Lesson 130 - Junior

Memory Verse

"All men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23).

Notes

"O sweet Wonder! O sweet Wonder!

Jesus the Son of God."

"Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory" (I Timothy 3:16).

It is hard for man to understand that God could send His Son to earth to be born and live as other men do, and still have the divine nature and be God. Indeed, it is impossible for the sinner to comprehend such a relationship; but to us who have been born into the family of God through repentance and faith, the Son of God has been revealed. To us He is more than a man. We know that He rose from the dead and is alive today, for we have felt new life in us since we have been redeemed through His precious Blood.

Inherent Life

"In him was life" (John 1:4). John the Beloved spoke those words concerning Jesus. Perhaps you will ask, "How does that make Him different from any other man? Everyone has life in him while he lives." The life of man is imparted. We have life because our parents were alive; and they received life from their parents, way back to the very first parents. That is called "imparted life." Plants have life, too, but that life comes from the seed from which they grew; and the seed received life from the plant that bore it. That cycle can be traced back to the first plants which God spoke into existence. No man has ever been able to find the beginning of life. No man has ever been able to make life.

But of Jesus John said, "In him was life." That is inherent life, life without a beginning, life that always was and always shall be. We cannot understand things farther back than the beginning nor beyond the end, but we trust God and believe it. Jesus was with the Father when the worlds were spoken into being, "and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3). There was no time with Jesus because He lived before time was created. He said, "Before Abraham was, I am." Past, present, and future tense did not mean anything to Jesus, because He always was and always shall be.

Life-Giving Power

And still many pretending Christians will say that Jesus was but a man! They overlook these passages of Scripture that state that He had power to die when He wanted to and then to live again. No mortal man could do that. He told His disciples that no one could take His life from Him but He would lay it down willingly as a sacrifice for sin, and then would take it up again. And he did! He arose from the grave triumphant, and gave the hope to the Church that because He lives we shall live also.

Eternal life begins for us when we are saved. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (I Peter 1:23). "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" ([1JN:5:12]).

The Apostle Paul tell us that Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:4). He died a natural death and lived again. Jesus proved His power in the healing of the sick, cleansing of the leper, giving sight to the blind; and he also brought to life the widow's dead son, and Lazarus who had been dead four days. But there was such power in the Son of God that even when He was dead Himself, He could bring Himself back to life. "In him was life," and He needed no outside source to give Him life.

When Jesus spoke to Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, and said: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25), He was speaking of spiritual death and life. He said, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." That belief must be that He is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity " God the Son. There is no spiritual life in the people who do not believe that Jesus is divine.

"My Beloved Son"

Jesus knew that most people would not believe in Him. They did not believe in Him when He was on earth and they do not today. He tried to give them every evidence to help their faith. He told them one time that if He alone bore witness to His Deity it would not stand; but God had also given that witness. We remember the account of the baptism of Jesus, when God spoke from Heaven and said, "This is my beloved Son." Again, on the Mount of Transfiguration, God spoke: "This is my beloved Son: hear him."

The Pharisees did not want to believe that God was the Father of Jesus, but Jesus told them if they did not believe in Him they did not know the Father, either. "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." They were pretending to worship God, but would have nothing to do with the Christ.

What about the people today who say they worship God but to whom Jesus was just a man? They say Jesus was a great teacher and has given the world some fine examples to live by, but they do not believe He is divine. They will die in their sins just as the unbelieving Jews, and suffer eternal damnation. It is impossible to worship God in the spirit without worshiping His Son with the same sincerity.

Abraham's Children

The Jews took great pride in their religion, dating its founding back 1900 years to the time Abraham heard God's call to come out of the land of the Chaldees to found a new nation. Jesus tried to explain that Abraham had believed on Him; and that faith, so many years ago, had made him happy. "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad" (verse 56). And here was Jesus right before the Jews! Yet they could not "see" Him because of their sins.

Jesus admitted that Abraham was their ancestor; but He declared that if they had been his true children they would have done the same things which Abraham had done -" and that included believing in Jesus. Jesus told them plainly that one could recognise their father by the way they behaved themselves, and then added, "Ye are of your father the devil." He saw the hatred and the lies in their heart which no child of God will have.

Love One for Another

When one is a Christian there is no hatred in his heart. When Jesus comes into our heart he brings love. Paul calls that love charity, and tells us what it will do: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up . . . thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth" (I Corinthians 13:4-6). Jesus said: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. . . . For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? ([MAT:5:44-46]).

Some may think they are Christians because they do not go to the theatres, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor smoke cigarettes; but they think evil thoughts about their neighbours, or hate someone who has wronged them. If there are such thoughts in our heart we should ask God to show us where we stand before Him. We would not want to go through life doing good deeds and thinking that they would take us to Heaven, and then find at the Judgement that the hatred in our heart which no one could see had kept us out of eternal life. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." The Apostle James too, realised the need of that love: "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy-self, ye do well: but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors" (James 2:8, 9).

All the self-righteous deeds of the Jews did not gain them favour with God. Jesus told them: "Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matthew 23:23).

Jesus explained to the Pharisees that if they obeyed His words they would never se death. He meant that they would have eternal life. But they could not understand. The words made them angry and they said Jesus had a devil, that surely Abraham had been a man of God and he had died.

We have learned before that Jesus did not consider the end of our life on earth as death. (Refer to Lesson 104, Book 8.) Abraham had died about 1,850 years before, but in the account of Lazarus and the rich man Jesus said Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom, and Abraham talked with the rich man. Abraham was not dead. He had entered into eternal life. And so will everyone who believes that Jesus is the divine Son of God. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life: (John 3:16).

Questions

1. Who is Jesus?

2. Where did life come from?

3. How did Jesus prove that He was the Son of God?

4. What did Jesus tell the Jews would happen to them if they did not believe in Him?

5. What reason did Jesus give when He told the Jews they were not the children of Abraham?

6. Who did he say was their father? Why?

7. How is the world going to know that we are the children of God?

8. Quote John 3:16.