BELIEVING IN THE SON OF GOD

Key Text: Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. (1 John 5:5)

The Student Will:

Know: Recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through Him we can gain the victory.
Feel: Secure in the knowledge that we can be victorious.
Do: Share the good news of victory through Jesus with others.

Lesson Outline:

Know: Jesus Is the Messiah

1. In 1 John 5:6 John refers to Jesus’ coming by “water and blood,” that is, Jesus’ baptism and subsequent death on the cross. Reflect on the events around these two topics. How did they confirm to people at the time that Jesus was the Messiah? What do they say to us today?

These important events in the life of Jesus were confirmed to people during His time through testimonies of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”[1]

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"[2]

John says that if we are willing to accept the witness of humans, how much more so the witness of God Himself? Indeed, often we take at face value what people tell us, whether in print or television media, even if we have no good grounds for believing what we hear. How much more should we accept God’s own witness and believe in Jesus as portrayed in the New Testament! God is reliable and true. If we do not accept His testimony, we claim that God is a liar, a serious accusation indeed.[3]

We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.[4]


As far as God is concerned, it is major heresy to deny that Jesus Christ is the Anointed One sent from heaven who by dying on the Cross, came to save us from our sins. The consequence of not believing in Jesus is death. On the other hand, faith in the Son of God and reliance on what He has done for us on the cross bring eternal life. It is the Cross that crosses the gulf between eternal death and eternal life, and it is the only bridge across the chasm.[5]

2. Describe the different facets of Jesus—His humanity, His divinity, the historic Jesus, and the revolutionary Jesus. How do these pictures compare with how Jesus described Himself?

His Divinity:[6]

a. He has divine attributes (Matt. 28: 18; John 17: 2; Col. 2: 3).
b. He has divine powers and prerogatives (John 1: 3; Col. 1: 17; Matt. 25: 31, 32).
c. His divine names (Matt. 1: 23; Matt. 1:1; Matt. 3: 3).
d. His divinity was acknowledged (John 1:1, 14; John 20: 28; Rom. 9: 5).
e. His personal testimony (John 8: 58; John 10: 30, John 20: 17).
f. His equality with God assumed (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13: 14; John 14: 19).
g. He is worship as God (Matt. 28: 17; Heb. 1: 6; Phil. 2: 10: 11)

His humanity:[7]

a. His human birth (Gal 4: 4; Phil. 2:7, 8; Matt. 1: 1).
b. His human development (Luke 2: 40, 52; Heb. 5: 8)
c. He was called a man (John 1: 30; Rom. 5: 5; 1 Cor. 15: 21).
d. His human characteristics (Heb. 2: 9; Heb. 2; 14, 17; Matt. 9: 36).
e. The extent of his identification with human nature:
1. He was in the likeness of the sinful flesh”(Isa 42: 1; Rom. 8: 3).
2. He was the second Adam (1 cor. 15: 45, 47; Heb. 5: 2).
3. His experience with temptations (Heb 4: 15; Heb 2: 180).
f. The was sinless (Heb. 4: 15; 2 cor. 5: 21).

The historic Jesus:

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” [8]

Few will dispute that a man named Jesus lived 2,000 years ago and that He was a great teacher who impacted the world from His time onward. But He has always been a controversial figure. He made a claim that was breathtaking in its audacity—that He was the very Son of God, the long-prophesied Messiah! Yet the religious authorities in Jerusalem rejected Him, hated Him and eventually succeeded in having Him put to death. Likewise, the local Roman civil authorities also saw Him as a threat and became complicit in His execution. The religions of His day, both Judaism and paganism, opposed the growth of His teachings and used unlawful and violent means to try to destroy the Church He founded. The government of Rome also came to vigorously persecute the followers of this Jewish teacher from Galilee.[9]

Roman historians, Jewish historians, the finding of the Gnostic materials at Nag Hammadi and now the finding of Caiaphas' burial cave, establishes an historic fact that Jesus lived and died in a time and a place described in the New Testament. Some of the evidence supporting these writings surfaced nearly 2000 years later, adding a strong rule of evidence toward their historic accuracy.[10]

Revolutionary Jesus: (Matt. 5: 21, 22; 5: 27, 28; 5: 38-42)

Jesus was a revolutionary teacher. His ideas shocked and frightened the people of His day. He would probably do the same to us today were He here in person. The sad truth is that the teachings of Jesus are just as revolutionary today as they were when He was here, but we have overlooked their importance. Or, we have failed to make application of them to our lives.[11]

The most impressive thing about the teaching of Jesus is not that He taught them but that He appears to have lived them. From the accounts that we have, His entire life was one of humility, self-giving and love that sought not its own.[12]

Jesus could have flashed beams of light on the darkness of mystery of science, but He would not spare a moment from teaching the knowledge of the science of salvation. His time, His knowledge, His faculties, His life itself, were appreciated on y as the means of working out salvation of the souls of men.[13]

How did Jesus describe himself?

a. Jesus often speaks of God as His Father in a way that implies a relationship unique to Himself. He also claims that the only way humans can approach God is through Himself (John 14: 6).
b. Jesus claims that He and only He has come from heaven, from God Himself. John 3: 13; 6: 46).
c. Jesus claims nothing less than total unity with God. (John 10: 30).
d. Jesus says that belief in Him is an essential prerequisite for receiving eternal life. Not only this, those who believe in Him will be raised from the dead by Jesus Christ Himself. (John 6: 40).
e. Jesus claims that He is the judge of all men (John 5: 22).
f. Jesus claims to have the power to give life to the dead (John : 21)
g. Jesus claims that He is important to life as bread or light (John 6: 35; John 8: 12)
h. Jesus also use metaphors to describe Himself
1. “I am the bread of life” (John6: 35, 48)
2. “I am the light of the world” (John 8: 12)
3. “I am the door” (John 10: 7, 9)
4. “I am the good shepherd” (John 10: 11, 14)
5. “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11: 25)
6. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14: 6)
7. “I am the true vine” (John 15: 1, 5)

NOTE: The gospel of John present the reader with extraordinary claims as to who Jesus is, it demands a decision of the reader. It is he who believes in Jesus who already has eternal life. The reader that doesn’t believe is already damned. Jesus is said to be more important than bread, water, or life itself. The gospel demands that if we believe in Jesus, we believe His extraordinary claims. The gospel urgently demands that we make a decision about whether we believe in Jesus.[14]

Feel: Victory Is Secure

3. Jesus’ victory assures us of victory. How does this irrefutable truth make you feel?

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.[15]

The conqueror par excellence is Jesus Christ. Because He has won the victory, His followers are able to overcome too. To some extent, they already have the victory, His victory in their behalf. The over comers receive wonderful promises from God that we no longer have to be slaves to sin but that in Jesus and in the new life we have in Him, we serve the Lord, not Satan, our old master.[16]

4. Share how looking at life through the filter of the Cross gives you courage in your everyday life.

“Without the cross, man could have no union with the Father. On it depends our every hope. From it shines the light of the Savior’s love, and when at the foot of the cross the sinner looks up to the One who died to save him, he may rejoice with fullness of joy, for his sins are pardoned. Kneeling in faith at the cross, he has reached the highest place to which man can attain.”[17]

Do: Sharing With Others

5. John used the images of water and blood. What images can you think of that would help people understand Jesus’ sacrifice better?

The sacrificial lamb is the most widely used imagery in the Bible that explains the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ and how it accomplished God’s prerogative of saving the fallen humanity. With this imagery come different “concepts which explain what have been accomplished by His death.”[18]

a. The concept of Sacrifice, Offering Substitute (Eph 5: 2; Heb. 9: 26)
b. The concept of Ransom (Matt. 20: 28; Mark 10: 45)
c. The concept of Propitiation or Expiation (Hebrews 2: 17; 9: 5)
d. The concept of Reconciliation (2 Cor. 5: 19; Rom 5: 8-11)

6. Role-play ways of explaining Jesus’ divinity to a doubter.

a. The OT and NT parallel of God the Father and God the Son (Ex. 3: 14; John 8: 58)
b. Jesus Christ's Witnesses Claim that Jesus is God (John 1: 1; Rom. 15: 9)
c. Jesus Christ Claims to be God (Matt. 4: 7; John 8: 58)
d. Jesus' Miracles Testify that He is God (Matt. 8; 26; Matt. 9: 25)
e. Jesus Christ is Worshiped (Matt. 2: 2, 11; John 20: 28)

Summary: We can live a victorious Christian life and have the hope of eternal life, because Jesus lived and died to pay the price for our sins.

___________________________________________________
[1] Matthew 3: 16, 17, NIV
[2] Matt. 27: 51-54, NIV
[3] Adult Bible Study Guide 2009: 3rd Quarter, Teachers Edition. pp. 106
[4] 1 John 5: 20
[5] Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 209, 210
[6] Seventh-day Adventist Believe, A Biblical Exposition of Fundamental Doctrines (Maryland: PPPA, 2006), p. 50-51
[7] Ibid., p. 52-55
[8] Matt. 5: 16: 18
[9] http://www.gnmagazine.org/
[10] Harry V. Martin, Free America, 1995
[11] www.examiner.org
[12] The Illustrated World Religions, (New York: Harper Collins, 1986) p. 212
[13] Ellen G. White, Mind, Character, and Personality, vol. 1, p. 245
[14] Robert K. McIver, The Four Faces of Jesus. (Idaho: PPPA, 2000) p. 266,274, 276-277
[15] Romans 6: 1-6, NIV
[16] Adult Bible Study Guide 2009: 3rd Quarter, Teachers Edition. pp. 102)
[17] Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 209, 210
[18] Adult Bible Study Guide 2008: 2nd Quarter, Philippine Teachers Edition. p. 305-306