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116 What Do the Christian Scriptures Claim for Themselves?
who alone could say, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18);
who alone taught in such an unparalleled way that “the crowds
were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one
who had authority, and not as their scribes (Matt. 7:28–29);
who alone, when he “comes in his glory, and all the angels with
him . . . will sit on his glorious throne. . . . Before him will be
gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt.
25:31–32);
who alone could say, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my
words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35);
who alone “rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they
ceased, and there was a calm” (Luke 8:24);
who alone commanded demons with complete authority, “‘Be silent
and come out of him!’ And when the demon had thrown him down
. . . he came out of him, having done him no harm. . . . And they
were all amazed and said to one another, ‘What is this word? For
with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and
they come out!’” (Luke 4:35–36);
who alone, claiming to forgive sins, which only God can do, said,
“‘That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth
to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic—‘I say to you, rise, pick up
your bed, and go home’” (Mark 2:10–11);
who alone would dare say, “Whatever the Father does, that the Son
does likewise” (John 5:19).
These are the things that the apostles saw and heard and remembered
and recorded. “He is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). He is God (John 1:1;
20:28; Rom. 9:5; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:8–9). The words of the Old Testament
that were applied to Yahweh, the apostles applied to the risen
Jesus (Rom. 10:11; 1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17; Eph. 4:8; Phil. 2:10). He
is, therefore, “our only Lord and Master” (Jude 4).