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Join us as we unpack a listener comment/question for our first ever ATC : Monday Q&A
In this episode we explore:
• Why does Jesus being the son of God matter?
• Who do you say Jesus is Liar, Lunatic or Lord?
• The concept of Jesus being simultaneously fully God and fully man.
• As we wrap up, we reflect on the transformative power that Christ's Sonship and Lordship have had on the Christian faith, emphasizing the potency of His sacrifice.
Don't miss out on this enlightening exploration of Christian theology!
Hey guys, this is the Across the Counter podcast and we're recording a new segment for all of our listeners called Monday Q&A. In Monday Q&A we're going to take the time to look through the comments that we get on all of our podcasts and social media and try to find the most thought-provoking questions that we are interested in and believe would be impactful for our listeners. So in the future, if you have questions or you are maybe wanting to know what our thoughts are, just take the time to comment on our future podcast and videos. But now we're going to jump right into this Monday Q&A. Grant's here with me on the other side of the mic, other side of the table I guess that would be the other side of the counter. So Les Scott was the commenter and the question that we picked and the question that Les Scott asked was do you believe Jesus was the Son of God? All right, grant, why don't you answer the people?
Speaker 2:Easy question. People haven't been debating about those for thousands of years since he was born. So I think it's hook, line and sinker, just an easy discussion that we can have in a couple minutes, and it'd be incredibly easy. That's it.
Speaker 1:I just figured we'd start with a really simple one and just make this a point and shoot.
Speaker 2:Which.
Speaker 1:God Grant why?
Speaker 2:Now we're both Christians. We differ on theology and things like that. Yes, we do believe Jesus was the Son of God. There is a lot that goes into that. Obviously, it is the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob. Just so we're clear. We don't think that God is an idea. We don't think that God is this thing, this presence. We believe that God is actively trying to have a relationship with us through Jesus and he is a person and not just an idea or all of us, or consciousness or something like that. Just to be more clear with it, because we've had a lot of conversation about that, we do believe what the Bible says about Jesus and we believe that he is the Son of God, by not only historical fronts of. At least. I do believe that Jesus was a person and a historical figure, that he lived and died. I believe he had skin, that he walked around, that it wasn't just an idea or principles or anything like that, jared, what you got.
Speaker 1:I do believe that Jesus was, is and always will be the Son of God. I think that that's a simple answer. There's a few different scriptures that come to mind whenever we think of that. Though it seems like a lighthearted question and we could just say yes, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, I think that the commenters or our listeners probably know that there's a lot of maybe additional how would you say additional content underneath that question or behind the scenes of that question. As an example, most of the most of the faiths in the world that are not Christian would hang their hat on the fact that Jesus the reason that they don't believe in Jesus as the ultimate Savior of the world would be that he was not God, like that he was not the Son of God, or that he was not, that he was not God himself. There's other details in that, like the idea of Son, like how. Some questions that come to mind would be like how can God be born if he is God and was God and always has been, always will be? Like what does it mean to be a Son? And so this is definitely not an easy question, but I think of Matthew 16, where Jesus 1614, where it actually starts in 13, jesus came to the reason of Caesarea, philippi, and he asked his disciples who do people say the Son of man is? That was often a nickname he used for himself and they replied some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked who do you say I am? And Simon Peter answered you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. And Jesus replied blessed to you, simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my father in heaven. It's then that he goes on to say and I tell you, I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I'll build my church. Gates of Hades will not ever come it, and continues to go on. Then he ordered them not to tell anyone that he was a Messiah. So that's the first time we find it in scripture. I, or at least the first time it seems, that Peter Says out loud, like a real proclamation of Jesus as Messiah, but Messiah meaning Savior, or, or you know that coming King. He also attached to that the son of the living God. So it's interesting to me that Jesus says it's not man or it's not. You're sorry, he doesn't say it's not, he says it's God that revealed this to you. The reason this question is more complicated is because, like, what does it mean for God to have a son and for us to also still hold the belief that the son of God is also Fully God? Because that's like a tenet of Christian faith. So I'm just adding in way more Thought-provoking questions on top of less. Scott's question, but, grant, like what other? What other questions does that bring up for you, even maybe historically?
Speaker 2:I mean immediately think of the Trinity, like how can three parts be separate but the same and all you know Together and being one but also being separate? That's, you know, something that church fathers have had to nail down for for a while now. We've kind of settled on it, as most of the church has settled on, you know, their view of the Trinity. There's some you know, several different beliefs and things like that about the Trinity, but you know it's God and three person kind of thing that you know father, son, holy spirit. It is kind of hard to imagine the thing that Jesus was fully God and fully man. That is an incredibly hard thing to grasp because, yes, we believe Jesus was the son of God, but how does that play out and practicality as far as Jesus being a man and Jesus, you know having temptations and having these things and having a mom and having, you know, friends and different. You know life experiences because we, you know we didn't hear about Jesus's life for the most part, for the first, you know what 30 years or something like that. So that's, yeah, there's a little bit in there, but about him as a kid and stuff, but yeah, so that's a. That's an interesting concept of fully God and fully man, and it's something that it's. It is really hard to to understand that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is a, you know, a Monday Q&A, so we're probably gonna present more questions than we are answers, but I don't know how long this will run. But it won't run the amount of time required to get to the bottom of Jesus being fully God, fully man, son of God, sacrificed for the sins of the world, like we're definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, skimming over a couple thousand years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think a few other things that come to mind just maybe thought-provoking, socratic, or just this idea of like questions that provoke thought, or even statements, like a few things have stuck with me over the years, like when I've talked with those of the Islamic faith or Muslims. You know one of the things that one of the reasons that they don't believe that Jesus was the son of God or that Jesus was fully God and and I'm I'm speaking way out out of pocket here, but One piece of the Godhood of Jesus Was that, like that couldn't be so because Jesus was a man and so God would never. You know, a man has to use the bathroom. So I remember one Muslim guy was talking to was like you're saying that you believe that God had to wipe his butt. This, just this concept that that God himself would not def, defy, or or what would it be called? lower himself to the lower himself to the, to the nature of physicality, and so like that's one arena of thought, like there's no way that that could be true, like that he would lower himself to that degree and then in the Mormon, like a lot of the Mormon tradition, one of the or maybe it's not Mormon, it may be Jehovah's Witness, I think it's Jehovah's Witness, but like that's one of the key words that has changed in their version of scripture Is that Jesus was not God, but like a God, or or like a Great man or a prophet, and like it's. It's kind of like one of the biggest fun fundamentals of Christianity that separates Christianity from every other belief in the world is that question who do you say Jesus is? So Cs Lewis has that popular quote that you either call him liar, lunatic or Lord, but there's no real in between. Like either the things that he said weren't true and he's a liar, the things that he said were insane and he's a lunatic, or he's Lord, and by Lord Lewis meant like God himself calling us to submission of the statements of truth that he is holding up. So basically Lewis's point there was like you have to make a choice of how to deal with the historical figure of Jesus. Like who are you gonna say he is? And pretty much anyone that's ever been in error in relationship to Jesus is anyone that does not say that he is the son of the living God, the Messiah, because that's the claim that he lays for himself. So I'll bat it back to you, grant why does the value of the Christian faith itself hinge on Jesus being fully man and fully God? I'll give you the easy question.
Speaker 2:Immediately. What I think of is what separates Christianity from something like a cult or something like other religions, or really what I'm getting at is more of like the tenants of faith of Christianity, which a lot of people would differ on this. But if you boil it down to the smallest thing that makes a Christian a Christian, what would you say that is? And I think that it would be that very much belief of Jesus being the son of God, that Jesus being the son of the God of the Bible, and believing that God is who he says he is and that Jesus is the son of that and he's the only way to eternal life in heaven, and that's kind of the huge deal in Christianity. Also, that the resurrection of Christ is also a massive one, that he had an actual bodily resurrection. It's another big tentative faith. It's just it's really interesting to see that. And as far as what makes something like a cult exist, saying that, hey, now I'm the son of God, or like I'm the prophet now or something like that, and giving yourself the authority that Jesus should have over you and your congregation it's kind of an interesting line to toe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what? Do you know what? The scripture is off the top of your head, where, like Paul says, only those who call Jesus Lord are of the faith. What is?
Speaker 2:Is it Romans 10, 13? For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Speaker 1:No first, corinthians, 12, 3.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 1:He's talking about the spiritual gifts. You know that when pagan somehow or other, let us say by idols, therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus be cursed and no one can say Jesus is the Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So this is in the section in the Corinthians, the first Corinthians letter, where he's talking about the gifts, but he makes this definitive statement about the only way one can proclaim the Lordship of Christ is by the Spirit of God. And that relates to me kind of like Paul's not Paul Jesus's statement relates to the revelation of Peter, where it's like it's not you that's made this declaration, it is the revelation of God that's made this declaration. So the two thoughts that are tying together in my mind are the Lordship of Christ and the sonship of Christ. So, like the entire overarching story of scripture about the Messiah, about the coming King, is it's this idea of the nature of the inheritance of Lordship. And so whenever scripture refers to Jesus as Lord, like he calls himself the Son of man, as a representation of his being birthed by man and being, I believe like a reason, he loved the nickname for himself as a representation of almost the antithesis of what we would think he would be, that he would be born as a man. But then even the idea of being born and sonship and about inheritance, like so often, the way that Jesus proclaimed his Lordship was he proclaimed it by referencing that his Father in heaven and his right by sonship from his Father in heaven to the Lordship and the ruling of all, and so like. That's one of the things that we find so complicated about. The triune nature of God is like how can the Trinity Jesus, holy Spirit, god, the Father how can they be equal but then Jesus also be submitted to the Father? And I would argue that that's also one of the biggest issues we struggle with in the idea of marriage like how can a wife be submitted to a husband, but how can they also have equal value? And so the argument that could be made is they don't have equal value, they have different value, and the different value is the beauty of diversity. A wife has value as a wife and a husband has value as a husband, but they're not equal in the, and by equal I mean they're not the exact same, as if value is marked on mathematically as like a one and a two. It's that they both add up to the, the perfect union of a marriage. They both add up to a three, and so I think sometimes we find it difficult to even comprehend how that could work in a triune nature. And so, anyway, I just that's a long rant, but the reason I'm saying that is because the sonship of Christ is what all of the tradition of Christianity hinges on, for two reasons the inheritance and the ruling authority that Christ claims for himself comes from his sonship as a reference point, that his father has granted it to him and that he has a right to give it to him. So if you remove the sonship of Christ, you have so many more problems with the rest of the things Christ said about himself. But then the other side of that is the sonship of Christ, the full Godhead of Christ, fully man, fully God, is the Christian faith would say. The only way that God's wrath and punishment for the wickedness of sin could be fully, fully poured out would be if there was an equal receptor of that justice, and so the only thing that could fully receive the wrath would be the, a fullness of the Godhead in the sacrifice. And so I'm being super simplistic here. It might be because I have a headache on his Friday, but like balance in the love and wrath of God couldn't be met without the full sonship of Christ in the crucifixion and the sorry, the full sonship and the full Lordship like the full Godhead of Christ. So I'm like blasting a bunch of stuff in this little window but we say Jesus is the son of God and Lord because he has to be, otherwise our entire faith paradigm, it doesn't fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gone, it's literally gone. After that, like, if Jesus isn't the son of God, then for me which you know this is not the case for a lot of people, but for me it's like all right, throw away the Bible. It's like that's what my whole faith is based off of. Like, if you dig down super, super deep and that's why you know that's a popular question to ask is it's a really easy question to ask on you know where do you stand, kind of thing. It's like that's how you can kind of navigate, like, oh, if they're a Christian or not, like you can say, hey, are you a Christian? Or you can say, hey, do you believe Jesus was the son of God? Right, right. And that's a little bit more direct of I believe, if you say yes to that and there's so much more nuances in there of like I don't even know how this works, but I'm still kind of working it out in my head of God revealed it to us, so there's that. But also, like, do we have a conscious part to play? Like is it enough to believe Jesus was the son of God and not to turn around and repent of your sin and try to follow him with everything that you have? Is it enough to just believe? And is the definition of belief that you have to be able to believe you have to do the works? Like the whole faith without works is dead situation. Like, is true belief that Jesus is the son of God? Is that actionable belief? Or can you just believe it in your mind of, hey, I believe Jesus is the son of God, my life doesn't reflect it, I don't care for others, but I do believe Jesus is the son of God. So I'm good, I'm going to heaven. So that's just something that's been I've been kind of thinking about and going forward with. I really do think that the Bible has a lot to say about turning from sin and about following God or following Jesus more specifically in the New Testament and following his teachings, and the question which I don't want to get too long, but the question that I would pose after that would be do you believe that you have to follow Jesus or do you believe that believing Jesus was the son of God is enough, because even the demons believe that sort of thing. That's a whole thing in itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, man, I like that you brought up that scripture at the end because that adds another paradigm to this picture. But it's been said before that discipleship could be defined as long obedience in the same direction. So think of discipleship as a journey, like stepping and continuing over the lifetime to obey in the same direction. Well, another aspect that we all simply understand and know is that the word belief is if we're living. Just because I make a statement of something I believe, I can say that I believe that honesty is a. It has a higher moral and characteristic value than lying. But if I then walk out of life as a lie, or if I find it okay to lie you know sometimes and sometimes to tell the truth, then I'm actually undermining that statement of what I say, I believe, and oftentimes I'm saying that because it's more publicly acceptable to say honesty has a value. But then internally I choose to lie in my daily habit, patterns and rhythms.
Speaker 2:You almost have to redefine what belief means in that.
Speaker 1:So that's what I was going to say. Like belief is something that has a follow through on it, and so you can make statements about something you believe. But because we are not, we are not of no variation and change, just because I say something doesn't mean I am that thing. And so, like, when I say I believe something, the correct response would be well, we'll see. Like, or when I say I'm going to do something, the correct response would be well, we'll see. So I don't think that like belief has no value. But I think the definement of what a human being believes is the combination, over a lifetime, of what he says and what he or she does, not just what he says. And like, all of us know that, just because somebody says something, they can say all day that they believe murder is wrong. But until you have the opportunity to murder, or until you are incited to that, you don't really, you don't really know what you would believe, I would argue until you are presented with the opportunity to lie or to confess or repent or murder. So like, I guess I'm just saying all that to say that, like, that's why Christians believe the washing of the, the, the being washed with the water of the word, like constantly applying ourselves in prayer and through scripture to what God says is true, we can say I believe, but help my unbelief, but then, through the helping of our unbelief, he allows us to help ourselves with, like continuing to lean back in to his scripture and to his word. So I like I think you're 100% right Like defining what the word you know. Unless Scott asked do you believe Jesus, with the Son of God? Well, you and I can say yes. But the next follow up question is well, define what the word believe means. And for me I think that's what Lewis is like. See, as Lewis was saying is, if you say he was a son of God, then now there's a required action because the son of God made claims about himself and they call you to do something. He says I am Lord and I've been given Lordship as inheritance by God, my father, and everything in creation and reality is subject to me. Well, now that means that you have a fully man, fully God, saying your only choice is surrender. And I think a lot of times we say, well, I believe in Jesus, but that doesn't require anything of my, it doesn't require anything of my life. So I don't know if that just the idea that we believe in him but it doesn't require anything Like that's kind of a, it's something that can't be proven. It's like a person saying, you know, I believe that honesty is the highest value, and then saying, in order to hold that belief, I'm never going to speak again, and like you're not really, like there's not an opportunity to prove that out or to like apply yourself to that. Like anyway, earlier you said something too like I don't want to jump back too far, I wouldn't go too long. But like if Jesus is not the Son of God, you can also throw out my faith. Because my faith is and it's literally defined as an inheritance. Like Jesus was the first of the first of the brothers and so like my faith is an inheritance. Like God, god gives me something. Just like my son didn't earn his last name, like I can't earn quote my family, my family role or place in the family. So if Jesus is not allowed to fulfill the idea of sonship, like that also means that you hand back to the believer, the Christian believers, the responsibility to earn their place into the family, and like that's a horrific weight of responsibility that I can never bear.
Speaker 2:So, in summary of our conversation, we do believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We believe that belief requires action. So we believe that it's not enough to say you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and not, your life doesn't change at all. We don't believe that. We believe that without Jesus being the Son of God, our whole religion is a sham and we have no inheritance in the kingdom of God. So that's kind of the summary I would give of what we had talked about is just that is. I mean, jesus is the cornerstone, jesus is everything about Christianity, and if we don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God and he is the only one that makes it possible to forgive sins, if we don't believe that, I mean our whole thing is just, our whole religion is thrown out the window, I think. So, jared, you got any final thoughts?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean honestly, the thing that's coming to mind so strong right now is it's the verse that almost everybody, in and out of the faith, knows and it's for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. But then a verse that most people don't know is John 3.17, which is for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only son. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. So that's John 3.16 through 21. I think that's God's statement of what belief and the follow through looks like, and I'll just not add to that I think we're good.
Speaker 2:Ooh, I think we're done. Yep, that is Monday Q&A. Whew, thanks for listening to the Across the Counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.
