The Doctrine of Jesus Christ (Christology, Part 2) | Matthew 1:21 | Message 5
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21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[a] because he will save his people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:21
First, the four Gospels reveal Jesus in fullness.
Matthew presents Jesus as King. Matthew is written primarily with a Jewish audience in mind. It opens with a genealogy proving that Jesus is “the Son of David,” the promised Messiah, the rightful heir to Israel’s throne. Matthew’s purpose is to show that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy after four hundred years of prophetic silence. The last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, spoke — and then heaven was silent for centuries. Matthew breaks that silence and says: the King has come.
Mark presents Jesus as the Servant. Mark — also known as John Mark (Acts 12:12) — writes with Romans in mind. Romans didn’t care about pedigrees; they cared about action. That’s why Mark includes more miracles than any other Gospel and gives no genealogy. Jesus is constantly moving, healing, casting out demons, serving, giving His life. Mark himself had once been spiritually unstable, even causing tension between Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15). But God restored him. By the end, Paul asked for Mark in ministry again (2 Timothy 4:11). That restoration story fits Mark’s Gospel: the Servant King uses imperfect servants.
Luke presents Jesus as the perfect Man. Luke, the beloved physician, was a Gentile writing to a Greek audience. The Greeks exalted beauty, mind, strength, poetry — the ideal man. Luke shows them the only perfect Man who ever lived: Jesus. Luke’s genealogy goes back, not just to Abraham, but to Adam, emphasizing that Jesus is Savior for the whole human race, not only for Israel. Luke writes with careful detail and elevated Greek. You can feel the compassion of Christ on every page.
John presents Jesus as God. John is different from the others. His purpose is stated clearly: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). John opens not with Bethlehem, but with eternity: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John leaves no doubt. Jesus is not “a” god. Jesus is God. John gives us Nicodemus in John 3, the Good Shepherd in John 10, the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, and the restoration of Peter after failure in John 21. If you are leading someone to Christ, the Gospel of John is where you take them.
Second, the resurrection of Jesus is not optional to the Gospel — it is central.
Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You cannot preach Christ without mentioning His resurrection. The resurrection is God’s public declaration that Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be.
There are compelling reasons to believe the resurrection is true.
(1) The empty tomb and eyewitnesses. Jesus rose bodily and appeared alive many times. He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, who wept outside the tomb until the risen Lord called her by name (John 20:11–18). He then appeared to the other women (Matthew 28:9–10), then to Peter — the same Peter who had denied Him (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5). He walked with disciples on the Emmaus road, opening the Scriptures to them until their hearts burned (Luke 24:13–35). He entered a locked room and stood among the disciples, showed them His hands and His side, and said, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19–20). Thomas touched the risen wounds and cried, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The tomb was empty because Jesus was alive.
(2) The transformation of the disciples. Before the resurrection, Peter was so terrified that he denied Jesus three times (Matthew 26:74). Fifty days later, that same Peter is standing in Jerusalem preaching Jesus to a hostile crowd, and 3,000 come to Christ (Acts 2). What explains that boldness? The resurrection power of Jesus Christ. Peter would eventually be martyred, by tradition crucified upside down, because he didn’t consider himself worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Cowards became martyrs. Fearful men became fearless witnesses. That doesn’t happen for a lie.
(3) No alternative theory has ever stood. The early church did not preach a metaphor. They preached a risen Lord. Luke writes that Jesus “presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days” (Acts 1:3). The evidence, he says, was “infallible.” The idea that the disciples hallucinated, or went to the wrong tomb, or stole the body, collapses under the weight of eyewitness testimony and transformed lives. Legal minds have examined that evidence. John Singleton Copley, one of the greatest legal authorities in British history and three-time Lord Chancellor of England, said, “I know pretty well what evidence is, and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet.”¹
(4) Worship shifted because of the resurrection. The earliest believers were Jews. Their worship rhythm was the Sabbath: the seventh day. But suddenly the church began gathering on “the first day of the week” (1 Corinthians 16:2) — Sunday — because that is the day Jesus rose. You don’t change 1,500 years of covenant worship overnight unless something earthshaking happened. Something did. An empty grave.
(5) The church is still exploding in growth. Across the world, hundreds of thousands are coming to faith in Christ in a single 24-hour window. The gospel is advancing in places of persecution and poverty. You cannot attribute that solely to human strategy. Dead saviors don’t start living movements. Only a living Christ does.
(6) Jesus still changes lives. From first-century fishermen to modern athletes and addicts set free, the pattern is the same: encounter the risen Christ, be transformed, then tell everyone. Christianity is not behavior polish. It is resurrection power applied to dead hearts.
Third, Jesus is not only Lord of the past — He is Lord of the future.
Jesus will return for His people. “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout… and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive… shall be caught up… to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). This is often called the Rapture. Christ comes for His church.
Jesus will return with His people. Revelation 19:14 describes the Second Coming: “The armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.” Christ returns in glory, and believers return with Him.
Jesus will judge the world. Revelation 20:11–15 shows all humanity standing before a holy God. Those not found written in the Book of Life are cast into the lake of fire. This is not theory. This is future.
Jesus will reign as King. He will establish His Kingdom — a real reign, centered in Jerusalem — and “they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4). History is not spiraling without meaning. History is moving toward Jesus visibly reigning.
Finally, Jesus Himself preached with unmistakable urgency about eternity.
People often say, “Well, I believe in a loving Jesus, not in hell.” The problem is: Jesus is the one who preached on hell. In Luke 16:19–31, Jesus described a rich man in torment, conscious, aware, pleading that someone warn his brothers “lest they also come to this place of torment.” Hell is real, eternal, and terrible. That is why the cross matters. That is why the mission matters.
Michael Faraday, the brilliant English chemist and pioneering physicist, was once asked on his deathbed to speculate about life after death. He replied, “Speculations? I know nothing about speculations. I am resting on certainties … ‘I know my Redeemer liveth, and because He lives, I shall live also.’”² That is the confidence of the believer. Not guesswork. Certainty. Christ crucified. Christ risen. Christ returning.
This is biblical literacy: knowing who Jesus is according to Scripture and living as if that is true — because it is.
Footnotes
John Singleton Copley (Baron Lyndhurst), quoted in Henry Parry Liddon, The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1866), 320.
Michael Faraday, quoted in John Tyndall, Faraday as a Discoverer (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1869), 152.
