Storyline 13: Exodus 5 - 13. "Shock and Awe: The Judgment of Jesus"

Imagine living in a country where your national leader sees himself like a god. He rules in absolute power by brute force. In fact, even after just being inaugurated into office, he arrests and executes many of his political opponents. He even has the gall to ask his ministers for candid advice. When one tells him to step down to promote peace, that minister is delivered to his wife’s doorstep in dismembered pieces. When America attacked Iraq with the “Shock and Awe” military tactic, our ultimate purpose was to dethrone this cruel tyrant - Saddam Hussein. Exodus 5 – 13 describes a more powerful attack on a more evil ruler - Pharaoh of Egypt.

Several weeks ago, we left off the story with God raising up Moses as the leader to rescue His people from the world super-power - the Egyptian empire. When Moses approaches Pharaoh with God’s command to let His people go so that they can worship God in the wilderness, Pharaoh asks: “Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?” Well, God is about to show him who He is! Pharaoh is so insulted by the request that he turns up the heat on the Israelites by making them provide their own straw and make more bricks. When Moses gets back to the people, they are furious at him for causing life to get even worse. Our spiritual situation is similar to the one of Israel. Just like Israel, we can’t worship God fully while we’re enslaved, Satan turns up the heat of temptation when God is calling us into a deeper relationship with Him, and life often gets more difficult when we seek to follow God.

Moses is devastated at the response of Pharaoh (even though God had already warned him), but he was ultimately discouraged at the response of Israel. God encourages Moses. He will deliver His people from Pharaoh, and He will keep His covenant to take them to the Promise Land just like He did it with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This whole story, as well as the entire Bible, is about God being faithful to keeping His covenant. Why? Because His covenant of salvation brings about His highest goal: the glory of Jesus Christ. God is continually keeping His covenant before His people’s eyes just like He does with us and the gospel. We need to be reminded of the gospel of Jesus Christ daily which empowers us to live it continually.

When the Pharaoh declines again to let God’s people go, God begins His war campaign which He calls “Signs and Wonders.” It makes “Shock and Awe” look like little bottle rockets. The 10 plagues were: Nile turned to blood along with all other sources of water which caused all marine life to die and all of Egypt to stink, frogs came up from the Nile and swarmed the people everywhere including their food, Aaron struck the dust of the ground and it became gnats covering people and animals, swarms of flies covered and ruined the land of Egypt, all of the livestock of Egypt died, Moses threw dust in the air which became boils breaking out on all people and animals, heavy hail with thunder and fire rained down upon Egypt killing everything left outside, a swarm of locusts filled Egypt making it dark and ate all remaining food crops, pitch darkness fell over the land of Egypt for three days so that no one could see each other or go anywhere, and lastly the death of the firstborn. This is significant as Pharaoh’s firstborn son was the future Pharaoh and was thought to be a god. God commanded each family of Israel to kill a lamb, and to spread its blood over the family’s doorposts. If lamb’s blood was on the doorposts, the Death Angel of the Lord would Passover in peace. If there was no lamb’s blood, the Death Angel would kill the firstborn – from Pharaoh to slave to animal. Pharaoh finally let Israel go!

Throughout this entire historical drama, God is repeatedly saying that through this the whole earth will know that “I am the Lord, that there is no other like Me.” He wants His people free to serve Him. We must know that God pours out His wrath on all sin. God’s greatest judgment: Jesus Christ, the Firstborn Son of God, hanging on the cross in agony plagued with the penalty of the sin for all humanity. For those who believe in His death for their sin, they will be spared from the judgment of Jesus that is coming with His return (2 Thess 1:5-12 – a must read).

Framework Systematic Theology - 02 - Doctrine of Jesus Christ - His Deity

(This video is not meant to be sacrireligious. It was created to show how people can stereotypically fall into thinking about Jesus. Do we forget He is fully God along with His full humanity?)

In the last lesson, we looked at the storyline of Jesus Christ. It was about how we can understand Him throughout Scripture - from before the beginning of time through the time of future eternity. Why are we starting out with Jesus when looking into doctrines, and why are we looking so deeply into who He is? As people who are all about glorifying our great God, we must understand that Jesus is the glory of God (Philippians 2:11). So who IS (not “was”) Jesus?

Let’s first look at what the Deity of Jesus Christ means: Jesus as fully God. We have to remember that everyone has a view on this. Right now, if you realize it or not, you have thoughts on whether or not Jesus has always been fully God, if Jesus is fully God today, and if Jesus will always be fully God. All throughout history people have had views on this, such as:
Ebionism – People who believe this say that Jesus was a regular man who was born but chosen by God to become His Son at His baptism. The Spirit of God left this man near His death. This might sound crazy that people would believe that, but there is a man named Jose Luis today who believes He is now the “Christ” as the Spirit has entered him to be God’s Son. YouTube him!
Aryanism – People who believe this say that Jesus is not God because he is God’s Son who He created to be His firstborn over all creation. Jehovah’s Witnesses do hold to this thought today. When I meet other “Christians” throughout life, I normally love to ask them their thoughts on who Jesus is. I’ve gotten many answers saying that there is no way that Jesus is fully God and that God would never want Jesus to be worshipped because only God should be worshipped. The view of Aryanism is all over the place in many different people from bad teaching!

Are we crazy for thinking that God has a Son fully divine as He is? Are we the only ones who think this? Actually, Jesus claimed Himself to be God (John 10:30). Of course any yahoo can claim that, so what did others say about Him? Those who walked, talked, and lived with Him claimed His Deity as well (John 1:1). Again, any lunatic can claim that for himself and brainwash his followers to do this same. Did He actually display divine attributes? Yes! In the New Testament, Jesus displayed the divine attributes we normally think of: omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. But He also portrayed other important divine attributes: eternal existence, ability to forgive sins, faultless holiness, loving, just, etc.

Yet this article isn’t just to teach you that Jesus is fully God, but it is also to teach you that Jesus is the fullest physical revelation and fulfillment of who God was showing Himself to be all throughout the OT. God is creating and ruling by speaking in the OT. In John 1:1-14 Jesus is specifically called the Word of God. God is teaching and calling for living the way of wisdom in the OT such as in Proverbs. In the NT, Jesus is called both the Way (John 14:6), and the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:30). As God is claiming Himself to be LORD in the OT, Jesus is constantly referred to as Lord in the NT (Philippians 2:10-11). God reveals Himself to Moses and His people in the OT as the “I AM”, and Jesus makes the same claim for Himself (John 8:58). Lastly, the greatest promise God gave to His OT people is that He would bless them with His presence. In Matthew 1:23, the author says that the angels’ proclamation took place to fulfill the OT prophecy that Jesus would be called “Emmanuel” meaning: “God is with us.” God is speaking of Himself in the OT to point us to His glory in the NT – His Son Jesus Christ.

What I want to leave with you is that Jesus is the difference maker. As we speak with friends and family about bringing meaning into their lives, we must be faithful to share the person and work of Jesus Christ for God to make a difference in their lives. Churches aren’t making a difference when they don’t point their people to Jesus Christ. So many people want to say that all religions are worshipping the same God but just from different angles. No! The glory of God is Jesus Christ and anyone who doesn’t believe in Christ isn’t a child of God the Father, rather they are a child of the Devil (2 Corinthians 4:1-6, John 8:42). Jesus is fully God.