Explain who is Jesus

The question of who Jesus is is crucial to the validity of the Christian faith. It was a question important to Jesus himself, so in Matthew 16 we find him asking his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ The answers are interesting and, if spoken of anyone else, would be highly flattering. 

Common opinion held that Jesus was either John the Baptist, Elijah or Jeremiah. People were so impressed with him that they thought he must be one of these great servants of God come back from the dead. Flattering though the answers were, they were totally inadequate to describe who Jesus is; the Bible leaves no doubt about Jesus' uniqueness and exclusivity.

• ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created’ (Colossians 1:15–16).

• ‘In Christ all the fulness of the Deity lives in bodily form’ (Colossians 2:9).

• ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’ (Hebrews 1:3).

Jesus is special

Nothing like this is said of any other person in Scripture. All other men and women are sinners. We are born with a sinful nature, and our actions are all tainted by this nature. If Jesus were only the greatest man who ever lived, he would have had a sinful nature and, as such, he would need a saviour and could never have been Saviour.

Jesus is special. His birth was special and different from all other births. His mother Mary was a virgin, so Jesus’ birth came about not as a result of human love or lust, but through a remarkable life-giving operation of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35). This may be difficult for us to understand because in human experience it is totally impossible. But in the birth of our Saviour, God was doing something special that was way beyond human thought or imagination.

Son of Man

The New Testament uses many titles and names for the Lord Jesus, but the one he himself used most often was Son of Man. No one else addressed Jesus in this way: there must be something special in the title for Jesus to use it so often. 

By the use of this title, Jesus made it plain that he really was a man. He was a unique man and a sinless man, but nevertheless he was truly man. This was crucial for our salvation. Listen to Hebrews 2:14–17.

• ‘Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.’

Jesus had to become a man to make atonement for man’s sins. It was man who had broken God’s law and sinned; therefore it had to be man who would pay the penalty for that sin. But there was no man qualified to do this, so God became man in the person of Jesus Christ and did for us what was crucial to our salvation.

Son of God

Jesus was more than a man. Twenty-five times in the Gospels he calls himself the Son of God. Jesus is Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’. Indeed, God had always been with his people, and we can see in the Old Testament that he was with Moses and David. However, in Jesus, God was with us in a very different way. In Jesus, God becomes man, takes to himself human nature and identifies himself with us in a way the Old Testament saints never experienced.

Jesus is truly man and truly God. He is not part man and part God. In him there exists two natures so that he is divine and also a sinless man. His deity is affirmed throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah was given a remarkable revelation of the glory and holiness of God. He sees and hears the angelic host crying,

• ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory’ (Isaiah 6:3).

Isaiah himself says of this,

• ‘My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty’ (v. 5).

But in the New Testament, referring to this incident, the apostle John says,

• ‘Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him’ (John 12:41).

Jesus, then, is the holy Lord of whom the angels spoke. Jesus is the King, the Lord Almighty, whom Isaiah saw. Jesus is God.

Jesus the Saviour

Salvation was planned in heaven, but it could not be accomplished in heaven. Atonement for sin must be made to God by man’s representative. But there was no man qualified to do this, for all men are sinners. The eternal God became man, ‘so that by his death’ (Hebrews 2:14) he might accomplish salvation for his people. God became man so that, as the man Jesus, he could die for his people and purchase their salvation. 

Paul puts it like this in Romans 5:17: ‘For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.’

If we were to ask, ‘What is God like?’, the answer the Bible would give is that he is like Jesus—holy, righteous, good, full of compassion and mercy. He loves sinners and stretches out his arms in love and grace to them, calling upon them to come to him. 

The sinner’s only hope of salvation rests on this great truth of who Jesus is, because God can only be known through the Lord Jesus Christ.

‘You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool; you can spit at him and kill him for a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to (C. S. Lewis).

Think about it

1. Why is it important for Christians to defend vigorously the uniqueness and exclusiveness of Jesus?

2. Try to think through in your mind the amazing truth that Jesus is truly Man and truly God. Avoid trying to explain the facts, and think on how crucial this is to your salvation.