Episode 58 Jesus’s Identity Q&A with Rob Abboud

The notes for this series are posted above under “Articles”. 

Dan Jackson: (00:00)

Hi, everyone. And welcome again to the training for life redeemed podcast. I am your host, Dan. We are working our way through Matthew and we’ve listened to dad’s talk in two parts over the last couple of weeks, a talk he gave to his church at MBM. He then did a Q and A session at the end. So we are going to now listen to that Q and A session, and hopefully it’ll answer some of the questions you have. And then we will get back into our normal kind of episodes when me and dad are both chatting to each other, but I thought that my dad did a great job here, and I wanted to make sure that you came on and you got the benefit of listening to this as well, because you may not have been live or present for it. So please make sure you, listen to this and enjoy the Q and A session.

Rob Abboud: (00:44)
When Jesus was baptized, John said he didn’t need to be baptized. He was sinless. We know for us, we’re seen as sinless after we receive the Spirit and, are recognized by God as holy, though we are still sinful, Was Jesus sinless before the coming of the Holy Spirit at his baptism. And if so, by what power?

David Jackson: (01:13)
Jesus is sinless before his baptism, because he was not born in sin, just like Adam was sinless before he sinned. Jesus is the man without sin because he’s not born of a human father. So Jesus, not only has he been born without sin. So he’s not in bondage to sin. He’s in right relationship with God from the womb. And we also realized that in order, the writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience without sinning through all the things that he suffered. So you’ve got a sinless man living in a sinful world and everything that we cop he copped without sin. So when he comes to his baptism, he has nothing to repent of. And so other people you’ve gotta sort of disconnect or connect and disconnect properly. The relationship between baptism and repentance. So repentance is about, you know, the Holy Spirit has given me a new mind and heart I’ve been born again.

David Jackson: (02:21)
I’ve realized my need of the saviour. I’ve come, come to realize the gospel. I understand I can repent, confess, be forgiven of my sins. I do that. I repent. I believe God declares me justified. Now the baptism is the consecration that says I am committed. I’m ready to meet God. And at that moment, the person who is baptized is baptized into the Name. Now that’s when you take a name, you do that. Women take the name of their husband at their wedding because she comes under the headship of her husband. So she takes his name. If you are adopted into a family, you take the name of the family that adopted you. So for example, Paul’s named Paulus. He inherits because his grandfather was adopted into the Paulus family and that gave him Roman citizenship. That was, that was a very gracious thing. So we take the name at our baptism and that’s when we publicly become a member of God’s forever family. And before that can happen, you have to repent your sin, believe in Jesus. And then we are consecrated. We are washed, we are clean. The world is publicly seeing that we have entered into that relationship. So it’s the difference between I, I call it the difference between shacking up with Jesus and marrying him. Yeah. you can, you can have this private deal with Jesus where I’m a Christian, but until you actually step up and take the name, that’s all over very private business.

Rob Abboud: (04:00)
So Jesus baptism, he wasn’t identifying with us in our sin. No. What was he identifying with?

David Jackson: (04:09)
He was the head of humanity who is now consecrated ready for God.

Rob Abboud: (04:16)
And the Spirit coming down was confirmation. This one is, is the one.

David Jackson: (04:20)
Yeah. And this is, you know how I was saying in Ezekiel, the glory of the Lord left the building. Well, he left geographically, his people at the baptism of Jesus. He is consecrated ready for God to return to his temple and gee, guess what? He’s the temple.

Rob Abboud: (04:39)
That’s cool. And, and crazy to think that we received that same Spirit and God is with us in this world in that way!

David Jackson: (04:46)
How life transforming is it? I, I can still remember where I was sitting when I, when I realized that being a temple of the holy spirit meant that I was the holy of holies, where God’s glory dwells and the things that I did last night. And this morning I did there and you go, and yet he’s still with me because Jesus already paid it all. Oh, wow. That changes the way I’m gonna think. And talk forever.

Rob Abboud: (05:17)
Let’s go on with a question in light of that. It’s kind of a double barrel question in light of that. How do we know we have the Holy Spirit and what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit kind of different from having the Holy Spirit? There are times in the Bible where people are filled after they already receive the Spirit.

David Jackson: (05:37)
Yeah. that’s a really good question. So the Holy Spirit does three things that we find in the Bible. You cannot repent and believe in Jesus. If you’re not born again, you know, you need a new heart. As he says to the rich young ruler. Now people in the Old Testament believed. We have a whole list and you know, it’s by faith, you’re saved Abraham believed the Lord he accredited it to him, as righteousness. He was born again, that’s a work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. You’ll also find that the Spirit of God comes on people or fills them. And he does that for specific tasks that are temporary. So he came on Saul and then he left. He came on, people like Balaam, he’s talking through an unbeliever. Saul was an believer. He comes on Sampson and then he leaves Sampson.

David Jackson: (06:32)
And then he comes back. Interestingly, when you get to Acts chapter two and we received the gift of the Holy Spirit (So that’s the permanent abiding presence of God. In me,) two chapters later when John and Peter are on trial, we read that they were filled with the Holy Spirit as they answered the judge. So what’s happening there is that the Holy Spirit is working this work of power at that moment in the people he wants to work through and being filled with or having the Holy Spirit come on in that sense, at this moment, the Holy Spirit is actually at work, doing something to help us get through the moment. For the rest of the time. We have to understand that when you come to believe in Jesus under the new covenant, God is (I’m just going by his word).

David Jackson: (07:29)
I will be with you each and every day until the end of the age, he is the down payment of my inheritance in glory, a down payment in kind at the resurrection. I will inherit, you know, the new creation land, the presence of God visible. Now I don’t get that. I’ve got to live in the now till then, but then I will have the whole package. In the meantime, I get the first and the best bit. I get God with me, 24X7, that’s my down payment. That’s the seal that says you belong to me now.

Rob Abboud: (08:07)
How can you know?

David Jackson: (08:07)
You just gotta take God at his word, right? And the that’s the first step. The second step is you’ve then gotta open your eyes and start to watch and to think, and if you do, you will see God’s Holy Spirit at work. Half the time I think we’re asleep. , you know, we’re so busy, distracted by the things of the day. We forget it is God’s holy spirit who guides us. God’s holy spirit, who puts the thought in your head. And I mean, not every thought, some of our thoughts are really bad, but you know, he, he, he has a plan for my life and he navigates me through that. And there are times when I’m sure if you’re a believer in Jesus, you’ll know some of those experiences when something happens and you say a word and that word, where did that come from? you know, and it has all sorts of effects and you go, there’s the work of God. There there’s God at work. And somehow that happened through me? It’s not something we control and it’s not an emotional high, it’s a 24X7 reality that we’ve gotta learn to live with.

Rob Abboud: (09:20)
I remember asking an older Christian when I was a new believer. If I have God living in me, why am I still so hopeless? why do I still keep doing these stupid things, thinking these thoughts. And, and he said, no, no, no, you’ve, you’ve got it wrong. you having a spirit with you is the reason why you even know that you have those stupid thoughts. That’s right. and now you get the privilege of carrying on trying to live that’s

Rob Abboud: (09:44)
Right. Yeah. And I found that really helpful. Yeah. What he says, he’s our coach

Rob Abboud: (09:48)
that’s right. Yeah. He doesn’t take over us. Uh, but he allows us to get on board with him. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, here’s one, um, as we think of referring to Jesus, then, is it more accurate to call him the son of man instead of the son of God? what’s the most accurate description that we talk kind of name Jesus. As we talk about him as the second person of the Trinity, how should we refer to him?

David Jackson: (10:19)
Jesus is all of these things. We don’t choose one versus the other. And that’s the beauty of it. You to know Jesus you’re knowing somebody who is intricately complex on the one hand is the creator of the universe. Infinite, eternal unchangeable, God On the other hand, he became a sinless man and operated within the same limitations He expects you and me to handle, um, there’s complexity here. And I, I think one of the things we need to learn as believers in Christ is to love the complexity, to find delight in it. Now the lazy man, the lazy me wants to just simplify things into a one line, stick it on a memory verse on the wall and then not think about it for the rest of the day. Yeah. Yeah. We want a hallmark card center.

Rob Abboud: (11:10)
You’re gonna give me when I, on the way home I get the, the magnet goes in the fridge. It all sorted.

David Jackson: (11:14)
Yeah. Yeah. Jesus’ Lord. That’ll do you know? um, we we’ve gotta, when I talk to people about Jesus, I want to hear what question they’re asking. Are they asking? Is he, God? Are they asking? Is he man? What are they asking? Are they asking, what does it mean for Jesus to save? I still remember as a young boy riding the train from school, into town, we used to go on excursions one a month. And some, somebody had painted a big, you know, graffiti, “Jesus saves,” uh, under on one of the bridges that we went under and some other wagon had come along and put “stamps” next to it. and you go ,

David Jackson: (11:55)
You know, uh, what do you mean by these words and phrases? And if you want to get to know him, you open God’s word and you search and you explore. And it, he describes it as going mining, looking for treasure. And the Bible just explodes with these beauties. And that’s when our hearts just glow. You know, that moment when you realize that you are the Holy of Holies and God dwells in you and you just sit there going, oh my heavens. Um, when you discover that Jesus is the man who is also God on the throne in glory, and people of every nation tribe and language are worshipping him. And then you turn to your neighbor and you go, they’re foreigners. , um, they’re gonna be sitting at the Lord’s table, we’re gonna share a cup together. And you think of the Jews, you know, with a Roman on this side and you know, a Greek on that side and they’re not circumcised and they eat mice and lizards, and I’m gonna share a cup with these people and you understand Peter’s trauma, but that trauma passes when you get to know who he is.

David Jackson: (13:11)
And I think, yeah, I, I, I wanna avoid saying Jesus is the son of God, because I think evangelicals are reluctant to say, Jesus is God. Right. I observe that in the way we answer people’s questions. I wanna say, Jesus is God, then I’ll get onto the other stuff. Right?

Rob Abboud: (13:32)
Yeah. It’s very helpful. Yeah. Letting him out of the box that he continues to. Wow. Us. Yeah. In his complexity and intricacy and beauty. Yeah. And I mean, we think of heaven and think, oh, you know, surely, surely we’re gonna get bored there. But even just now thinking of the wonder of Jesus, just more exploring him for eternity.

David Jackson: (13:51)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was saying to you earlier, you know, people get off on the David Attenborough videos, you know, where, where he wander us through a paddock somewhere and he’ll find some microscopic little bug that, and, and some obscure little flower and you know, the one has to live with the other and they only live in a two square kilometre area. And if you take one out, the whole world is gonna die. And it it’s all interdependent in such incredible detail. And, and he goes, oh wow. And I’m sitting there going, you’re a boofhead. I mean, seriously, you think this is an accident. Um, this is God expressing his character in, in intricate detail. The God who created some atopic particles created, you know, galaxies. And this is Jesus. This is Jesus. Without whom nothing was made, that was made.

Rob Abboud: (14:45)
I got one more, uh, which is sort of random, but, uh, interesting. Uh, would Joseph have been the king of Israel if Rome wasn’t, hadn’t kind of taken over it and shut them down?

David Jackson: (15:00)
the short answer is yes. Um, and the genealogies are there in Luke and Matthew to prove that. And don’t you love it. I mean, God’s got a wicked sense of humour. Um, inheritance is a very complicated thing. You think of who’s next in line to the throne of England, right? And you think of all the, you know, what happens if you take out Charlie and a few others, how do you figure out who’s next in line? if you want to go on, on the web and just , you know, who’s next in line, down to the 20th person, it gets colourful, right? The Jews kept track the genealogies that everybody thinks boring in the oOd Testament. They’re there because we are looking for the son of Abraham, the son of the woman, the son of Abraham, the son of David, we are looking for, him, we are waiting for him.

David Jackson: (15:54)
And we want to know that when we get him, we’ve got the right one. And so, I mean, you know, the Luke’s account is just brilliant. He’s writing to a Roman, nobleman called Theophilus, and he’s gotta defend Paul in court before Nero, the mad Caesar. So you, you have that sort of scenario. And this is, I think this is the brief .Acts as a bit of a brief for Paul’s potential lawyer when he appears before Caesar. So he’s explaining, well, you you’ve gotta have the evidence, right? You’ve gotta know who Jesus is. Well, let me take you. There was a census, a Roman census. It happened to coincide with the birth of Jesus and to make sure that the Romans got the right people, everybody had to go back to their hometown, to the land, their family inherited, which in David’s case was Bethlehem. And there you need the Roman guy’s gonna sit there and say, so who’s your father and who’s your grandfather. And who can verify this? I mean, we don’t have birth certificates. So gotta have all the uncles and cousins agree that this is the right family tree. And this is where you fit on it. And the Romans are recording all this detail. And so if you doubt that Jesus, that Joseph is the rightful king of Israel, go check the census. It’s all there. And the Jews have memorized it because they’re waiting to for him.

Dan Jackson: (17:15)
Well, I hope you had some of your questions answered through that episode. If you wanted to access the notes and stuff for this episode, please head to trainingforliferedeemed.com/58. You can grab all the stuff there. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a review. We would love to hear from you there and please make sure you scribe and come back and join us next week. As we get more into our normal kind of episodes, chatting through passages from Matthew, me and my dad are gonna, we’re gonna be chatting through Matthew for the next few weeks. I imagine it might even take a term or two to go through Matthew. So I hope that you stick with us for the long run as we go through Matthew. I think it’s a fantastic book. We gotta learn lots as we do this together. So please make sure you enjoy this. Make sure you subscribe. If you haven’t subscribed to the email list, make sure you do that as well. And you can then get emails with updates of everything that’s happening, guys. Thank you so so much. And I look forward to seeing you again next week.