Is He the Son of Mary or the Son of God? | Dr. David Jeremiah

12 Fascinating Ways to Experience the Bible

It’s a question that has perplexed theologians for centuries, and one you’ve probably pondered as well: how could Jesus be fully God and fully man? Dr. David Jeremiah offers an answer based on two of the titles ascribed to Christ in the Bible.

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So is he the son of Mary, or is he the son of god? Here’s one that you will love.
He’s both. If you accept one, you must accept the other.
He cannot be one without the other, because if he is one without the other, he destroys what he claims to be.
If he is not the son of god, then it doesn’t really matter whether he’s human or not.
If he is not human, then we have been lied to and who cares?
He’s the son of god and the son of man, and as the son of god and the son of man, we call him Jesus, and he whole business of Jesus being fully human and why he did certain things and didn’t do other things.
I will just explain that to you in the best way that I can in this simple way, when Jesus came to be one of us, he did not lay aside his deity.
He did not put it on hold. Here’s what he did.
He voluntarily determined to not use his attributes for his own purpose.
When he came to this earth, He put aside the independent use of his attributes.
You say, how do you know that? Well, let me ask you this question.
One of his attributes is he’s omnipresent. Was Jesus on the present when he was here? No.
He was absolutely totally consigned to living in a body. Was he still on the present?
But he put it aside. He voluntarily determined not to use those attributes while he was here so that he could fully identify with us, because guess what?
We’re not omnipresent, and we’re not omniscient, and we’re not omnipotent.
Seems like I’ve always known about Jesus.
My dad was a pastor, went to study school since I was a child.
I learned Jesus loves me way back then, heard all the wonderful stories about Jesus.
When I was thirteen years old, My father led me to Jesus Christ.
I remember where I was and a member that we prayed, and it was that day I knew what it meant to become a Christian.
Later on, as I grew in Christ, I decided that I wanted to devote my life to him in a way that I had never thought of before.
God called me to be a pastor.
And every time I come to church, I have this tremendous burden on my heart that it’s not about me, and it’s not about us.
It’s about him. And when we lift him up, the Bible says he draws all people to himself.
In the Bible is where we meet him. His character, his attributes, and his titles.
And of all the titles that are attached to the person of Jesus Christ, perhaps the most meaningful one in when you get right down, uh, to the bottom of this story is the word son.
He is a son. Isaiah said, for unto us, child is born unto us a son is given.
Jesus frequently referred to himself as the son of man and over times in John’s gospel, he’s called the son of god.
2 of our lord’s most important titles were son of Mary and son of god.
Don’t let anybody tell you that that wasn’t a true statement to be known by all those who knew him while he was on this earth, because listen to me, men and women, it was that Jesus claimed to be the son of god that got him crucified.
John 518 says, therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him.
Because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that god was his father making him equal with god.
Jesus was the son of Mary because he was a human being, and he is the son of god because he is god.
With that understanding, the best place to begin studying the life of Jesus is by looking at his title as son.
And I would like to focus on those two elements.
His role as the son of Mary and as the son of god.
The title of the message is he’s the son of Mary, or is he the son of god?
The son of Mary.
When the Bible speaks of Jesus humanity, it begins with his birth, and it encourages us to respond with wonder and worship as did the shepherds and the wise men, as we acknowledge the incredible mystery of his incarnation, to know the son of Mary is to be astonished when we really get down to it about the entry of Jesus Christ into this world.
It was a mystery, a mystery of the ages.
It is something unlike anything that had ever happened before and it will never happen again.
The mystery of Jesus birth is wrapped up in this term It’s called the virgin birth of Christ.
The doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ teaches us that Jesus was divinely conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit.
Bringing together his 2 natures, deity, and humanity.
Here is how we are told in Luke that Mary was given the information about what was about to happen to her, uh, in this process.
Luke, chapter 1, verse 34, and Mary said to the angel, how can this be? How can I be pregnant?
Since I do not know a man, since I have not had a relationship with a man.
And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
And the power of the highest will overshadow you.
Therefore, also that holy one who is to be born will be called the son of god, for with god nothing will be impossible.
And Mary said behold, the maid servant of the lord, let it be to me according to your word.
Now, the key word in that statement is the word overshadow.
I want you to think about that with me for a moment.
The idea in the language of the Bible is that a gray cloud is engulfing someone when you’re overshadowed you’re engulfed by something, and the people of Israel had always used that metaphor to understand god’s mysterious and undeniable presence With all of his creative energy, the lord would surround Mary with his presence, and she would miraculously become pregnant.
And Joseph would not be the human father. Jesus is in no way a product of this world.
He enters into this world from the realm of eternity Jesus Christ was born into the world.
He came into history from outside of history. He did not evolve out of history.
Our lord’s birth was an advent. He did not come from the human race.
He came into the human race from above. He is not man becoming god, but god becoming human flesh.
Jesus Christ is not from us. Jesus Christ is from god.
So the birth of Jesus is not the beginning of Jesus.
One of the things you may not know about Jesus is that he did not begin at Bethlehem.
Was he born then? Oh, yes.
But there never was a time when Jesus was not, and there never will be a time when Jesus ceases to be What happened at Bethlehem was that Jesus who existed forever as god became a man.
Yes, Jesus came into this world. His birth was miraculous.
I believe in the virgin birth of Christ without apology, I don’t only believe it, I know it, it is the incredible way Christ tasted the flesh and became one of us.
The mystery of his birth. What about the measure of his life?
Is there anything that we can point to that would help us demonstrate that Jesus really was a human being, that he lived upon his earth as as we as humans live.
First of all, he did what humanity does. He was born. He grew up.
He had brothers and sisters. He grew tired. He got thirsty. He got hungry.
He became physically weak, and he died.
He did what humanity does, and he felt what humanity feels in a Christianity Day article, New Testament Professor Jay Walter Hanson described Jesus’ emotions, and he put it together in such a profound paragraph.
The best I can do is just read it to you.
He said the gospel writers paint their portraits of Jesus using a kaleidoscope of brilliant emotional colors, Jesus felt compassion.
He was angry. He was indignant. He was consumed with zeal. He was troubled.
He was greatly distressed. He was very sorrowful. He was depressed.
He was deeply moved and grieved, and he sighed, and he wept, and he sobbed, and he groaned, and he was in agony, and he was surprised and amazed.
He rejoiced very greatly. He was full of joy. He greatly desired, and he loved.
He had all the emotions that we have as human beings.
But the scripture also tells us we can know his humanity by the things that he thought The Bible says that as a boy, Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge, that he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with god and man, looked too 22.
Here’s an astounding thought that I have not had before.
Jesus is human, and he always will be.
Right now sitting on the throne of the universe is a human being.
When the judges the entire world, he will be human.
For all eternity, age after age, god is human and always will be.
He didn’t just put on human skin like a coat only to take it off again when he got home to heaven.
He became a man, heart, soul, mind strength, a man.
Just imagine for a moment how much god must have loved human beings.
To decide that, yes, he would become a human forever.
He had existed for all eternity, the second person of the Trinity in perfect in harmonious and beautiful relationship with god the father and god the Holy Spirit, and he decided to become human.
And he knew when he did it that he would never be not human again.
There’s only one thing that would lead the son of god to do that, and that is his deep love for us.
You say, you sure that’s true. Think of this for a moment.
The disciples are standing watching Jesus go up to heaven and this is what they heard.
This same Jesus, which you have seen ascending into heaven, this same Jesus will come in like manner as his gone.
When we get to heaven, we’ll see Jesus will be able to examine the prints of the nails in his hands, in the scar in his side.
I don’t pretend to understand all the nuances that are involved in that.
But Jesus became a man for us. He continues to be a man.
And now when we pray, the Bible says he intercede for us at the right hand of the father.
Oh, what a mystery is all of this. He’s the son of Mary.
But he’s also the son of god, just as Jesus was the son of of god.
This is arguably the most important title of Christ in the entire new testament.
It appears more than 40 times the son of god.
In the simplest of terms, son of god is how the new testament describes Jesus and his relationship to god, the father.
It also shows us his divine identity. While Jesus was fully human, he is also fully god.
You say, well, I don’t understand that. I don’t know anything like that.
There never has been anything like that. How many of you know Jesus Christ is without precedent?
There is no one to compare him to. There never will be anyone like him.
He is the individual single, most unique, important person who’s ever walked on this earth.
He is the individually most notable character that you will ever hear about. There is no one like him.
There is no one who’s ever been like him.
He is the son of god, and the son of man fused together in one person for eternity.
He is god. When Jesus still the storm with the disciples, they were so overcome with amazement, and they worshiped him, and they convinced that only god could have performed the miracle.
And they said, truly, you are the son of god.
At his trial before the Jewish council, his opponents charged him with claiming to be the son of god, which they recognized as a claim of deity.
Anyone claiming to be god could be charged with blasphemy and killed. Think of it.
The only charge they could ever come up with and make it stick against Jesus was that he claimed to be the son of god and because he was.
Even the devil recognizes that Jesus is god.
He addressed Jesus as the son of god, and the demons recognized him as that when they saw him they cried out, Matthew 829.
What have we to do with you? Jesus, you son of god?
I wrote in my notes the demons are smarter than most of the skeptics.
Jesus was not only the son of man, Jesus was and is the son of god.
Here’s what I know is so important about why Jesus had to do what he did why he came, and why this is also important.
First of all, we need Jesus to show us god.
On one occasion, Philip, one of Jesus disciples said to Jesus.
Jesus, show us the father And and Jesus kind of scolded Philip. I love what he said.
He said, Philip, have I been with you for so long and you have not known me, Philip, he who has seen me has seen the father.
In other words, I am the god you want to know. I am the father who can be seen.
I am the one who came to show you the father.
When we study Jesus, we’re getting to know god, not just because Jesus is god, but because god is Jesus.
Jesus is the one who shows us who god is and what god is like.
In other words, god gave us Jesus, and now Jesus gives us god.
The Bible says in past days, god demonstrated himself to us through the prophets, but now in these last days, he has sent us his son.
And his son has come to show us who god is.
Number 2, we need Jesus to show us god But we also need Jesus to save us from our sin.
Now, that’s something we all know, but I want you to know it in a different way today, first Timothy, 25 through 6 says this, there is one god and one mediator between god and men the man Jesus Christ who gave himself a ransom for all.
What Paul said to Timothy is that Jesus Christ came here to do what no other one could ever do.
How many mediators are there class? How many?
Somebody says, I don’t like the fact that you think Jesus is the only way to heaven.
Doesn’t matter what I think it matters what the Bible says, Jesus said, I am the way, the life, and the truth, and no one comes to the father, except through me.
He is the one way to god. That’s what Paul said to Timothy.
And I’ve told you before that my picture of that is the picture of the cross.
We’re hanging there between heaven and earth in my mind.
I see him reach up one hand to take hold of the holy father and one hand reached down to take hold of us.
And he was the only one who could at the nexus of that cross bring us together so that we could be saved.
Jesus had to come, or we couldn’t know God, he had to come, or we couldn’t be saved from our sin, because there was no one else who could do it.
Number 3, we need Jesus to set us free from the fear of death.
Here’s what the Bible says in Hebrews 2, 14, 15.
Since the children, that’s us, have flesh and blood, he too, Jesus too, shared in their humanity, so that by his death, He might break the power of him who holds the power of death.
That is the devil and free those who all of their lives are held in slavery by their fear of death.
How that describes so many people you and I know today.
Jesus became the son of and blood so that he could do what we could never do.
He confronted Satan and he destroyed him. Satan is a defeated and disarmed enemy.
One day his sentence will be carried out.
First John creates says, for this purpose, the son of god was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.
For this reason, Jesus came to destroy the devils works.
You know how Jesus took away Satan’s power of death? He died and became victorious over it.
He walked out of the other side of death, and, and I don’t know if Jesus ever did a high 5 or anything like that, but that’s what I think should happen at that moment.
He walked out of death, and on the other side, he had destroyed death.
Satan’s power over death was totally vitiated.
That’s why Jesus said, if you believe in me, you’ll never die.
You’ll never die spiritually because Satan’s power to do that to you is gone.
You know, the Bible says in Psalm 23 that, you know, I walk through the valley.
I always love this. The valley of the shadow of death.
You know that Christians we don’t go through death. We go through the shadow of death.
A death for Christians is still death, uh, physically, but it’s totally different.
I know that I’ve been watching this for 50 years.
A Christian dies different than anybody else because we don’t experience death. We experience the shadow of death.
We need Jesus to show us god. We need him to save us from our sin.
We need Jesus to set us free from death. We need Jesus to sympathize with us in our weaknesses.
Here’s what Hebrew says, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.
I want to say something to you. I hope I’ll be in encouragement to you.
I don’t know what you’re going through today.
I could imagine, uh, here enough during the week to know that it’s representative of what we all face.
Life is difficult. Life is hard. It’s not getting any easier. Can I get a witness?
But here’s what I know that that’s so y wonderfully triumphant for every one of us.
There’s not anything you are ever gonna experience or experiencing now that Jesus doesn’t understand.
And when you go to him, he’s able to sympathize. You know what the word sympathize means?
It’s a very wonderful word.
It means to suffer with to to be with somebody in their suffering.
Finally, we need Jesus to strengthen us in times of temptation.
I saved this until last because I think it may be the most relevant thing in the list.
Tempation is everywhere. You can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything.
You can’t be involved in anything that you are not brought before temptation all the time.
Here’s what the Bible says.
In all things, Jesus had to be made like his brethren For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted.
And 415 says, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin.
Now, here’s what the scripture is saying, that in Jesus, we have somebody who can help us with our temptation.
But here’s the problem we have with that. The Bible says that Jesus never sin.
He never yielded to temptation, and I’m saying, how’s that supposed to help me?
Cause that’s not my experience. Here’s how CS Lewis explains it.
He said a silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.
This is an obvious lie, only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.
After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in.
You find out the strength of the wind by trying to against it, not by lying down, a man who gives into temptation after 5 minutes simply doesn’t know what it would have been like an hour later, That’s why bad people in one sense know very little about badness, they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.
We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we fight it.
And Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means.
He’s the only one who lived through it all felt every issue of it, he’s the only realist among us, said Zissolus.
I can trust that he understands my temptation because He’s spelled way more temptation than I’ll ever feel, and he’s been victorious.
Jesus, the son of Mary, and the son of god, who stands before us today and says, I am the only way you can come to the father.
If you choose not to come through me, you can’t come to the father And it’s only that we understand that that it makes sense to us.
It’s not that Jesus is being arbitrary.
It’s that he is saying there just isn’t any other way because there isn’t any other man who is fully god and fully human who can bring it together.
So if you think I’m not gonna go the Jesus way, you have just lost all hope of heaven.
There is no other way. Jesus came to be the way.
He has commissioned us as his people to go into all the world and proclaim to them that he is the way, if they will come through him, they can go to heaven and they can be with god forever.
You can have your sin forgiven.
You can have a friend who sticks closer than a brother who will help you and your weaknesses and give you victory over your temptation, but don’t seek it someplace else because there’s no place else to go.
One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is lord to the glory of god, the father.
That will happen. That will happen to all of us.
But far better than that, my friend, is for you to bow your knee to him today.
In your heart, just to say, Lord Jesus, I believe you are who you claim to be.
I believe you’re the only one who can save me from my sin and take me to heaven.
And I receive you as my savior today.
If you have never taken the step to believe in Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you can do that today.
If you will allow us, Doctor Jeremiah would like to send you 2 resources that will help you.
The first is a booklet called Your Greatest Turning Point, which will help you as you begin your relationship with Christ.
And the second is our monthly devotional magazine turning points to give you encouragement and inspiration throughout the year.
These resources are yours completely free when you contact Turning Point today.
Next time, on Turning Point.
You’ll never find a better model for what it means to be a teacher than to go to the teacher himself, the lord Jesus Christ, and discover how committed he was not just to communicating truth, but to changing lives.
Thank you for being with us today.
Join doctor Amaya next time for his message, is he the teacher of truth or the truth to be taught?
Here on Turning Point.