God
the Son – Part 1
Absolute
Curriculum
Year 1,
Lesson 3
Intro:
Last session we discussed who God the Father is, and you
might remember the following statement:
“God creates by speaking; but His speech is not like
our speech. His speech is not the reverberating of atoms (for when
God first spoke there were no atoms!). His speech is His creative
action and revelation of Himself, especially through His only
begotten Son, Jesus Christ.”1
Today we are going to start our look into God the Son,
the Word of God. Our study will split into two parts, first taking a
shorter look at the Son as He eternally has been with God, and then
next week taking a more extended look at His coming to earth, His
work here, and where He is now. I want to emphasize here again, that
these videos are only giving you the tip of the iceberg on these
subjects, an introduction. There is so much more we could say, and
hopefully as we cover more ground some of these things will start to
fit together better in your mind.
The
Word
I want to start our look at the Son by opening of John's
gospel:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. 2 He
was in the beginning with God.”2
The John's words here echo the opening words of the
Bible, “In the beginning God” comes to us in this gospel as “In
the beginning was the Word.” We will see as we go on in this text
that the similarity is not a mistake or coincidence. The Word was in
the beginning. He is eternal. Back before the beginning, there was
Word, the eternal Son of the Father. Verse one says that the Word was
there in the beginning with God. Of course, the fact that the Word is
with God means that
there is a distinction between their persons. This is important.
Remember our three-fold definition of the Trinity?
- God is three persons.
- Each person is fully God.
- There is one God.3
This gives us a framework for understanding how John,
the writer of this gospel, can say that the Word was with God and
that the Word was God. The Word of the Father is a distinct person
from the Father, but there is unity. He is not a different God. He
cannot be separated from God. So what else do we need to know about
Him?
Creator
of all things
If
we continue on in chapter one of John, we read the following, “All
things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made
that was made.”4
All
things
were made through Him. Without Him was not anything
made that has been made. We discussed in the last session the fact
that God the Father is the Creator of all things. How can the Son
also be the Creator of all? Do you remember how God the Father
created? He created by His Word.
The
speech of God the Father is inseparable from the action of the Son.
God created all things through
His Son, the eternal Word.
We see some very similar words in Paul's letter to the Colossians,
“For
by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all
things were created through him and for him. 17 And
he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”5
By
Him all things were created. Through Him all things were created. For
Him all things were created. He is the preeminent One6,
the One whom all creation should worship and adore. Paul also notes
something else here in Colossians that is worth thinking about.
Holding it together
Did
you notice in verse 17 of Colossians 1 that it says, “in Him all
thing hold together”? So what we have here is not just a creator
who makes everything and then steps away and lets things run, without
any involvement. That is what the deists taught a couple centuries
ago, and that is how many of us function today. Maybe we believe that
God made the world, but now He doesn't have much to do with it. Paul
says that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, created the world and
keeps it together.
Creation doesn't exist on it's own account. If God decided He could
make it vanish in an instant, and He would be doing no wrong. It's
His, He owns it, He created it. But He wills that it continue
existing, and thus Christ continues to keep holding it together.7
This is truly
mind-blowing when you consider our topic for the next session. God
the Son comes to earth as a man, Jesus of Nazareth. Conceived by the
Holy Spirit in the womb of a young girl named Mary. Which means that
while Jesus was an unborn infant in His mother's womb, He was still
upholding the universe, for in Him all things hold together. God the
Son came down to earth, but He could not cease to be God, or the
universe He entered would have ceased to exist. Pretty cool, isn't
it?
Concluding
The main thing I want us to walk away from the lesson with today is
that man Jesus Christ, who we will be discussing next week, is first
of all God the Son. He isn't kind of God, He isn't a man who became
god, and He isn't God-lite. He always has been, and always will be,
the eternal Word of the Father; in the beginning with God and in the
beginning God. Jesus is God. He is worthy of our worship.
1Will
Dole, Absolute Curriculum, (Plummer,
ID: South Lake Youth Ministries, 2014)
2
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (John
1:1-2). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. All Scripture taken from
the ESV, unless otherwise noted.
4
John 1:3
5
Colossians 1:16-17
6Colossians
1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of
all creation.” This could be confusing, as we have been stating
that Jesus (the Word) is eternal, how could He then be the
firstborn? Grudem comments on this helpfully: “Colossians
1:15...is [best] understood to mean that Christ has the rights or
privileges of the 'first-born'--that is, according to biblical usage
and custom, the right of leadership or authority in the family or
one's generation...So Colossians 1:15 means that Christ has the
privileges of authority and rule, the privileges belonging to the
'first-born,' but with respect to the whole creation. The NIV
translates it helpfully, 'the firstborn over all creation.'”
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) pg 243. Emphasis Grudem's.
7See
also Acts 17:22-34, especially verses 25 and 28.
