Identity - Part 3

“I AM”

When we read through the Old Testament, we see the word “LORD” in all capital letters hundreds of times. When we see this, we need to understand that we're not merely talking about “the Lord” here. “LORD” is actually the respectful way to write God's sovereign name – without actually using it carelessly or casually. The actual word that we read “LORD” is “Yahweh”...sometimes said as “Jehovah.” This is the eternal, awe-inspiring name of almighty God – It is “I AM THAT I AM”! It's the name that God revealed to Moses from the burning bush, it's the name that Jewish people still refuse to write for respect – it's the name of the Great I AM!

Of course we already know that the name of Jesus has this name hidden inside of it – Jesus means “Yahweh Saves”. But did Jesus ever claim the name of Yahweh for Himself? Let's look and find out.
In Mark 14, we see the account of Jesus' trial before the Jewish leaders. Unable to find a single wrongdoing, they brought several false witnesses before the council. These men made some off-the-wall accusations against Him. The problem was, not one of these witnesses agreed with another. By law, the priests needed two witnesses to testify to the same accusation before they could condemn Jesus as guilty. Desperate for any grounds of conviction, the high priest then attempted to goad Jesus into condemning Himself.

In verse 60, the High Priest demanded, “Do You answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you?” In response to that question, Jesus said nothing. This must have outraged the High Priest even more! Who does this Man think He is to ignore the question? Finally, the priest asked a much more direct question - seen in verse 61 - “Are You the Christ (the Messiah) the Son of the Blessed?”

To be sure, this was a loaded question – but there was no answer that would've made Jesus guilty. There were two parts to this question: One, are You the Messiah? Two, are You the Son of God? Saying yes to either of these questions wouldn't be wrong for any man to say

Everyone believed that the Messiah was going to be a man. Claiming to be the Messiah may have made a man crazy, but it wouldn't have been a crime. As far as being the Son of God; and any Jew could claim to be a son of God. In fact, the Pharisees themselves made this claim in John 8:41. If the high priest knew these claims weren't crimes in themselves, why ask the question? I believe he was fishing for something more substantial, something serious to accuse Jesus of...and he got that in Jesus' response. 

In verse 62, we read Jesus' answer to the priest's question: “I Am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” When Jesus said those two words - “I Am” - He wasn't merely giving a “yes” answer to the High Priest's question. He was claiming God's eternal, sacred name for Himself! He was calling Himself THE I AM! We know this is true based on the response of the council. Verse 63 tells us, “Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, 'What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?' And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death.” Claiming to be the Messiah was not blasphemy. Yet these highly religious men heard blasphemy in Jesus' response...why? Because they knew what Jesus was actually saying! He wasn't saying "I am the Messiah." or "I am the Son of God." Jesus was clearly saying "I AM"!

This was not the only time Jesus made this claim about Himself. To see more, we need to move into the book of John. In John 8:24, we read these words from His own mouth, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” Notice that the word “He” is italicized. This means it was added by the translators, but it wasn't actually what Jesus said. What He said was “You have to believe that I AM, or you will die in your sins! What a statement to make about Himself!

But He wasn't done there...He claims this name for Himself two more times in the same dialogue! Verse 28 says, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.” Verse 58 profoundly says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” We can clearly see that Jesus wasn't confused about Who He was, and He didn't shy away from saying so.

Perhaps the most powerful of Jesus' “I AM” claims came in the Garden of Gethsemane. As the Jewish soldiers arrived to arrest Him, they announced that they were looking for Jesus of Nazareth. In response, Jesus declared those two simple, earth-shaking words - “I AM” When He pronounced that powerful name, it dropped these men flat on their backs. Can you see this picture? Jesus, after stating Who He was, had to wait for the guards to get back up so that they could arrest Him! Even in His arrest, His power could not be hidden!

The Savior

Recently, the world spent a month (as they do every year) celebrating the birth of Jesus. During this time we talk about “the night of our dear Savior's birth” and the fact that “Jesus Christ our Savior was born to us this day”. Through the month of December, you'll hear Luke 2:11 quoted often. In this verse, we read the words of an angel to a group of shepherds, “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior...” But what Americans hear in that verse is drastically different from what those shepherds heard!

Being Jews, these shepherds knew the scriptures. When they heard the word “Savior” they must have remembered the words of God in Isaiah 43:11, “I, even I, am Yahweh, and besides me there is no Savior.” Knowing this, these shepherds must have been overwhelmed by the angel's next statement, “Who is Christ the Lord.” Those words - “the Lord” - had to have resonated with these simple, God-fearing men. After all, Jews referred to God as “the Lord", since His name was too sacred to use. This angel just announced to these men that “the Lord” was just born to be their Savior!

In agreement with what the angel said, Paul also declares that our Savior is no one less than God Himself! In Titus 2:11-12 we read, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ...” Our God and our Savior are one and the same – Jesus Christ! This is also why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:47, “The first man (Adam) was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man (Jesus) is the Lord from heaven.” This Lord from Heaven, the one who came to be our Savior, is the same one that the angel called "Christ the Lord."

After the angel announced the birth of the Savior to the shepherds, we read that a multitude of heavenly hosts joined that angel in the sky and praised God, saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” Just how many angels were in the sky that night? Hebrews 1 :6 tells us: “But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: 'Let all the angels of God worship Him.'” That night every angel in Heaven appeared in the sky over Bethlehem to praise God. It's amazing to me that only the shepherds saw this! And how did this multitude of angels praise God? By worshiping the Son!

The Incarnate Word

John chapter one tells us more about what happened that night in Bethlehem. Let's take a close look, starting in verses 1 and 2 
In the beginning was the Word... – So God's Word was already there in the beginning. The Word had no beginning, there was never a time when the Word wasn't!

...and the Word was with God.. - The literal meaning is that the Word was face-to-face with God. Now we see that the Word wasn't merely a thing, but it had a face (It's own face) and was together with God.
...and the Word was God. - Uh oh, this is where Christians are separated from every other world religion. The Word - Who was a person that was face-to-face with God – was also God Himself!
He was in the beginning with God. - Another look at the person-hood of the Word. The Word was a “He”. 

Now let's move on and read verse 10, “He was in the world...” - Now we see that this Word/Person who was God, was personally in the world.

...and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. – If the world was made through the Word, then why didn't it know Him when He was in it? Why didn't they know their Creator?

The answer is found in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...” - Now we see why they didn't know Him, because He became flesh. This Word/Person Who was God became a flesh and blood man! What an amazing concept, God became a man!

Lastly, let's look at verse 17 so find the identity of the Word, “For the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The Word made flesh is Jesus Christ! This is the incredible meaning of what happened in Bethlehem - God humbled Himself to be born as a baby!

The Form of God, The Appearance of a Man

In our last look at Jesus' incarnation, let's go to Philippians 2:6-7. This passage of Scripture should be added to our list of Christmas time traditions – this is, after all, the true meaning of what we celebrate. 

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God... - Jesus knew that calling Himself God wasn't taking anything away from the Father. He and the Father were one, so to exalt the Son is to exalt God – we don't rob our Heavenly Father when we put the Son on equal footing. Why? Because there is only one God, and He is Jesus! 

...but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. - Do you see this? Jesus was God first and then became a man. This runs contrary to the cult of Mormonism, which says that He was a man first and then became a god. Jesus was the Word that was God and took on the form of a flesh-and-blood servant.

We'll look at the rest of this passage later on, because there is so much more to Jesus' divinity in the next few verses. Let's end this section with one last quotation by Paul, from 1 Timothy 3:16. “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.” Jesus, the Man Who was born in Bethlehem, was the direct manifestation of the eternal God. He was the flesh-and-blood expression of God's own nature!

In The Beginning, Chapter Nine - Day Six, Part Two

The First Man

Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Forming The First Man

After God was done creating and filling the world, he was ready to put his most precious creation in it! Creation was ready to meet its new master. Now let’s look at Genesis 2 - the story of day 6 in much more detail:

Genesis 2:4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,”

Genesis 2:1-3 tell us about the seventh day (we’ll see this later), but from verse 4 through to verse 25 is the detailed story of the sixth day. God jumped back a day to give us more details about the most important part of the creation week. This is how we know that Genesis 2 is telling the story of day six: Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2 both tell the story of the creation of man and they both end with the creation of the woman.

But while Genesis 1:26-27 give us the summarized, headline version of God’s creation of man, we can see a more detailed version of this same story in Genesis 2:4-7. In the creation of man, God took a much more personal, much more intimate approach. But first, He did some prep-work!

Genesis 2:5-6 “before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

First of all, let’s not hold onto dogma that isn’t based in scripture. Some teachers have used these verses to teach that it never rained before Noah’s flood. They have  tried to make the claim that the mist that’s mentioned in verse 6 was how the whole earth was watered before the flood. But let’s keep the text in context! When we read verse 6, we can see that the phrase, “For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth…” is referring to the same time period as the next phrase: “...and there was no man to till the ground...” This is not speaking about the environment over a long period of time, but was making mention of the time just before man was created.

These verses were the beginning of the story of man’s creation. The reason that God caused a mist to come up out of the ground was because it hadn’t rained yet - and God needed wet dirt for what He was about to do!

After watering the dirt, God did something that must have shocked all of creation...

Genesis 2:7a And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground...

God stepped out of His heavenly throne-room and into the earth. Stooping down into the damp dirt, God began to shape it into a body. It was similar in some ways to the animals. It was made from the dirt, like theirs. It had some features in common with theirs; such as bilateral symmetry, four limbs, and all of the same internal and external organs. But after forming this body, God did something that made this creature very different from the animals!

A “Living Soul”

Like we’ve just seen, the difference between the man and animals wasn’t in his body - that was similar in many respects to animals. Every living creature that God made had a body.

But, hear me carefully, there is something else that every living creature has. Every animal that God made - as well as the mankind - has a soul. The soul is attached to the brain. It includes the mind and thoughts, the will and desires, and the emotions.

While some animals have a higher intelligence than others, every animal has some degree of thought and reason. Every animal has its own desires and wants - though they mostly surround feeding and reproduction. Every animal has its own emotions - albeit some have much deeper emotions than others (elephants, for example are even known to feel sorrow over the death of a herd member).

The soul (in Hebrew, “nephesh”) is a natural part of every living creature, including man. (As a side note, this is why a lot of Christian seem to be stuck in their old nature. Before we were saved, our lives were ruled by our souls. And as long as a believer operates out of his intelligence, his desires, or his emotions...he is no different from the animals. Yikes!) Although humans have a much higher soul than other creatures, it is still just as natural as theirs. It wasn’t the soul that made this new creature different from the other creatures. There was something else in this man; something that separated him from the rest of creation.

Genesis 2:7b “...and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

As this lifeless body laid on the ground, God breathed into him the breath of life. Then, this man became a “living being.” The Hebrew term for living being is “Nephesh Hayah” – literally “a living soul.” This term is actually referring to the spirit of man. With this impartation of the spirit, the man became three parts - spirit, soul, and body.

The literal term for spirit is “living soul” - I believe this means that our spirit is a higher form of our soul. What do I mean by this? Well, just like our soul has thoughts, our spirit has thoughts. Just like our soul wants things, our spirit has desires. Just like our soul feels things, our spirit has emotions and feelings. But our spirit is made to exist in a higher form than our soul! What makes it higher?

God is a spirit...more specifically, He is THE spirit. John 4:24 tells us this: “God is Spirit.” So when God breathed into the man, He was imparting His own nature into him - he became like God! Notice that this verse doesn’t say that man had a living soul - it says that he became a living soul. This means that, unlike any other creature that God had made, man became a spirit that had a soul and lived inside of a body.

Angels are spirits without bodies. Animals are souls and bodies without spirits. But here was a creature that was capable of operating in the natural world and the spiritual! Imagine the angels’ surprise at the amount of attention that God gave to this lump of dirt! Imagine their shock as God laid Himself on top of this earthly body.

In 2 Kings 4, there is a beautiful picture of what God did when He breathed life into the man. It’s the story of Elisha and a little dead boy:
“When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed. He went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord. Then he lay down on the child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again! Elisha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!

I believe that this is what happened in Genesis 2. You see, with all of His new creations watching, God laid down on this body He had just made, putting His hands on the man’s hands, His feet on the man’s feet, His mouth on the man’s mouth, His eyes on the man’s eyes. Then God breathed part of His own Spirit into the man – and He became a spirit like God! If this is how the man came to life, then imagine his first sight when he opened his eyes! God wanted the first thing that the man saw to be His own face!

So now, earth had a creature that was just like God. God named him Adam - which means “red.” Some speculate that he got this name because he was made out of red dirt. Others believe that he may have been redheaded. Another possibility was that his name was a reference to his lifeblood, something that no other spirit had.

A Whole New Perspective

When you read through the Biblical account of mankind’s origins, you can’t help but notice how much difference there is between this and what is taught inside most college classrooms! We’ve seen the amazing amount of care that God took when He created the first man. Is it any wonder, then, that the demonic fairy tale of evolution is trying to reduce mankind into just an intelligent animal? I wonder if Satan gets amusement when he watches humans - the ones who should have dominion and control over all creation - lowering themselves by saying “we’re no different from any other animal.”

We could literally spend pages pointing out why the theory of evolution is wrong on the topic of human origins. We could point out (again) the credibility issues with evolutionary timelines. We could focus on each link of the evolutionary chain from apes to humans - and how each individual is either fully ape or fully human. We could pinpoint the hoaxes (such as Piltdown man) and the shoddy science (like Nebraska man) that occasionally pop up in the paleo-anthropology field. We could even demonstrate the absurd fact that nearly every fossilized ape that has been dug up has been branded as the missing link in human evolution at some point! But debunking human evolution isn’t the goal of this writing.

The goal in this chapter is to give a fresh perspective on where we came from. Every believer needs to understand this one point...that we have been truly made in God’s own image! We are not just another part in the animal kingdom.

With the forming of Adam, creation was nearing an end. But God still wasn’t done with His work yet!