Did Jesus Fulfill the Attributes of God?
Interview #8: Donald A. Carson, Ph.D.
Living and Forgiving Like God
- The most striking thing Jesus does is forgive sins.
- Sin, even if it is against another person, is first and foremost a defiance of God and his laws.
- When Jesus comes along and says to sinners, “I forgive you,” the religious leaders immediately recognize it as blasphemy, because nobody but God can forgive sin.
Mystery of The Incarnation
- Incarnation = God becoming man in Jesus.
- This is one of the central mysteries of Christianity. You’re dealing with formless, bodiless, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Spirit and finite, touchable, physical, time-bound creatures.
- If the Incarnation is true, it’s not surprising that finite minds couldn’t totally comprehend it.
- One of the closest explanations is taken from Philippians 2, where Paul tells us that Jesus, being in the form of God, did not think equality with God was something to be exploited, but emptied himself.
- Perhaps Jesus chose independently which attributes of God he would exhibit during his earthly existence.
Creator or Created?
- John 3:16 includes the phrase “his only begotten Son.” This Greek translation does not mean that Jesus was ontologically begotten in time, but rather that Jesus was unique and beloved.
- Colossians 1:15 includes the phrase “firstborn over all creation”. In this case, firstborn does not refer to a birth order, but refers to the Old Testament culture of blessing the firstborn with the lion’s share of the family estate. Firstborn is better translated to mean “supreme heir.”
The Disquieting Question of Hell
- Would God, who is described as a loving Father, really create an endless hell and consign millions of people to it simply because they do not or cannot or will not accept certain religious beliefs?
- With the entrance of sin and rebellion into the world, all humans—who are image bearers of God—have chosen to believe that we are the center of our own universe. We shake our fists at God and say, “I’ll do it my way.” The consequence is that people get hurt.
- From God’s perspective, this is shockingly disgusting. The pinnacle of his good creation have chosen to reject Him and live in a world of pain and suffering.
- What should be God’s response? If he says, “Well, I don’t give a rip,” then he’s saying that evil doesn’t matter to him. What about horrific events like the Holocaust? Don’t we expect that a good and just God would have moral judgements on evil such as this?
- If he’s the sort of God who has moral judgements on these glaring examples of evil throughout history, then he must also have moral judgements on all the divine image bearers shaking their puny fists at his face saying “I’ll do it my way.” That’s the real nature of sin.
- Hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good blokes but just didn’t believe the right stuff. They’re consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their Maker and want to be at the center of the universe.
- Hell is not filled with people who have already repented, only God isn’t gentle enough or good enough to let them out. It’s filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be at the center of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion.
- The Bible says that there are different degrees of punishment, so it’s not clear that hell is the same level of intensity for all people.
- If God took his hands off this fallen world (common grace) so that there were no restraint on human wickedness, we would make hell. Thus if you allow a whole lot of sinners to live somewhere in a confined space where they’re not doing damage to anyone but themselves, what do you get but hell? There’s a sense in which they’re doing it to themselves, and it’s what they want because they still don’t repent.
- The Bible insists that in the end not only will justice be done, but justice will be seen to be done, so that every mouth will be stopped. No one will walk away saying they have been treated unfairly by God.
- Justice is not always done in this world; we see that every day. But on the Last Day it will be done for all to see.
Jesus and Slavery
- Why didn’t Jesus explicitly condemn the practice of slavery?
- Every major world culture until the modern period has had slavery.
- In most cases, slavery served an economic function. Without bankruptcy laws, selling yourself and/or your family into slavery was a way to discharge your debt while also providing work.
- In Roman times there were menial laborers who were slaves, and there were also others who were the equivalent of distinguished Ph.D.’s who were teaching families.
- Slavery was not tied to a particular race.
- Under the Law in ancient Jewish society, all slaves were to be set free every seventh year. This was the framework of slavery that Jesus lived through.
- Jesus did not come to overturn the Roman economic system, which included slavery. He had a greater mission—to free men and women from their sins. His message transforms people so they begin to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbor as themselves. Naturally, that must have an impact on the idea of slavery.
- The overthrowing of slavery is through the transformation of men and women by the gospel rather than through merely changing an economic system.
- If you want lasting change, you need to transform the hearts of human beings.
- The driving impetus for the abolition of slavery was the evangelical awakening in England. Christians rammed abolition through Parliament in the beginning of the nineteenth century and then eventually used British gunboats to stop the slave trade across the Atlantic.
Matching the Sketch of God
Every attribute of God, says the New Testament, is found in Jesus Christ:
- Omniscience: John 16:30 “Now we can see that you know all things.”
- Omnipresence: Matthew 28:20 “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
- Omnipotence: Matthew 28:18 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
- Eternality: John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
- Immutability: Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”