Jesus: Not a Mere Man

6/29/2009

There’s one more side of this thing where they underestimated who God would send them to be their Deliverer, their Messiah, their Salvation.

Isaiah talks about the fact that in some respects they overestimated Him. Meaning they mis-defined Him. The Hebrews writer says, "You guys, you don’t understand. This isn't just a mere man. This is the exact radiance of God Himself! This is not a mere man. Get that through your head. And here are the scriptures to prove it, the prophecies to prove it. I know you thought you killed Him. But God raised this Jesus whom you crucified from the dead, and made Him both Lord and Christ and seated Him at His right hand to reign in glory, and to judge the living and the dead, to come back on the clouds with the trumpet blast of Gabriel the archangel and to come back and judge the living and the dead. And those that have put on Christ will reign with Him forever. So, you've underestimated Him. I know you think He was just a human, but this was no human."

Isaiah tells a little different story, too. Isaiah talks about the fact that this Messiah, this Deliverer, would suffer. He wouldn’t be like David in the sense that David was just a rich, powerful king who won every physical battle. That when Jesus came, when the Messiah would come, that not only would He be God, but in addition to that, He would be allowed to look helpless, rather than all-powerful. That God would in essence make Him look very, very, very weak in order to show His strength.

So, in some ways they underestimated Him when they were looking for a Messiah, because they didn't expect Him to be God. But He was. God's Plan was bigger than they ever dreamed of. And in another way, they overestimated Him because they expected that He'd be flexing His muscles. He'd be a great orator giving great speeches and everybody would be drawn to Him and everybody would love Him. And He'd be just the greatest thing ever.

No one ever thought that this Messiah would be despised and rejected by men. And would be mocked and ridiculed and hated and lied about even at His own trial. “Yea, He said He'd do.......” They’re just lying about Him, stretching the truth, making stuff up, twisting things that He said, just trying to find ways to find fault with Him. Nobody did that with David. So the David they were thinking of – the new David, the second Adam, the Messiah that was coming – they thought was just going to be Mr. Popularity. It never occurred to them that He would only be in public for three and a half years before masses of people hated him and wanted him dead.

What kind of Messiah is that? So, they totally underestimated Him. He wasn't just a human. He was God, the exact representation, the full radiance of the glory of God, totally without sin, perfect in every way, able to command storms, able to give sight to the blind, heal a withered hand, heal crippled legs, raise the dead at will, at His command. He had the authority and the beauty and the majesty to do and be anything He wanted to do and be. He could have "called ten thousand angels" to destroy the world, is what the scriptures say. Instead He died alone as the song says. That was a choice.