The Claims of Jesus Seem Crazy
Joel Gorveatte · Tidal Church Moncton · May 1, 2022 · I Can't Believe in God Because... series
Joel Gorveatte looks at God's blood covenant with Abram in Genesis 15 to show why Jesus' claim to be God makes sense. Only God passed through the blood, so God Himself came in human flesh to fulfill the promise and meet us.
More from Joel Gorveatte · The I Can't Believe in God Because... series
Topics: Faith, Grace, Forgiveness
Transcript
[0:00] Moses never claimed to be Yahweh. Muhammad never claimed to be Allah. Buddha never claimed to be God, but Jesus did. In fact, Abraham was born thousands of years before Jesus was born, and yet in John 8:58, Jesus said, "Before Abraham was born, I am." Jesus claimed to exist before the beginning of time. Later in John 14, verse 6 through 9, Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
[0:58] Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." And Jesus answered, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father." He claimed that He and the Father were one. The crowd was shocked in Mark chapter 2 when these friends brought this guy to Jesus who was paralyzed. And in Mark chapter 2 verse 5, when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
[1:47] They said, "How dare Jesus make such claims?" In fact, later when they attacked Jesus in John 10:33, "We are not stoning You for any good work," they replied, "but for blasphemy, because You, a mere man, claim to be God." See, this was the struggle. People loved the miracles of Jesus. They were amazed by His teaching and His wisdom. They were overwhelmed by His power and authority. But where the struggle began is with this claim of Jesus to be God. And this is especially because Jesus was a Jew.
[2:37] And Hebrew theology was monotheistic. Mono meaning they worship only one God. Whereas in many or most ancient religions, they were polytheistic, meaning they worshiped many gods. But in any Hebrew worship service, they would declare together the Shema. We've talked about it a lot. In fact, Jeremy even referenced it last week, the Shema, which says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Would you say that with me? The Shema says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." And so any good Israelite would declare the Shema in Hebrew, "Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad."
[3:29] And that word, Echad, in Hebrew is the word for one. There is one God. But then along comes this miracle-working rabbi from Nazareth claiming to be God. And you can see why there was a problem. And part of the problem is not necessarily what we think it was. You see, the problem was that there was something in the foundation of Judaism that they were failing to remember. And in order to see it, we have to go back thousands of years before Jesus was born to the founding of Judaism itself.
[4:20] And in this story that we're going to look at today, we're going to discover that it explains a number of things. First of all, it explains how the Jewish people began. And it also, this story, explains why Jesus, or why God would literally need to put on human flesh and be born into this world, and why God Himself would somehow need to die, and therefore, why maybe the claims of Jesus could make sense. And so where do we find this obscure Old Testament story? I can't wait to share it with you.
[5:07] Thousands of years before Jesus, back in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 12, if you have a Bible or you even want to look it up so that you can refer to it later on your phone, Genesis chapter 12, we meet a man named Abram. And God tells him to do something. Genesis 12, verse 1. "Now, the Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people and your father's household, to the land I will show you.'" Now, Abram is later known as Abraham. If you wonder, who is this? Is this different? No, it's the same guy.
[5:52] Later on, God gives him the name Abraham, and he later becomes the forefather of both the Jewish people and the Arab people. And so all Jews and all Arabs, in other words, a huge portion of the world's population today, can trace our lineage back to this one man, Abram. And here in verse 1, God asks him to pick up and leave everything he knows and go start a new life. And God says, "Abram, if you will do what I tell you, then I will give you three things."
[6:38] Verse 2, God promises Abram, "I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Now, this is so important. God makes three promises to Abram. Number one, "I will make you a great people with many descendants." Number two, God says, "I will bless you with all that you need." And number three, "I will make you a blessing to others."
[7:28] In other words, I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to the rest of the world. Notice, that is always why God blesses us. God blesses you so that you can be a blessing to others. And so Abram picks up with his wife and his servants and his flocks and everything they own, and they go to a new land that later becomes known as Israel. And so turn a couple of pages to Genesis chapter 15, and years later, Abram has done exactly what God told him to do. He settled his family in this new land, and in chapter 15, we pick up a few years later.
[8:17] In verse 7 and 8, the Lord says, "I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." But Abram said, "O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" In other words, he's saying, "Look, God, I'm getting pretty old, and things are not moving along quite as quickly as I thought they would. And so, Lord, how can I know that You are going to keep these three promises to me?" And here's where it gets strange, at least in our modern mindset. In order to confirm His promise, God makes with Abram a blood covenant.
[9:12] Now, what is a covenant? We all know what a covenant is, that it is an agreement or a contract between two parties. And built into the contract, there are positive consequences if you keep the covenant, and negative consequences if you break the covenant. For example, Tracy and I used to live in an apartment. And so before we moved into the apartment, we had to sign a rental contract. Have you ever done this before? Have you ever signed a lease agreement? And so when you do that, there are two basic things that are part of this agreement. Number one, it has the amount of your rent and how much you have to pay each month and exactly what date that rent is due.
[10:02] The second thing that the contract has is there are rules that you have to live by if you're going to live on that property. And so maybe the rules say that you can't have any dogs or cats or any pets. Maybe it says that you can't play your music loud after 9 p.m. or you can't, you know, grill out on the patio. Whatever the rules say, you have to live by those rules. And if you do, the good thing is then the other party, the landowner, is supposed to do stuff for you too. They're supposed to take care of the building, right? They're supposed to keep up with the maintenance, and they're supposed to, you know, keep the outside looking nice, and they're supposed to fix the dishwasher if it breaks, and they're supposed to mow the grass, and in the winter they shovel the sidewalks, and they do the repairs that are necessary.
[10:58] But if you don't pay your rent or if you break the rules, then they get to kick you out, and they can ruin your credit rating because that's how it works. There are positive consequences if you abide by the contract and negative consequences if you don't. And how do you enter into that agreement? It's really simple. All you have to do is you read through it, you take out a pen, and you sign your name on the dotted line. That's how the contract is agreed upon. But things were more complicated in biblical times because in the times of Abraham, in the Middle East, significant covenants were often made in blood.
[11:54] Here's how it worked. Let's say that you have a son and I have a daughter, and let's say that we're going to arrange their marriage. How many fathers long for the days of arranged marriage where you could just pick out your kid's spouse? Oh yeah, those were the days. Okay, I'm sounding like an old man. And so in order to make your agreement binding, what would happen is each of us, we would take an animal, perhaps a goat, and we would have to kill that goat, and then we would do something that sounds kind of drastic. We would cut the goat in half, all the way in half, with the front side and the back side, and we would dig a trench, and we would lay the two pieces of the goat on the opposite sides of that trench where all of the blood would spill inwards to fill up that trench.
[12:58] Have you got the picture in your mind? And then both parties, what we would do is we would take off our sandals, and we would both walk through the blood between the pieces, and we would say something like this: "May it be done to me as has been done to this animal if I ever break my end of the covenant. If I don't do my part, then I will have to have my blood shed as a repayment just as this animal has died." And so that sounds kind of nasty and drastic to us, but that is how significant covenants were often made in the time of Abraham.
[13:50] And so in Genesis 15, verse 8, Abram asks, "Lord, how will You confirm Your promise? How can I know that You are going to seal this covenant with me?" Verse 9, "So the Lord said to Abram, 'Bring Me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.'" So Abram brought all these to Him, cut them in two, and arranged the halves opposite of each other.
[14:36] Could I get a little water? Now often, God makes His appearance known in the form of fire. And so skipping down to verse 17, "When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. And on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham." And so what's happening here? God and Abram are entering into this traditional Middle Eastern ancient blood covenant where both parties pass through the blood.
[15:29] Oh, thank you so much. Where both parties pass through the blood. And whoever breaks their part of the covenant has to die, right? This makes sense. But remember something. Both parties are supposed to walk through the blood. But what's missing? Look really closely at verse 17, and you see that only God passes through the pieces, not Abram. And what does that mean? Why is it significant? Listen, it means that God is making Himself responsible for both ends of the deal.
[16:20] God is saying, "Abraham, I enter into this covenant with you, and if I ever break My part of the deal, Abraham, I will have to die like these animals. But Abram, I'm going to take care of your part too, so that if you ever fail, if you ever mess up, if you ever break your covenant with Me, Abraham, God says, I will be the one who pays the price with My own blood for you." And what happens? Well, of course, God keeps His end of the promise. To the children of Abraham, God has continued to be faithful despite intense persecution through the ages by Egyptians and by the Philistines and by the Babylonians and by the Romans and even by the Nazis.
[17:27] Miraculously, the children of Abraham, the children of Abraham have continued to survive and become more numerous than the stars in the sky, the great nation that God promised. And it's amazing when you think about how they have remained a distinct people through thousands of years of persecution. It's amazing when you think about the attempts to eradicate the Jews from the earth even as recently as the Holocaust. But God has kept His end of the promise. But what about Abraham? You see, history shows that Abraham and humanity have been anything but faithful to God.
[18:18] We have denied His commands. We have rejected His blessings, not just Abraham and the Jews, but every single person who has ever lived. The Bible says we have all fallen short. In our sin, we have rejected God's covenant. And remember, how does a blood covenant work? Let's look at Genesis 15 and 17 again, just to be reminded. A smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. And on that day, the Lord made His covenant with Abraham.
[19:05] See, God alone passes through the blood. So here's what that means. If humans mess up, which we have, God alone has to be the one who dies. He is legally and morally bound to do so. And the only way for this to be accomplished is for God Himself to become a human. And so 2,000 years later, on a hill outside Jerusalem, in the very same part of the world where this covenant had first taken place, Jesus of Nazareth hung on a cross, His blood dripping upon that same dusty, rocky soil upon which Abraham himself had walked.
[20:00] And for those who were looking, in that day, for those who had been reading the signs, for those who had been paying attention, for those who remembered the promise, now the claims of Jesus were starting to make sense. That Jesus, as crazy as it sounds, had to be God taking on human flesh. Or otherwise, the covenant with Abraham could never have been fulfilled. That is the gospel. And so, listen, if you want to learn more about how this could be, I want to encourage you to do some study on the Trinity. It's kind of mind-blowing. We're not going to go in depth today on talking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but I encourage you to do some study and learn what the Bible says about God being three in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity.
[20:59] But here's what I will tell you. If all of this is true, if all of this is true, then it means something beautiful. As 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, "For the message about Christ's death on the cross is nonsense to those who are being lost. But for us who are being saved, it is God's power." Look, I know this seems like foolishness to the world. I get it. But when you come to believe, when you begin to see how all of these pieces of the puzzle fit together so beautifully, you see this amazing revelation and realize that if Jesus is God, His claim to be the only way is reasonable.
[21:55] In John 14:6, Jesus had the audacity to say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." And look, I know that doesn't sound very tolerant. That doesn't sound very open-minded. Wouldn't it be nicer for Jesus to say, "Well, I'm just one of many ways"? Wouldn't it be nicer for Jesus to just say, "You know, you can come through Me or you can come through Muhammad or through Buddha or through Mother Nature, that there are many ways to God"? But that's not what Jesus says. And so the claims of Jesus seem crazy and narrow -minded, something that no reasonable person should say.
[22:43] But what if these are not just the words of a man? What if these are actually the words of God? Wouldn't it be fair for God to say such things? Wouldn't He know? Because number one, if Jesus is God, His claim to be the only way is reasonable. And number two, it means something wonderful. If Jesus is God, it means He came to meet us right where we are. In John 1:14, it says, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
[23:32] We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." And so if God really did come to earth, it means that He didn't just send a representative. He didn't just send a messenger. He didn't just send us an email. He did more than just reveal Himself through the beauty of nature. He did more than just whisper your name through the beauty of a setting sun. He did more than just speak to you through the grandeur of a mountain range. It means that God loved you and cared enough to put on human flesh and make His dwelling among us, to literally, as the Creator, enter into His creation, into this dark and broken world that we have messed up, that we have destroyed.
[24:42] And He came to make it right. He came to make us right. He came to meet us right where we are and provide for us exactly what we need, the way for our salvation. And that is what we call the good news. Amen? Amen. Let's stand together.
[25:36] And if you're a skeptic about all this stuff, can we just say, as we always say around here, we're so glad that you took some time today to join us. We want to be a safe place for you to be able to ask these real questions. And I can't prove any of this to you, but what we have found, and people a whole lot smarter than me have found, is that God has a way of proving Himself when you ask Him. When you invite Him, He begins to speak to you and give you revelation, not to put aside your common sense, not to put aside your intelligence, not to put aside your education, but to be able to see in the midst of it all the source of it all, and how behind the scenes it all comes together.
[26:50] When you see not just one piece and not just another piece over here, but when you begin to see the whole picture of the story of humanity and God's creation and how we have failed Him, but how because of His great love, His plan has always been to bring us back to restoration. And so if you feel like God is speaking to you today, maybe to restore your faith and help you start again as maybe you have drifted, or maybe to make a decision for Jesus for the very first time, to confess your sin, to repent, to believe that Jesus died on the cross and surrender your life to Him, receive His forgiveness, to enter into this covenant, this ancient covenant that Jesus has come to fulfill the promise.
[27:53] And today you can receive His forgiveness and be made new, to be made washed clean, to find a new life, or as the Bible says, to literally be born again, for we who are dead inside, to receive the Spirit and pass from death into life, for the spirit, the man inside of us, to come alive in Christ. And if you're ready to do that in faith, let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, Lord, today I am overwhelmed by the guts and the glory, the mess and the masterpiece in Your redemption plan, how it's laid out from the beginning of time and how in the fullness of time Jesus came to make us right.
[29:00] And so Lord, we come before You with gratitude today, and for anyone who's ready to enter into this covenant with God, right now, when your heart confesses, confess and repent. Say, "Lord, I'm sorry. I see that I've done wrong. I see that I have fallen short of Your standard of perfection. I see that I've been selfish and I've lived for myself. I've believed the lies of the world." Go ahead and confess to Him now and believe. Say, "I believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for my sin.
[29:45] He died in my place. He fulfilled the requirements of the covenant so that I can be bought back and brought back to You. And so I receive that gift of forgiveness." Would you right now receive it? Invite Him to come into your life, to take control, to be your Lord, your Savior, your Master. And we commit to follow You now and forevermore. Lord, renew our faith today. Strengthen our faith today to see the beauty of who You are as we worship You in spirit and in truth, as we behold Your majesty and the beauty of Your salvation.
[30:35] We worship You in Jesus' name.