God's unspeakable gift, the Lord Jesus Christ, is presented as divine and eternal, existing before creation. The sermon draws from John 1, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1 to establish Christ's deity, his role as the Creator, and his perfect representation of God. It emphasizes that Christ, as the 'firstborn of every creature,' was designated by God and functions as an equal partner in the Godhead, not a subordinate. The message concludes by highlighting Christ as God's eternal Son, given for humanity, and urges reflection on his magnificence.
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It's very nice to be with you again. You know, I've known Mr. Woodhouse for a number of years, and when he mentioned that he came from Birmingham, I realized this the first time I realized he was from Alabama. I also understand that there's a group of people here from the Penny Farm. And, of course, the Penny Farm was named for James Cash Penny. J.C. Penny. Now, my father-in-law's name was James Penny, but he was the James Penny without the cash.
Now, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, they're very, very difficult days for a man who wants to preach. Because everything that could possibly be said has already been said. And as I look on this company and see all of the white hairs, and some men with no hair at all, I realize that I am not going to bring you anything very new. But in looking over the scripture, I looked at that verse which says, Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. You'll find it in Second Corinthians nine fifteen. And it occurred to me that perhaps rather than emphasize the Thanksgiving, that we would emphasize the gift.
And so in the five meetings that we will have together, I would like to speak to you a little bit about the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His majesty, in all of His beauty, in all of His glory, remembering as we go through this series that He is God's unspeakable gift. I guess it takes courage. to speak about that which is unspeakable. And another translation of that word, of course, is thanks be unto God for his indescribable gift. And perhaps it's a real chore to try to describe that which is indescribable. But if we can only get a little view, a little glimpse of the magnificence and the beauty and the kindness and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, then thanksgiving will follow all by itself.
And so that's what we'd like to do. And at this meeting we would like to look at his who he was in eternity past. And then at the next meeting we're going to speak about his incarnation and then his death and resurrection and his present ministry and then his coming again. And so those are the outlines for the five meetings. And this morning we want to look at his deity. and his eternal existence and we're going to read the first chapter of or parts of the first chapter of three different books the first time in John's Gospel chapter one and reading at verse one John one and verse one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him And without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And now in the Colossian epistle, again chapter one, and reading at verse twelve. Colossians chapter one, and reading at verse twelve. giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, Whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. And now in the first chapter of the Hebrew Epistle, and again reading at verse one, Hebrews chapter one and verse one, God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being in the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
Now as we look at these verses together, We notice that there are many things in them that are common. First of all, we notice that the Lord Jesus Christ here is identified for us as being a member of the Godhead. And then secondly, we notice that he is identified as being completely responsible for the creation as we know it. And so we want to look at these things this morning. And you'll notice, I'm sure, as we read John chapter one, I'm sure that you noticed that John here really paraphrases the first chapter of the account in Genesis of the creation.
Genesis begins, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Here in John, we read, in the beginning, again, the same expression is used, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was God. And here, John purposely, I believe, is paraphrasing what we have in Genesis, and here he is identifying the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who was the Creator. Now, if you look carefully through the first chapter of the book of Genesis, you'll find that the name of God is mentioned either thirty-two or thirty-three times. And in each instance, in Genesis chapter one, the Hebrew word that is used is the word Elohim.
Now, Elohim is a plural word. In Jewish, even to this day, in Hebrew, and even in Yiddish, the Jews use I am as a plural. They would refer to a Gentile as being a goy. And they would refer to more than one Gentile as being goyim. And here in this verse, in the first chapter of Genesis, wherever the name, which is translated into the English God is used, there the Hebrew word is Elohim, which is a plural word. Actually, it is more than dual. It means three or more.
And it's interesting that when we speak about the creation, God is identified to us as being one who exists in more than one person. And it's also interesting that in the Hebrew, Elohim is an unusual word in that while it is a plural word, it always takes a singular verb. Now there's an English lesson for you. I'm not a linguist. I am very much dependent on my good friend, Dr. Strong, for what I know about these things. But here we have something that I think is very, very interesting.
that the God who was identified for us in the creation is presented to us in more than one person and he is presented to us as more than one person acting as one person. Now we have trouble with that, do we not? In our human experience we find it very difficult to find two people who always act in concert one with another. I suppose the closest human relationship is the relationship of a husband to his wife. And we would hope, we would like to think, that a husband and wife always act in concert one with another.
Now those of you who are married, do I dare ask you the question, do you always agree with your wife or your husband. Now, of course we don't. I would like to think, after living with my wife for almost fifty years, that we get along fairly well. But I have to be honest and tell you that we don't always agree. But here we have brought before us three people, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who always act as one.
Now, I think the reason for that, of course, is that they all are able to tell the end from the beginning. And they all know what is best and what is right and what is needed. And so they always are in agreement as to what steps should be taken. And they are in agreement in making the creation. And it's interesting to notice that in Genesis one, they speak to each other. They say, let us make man in our own image. And so we have these three persons in the Godhead who always act in concert one with another, who always agree with one another, and here they are, and they are making the creation for which we are very thankful today.
This is the harvest time. And we are grateful for that which God has provided and that which particularly is the fruit of the earth, the harvest. And here we have presented to us these three individual persons in the Godhead who always act in concert one with another. And here they are responsible for all the creation of everything that we see around us. in the world. And now when we come to John's gospel, John identifies with that. He identifies with that creation and he says, in the beginning.
And the idea of in the beginning is before anything was created, before anything started, God was there. Now the other word that is used in the Old Testament for God is that lovely word Jehovah. And Jehovah simply means, I was and I am and I always will be. That's the meaning of the word. And we sometimes and very often we identify the word Jehovah with God the Father. But what I want you to notice is that the word Jehovah is equally applicable to all three members of the Godhead.
God the Father was eternal. He was, He is, and He always will be. God the Son, He was, He is, and He always will be. God the Holy Spirit was and is and always will be. All three members of the Godhead are entitled to use the word Jehovah. And you'll remember at one time when the Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, you'll remember in speaking to the Pharisees, he said before, Abraham was, I am. And here he used the shortened expression for the word Jehovah. Here he used the expression which means the eternal one, the one who is always in the present.
I am. And the Jews understood very well what he was saying. They understood that he was making an absolute claim to deity. And therefore they took up rocks to stone him. They said, this is blasphemy. But the Lord Jesus Christ here claimed that title, Jehovah. And here in John one, we are told in the beginning, at the time when there was nothing in existence except God, in the beginning, before anything was God created. And now in the beginning was the Word. the logos, the mind of God, the presence of God.
And here we are told that this word was with God and was God. And here we have the idea of more than one person, but all of this being one God. And so we have in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. And then it's emphasized. The same was in the beginning, prior to creation, prior to the existence of anything else, in the beginning, this individual who is being presented to us existed.
And then it goes on, and it then clearly identifies him with the creation. All things were made by him. There's the positive. And now the negative. And apart from him, nothing was made. Because that's the meaning of the verse. All things were made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made. And then the verse goes on and it says, In him was life. And the life was the light of men. Now, life and light are two of the attributes of God.
God has other attributes, of course. But these are two of the attributes of God. This was presented to me very early in my Christian experience because the chapel that we grew up in had a... A message over the top of the platform said, God is love and God is light. And here we are told that God is, in him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And here we are dealing with one of the attributes of a holy God. He is the God who gives us life. And he is. also light. And light carries with it the idea of an association with God's righteousness and His holiness, intrinsic parts of the very personality and character of God. And so here the Lord Jesus Christ is identified with these two attributes of God.
Now, interestingly enough, in terms of the use of the word Elohim and Jehovah, in Deuteronomy six, there is a message which is given to the Jew. It says, Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one God. And this is a saying which every Jew knows and can say in Hebrew. And it is repeated over and over and over again in Jewish circles. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. And yet, if you look at the original of that, what it says is this.
It says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord, Jehovah, our Elohim is one Jehovah. And so what the Jew is saying when he repeats that over and over again, he's saying it in terms of thinking, we are a monotheistic people. But yet what he is saying is this, Jehovah, our Elohim plural, is one Jehovah. And again, we have brought before us the idea of these three people in the Godhead. Now, when we come to the Colossian epistle, much of what we have seen in John is repeated for us.
For here we are told about one who is also the creator. He is described to us here as being the image of the invisible God. The image of the invisible God. Now an image is that which represents something perfectly. Isn't that right? An image represents something perfectly. You look in the mirror every morning when you comb your hair or brush your teeth or whatever ablutions you take care of in the morning, you go into the bathroom and you look in the mirror.
A mirror is very important to us. One of the things that I noticed when I was over in the British Isles, no offense, Brother Woodhouse, but one of the things that I noticed is in the bathrooms they tend to put the wash basin under the window and they put the mirror on the opposite wall. Now I don't know why they do that because over there when a man starts to shave You see, he has to wet his razor here and then walk across to here to shave and then bring it back and wet his razor over here. And it makes light very, very difficult. But we look in the mirror every morning and we think that we see our image.
But you know we don't. What we see is a mirror image. If you put out your hand to that image, it won't put out the hand to shake. It puts out this hand, doesn't it? and you see a mirror image. Jeanette and I recently had some pictures made. We will be celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary and we thought we would like to have some pictures that we could put with our wedding pictures. I'm not sure that we're going to do that because the deterioration that we have seen over the last fifty years is just too much. However, I looked at that picture when it came and I said, this is not right.
It isn't me. And the reason is because when I looked at it, the part in my hair was on the wrong side. I see myself in the mirror. The picture shows me as I am. And since my face is not completely symmetrical, it was very noticeable to me. We don't see an image very often, but an image is an exact expression. And here we are told that this Lord Jesus Christ is an exact expression of God. Now, we will deal a little more with this when we talk about the incarnation.
But what I want to point out to you is this, that the Lord Jesus Christ appears to us in a form which we can see and in a form which we can appreciate and in his life, here on earth, in His humanity, He completely showed us the image of all of the character and personality of God, of God the Father. He showed that perfectly. I think one of the great verses of Scripture is that verse concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. Very simple verse. It says this, He went about doing good.
And in all of his life, he demonstrated the authority of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the righteousness of God, every attribute of God. He demonstrated in a form that we could see and understand. If you want to know more about God, read the Gospels. You know, when the Lord was ready to leave this scene, the disciples said to him, Show us the Father.
And he said, He that has seen me has seen the Father. We can't see the Father. God is a spirit. We can't take in the character and personality of God. But we look at the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there we see reflected in all of his beauty and all of his loveliness we see the character of God. Now he is here given to us as being the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
And I'd like to deal with that firstborn of every creature because it is greatly misunderstood. The idea of the firstborn in the Old Testament is most interesting. The firstborn was entitled to three things. He was entitled to be the head of the family in the secular sense of the word. Secondly, he was expected to be the spiritual head of the family. and third he was entitled to a double portion when the estate was divided the firstborn was entitled to get more than or twice as much as anyone else most interesting but the idea of the firstborn is that he is not necessarily the one who was born first who was Adam's firstborn You shouldn't be this sleepy now.
You haven't had dinner yet. Adam's firstborn was Cain. Did Cain inherit the rights of the firstborn? No, he did not. Neither did the secondborn Abel who was killed. That went, did it not, to the third child, Seth. And then you come to Abraham and he had twin sons. Do you remember that? Esau. Am I right? No. Jacob, Isaac had twin sons.
Very good. I'm glad you are awake. Isaac had twin sons, Jacob and Esau. And you remember that Esau was the firstborn. And yet at the time of their death, It was prophesied that the elder would serve the younger. And Esau sold his birthright, and that birthright then went to Jacob. And you remember that Jacob himself had twelve sons. And when he was dying, in his oral will, you'll remember, he gave the kingdom to Judah. He gave the priesthood or the spiritual leadership of the family to Levi, and he gave the double portion to Joseph.
And so the idea of the firstborn is not necessarily that it is the one who is born first, but it is the one who is designated by the Father to have these things. And here in the Colossian epistle, we are told that the Lord Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, and that God has appointed him to be his firstborn. Now, you get that in the eighty-ninth Psalm, if you care to look at it some other time. But in Psalm eighty-eight, we have a beautiful picture of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Psalm eighty-nine, he is described to us as being the firstborn higher than the kings of the earth. And so here we have him described to us as being the firstborn of every creature.
And he was always in the relationship of a son to the father. There are those who teach that the Lord Jesus Christ only became the son when he was born at Bethlehem. I don't believe that that is so. And interestingly enough, John MacArthur in one of his recent articles, speaking of that, he holds that, that the Lord became the Son at Bethlehem. In one of his recent articles, he spoke about the fact that Jesus Christ was never subordinate to the Father. And he seems to think that because he is described as the Son, that necessarily makes him subordinate to the Father.
But that's not the case. My father is still alive. He's ninety-four years old. I am his son. I have been his son for seventy years. And until such time as he dies, I guess I always will be his son. But I am in no way subordinate to him. Not now. There was a time when I was a little fellow, when I did what I was told. Not because I was so good. but because he made me. And when I was a young boy, we used to wrestle. You ever wrestle with your boys?
I guess every father does at one time or another. Anyway, we used to wrestle together. He's a little man. About five foot five, a hundred and fifty pounds at the most. And when I was about sixteen years old, we were wrestling and my mother was getting after us from rustling around the house, but I picked him up and I sat him in the kitchen sink. And he has mentioned it to me often. And one of the things that he always says in connection with that incident is that I recognize then that our relationship had changed. It had.
And as time went by, as as we mature as men, we are still sons of our father, but we have a different relationship with him. We are equal. We are not any more subordinate to him. We have our own families. We earn our own living. We do all of the things that is expected of a full grown man. And while our relationship remains the relationship of a son to his father, The father loves his son, and the son in turn loves and respects and honors his father, hopefully until the day he dies.
Nevertheless, there is the subtle difference. And what God is speaking of here is not a child. God is speaking here of a father and a son who have an adult relationship one with another and function together as one with another. And so he is named by God as being the firstborn. And you'll notice this isn't Christmas, but you'll notice what the Christmas message says. It says in Isaiah, unto us a child is born. And that's true. But it says unto us a son is what?
Given. Because God gave his son. That's the message of John chapter three, is it not? And if you look back in Proverbs where you have that beautiful, beautiful personification of wisdom, we find the creation is being described. And the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the personification of wisdom itself, here he says, at the time of creation, then was I by him, as one brought up with him, I was daily his delight. And all of that, of course, took place long before the scene at Bethlehem.
And so we have presented to us God's eternal Son. Now, it's five minutes at twelve. And I have two pages of notes to go. No, I don't. But I am smart enough to understand that I had better not go past twelve o'clock today or I am in deep deep hot water and so we're going to close very quickly we haven't really got to the first chapter of Hebrews you can read it for yourself but you'll find once again he is described to us as being the brightness of God's glory the express image of his person and then he is he is mentioned to us as being the creator All of these things are given to us, and we notice what it says concerning him, that he has spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.
And again, this comes back to the idea that the firstborn is the one that the Father designates as being the firstborn, and God has appointed him as being heir of all things. things now he is described to us in other places in scripture as being god's only son john three sixteen speaks of god's only begotten son he is the only son of god but that relationship which goes back to eternity past but which carries with it no idea of subordination of the person of the lord jesus christ to god the father They are co-equal in every sense of the word.
And now they are together in the creation. And as we shall see, when we look at the incarnation, we find there that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. because the gift that he gave us was no less than the beloved Son who in eternity sat at his right hand and was daily his delight. And he gave him for us.
And we'll look at that at our next meeting together. And now it's two minutes of twelve. And so we'll close with a word of prayer. O our God. how we praise thee and thank thee for all of thy goodness to us in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank thee, our Father, that we have heard the message over the years concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank thee for each one here who can look back to that day in their experience when they found him and made him their own Savior. And so our Father...
We praise thee and thank thee for him. And we ask now as we separate that thou would be with us. We pray thy presence with us throughout the remainder of the conference. We ask our Father that thou would give safety on the highway for those who have to travel. And we ask thy blessing on all. In Jesus' worthy, precious name. Amen.