"God Himself in human form has taken up His rightful position to inherit all things and to be the preeminence in all things. God in human form has taken His rightful position in the social and legal structure of His day, the One who is head of all things. Jesus Christ as the Son of Man inherits everything of the human race. Everybody has to answer to Him. He is the Christ, the Anointing."
Transcript
This morning we start a new section in Matthew’s Gospel. There are new study guides in the back, if you need to get one. Matthew 16:13-20.
So far in this chapter, in verses 1 through 4 we have studied, The Proof from Heaven, as the religious leaders came and asked Jesus for a sign from out of heaven that He is the Messiah. And, of course, we presented to you in that study the truth about signs and wonders. But in verse 4, of chapter 16, the Lord’s answer to the request for a sign from out of heaven, He said, “A wicked and an adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” We read other scriptures that expand on this, we know that He’s talking about the resurrection, that was a direction from God out of heaven that raised His Son from the dead. God’s authority and God’s signature of proof that He receives His Son and all the work that He did on the cross.
Then, we studied verses 5 through 12, The Perception of Religious Leaven. Leaven being that yeasting agent in dough that causes it to expand. And so, Jesus told the disciples to watch and beware from the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So, they thought He meant bread, literal bread. “We didn’t take bread with us and so He is warning us not to take bread from the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” But then, He went on to explain to them basically, “I’m using it metaphorically. Leaven is an example of evil.” And verse 12 says that the leaven represented the teaching or doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Stay away from it. False teaching and false doctrine will affect your mind and your spirit and will expand. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, as Paul said and as Jesus taught. So, he is warning them, “Don’t listen to and don’t follow their teachings. Don’t let it reside within you.”
Then thirdly, for today, the third section for today, The Public Opinion Concerning Jesus. I personally have probably taught and preached over the years from this small section more than any other section in the Scriptures. Even most scholars agree and believe that in this section is the heart of the gospel and because of that, and because it contains so many phrases that are so important to the Christian life, we are going to take it slowly. In a lot of places, I will present to you technical information, not in order to overwhelm you with the technicalities, but to show you how Christians have gotten off-track over the years just by not understanding the original language behind the English text. No matter what translation you have, I can guarantee you that the cults and some of the false teachers have taken the English from this text and twisted it and presented logic and reason in order to present false teaching about what the truth is saying. So, we are going to take it slowly, we might be about three weeks just in this section alone.
In verse 13 we take the circumstance, setting up the scene for us. And when Jesus came into the coasts or parts of Caesarea Philippi (you might have heard it pronounced fill-ih-pie before, but the natives call it fill-ih-pee, Caesarea Philippi) He was questioning his disciples, saying, “Whom do men say Me the Son of Man to be?” Who do people say that I am? What’s the public opinion?
Well, first of all, the town Caesarea Philippi is a Gentile town in the northern part of Palestine, about 25 miles northeast of the sea of Galilee on the southern slopes of Mount Hermon. Named Caesarea when Herod gave the territory to his son Philip, he named it Caesarea Philippi after himself and to distinguish it from the Caesarea on the Western Coast and western part of the Mediterranean.
So, he comes in the Caesarea Philippi. Mark’s gospel tells us they came into the valley and as they’re coming down the valley and they see the city there he begins to ask them the questions, “Whom do people say that I am?” And notice it says, “Whom do people say the Son of Man to be?” that is its literal translation.
Now, my way of thinking and I’ve always taken this that the Bible is obvious in what it’s teaching, but at the same time there are some parts that I used to have trouble with, because if I came up to you and said, “Who do people say I, Pastor Bill, am?” Well, you just answered the question. “Pastor Bill, maybe? No?” You know there’s obvious answers. But the term Son of Man, “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” Son of Man is a title. It is a Messianic title, that is, it is a title given to the Messiah.
It is first found in the Old Testament in Daniel 7:13 and in that text Daniel says, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven.” Son of Man, it is a title. We will come back to it in a moment to explain the title. It’s very important because we are going to study the phrase Son of God, which has a lot to do with this title as well, but we will put them both together.
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Most everyone has an opinion of who Jesus is. They believe His titles, but they don’t believe the truth about His person. Some people have said that Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, is a prophet. Well, that He is, but they say He’s just one of the prophets. Some believe that He’s a rabbi, one of the Jewish rabbis, as the Son of Man. Some believe He is a teacher. In fact, most religions of the world today, the practicing religions, believe that Jesus is just one of the great teachers of history. They have their own teachers. They have Jesus as a teacher. He is just another teacher. Some believe He’s an angel, that He is Michael the Archangel’s brother that has come down to earth. We’ve got the Mormons that believe that He is an angel that has come down from heaven. So, most everybody has an opinion of who Jesus is if you ask them. They might tell you Son of God, or Son of Man, but do they really understand who Jesus is? And when you really understand who Jesus is and make your response to Him, it will determine where your soul will spend eternity. That’s why Satan has spent so much time taking the words of this text and confusing this text and in fact make it say something totally different than what it means.
But they said, in verse 14, verses 14 -16 The Confession, They said in response, “Well, some say that You’re John the Baptist, and others that You’re Elijah, and others that You’re Jeremiah, and yet others, that You’re one of the prophets. Not Jeremiah, but maybe one of the other prophets that has come. All four opinions have to do with people whom they believed were to come before the Messiah was to come. So, they don’t believe He is the Messiah, but they believe He’s the forerunner, one of the prophets that came before Messiah was to come.
Well, the first thing they said was that, “Some think that You are John the Baptist.” Back in (Matthew) 14:1-2, you remember Herod, he had John the Baptist put to death because John the Baptist told him that he was living in adultery, that he had to repent. Of course, he didn’t, and he had John the Baptist put to death. But then he heard about Jesus coming and performing miracles and he says to everybody, “This is John the Baptist come back from the dead, come back to haunt me.” So, some believed that Jesus was a resurrected John the Baptist.
Others believed Elijah. The prophecies of Scripture in Malachi 3:1 and Malachi 4:5-6 prophesied that Elijah would come before the Messiah would come, that he would introduce Messiah to Israel. So, people believed that He was Elijah, but, of course, Jesus already taught that John the Baptist came in fulfillment of the Elijah prophecy. But some people said, “Well, John the Baptist is dead.” They wouldn’t receive Jesus as the Messiah, so they said, “He must be Elijah.”
Then others thought that He was Jeremiah. Jeremiah was known as “the weeping prophet,” as he wept over the people and their sins because they would not repent. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, recorded in Luke chapter 19:41, where He looked over the city before He rode in and He wept over the city because they had rejected Him and would reject Him.
Or fourthly, “Or one of the prophets,” any one of the prophets. “Well, He reminds me of _________,” and just fill in the blank. People say, “Well, one of my favorite prophets was Daniel, maybe He is Daniel.” See, but it wasn’t the Messiah, but it’s somebody else or something else.
Back up to John the Baptist, when they thought He was John the Baptist raised from the dead, it is because He came with the same message as John the Baptist. When John the Baptist was put to death, Jesus began to call people to repent, same message that John preached.
So, He says to them, in verse 15, here’s where it gets personal, He asked for the opinions of the day of who Jesus is, now, it gets personal. He says to them, notice the literal translation here, “But you yourselves,” not just you, there’s an extra pronoun in the Greek text, but you yourselves, nobody else, just you yourselves, “Whom do you say Me to be?” Who do you say that I am? You. The disciples.
Verse 16, And when Simon Peter answered, interesting that he’s speaking for the whole crowd. When Jesus said, “And you yourselves,” it’s plural, but Simon Peter is answering for the group. When Simon Peter answered he said, “You Yourself,” notice the literal translation, again, there’s an extra pronoun emphasizing you. You yourself, nobody else. “You Yourself are the Christ, the Son of the living God. What a statement to make. And you say, “Well, I know of a lot of people that have that opinion. He’s the Christ, the son of the living God.” But it’s what these words mean, not just the English statement of the words, but what they mean is what counts for our understanding.
The word Christ, some people think that is the Lord’s last name: Jesus Christ. He was known as, “Jesus, the Christ,” up to the first century, then they shortened it to Jesus Christ. Christ is His title, not His last name. He is Jesus, the Christ of God. “You yourself are the Christ.” Notice the text with the definite article, “You are the Christ.” Christ is a translation of the Greek word (Christos). And this Greek word is equivalent to the Hebrew word Mashiach. If it sounds familiar, it’s the word Messiah in the Old Testament. Both words mean the same thing, one in Hebrew, Mashiach, one in Greek, (Christos). Both mean the same thing, and it means anointing. So, when he says to Jesus, “You are the Christ,” he says, “You are the anointing of God.” So, Jesus is said to be the anointing of God in human form. A little different than saying, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” Well, you know that if you believe in Jesus Christ that Christ means He’s the full anointing of God, do You believe that He’s the full anointing of God in human form? Complete and full?
But then, there are some people that would say, “Well, I have problems with that truth,” and the Cults will present it this way, look at the next phrase: “That You Yourself are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So, the cults say, “He’s the Son, He’s not God. He’s the son. You can’t be the Son and be God the Father.” They say, “Logically and reasonably, that’s impossible.” The ones that go door-to-door, you’ve got your Jehovah’s Witnesses and you’ve got your Mormons that present this humanistic logic and reason. “Well, you Christians believe that Jesus is God in the flesh.”
“Yes, the full anointing of who God is in the person of Jesus Christ.”
“Well, He can’t be the anointing of God, if He is God’s Son. He’s only a son, He’s not a father.”
And as we have found out from the proclamation from Brigham Young University, the Mormons, is that their doctrinal presentation of the Godhead is that because Jesus is the Son and He has God the Father, that there must be God the Mother; because you can’t have a son without mom and dad creating a son. So, they believe in God the Mother, they believe in God the Father and they believe that Jesus is only a son, not equivalent to God.
It is important that we understand the word Son. If you don’t get anything else out of this morning, please pay attention to this one. There are a few words in the New Testament that are translated as son, you don’t know which Greek word they are because you’re reading English. The word for son here has nothing to do with birth, it is not talking about a son by birth.
To give birth, the verb form in Greek is the word (tikto). Mary gave birth (tikto) to her firstborn son; but it wasn’t the word (teknon), which is the son that has experienced the birth process. (tikto) is the verb to give birth, (teknon) is the noun, the name of the child that has been born through birth. (tikto) and (teknon); but those aren’t the words here.
The word used here is (huios). It has nothing to do with birth. And you say, “Well, what does it mean then?” A (huios), and notice I’m not using the word son, a (huios) is somebody who has been placed or appointed into a position to inherit something. A (huios) is somebody who has been placed or appointed into a position to inherit something.
For instance, I have a son, he is my (teknon), he is my son by birth. But when I die and leave my estate – which is nothing but bills, so they are not going to want it anyway, right? If I was going to cause people to inherit my estate, I would have to appoint or play someone in the position to inherit that estate. It could be my son, my (teknon), who I put in position of inheritance of the estate. Or if I had servants or slaves or friends; let’s say that I’ve disowned my son and said, “He is not going to get my stuff.” He’s my son, my (teknon) by birth, but I can appoint one of my servants or one of my slaves to be the (huios) because of their faithfulness in their service. And I would leave everything to the (huios). So, the (huios) is somebody in a place who where they inherit all things that they have been placed under.
So, Jesus is a Son appointed to inherit all of the things of God the Father. He’s been placed in a position. What do you mean placed in a position? He has come out from God and taken human form as being the anointing of God Himself. By that position in relation to us, as well as in relation to God the Father and the deity, God Himself, that He’s in this position of inheritance.
Now, let’s go back to verse 13. I told you that there would be something about the Son of Man that we should look at. Knowing what the word son means, not son by birth, but someone placed in a position of inheritance.
The term Son of Man is a Messianic title, not Son of God, but Son of Man. Jesus, when He came, was put into a position to inherit all things of the human race. He’s The Son of Man, He’s the head of the human race; and the human race, as we will see in a moment, must answer to the Son.
The Son of God, in our text in verse 16, is Jesus Christ who has been placed in a position to inherit all things of God. Everything that belongs to God and all of His functions and all of His attributes are inherited by Jesus Christ because of His position, because of His function as the Son.
So, when the cults come to your front door and they say, “Well, look at the word son,” and what son means to us in our English language and how, logically and reasonably, they can twist that and say, “Well, He can’t be God because He is a Son.” But then you ask them and say, “Well, what’s the word here used for son?” They fumble around and say, “Well, it’s son, you know? Somebody that has been born out from -,” No, it’s not, that’s not the word used here. They use the logic of an English text to twist everything around about who Jesus is to get you to join their group and get you to follow them.
But the Son of God has been appointed and, in a position, to inherit everything from God. In John 5, if you are taking notes please make reference to John chapter 5, beginning at verse 18. Jesus had just told a man at the pool of Bethesda to take up his pallet and walk; but it was the Sabbath day and the religious leaders were angry at Jesus and said, “You broke the Sabbath day,” and they sought to kill Him. But then He said to them, “My Father is working today on the Sabbath and so am I,” which enraged them. And John 5:18 says, “Not only do they want to kill Him because of the Sabbath day, but they wanted to kill Him because He, being a man made Himself God, equal to the Father.” They knew what He was saying. He didn’t say, “Wait a minute guys, I think you’ve got this all wrong.” In fact, He went on to explain His equality to God.
In verse 21 of John chapter 5, And as the Father raises up the dead, and makes them alive; even so the Son of Man makes also whom He will alive. Both, the Father and the Son. Verse 22 of John 5, The Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son. So, when people are judged, they are not going to be judged by God the Father, they are going to be judged by God the Son. Everything has been given to Him. He’s inherited the role of the judge, the judge of God. Verse 23, That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. Have you ever heard of that one? People say, “You have to honor the Father more than the Son.” Jesus said, “No, I’ve inherited all things so that you honor me equal to the Father, the same as you do the Father.” Verse 26 says, As the Father has life in Himself; so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself. They share natures, they share life, the same life together. And has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. There’s our phrase Son of Man. He’s the head of the human race. He’s been placed there and appointed there, so that everyone in the human race must answer to Jesus, not to anybody else. That is quite a presentation when they are angry with Him for making Himself equal to the Father and He says, “Boy, you got that right. Let me show you how equal I am.” Equality.
So, the word son means to be in a position of inheritance. He’s the Son of the living God. That’s the last phrase we’re going to take for today. He’s the Son of the living God. The term living God is a common Old Testament – Old Testament is called the Tanakh – it is found commonly in the Old Testament, God is the living God representing three things:
(1) That He’s alive versus the idols and the idol worshipers and the pagan religions. He’s a living God, where they have statues and wood that are not alive.
(2) He has life in and of Himself. Like we just studied from John 5, He has life and He has given the Son to have life. They have equal life together.
(3) And thirdly, He is the source of life. He’s the only one who can give life and He has given that ability to the Son, to give life to whom He will.
So, we put all of this together. And what I would encourage you to do and I can only encourage you to do it, is learn some of these phrases and definitions and what they mean. These are the essential phrases and doctrines of the Christian faith that we are studying here, all for the next four or five weeks, it’s all through here of the Christian doctrine that most churches and especially the cults have it all wrong. Because they don’t know. They are going by English and they are going by logic, and they don’t know how to answer or teach it.
We put all this together is God Himself in human form has taken up His rightful position to inherit all things and to be the preeminence or the first thing in all things. God in human form has taken His rightful position in the social structure and the legal structure of His day, the one who is the head of all things. So, you have Jesus Christ coming and you have Jesus Christ as the Son of Man He inherits everything of the human race. Everybody has to answer to Him. You have Him as the son of God, which means everything that is of God now is inherited in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Christ, the Anointing.
And I might add a little side note since were only two minutes late today, I’ve got a couple minutes that I can squeeze in here. Jesus Christ is the anointing of God. I get offended, I can’t speak for the Lord, but I get offended when people come up to me and tell me that, “Well, when you receive Jesus Christ, He saves you, but you need a touch by the Holy Spirit to be anointed.” I say, “Wait a minute. Jesus Christ is the anointing of God. If you have Christ, you have all that God is – The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – all in the person of Jesus Christ. There is no splitting up of the anointings. There is no different anointings.” And they make Jesus Christ as being subordinate to and even limited. “Well, Jesus can only save you, but you need power.”
“Well, Jesus can’t give you power?”
“Yeah, He is just sitting there waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. You see, He can’t do anything.”
That is not true. That is blasphemy. So, it’s important to understand these concepts and these teachings, not just from the English, but what they mean from the original language and how they’re expressed in the teaching form of the New Testament.
Next week, important! Verse 17, And when He answered, Jesus said to Simon, Blessed are you, Simon, Barjona, (I’ll share with you what that means) because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father Who is in Heaven. Peter came to know the truth by revelation, not by logic and reason. Not through religious practice. Everything of God, including salvation comes as a revelation from the Father from heaven, we are going to study that next week as we continue in this text.
Let’s close with prayer.
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