Lesson 3: Who Is Jesus? (part 1)

Read: Matthew 16:13-23 - www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.16.esv

There is so much more we could learn about God, but God’s purpose in giving us the Bible was so we could get to know Jesus – God’s perfect solution to mankind’s sin problem. So we move now toward getting to know Jesus.

Matthew 16:13-20, Mark 8:27-30, and Luke 9:18-27 each record an incident where Jesus Himself asked His disciples this question – “Who do you say I am?” Why would Jesus ask His disciples this question? Why is it important? Let’s see what the Bible says.

Let’s start by looking at perhaps the best known of all Bible verses, John 3:16 – "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” It says “whoever believes in Him” – believes in whom? Who is the subject of the pronoun, God the Father or the Son? According to grammar rules, it is the last noun named, so it means “whoever believes in the Son should not perish.” Look at the next verse. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Again, through whom is the world to be saved, God the Father or the Son? And again, it is the Son – “in order that the world might be saved through the Son.” And the next verse states the opposite of being saved: “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”


Jesus is God. To deny this is to deny God. The Bible says if we deny Jesus’ deity we call God a liar (1 John 5:10).

Jesus is not God’s Son through a physical relationship God had with Mary. Rather, the relationship of Father and Son is used to show a unity of purpose and mind. If God the Father and God the Son were two different entities, it would be reasonable to assume they could each have their own plans and therefore sometimes be in disagreement with each other. God instead used the Father-Son relationship to show a relationship of complete agreement between them. They are in fact ONE.

Most of us understand how difficult it is for us to describe the Trinity – how three can be one and yet distinct. We try with different things, like the shell, white and yoke of an egg, to understand the Trinity, but everything here on earth is a poor substitute and can only go so far in making a comparison before it falls apart. Yet, for those of us who believe in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit resonates in us the truth of this concept even while we cannot explain it. Jesus is fully and completely God, He is fully and completely man (though without any sin). He is the second Person of the Trinity which doesn’t mean He is less important than God the Father nor more important than the Holy Spirit. He is from eternity and eternally God the Son.

In the following verses God and Jesus are both described as being something, the first verse says it of God the Father, and the second of Jesus the Son. What are They described as being?
* Isaiah 6:3; 10:20; Acts 3:14
* Psalm 27:1; John 3:19
* Malachi 3:6; James 1:17