jesus is not Yehovah. However, Yehovah speaking through Isaiah in Isaiah 44:24 states: "I, Yehovah, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, and spreading out the earth all alone.’" Yehovah makes plain He created all things by Himself, not through anyone. Jesus is Yehovah God, the second Person of the Trinity, our Creator and Savior.

Besides the fact that the very context of this statement, "...before all things," contradicts this interpretation, we must understand that in Hebrew culture the word firstborn has a much deeper meaning than to mean the first child to be born in a family. When a son was called the firstborn in Hebrew culture, it had nothing to do with whether he was the firstborn physically or not. The term was used to mean preeminence. For example, Jacob in the Old Testament would be called the firstborn even though His brother Esau was the actual firstborn physically. This was because Jacob was the one who received his father’s inheritance. Jacob had preeminence over Esau when it came to their father’s inheritance. David was the youngest in His family, but God declares in Psalm 89:27 that He places him as the firstborn, firstborn meaning preeminence in position, as the king of the earth. Therefore, when Paul tells us that Jesus was the firstborn of all creation he means that Jesus has preeminence over all creation. He further clarifies this when he tells us in this same passage following this statement, "For by Him all things were created." He further clarifies it in the next verse when he says, "And He was before all things." Note the word all. The word all, pavntwn¹⁶⁴ in the Greek in verse 17 is without the article and is therefore all inclusive. Jesus was not created and therefore existed before all things that were created. This is why he is the firstborn of all creation or rather has preeminence over all because he existed before anything created existed. Jesus is not a created being, He is from all eternity. Several Old Testament passages in the Bible also confirm Jesus’ Deity and eternal pre-existence:

What does Jesus mean by I Am? To understand this we have to go into the Greek. What is the word in Greek for I am? The word is eijmiv. But what is the Greek words John uses here? The words John uses for I Am are ejgwv eijmiv. John uses two words. The first word ejgwv from which we get the word ego is the word for I in Greek. What is the significance of John using these two words together instead of just the Greek word eijmiv which by itself alone means I am? It goes back to the translation of the Old Testament into what is called the Greek Septuagint. The term Septuagint means seventy.

When these scholars translated the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek Septuagint, whenever they came across the word Yehovah, to signify that this was the name for God in the Greek, instead of translating it just eijmiv they would translate it ejgwv eijmiv so the reader would know it was referring to Yehovah. In other words, when Jesus said to the Jews in Hebrew, "Unless You believe that I AM, you shall die in your sins," He wasn’t referring to the fact that He was the promised Messiah, but rather unless they believed He was Yehovah Himself, Moses’ God in the flesh, they would die in their sins.

In John 10:22-42 the feast of dedication is taking place in Jerusalem. Jesus is in the temple at this time and the Jews surround him and say to him, "If You are the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus tells them in response, "I told you and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me." His first indication to the Jews that He is claiming to be God is that he calls God his Father. He does not say "Our Father," He says "My Father." Jesus then goes on to tell them that he can give a man eternal life (v. 28), but the real clincher comes in verse 30, "I and the Father are one." The word one in Greek is the neuter hen (e{n) not the masculine heis (ei;") as is used in Galatians 3:28 when it says we are one in Christ. Jesus using the neuter term strengthens the emphasis of one essence with the Father. How do we know this is true? Because of the response of the Jews that followed:

Again, we have to understand that Jesus a Jew was talking to Jews in their language and they understood Jesus to say not just one in philosophy with the Father, not just one in purpose, but literally one (e{n) in essence; thus, Yehovah God Himself in the flesh.

"All things came into being by Him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being." (John 1:3).

The Apostle John tells us that Jesus is the creator of all that is. We owe our existence to Jesus. John tells us that there is nothing that exists that Jesus did not create. This is confirmed over and over again throughout the New testament. We already quoted Colossians 1:16 which tells us that not only did He create all things but that all things were created for Him and His pleasure. The writer of the Book of Hebrews tells us,

"God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages." (Heb 1:1-2)

Getting back to the passage in Colossians, the last thing Paul tells us is that in Jesus "...all things hold together." The writer of the Book of Hebrews reaffirms this in Hebrews 1:3. He states that Jesus, "...upholds all things by the word of His power." I have a degree in Electronic Technology. While going through this degree we studied the atom. The atom is composed of electrons, neutrons and protons basically speaking. Protons are of a like charge.

Like charges cannot co-exist together because they repel each other. As our teacher was explaining this to us, he said, "Science cannot explain how this is possible." I could not help myself. I rose my hand. He said , "Yes Dale?" I said, "I know what holds the nucleus of the atom together!" With a snicker and a mocking smile, he said, "Oh! And what is that Dale?" I answered, "The Bible states that Jesus holds the nucleus of the atom together." "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" I love being a fool for Jesus. They had a good laugh, but it is the truth. If Jesus where to take His mind off the atom for one second, the universe, you and I would disintegrate into trillions of protons and neutrons and electrons. Life would end as we know it. It makes sense that if Jesus created all things then He must be the glue of the atom that holds it together.

With what kind of power does Jesus hold this nucleus together? Have you ever seen a nuclear explosion take place and know what it takes to create a nuclear explosion? John goes on to tell us in John 1:10-11, "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him."