Seminar on the Person and Ministry of Jesus Christ

Loosely based on the book The Incomparable Christ by J. Oswald Sanders.

Scripture text for this lesson: John 17:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:8, 1 John 5:20, John 3:18

1. God is glorified when Jesus Christ is glorified.

2. One parameter by which we are assured that we are true recipients of eternal life is that we are given the spiritual discernment to know Jesus Christ although we have never seen Him, and although His earthly life is so far removed from us in time and space.

3. God Himself gave to Jesus Christ, the power to give eternal life to whoever He will give it.  Jesus Christ has determined that only those who know Him (as the self-disclosure of God) will have eternal life.

4. There are consequences when we live out our lives without knowing God or Jesus Christ whom He has sent:  we become the objects of God’s wrath.

5. It was God’s will to give over to Jesus Christ the power and the prerogative to give eternal life to whoever He chooses to give it. It is thus to Jesus Christ that we have to turn.  He is the only way to the Father.

6. To believe in God is not enough, we must also believe in Jesus Christ. (“Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.”)  Not to believe in Jesus Christ, not to trust Him, not to have a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ is convincing evidence that we are condemned to live eternity away from God, away from the Light of the Glory of God, who is Jesus Christ.

7. The burning question that begs to be asked is:  do you know Jesus Christ in this close intimate and personal way?  Is the knowledge of Jesus Christ precious enough to you that you are willing to forsake all to follow Jesus Christ?

In the New Testament times, there were no colleges.  Parents begin teaching their children the law of Moses, the songs, the history of Israel by oral tradition.  By the age of 7 an Israelite child”s brain is a storage house of facts.  After this, a child goes to the village rabbi who will patiently teach him how to read the Hebrew Scriptures so that when he reaches the age of 12 or 13, he will stand before God, a bar mitzvah, a son of the law.  All this time, a child learns a trade from his father or uncle  by day at the same time he learns the Scriptures, often by lamplight.  If a child wishes to go on learning, a child will be apprenticed to a famed rabbi.  He will sit at the rabbi’s feet, he will follow the rabbi around, live with the rabbi and do menial tasks for the rabbi, often, making a meager income from the trade he learned from his father from which he supports himself and his rabbi.

Our study aims for us to “sit at the feet” of the writers of Scripture, as one sits at the feet of a rabbi, that we may learn who Jesus Christ is. And having learned of Him, we will attempt to know Him and then to make Him known to others in this similar way.

The question most often asked, even in Jesus’ time was:  “Who is this?” It is the same question asked today.  J. Oswald Sanders says: “Any true understanding of His amazing ministry is rooted in the comprehension of His unique person.”  He goes on to observe: “Most errors have their rise in a defective view of the person of Christ, and this in turn is reflected in an inadequate or erroneous view of the nature of His work.”  The object of these studies is to “set out what the Bible has to say about His person, and then  to interpret those statements in the context of His subsequent work.”