THE UNIQUENESS

JESUS CHRIST IS the one-of-a-kind person in all of history. Jesus of Nazareth, the unique One, has undoubtedly been the subject of more books, more songs, and more devotion than anyone who has ever lived. His appearance on earth was so monumental that history divided around His life, before Christ (BC) and in the year of our Lord (anno Domini, or AD). Time has meaning to us as it is defined by the presence of Jesus Christ in history.

On one occasion Jesus' disciples voiced the question that people have continued to ask about Him for almost two thousand years. Having witnessed His miraculous calming of the sea, the Twelve looked at each other and asked, "What kind of a man is this?" (Matthew 8:27). In other words, who is this Jesus? The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament were written to answer that question and explain its implications for our lives.

In part 1 we will explore this greatest of all subjects, considering the uniqueness and authority of Jesus and then looking more deeply at His death and resurrection.

His Unique Identity

Jesus is unique because He is the only person who existed before He was born (see John 1:1, 14) and who is today what He has always been (Hebrews 13:8). That makes him Deity. But He is more than Deity. He is the only person whose earthly conception had no relationship to His origin. By virtue of His birth as a man, Jesus Christ is now both Son of God and Son of Man. He is Deity and He is humanity. He is the Godman — Deity incarnated, given flesh.

+His nature is "very God of very God," to use a phrase theologians coined to try to declare Christ's divine nature. A lot of people respect Jesus Christ as a great person, an inspiring teacher, and a great leader, but reject His deity.

This is heresy. You cannot hold Jesus in high regard while denying He is the eternal God, a point Jesus Himself made clear to the religious rulers, the crowds, and His closest disciples (for example, John 8:23-24, 28-29; 10:30-37).

Jesus Christ clearly and directly claimed to be God when He said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). This statement is significant because the word "one" is neuter in form, meaning that He and the Father are one, perfect in nature and unified in essence. This was a personal claim of total equality with the Father. Those who heard this statement clearly understood it to be a claim to deity, for they immediately tried to stone Him for blasphemy because He made Himself equal to God (v. 33).

Four Proofs of His Deity

We could use a number of lines of argument to demonstrate Jesus' deity but I want to consider four of them, beginning with His preexistence. We have already said that Christ existed before His birth.