Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Revelation 1:8 reveals that Jesus is eternal: “’I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending,’ saith the Lord, ‘[Who] is, and [Who] was, and [Who] is to come, the Almighty.’” We usually think of eternality is the future sense only. However, there are three aspects: past, present, and future. Because Jesus is eternal, He has always existed in the past, contrary to what cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons falsely assert. Genesis 1:1 states, “In the beginning God created the heaven [the entire cosmos] and the earth.” John 1:1-3 clearly affirms that this act of creation was performed by Jesus, God the Son: “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 any thing made that was made.” The past tense of “was” tells us that Jesus was in existence at the beginning of time as we know it. Furthermore, the use of absolute statements (“All things” and “not any thing”) clarifies that everything in the universe is a revelation of the creative character of Christ. Moreover, “the Word was God” is an unequivocal declaration that Jesus is fully God. Thus, the eternality of Jesus is not an abstruse bit of abstract theology. Rather, it is essential to an appreciation of and attraction to the beautiful creativity and full divinity of our Savior.