Absolute #3 God the Son- Part 1

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?

1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. 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.

3Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) pg 231

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.