03 The Doctrine Of Christ PT.1 - Olaopa Olajide Michael — Olaopa Olajide Michael

Alright. Good day everyone. Whatever time you be listening to this, is good so I was back again. Alright. So, in this audio, we would be moving on to another topic. Um, with rightly saying, oh, should I say, with considered the doctrine of God um, at least a basic introduction. And so, now we'll be moving on to another topic, which is the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and I want us to understand that these two doctrines are closely related. So, in this particular study, in this particular study um what we'll be looking at basically is things like uh a general introduction after the introduction would proceed further to um start looking at things like Christ in the Old Testament, Christ in the New Testament period, the doctrine of incarnation, the doctrine of the deity of the Christ, the humanity of the Christ, the hypostatic union, um the atonement, the resurrection, the ascension, and the current reign of the Christ, the second coming. And uh we'll look at the exhibit of history and some other few things we can rightly consider. So, so basically what we are looking at in this um topic under the doctrine of Christ is to establish the nature, the person and the works of Christ, the initial the initial, the person and the works of Christ, and also we look at the various titles and offices that Christ occupies, the various titles that are attached to the person of the Christ. So, it's going to be very wonderful study and um let's just dive right into it. Right, Lord, we thank you for another privilege. Thank you for this moment. Thank you for giving us the grace. Say, blessed be your name, Father. Especially be your name, Lord. We say, be exalted. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Glory be to your name. God be with us as we go into this study. Our hearts are open, our eyes are open to understand all that you have for us, Lord. I ask, oh God, that you will not so I will not speak of myself, but still the listeners and the hearers will be whole um profit from these words, from this study. Say, blessed be your name, Lord. In Jesus mighty name, we have prayed. Amen. So, um our introduction, I would let's read a Bible text or should I say make a reference to a Bible text for our introduction into this topic. And that will be the book of Matthew chapter 16 verse 13 to 20. Matthew chapter 16 from verse 13 to 20. So, I will read um should I paraphrase first? Okay, let me read. He says, now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his he asked his disciples saying, who do people say that the Son of man is? He said some say John the Baptist, some Elijah and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also tell you that you are Peter, on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And um let me just stop at this particular point not to uh bother you with what may not be necessary for this study. So, here we are looking at Christ asking his disciples, and I believe this same question is what we should answer as followers of Christ even to today. And the question is basically, a question of identity. A question of identity. Who is the Christ? Who is Jesus? So, Jesus said, who do men say that I am? That is he simply he simply asking the question of who do people who do people think that I am? All right? According to what people are saying out there, what do they think my identity is? Now, this is important because a wrong identity of the Christ might lead to so many things. Okay? So, if we do not know who the Christ is, for who he truly is, we may miss out on um a lot of things. We'll get a lot of things wrong. A lot of things will be gotten wrong by people. And uh as we can see, just like in those days, even till now, there is confusion about the identity of the Christ, of who Jesus is because then the people said, oh, he is um he is uh John the Baptist, some say Elijah and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. When he asked his disciples, he said, but who do you say that I am? So, the question is basically okay, forget about what others are saying, who do you, who have followed me closely, say that I am? And Simon Peter got the answer correctly by saying, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So, let's go straight into this topic. Um from this introduction, let's continue from here. Now, the um what's it called now? In theology, they call it study Christology. Um Christology is basically any study that has to do with studying the Christ as a person, studying his works and his um office. Now, it's important for us to um endeavor this uh study for many reasons. One of such reasons is that we must not have a wrong view of who Christ is or what he does. So, um I think uh we should first establish the purpose of the study and why it is important at least on a basic level. Now, you must understand that this study, like I told us in the um under the doctrine of God, that every doctrine relates to other doctrines, that is no doctrine in Christianity stands alone. Now, if you take the doctrine of Christ, for example, that we are studying now, you will immediately see that this doctrine um relates strongly with uh the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of salvation, especially the strong doctrine of the Trinity and with the doctrine that has to do with the study of the body of Christ or what the church is. The study of the church, which theologians we call ecclesiology. The study of the church, what the church is, how the church operates. So, now, if we get it wrong in our doctrine of Christ, we will definitely get it wrong in all of these other doctrines. So, um and I would like you guys to follow and as you are following, you will see the relationship, direct relationship between this doctrine and the doctrine of God, especially on the matter of um the Trinity. Now, you understand that we must have the right view of who Christ is in order for us to be truly saved and for our our personal faith to be strengthened and robust. So, basically we see when a person has a wrong view of Christ, it becomes difficult for them to become saved. Take the Israelites for example, even though Jesus was the Messiah they were waiting for, they did not see him as such and and because of that, they missed out on um what God was going to do through Jesus. So, even till today till now, even people in church are having a wrong view of who Christ is and because of that, they are not getting saved and even those that are saved are are are um their faith is not properly built. So, it's important to know who Christ is, for who he really is, to know Christ by the revelation of what we have seen in scripture, not by what anybody is saying around, okay? So, our our authoritative source for doctrine in Christianity is the word of God, is what God has said about himself. So, you'll consider what God has revealed about himself, himself and you use it to, you know, build upon our faith. So, um you will see significance of many things we see uh Bible talk about that you might not see before. And from this study, you realize that okay, not even for this study, any simple reading of scripture, you realize that uh the Bible is centered around the person of Jesus. Right from the Old Testament, right from the book of Genesis chapter one, Jesus is revealed in many forms. And I told us, for example, in Genesis chapter 1 that when God says let us make man in our image that God was speaking as a Trinity. He was not talking to angels. He was not saying he was not saying he wanted to make men in the image of angels. And you remember there's something important in the scripture that I just dropped in my mind now, is the fact that Jesus is actually the image of God. In the ultimate sense of being of anybody being the image of God. We see that in the New Testament in the book of Colossians um in the first chapter one, talking about the fact that Jesus is the express image of the Father. So, in the Godhead, you know, God is invisible. No one can see God with his eyes, we cannot see God with our eyes. But God has uh a visible good manifested in human flesh through the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God, Christ. And we might have an image of God. We might have a proper look ourselves. So, let's quickly um move on. Before we move on, just to emphasize again, before we move on from there, we will go through the book of Genesis, right from the book of Genesis. Um you see that men fail. You begin to see prophecies in the past, the coming of the Messiah, God good that if you are saved, bruise the head of the serpent. And that's that's the prophecy about the Messiah, what the Messiah becomes to do. And unlike that's all of scripture, everything in scripture is centered around one person um one character and which is Christ, which is Jesus. Everything that God did um in the Old Testament period, in the New Testament period, we see that it is all just to unveil Jesus and to set the stage for Jesus to come and do his work. So, the identity of Jesus is uh something we must look at in the collective manner, that is, the Bible talks about Jesus, or scripture talks about Jesus in um so many ways. And we have to get them all together in order to have a full picture of who Jesus really is. So, um it's like when one person is occupying many offices. If uh you have been using an app like LinkedIn, for example, when you open some people's profile, you begin to see a lot of titles attached to their name, you begin to see a lot of um M.N.S.C, RSA, a lot of stuff. So, if you want to identify that person, if you want to like know who they truly are, you have to go and look out for, okay, how many qualifications does this person have? So that's the person may be a nurse, for example. And yet, the person is not just a regular nurse. The person has become uh specialized, the person has become more than just a regular nurse. The person may be a doctor, yet they are a consultant, not just a regular doctor. And if you all you know is that the person is just a doctor or the person is just a nurse, you have not really captured all of their identity. So, we look at a lot of texts, the scripture says, he pause the Christ. Now, we start with the primary ones, which is the most obvious ones. Jesus is the Christ or what you called the Messiah. Now, the word Messiah is the the Old Testament is written uh in Hebrew, the people of Israel their primary language is the Hebrew language in the Old Testament period. Now, in the New Testament, the New Testament is written in Greek mostly. The Bible is written in basically three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Now, in the Old Testament you find Hebrew and Aramaic. Mostly and the New Testament, it is mostly written in Greek. Now, the reason for this transition is because of the Roman Empire. Israel was under the rule of Rome under the New Testament period and Greek was uh like the common language at that time. So, the Israelites who like adopt Greek for and at the same time you see they speak Hebrew and also in the um New Testament, the Hebrew language which was their original language, the language they use in communicating and writing and and so on. So, the New Testament you see that we'll say they talk about the Messiah and in the New Testament you get the word Christ. These two words mean the same thing in different languages. So, the Hebrew is uh Messiah and the Greek is Christos. Christ people what the Greek word or the Greek translation of the Messiah is Christos. And these words simply means anointed one or chosen one. Anointed one or chosen one. The idea of uh we might want to ask a question okay um before Jesus came, we had people who were anointed, right? We had people who had their anointing. So, why are we talking about uh why are we using this title for Jesus alone if you have observed from scripture? No other person is called the Christ or the Messiah aside from Jesus, aside from one person. Even though we have so many people who are anointed in scripture and this is a very important one. So, the anointed is to be separated for a particular assignment, a particular um task. That's basically the primary meaning of the anointing. Now, if you read the whole Testament, you realize that in the nation of Israel, there are three different offices you can be anointed into. Um on a general level, you can be anointed as priests or as king um as priests as king um as prophet. As prophet, as king and as priests. Those are the three offices that people mainly occupy. And the other people that are anointed are is the priest the nation of Israel and they are all silly priests. So, that's basically the idea of the anointing like I said is to signify um in the New Testament they use oil to signify that this person has been consecrated, has been separated for a particular task. The person is no longer like every other person. The person has been you know taken from among other people to do particular assignments. So, they used oil to signify that the anointing is not the oil. Anyway. Now, like I said, people have been anointed before the Christ or uh yes, we do not apply this title to others except to Jesus. This is because um the idea of Messiah or Christ is the anointed one who will come up to be the savior of the world. It's not just um any anointed person, it's just not any random anointed person. And um you'll like I said, you will see that this title is applied to only Jesus and Jesus claimed this title for himself. He did not deny who he is. So, in John chapter eight, verse 58, in John chapter eight, verse 58, you you see that um um Jesus claimed to be the Christ in John chapter 10 from verse um 24 to 25. And in John chapter 4 verse 18 verse 18. Now, you begin to see that Jesus is excuse exclusively um the older one of the Old Testament. The Old Testament prophesied about the coming Messiah and the New Testament talks about the Christ who is actually Jesus. So, this I I need to say this and I stand on this particular point because many people in our day feel like since they are anointed, that means they can also bear the title of the Christ. That is wrong. It is not just a title that anyone can use. It is not an anointed or an anointed one. It is the anointed one talking or referencing a particular person, the article, the the A, you know. So, um we'll be discussing the identity of Jesus is uh something we must look at in a collective manner. That is, the Bible talks about Jesus, or scripture talks about Jesus in um so many ways. And we have to get them all together in order to have a full picture of who Jesus really is. So, um it's like when one person is occupying many offices. If uh you have been using an app like LinkedIn, for example, when you open some people's profile, you begin to see a lot of titles attached to their name, you begin to see a lot of um M.N.S.C, RSA, a lot of stuff. So, if you want to identify that person, if you want to like know who they truly are, you have to go and look out for, okay, how many qualifications does this person have? So that's the person may be a nurse, for example. And yet, the person is not just a regular nurse. The person has become uh specialized, the person has become more than just a regular nurse. The person may be a doctor, yet they are a consultant, not just a regular doctor. And if you all you know is that the person is just a doctor or the person is just a nurse, you have not really captured all of their identity. So, we look at a lot of texts, the scripture says, he pause the Christ. Now, we start with the primary ones, which is the most obvious ones. Jesus is the Christ or what you called the Messiah. Now, the word Messiah is the the Old…