Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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Christ Is God
Chapter 47 – The Intervening Steps of God’s Journey Through Christ
I just gave you a whole chapter on the first step of God’s journey. Similarly, the next chapter will be wholly focused the last step. Why then, in this intervening chapter, am I bunching the intervening steps? Because, for the most part, these intervening steps are so much more familiar to us. Therefore, they don’t require as much explanation or emphasis.
God’s first step was to replicate Himself in a second preexistent being before creating the heavens and the earth. Though this fact is made known in the New Testament, it is seldom taught in our time. God’s last step was to fully reveal Christ as God and Father of all. This, too, is seldom taught these days. The intervening steps, however, are widely known to anyone familiar with biblical Christianity.
Step Two: The Age of YHWH
The Old Testament does not say that there were two preexistent beings. On the contrary, it presents God as one…and repeatedly emphasizes this point. The single God named in the Old Testament was YHWH.
YHWH was a Hebrew word essentially meaning “I am.” It is usually translated in English Bibles as “LORD” (rendered in all capital letters). This is the name by which God identified Himself to Moses in Exodus 3 through the angel of the LORD (YHWH).
The name YHWH appears in the Old Testament approximately 6,820 times. Excluding function words like particles, conjunctions, prepositions, and the like, the next most frequently appearing content word is “amar,” a verb meaning “to say.” Therefore, YHWH is not only the most frequently occurring name in the Old Testament, it is the most frequently occurring content word. Truly, it is the Old Testament’s most important name and word. And we know it in English as LORD (all caps).
With the resurrection of Jesus, it was revealed that YHWH had been the Son operating in His assigned role of “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) – also known as the angel of the LORD (YHWH). Most people understand that Jesus is the centerpiece of the New Testament; this revelation showed that He was the centerpiece of the Old Testament as well.
So much for the Old Testament. The next three steps are recorded in the New Testament.
Step Three: The Life of Jesus of Nazareth
This is when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He was “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). As Jesus, the Son relinquished all the glory and power He had held as the face of YHWH in the Old Testament. Jesus’ human life lasted about 33 years.
Step Four: The Death of Jesus of Nazareth
The Son not only lived like us, He died like us. But He did not stay dead like us. He rose from the dead…so that all of us could rise from the dead, too.
Step Five: The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ
(Jesus at the Right Hand of God)
Ascending into heaven after His resurrection, Jesus was returning to the glory He had given up in order to come down here with us – there to await even more glory to be heaped on Him in the Second Coming. His consciousness was being restored just as Nebuchadnezzar’s consciousness was restored in Daniel 4.
Now we’re ready to dwell on the last step of God’s journey.
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