Debrecen Messages #1 – Before the Beginning: The Eternal Christ Revealed

It was a prayer of Paul of Tarsus: “Ever since I heard of you, I have prayed that God might give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation into an experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

Whether—if I give somebody the Bible, I have just really given them… I’ve done a terrible thing. Amen. If I give you rules and regulations, it’s been a terrible thing. If I give you information, I’ve done a terrible thing. And I’m even going to say, if I give you Christ, I haven’t done a whole lot. But if I can put you in a place where you have a revelation of Christ within yourself—if He is revealed in you—wow. And I don’t know many men who ever had a revelation of Jesus Christ. Or if they have, they’re doing a great job of hiding it, because what’s coming out of their mouths indicates that they’ve had a revelation of other things.

So I’m going to do two things. I’m going to talk to you a little bit today about a revelation that’s needed—a revelation of Christ. And that revelation has got to be different from what most of us think of when we think of Christ. And the messages that I bring here in the morning, when we put it on the tape, it will say “A Revelation of Christ.” My brother, I’m going to try to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ to you, and the Lord Jesus Christ to you, and nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ to you. Before I do that, I want to explain to you what is not a revelation of Christ.

Submission and authority is not a revelation of Christ. A woman’s place in the church is not a revelation of Christ. The church as a revelation is a revelation of Christ in that Christ is the head of the church, and the church is His body. And you cannot long see Christ without also seeing His church. Now, Brother Daniel, have you been able to understand me so far?

Praise the Lord.

Bible study is not a revelation of Christ. The Bible can present us Christ, but the Bible does not give us a revelation of Christ.

The Holy Spirit gives us a revelation of Christ. There are men who can tell you everything there is to know about Christ’s days on this earth who have never had a revelation of Him.

Preaching love is no indication of a revelation of Christ. Preaching repentance. Sharing repentance. What else do we bump into? Prophecy, healing, baptism, Holy Ghost, immersion doctrine, Luther, Reformation—this is not Christ. And now I’m going to say something really startling: you have not known Christ when you have known the Christ who lived on this earth.

Now that’s too extreme, and it’s not even accurate—but I want to say it anyway. Let me explain what I mean. After Jesus Christ rose from the dead, from that day on, there is very little said among Christians about Christ’s life on earth. The epistles do not give you the Christ of the four Gospels. The Christ of the four Gospels is virtually unmentioned in the rest of the New Testament. But now, gentlemen, you have to be really careful here, because if you take the parables and if you take the life of Christ and you say, “You should do this,” and “You’ve got to do that,” and “You’ve got to be a good Samaritan,” and “You have to…”, oh my gosh, here I am just left cold dead.

What are the ways we apply the life of Christ? Help me here. Come on. We have to witness. Love your neighbor. Let me hear from some of these brothers. What applications are there in the four Gospels? What can I say to you? Love? Serve. Serve people. All right. What else? It’s kind of amazing that we can’t pull all this out right quick, and yet it’s been dumped on us for 1,700 years. Be humble. Pray like Jesus prayed. Take care of the little children and love the little children like Jesus loved them. Now we’re going to pass an offering, and we’re going to give money to the poor starving children in our orphanage—all the things that have come out of His life. Power to heal – ah, now it’s beginning to come back. Casting out demons. Jesus cast out demons. It’s the wrong place, brothers. You have not revealed Christ when you have done this. 

What is a revelation of Christ?