Who is Jesus?
This is an all important question to answer. What you do with Christ has eternal ramifications. But before you know how to respond to Christ you need to know who He is.
John makes very bold and clear statements about the person of Christ in the beginning of his gospel account.
John 1:1–5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John says begins in the beginning was the Word. John is not merely stating that Christ was a created being who existed as one of the first and beginning creatures. John is referencing Gen 1:1:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
This is a statement of the Deity of Christ. This was not easy to accept by many in the early church.
Arius was an influential leader in the early church (250-336 AD). He held tightly to a strict oneness of the Divinity.
Arius attracted a large following through a message integrating Neoplatonism, which accented the absolute oneness of the Divinity as the highest perfection, with a literal, rationalist approach to the New Testament texts. This point of view was publicized about 323 through the poetic verse of his major work, Thalia (“Banquet”), and was widely spread by popular songs written for labourers and travelers – Arius | Biography, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica
Arius refused to consider any philosophical use of language applied to Scripture. And since the word “Trinity” was a philosophical concept, he rejected it outright claiming that proponents were forcing a Greek philosophical system on the text.
When Arius came to John 1 he refused to see any possibility of John borrowing Logos from the Greeks who had taught for centuries that it was the Logos that God used as an intermediary to create the world. So, Arius made a connection between the Greek word “logos” and the idea of wisdom on the Old Testament. Eventually he landed on Proverbs 8:23:
From everlasting I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
That word “established” in the Hebrew can also be translated as created. Arius concluded that John was equating Jesus to wisdom of the Proverbs and then concluded that since wisdom was created, Christ must have been created. This allowed him to maintain a strict monotheistic view of God while explaining how Christ could be divine. Arius believed that Jesus was a divine being created who was less than God.
Arius caused such an uproar that a church council gathered to determine the truths of his claim. Eventually Arius was declared a heretic and those who followed him became known as Arians.
John says that the Logos was in the beginning. John is not merely stating that Christ was created in the beginning, but that He existed before all things. This is exactly how Paul had stated Christ’s existence in his letter to the Colossians:
Colossians 1:17
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
John is not saying that Jesus was created, he is saying that he existed before all things existed, that Christ had no beginning. This means that Christ is eternal.
The eternality of Christ
Being eternal means more than just living forever. All men and women will live forever. The Bible clearly describes eternal life to those who are in Christ and eternal torment for those who are not. Christ’s life is more than an experience of time. To say that Christ had no beginning is to say that He is to be outside of time. When we speak of God being eternal, we mean the reality that with God there is no distinction between past, present and future. All things are equally as present to Him. With Him duration is an eternal “now”
Thy present day does not give way to tomorrow, nor indeed does it take the place of yesterday. Thy present day is eternity – Augustine
God’s eternality is how God transcends time. God has neither beginning nor end. There is no temporal succession with God. God’s eternality can be divided into two categories:
1. Illimitable Life
This is to say that God has no beginning or end.
2. Timelessness
This means that God has no temporal succession.
God has the complete possession of life all at once (a concept we will explore in another post) which removes the possibility of succession of time. God’s existence transcends time in a fundamental way. Time is a created entity and has it’s origin in creation.
Isaiah 43:13
13 “Even from eternity I am He,
And there is none who can deliver out of My hand;
I act and who can reverse it?”
1. If Christ is eternal than heaven and hell are eternal.
John 5:24
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Christians do not receive eternal life in the same way that God is eternal. We do not prexist as God does. Rather, we are giving everlasting, ongoing, never-ending life — a life that had a beginning but no ending for eternity. This is because God is eternal. To be with Him is to have eternal life. This life will soon pass for all of us. And what comes after is never-ending. Jesus said it this way:
Mark 10:30
but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.
So choosing to live for eternity is the only smart choice to make. The question we need to be always asking is “how do my choices now impact eternity?” You must always be, “making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). This just means that we must live with eternity in mind.
But not only is heaven eternal but so is hell. An offense against a temporal being has temporal consequence. An offense against a timeless, eternal God has far greater consequences than an offense against man. We sin eternal sins because God is eternal. Those outside of Christ pay an eternal price.
The Bible has much to say about the eternal consequences for sin
Matthew 25:41
“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
Jude 7
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
It is reserved for those who offended Him forever
Jude 13
wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.
It is why punishment is never quenched
Mark 9:48
where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
Revelation 20:10
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 20:14
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
It is an eternal destruction
2 Thessalonians 1:9
These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
The Puritan Thomas Goodwin put it this way:
… wretched soul in hell … finds that it shall not outlive that misery, nor yet can it find one space or moment of time of freedom and intermission, having forever to do with him who is the living God.
Eternal hell is an expression of the eternal nature of God’s justice. So if you are not certain of your position in Christ I would plea to you to make sure now before your time in eternity begins. Christ has provided an eternal escape from the eternal wrath of God. Do not fool yourself into thinking that you can continue living in sin and ignorance – the time is now to repent.
But there is a 2nd implication we should consider:
2. We should be easily forgiving those who sin against us.
All offenses against us are merely temporal. If God can forgive us of eternal offences how can we not forgive temporal offenses?
We must forgive others because God is the one who judges the living and the dead.
Matthew 6:15
“But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
For you to hold an offence against a brother or a sister is to say that their sin against you is a greater offense than your sin against God. You would gladly accept Christ’s forgiveness of your sins which are eternal sins against an eternal God, but you will not forgive your brother or sister for their finite sins against a finite being. Unforgiveness then is an act of idolatry—it is to make you greater than God. This is why those who do not forgive will not be forgiven. Because to forgive is to confess that Christ is the eternal God who forgives sins. To live in unforgiveness is to lie against the gospel and demonstrates the falsity of your profession of faith.
3. The eternality of God should increase our trust in God.
God is not dependent on circumstances or events. He is not surprised by what is going on in your life or the rest of the world. He sees it all in a moment. Nothing passes by His eternal gaze. This makes Christ infinitely and eternally trustworthy. There is simply no other source of such bedrock assurance. We are absolutely guaranteed that God will work all things out according to His purposes
Romans 8:28
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
No one but an eternal God can make such a promise and bring about the guaranteed results.
Men may break their promises, because they are made without foresight; but God, that inhabits eternity, foreknows all things that shall be done under the sun, as if they had been then acting before him; and nothing can intervene, or work a change in his resolves; because the least circumstances were eternally foreseen by him. Though there may be variations, and changes to our sight, the wind may tack about, and every hour new and cross accidents happen; yet the eternal God, who is eternally true to his word, sits at the helm, and the winds and the waves obey him. [Charnock (Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God, 301.)]
So what will you do with the eternal nature of Christ? Will you trust Him? Will you confess Him? Will you proclaim His name among men? The true confessions of Christ have eternal implications because Christ is eternal. We do not serve a temporal God. Christ is not a created creature, nor is He a God of our own imagination. He is who He is. What matters most is that we know who He is and respond in faith to who He is.