Translate

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

P6/11 Discovering the Identity of Jesus - Luke's Gospel Identity of Jesus - The Son of Man


Matthew 16:15 "He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”


Note to the reader: These next several posts are designed to present a cultural, historical and theological study of Jesus Christ and the facts behind the crucifixion.  In yesterday's post we considered Mark's Gospel Identity of Jesus as: "The King who came to serve and be a Ransom". I have chosen to present this material partly in response to the History Channel's recent series: "Bible Secrets Revealed" and partly to give the readers of this blog a chance to see what the Four Gospels truly say about Jesus Christ.  

This particular series of blogs are more concerned with explaining the contents and validity of the four Gospel accounts.  




In today's post we will consider once again Part two of this series, and the third lesson of Part two entitled: Luke's Gospel presents Jesus as the Son of Man.


PART TWO: CONCERNING THE RECORDS OF JESUS’ LIFE AS A MEANS OF TYING TOGETHER THE OLD TESTAMENT RECORD

Lesson Three: Luke’s Gospel’s identity of Jesus – The Son of Man 

1.      Luke’s gospel, much like Matthew, has a list of Jesus’ human descendants.  While Matthew’s list focuses upon Jesus legal rights to the kingship of Israel, Luke’s genealogy focuses more upon Jesus right by birth as a literal descendant of David – hence the reasons for the differences between the two.[1]

2.   If we read Daniel 7, we come to understand the central reason of Luke’s focus on Jesus as the Son of Man:[2]
    Daniel 7:3-9-14   9 “As I looked:
   “thrones were set in place,
  and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
   His clothing was as white as snow;
  the hair of his head was white like wool.
   His throne was flaming with fire,
  and its wheels were all ablaze.
   10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. 11 “Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.  12 (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.) 13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."

3. Luke’s focus is upon how Jesus would   fulfill this prophecy by being empowered with glory and Sovereign power in His humanity by the Holy Spirit. (Luke 4:18)

4. The Holy Spirit's empowerment of Jesus in His humanity is also proof of Jesus fulfilling another prophecy in Isaiah 61, wherein He would go about healing sickness, delivering those in spiritual slavery, and most importantly of all offering forgiveness and hope. Of course we must remember that all the while the Person of the Son was experiencing these prophecies in His human nature, He in His Divine nature never ceased being God.

Questions:
1. What obligation to Jesus’ should His position as Divine judge place upon people living in this world?
  
  2. Why does God need to judge this      
  world?

More tomorrow.....

Endnotes:



[1] In first century Jewish culture, any Jew would had been able to recount their genealogy on demand.  The fact that we have two records of Jesus’ descendants is not unusual, since his disciples would had had access to each of the lists from both Mary’s genaeological list (The one recorded in Luke) and Joseph’s (The one recorded in Matthew).

[2] This theme is developed more fully in the book “Shadows of the Almighty” by Ben Witherington III and Laura M. Ice.