The Man Christ Jesus  -- Romans 1:3-4

Sermon by Pastor Dennis R. Gleason - October 31, 2004

“Regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In a seminary missions class, Herbert Jackson told how, as a new missionary, he was assigned a car that would not start without a push. After pondering his problem, he devised a plan. He went to the school near his home, got permission to take some children out of class, and had them push his car off. As he made his rounds, he would either park on a hill or leave the engine running. He used this ingenious procedure for two years.
Ill health forced the Jackson family to leave, and a new missionary came to that station. When Jackson proudly began to explain his arrangement for getting the car started, the new man began looking under the hood. Before the explanation was complete, the new missionary interrupted, "Why, Dr. Jackson, I believe the only trouble is this loose cable."

He gave the cable a twist, stepped into the car, pushed the switch, and to Jackson's astonishment, the engine roared to life. For two years needless trouble had become routine. The power was there all the time. Only a loose connection kept Jackson from putting that power to work.

J.B. Phillips paraphrases Ephesians l:19-20, "How tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God." When we make firm our connection with God, his life and power flow through us. Ernest B. Beevers.
As we began our consideration of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome we noted the fact that the gospel or the good news originated in the love of God and that the truth of the gospel was announced first in the Old Testament.
This good news is good news about Jesus Christ – His Son and our Lord. This good news concerns who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. The good news is that this Jesus, the Son of God, came into our world to take the place of sinners and to die in our place on the cross of Calvary.

A.B. Simpson is reported to have said that the gospel "Tells rebellious men that God is reconciled, that justice is satisfied, that sin has been atoned for, that the judgment of the guilty may be revoked, the condemnation of the sinner cancelled, the curse of the Law blotted out, the gates of hell closed, the portals of heaven opened wide, the power of sin subdued, the guilty conscience healed, the broken heart comforted, the sorrow and misery of the Fall undone."

Our consideration of this passage today will focus around Paul’s expression that He “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

The two verbs, “made” and “declared” will be of interest to us here. Paul is saying Jesus Christ was made and Jesus Christ was declared. If we understand these two verbs and what they say to us about this Jesus, we will have the real Jesus Christ of the Bible.

Note what God the Father has to say about His Son Jesus Christ:
1. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.” Isaiah 9:6 As a child he was born and as a Son he was given.
2. “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, …made under the law.” Galatians 4:4. He was made in His human nature and He was sent in His divine nature.
3. Put these two ideas together and you have what the Bible teaches us about Jesus Christ:  He had two natures. In his humanity he was born according to the flesh…born of a woman like us. In his Godhead, He was declared, given sent forth from heaven to earth.

One of the reasons people rejected Him and ultimately killed Him was that they were looking for something else. Often times we are looking for what we want to find and that was surely the case with Jesus Christ and the people to whom He came.

The people of Israel had their own ideas of what the Messiah was going to be like.  They failed to recognize Him because they had their minds so full of the blueprint of what they wanted and expected Him to be. For example they would have gone to Psalm 2:9 that spoke about the Messiah coming forth to rule with a rod of iron, and who would dash his enemies to pieces as a potter’s vessel.
Of course, when He came as a child born of the Virgin Mary he was nothing of the sort. .

In later years when Jesus came forth and began to demonstrate his supernatural power, the people turned to him immediately with questions about his identity. Who are you? They wanted to know. Do you remember the story of when John the Baptist came onto the scene with a powerful ministry and a call to repentance? They wanted to know if he was the Messiah. John clearly said he was not. But Jesus told them very clearly that he was the Messiah when they wanted to know who he was. And when he failed to act as they thought the Messiah should act, they rejected him.

They failed to understand that when He came the first time he was coming to save individual sinners from their sins and that he would come a second time to redeem society, civilization and government. He will one day do what man longs for but cannot do.

Everything that the Lord God Almighty is to me, so is Jesus Christ to me. Jesus Christ has existed eternally as the second person of the Godhead, co-eternal and co-equal with the Father.

The Bible is not shy about speaking about the humanity and the divinity of Jesus at the same time. For example, when Jesus was out on the lake with his disciples, He was tired out, exhausted at the end of a long and hard day. Mark tells us in his gospel that “they took Him even as He was in the ship.” That phrase “even as He was” told them something about his condition at that time. He lay down in the boat and went to sleep. This is a very human picture of this man Jesus. A storm arose on the lake. It must have been a really bad one because these seasoned fishermen called it a “great storm” . And Jesus was so tired that he slept through the wind, the storm, the rush of water into the boat the threatened to swamp it.
The disciples finally awakened him and “He arose  and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace be still.” And the wind died down and there was a great calmness on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples marveled at what they had witnessed and according to Mark 4:41 said, “ What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey him?”

The fact is that humanity and deity were together in that boat in the same physical body. Jesus Christ was made and declared. He is man, but He is God.

We can illustrate this fact by turning to another time in the life and ministry of Jesus. One day as Jesus and his disciples were together it came to be time to pay the poll tax. There is certainly nothing more human than being taxed. And the tax collector asked Peter, “Does you Master pay taxes?” The very fact that the tax collector asks the question indicates that he recognized some thing in Jesus above and beyond all other men.

As he often did, Peter rushed in and answered the man. He agreed that Jesus would pay the tax. Later when they were alone Jesus took Peter aside to speak with him quietly. He asked Peter if he recognized the fact that kings exempted themselves from paying taxes but took money from others. Peter said he understood this. Jesus pointed out to Peter that because he himself was King, it would be natural for Him not to pay taxes. But so as not to be an offense to any one, He told Peter to go ahead and pay the tax.

But the method of paying the tax was startling. He in effect told Peter:  “Go down to My Sea of Galilee, which I created. I have had one of My creatures lose a coin in the water, and My Law of Gravity carried it down where I had one of My fish take it into his mouth. You go fishing and I will have that fish come to your hook. You take the fish and take the coin out of its mouth, and it will be a coin sufficient enough to pay your taxes and mine!”

Here you have a very human thing in the payment of the taxes and a very divine way of paying them! Humanity is subject to the laws of the land. Deity knows the movements of the fish in the sea, the whereabouts of the lost coin and regulates the power and movements of the fish.

Don’t you wonder if Peter had enough faith not to use any bait? That fish would have climbed up his fishing line if necessary to deliver that coin!

He was made a descendant of David according to the flesh and was declared to the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

Whether or not a person believes in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a matter of the will. There is ample evidence from eye witnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus. There were individuals who saw him and as many as five hundred at one time.

The day of worship for the early believers was changed from the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday to the first day of the week – Sunday – because of the resurrection of Jesus. This is one of the greatest proofs of the resurrection.

The eleven disciples and other followers of Jesus were transformed from hiding cowards to a group of indomitable men and women, fearing neither life nor death and in only a day’s time. There is no explanation for what took place in them apart from the resurrection of Jesus.

We could go on, but that is not necessary. For our text tells us that this resurrection declares Jesus to be the Son of God, with power.

The resurrection is the vindication of Jesus Christ in his humanity. He was who he claimed to be and His resurrection guarantees it.

He allowed men to beat him, to spit upon him. He allowed them to mock him and then to drive the nails through his hands and feet. After six hours he dismissed his Spirit and his lifeless body hung on the cross.

They put him in a tomb after hastily wrapping his body with linen and spices as they would any ordinary corpse.

On the third day He arose. He took the body and brought it out of the grave clothes, leaving them like the chrysalis abandoned by a butterfly. He passed through the rocky walls of that tomb, alive forever.

Then the angels came and moved the stone away from the tomb’s entrance. They did not move the stone to let him out. No, they moved to stone to let his disciples in…so that men might know that he had risen from the dead.

And by that resurrection the meek and lowly Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power. By that resurrection he was vindicated to be everything that he had ever declared himself to be.

He is the risen, exalted Christ, the Son of God.

If men do not flee to the cross to lay hold of the redemption that was provided by the shedding of the blood of the Son of God, they must one day come face to face with Christ. And on that day his patience will have come to an end. He will lay aside his robes of mediation and gird himself with the sword of omnipotent justice. He was declared by the Spirit of holiness to the Son of God. It is that holiness that men will face.

The resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee that one day we will face the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be able to stand before him on our own merit. Holiness will demand to be satisfied. The only satisfaction of holiness is the fact that we have accepted his death on the cross as payment for our sin and have accepted Him as our Savior and Lord of our lives.

This is the good news.  Jesus Christ has been declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection. The door of salvation is still wide open. We must be prepared to share the good news with our loved ones and friends. How will they hear if we do not tell them?

What would God have you do this week to share your story of how you encountered the good news about Jesus Christ?

The power of the good news is there. It has been there all the time.  When our connection with God is firm there will be power in our telling our story of how we came to know Jesus Christ the Son of God as our own personal Savior and the Lord of our life.

-- Dennis Gleason