God’s Image Study — Inside the Mind — Where the Word Leads
Our opening study asked what is being claimed when someone presents a Christ for others to follow. Now we turn toward the one whose identity is being claimed.
How does Scripture describe Jesus’ anointing, authority, and relationship with the Father?
These details give us something concrete against which to examine a portrayal. A familiar name can remain while the teaching attached to that name changes.
In Acts 10:38, Peter identifies Jesus of Nazareth as the one God anointed with the Holy Spirit and power. He then describes Jesus doing good and healing those oppressed by the devil, explaining that God was with him. See Acts 10:38, LSB.
Preserve the relationships in that statement:
God anoints → Jesus is anointed → Holy Spirit and power → works of deliverance.
Jesus is the one whom God anointed. His work is described in relation to God’s presence with him.
Luke’s account supplies a corresponding statement. Reading from Isaiah, Jesus speaks of the Spirit upon him, anointing, and being sent to proclaim good news and release. The commission concerns the poor, captives, blind, and oppressed. See Luke 4:18, LSB.
The anointing has a purpose. It leads into what Jesus is sent to do.
This matters when examining claims of spiritual authority. We need to follow the claim into its source, its teaching, and its work.
Jesus makes the source of his teaching explicit:
“My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me.”
— John 7:16, LSB
The sentence preserves both the speaker and the sender.
Jesus teaches, yet identifies the teaching as coming from the one who sent him. In the following verses, he contrasts speaking from oneself and seeking one’s own honor with seeking the Glory of the sender. See John 7:17–18.
That gives our study a question to carry forward:
Does the portrayal preserve Jesus’ own account of whom he represents and whose teaching he brings?
We should be able to ask that question without first agreeing to an institution’s explanation. The words themselves deserve examination.
John 5:43 adds another distinction. Jesus describes coming in his Father’s name and being rejected, while another coming in his own name would be received. See John 5:43, LSB.
Reception, then, does not establish that someone was sent by God.
A person can be welcomed while the one coming in the Father’s name is refused. Popularity and recognition must therefore be examined alongside the actual claim to authority.
Now we can return to Paul’s warning about another Jesus.
In 2 Corinthians 11:4, the danger concerns someone proclaiming a Jesus different from the one Paul and his fellow workers proclaimed. The warning also concerns a different spirit and a different gospel being received. See 2 Corinthians 11:4, LSB.
This makes the content of the proclamation essential.
We must examine what is being said about Jesus: his identity, his relationship with the Father, his teaching, and the obedience requested in his name.
Matthew’s warning about false messianic claimants and Paul’s warning about a different proclamation remain distinct. Our comparison follows the question they raise together: does what is being presented agree with the one Scripture reveals?
Paul also describes his own place in the message. In 2 Corinthians 4:5, he identifies Jesus Christ as the Lord being proclaimed and himself and his fellow workers as servants for Jesus’ sake. See 2 Corinthians 4:5, LSB.
The messenger has a place. The messenger does not become the object of the proclamation.
Here our study begins to touch the concern about misplaced allegiance.
When a message urges us to seek God, yet makes belonging to an establishment, pleasing its leaders, or accepting its explanations the measure of faithfulness, we need to examine how that requirement was established.
Where did Jesus teach it? What authority supports it? What happens when the teaching is examined against Scripture?
These are questions about what the message asks us to follow.
Our connection with idols and images develops here: a portrayal can shape the devotion offered under a familiar name. Before deciding whether that devotion has been redirected, we must identify what the portrayal changes and where it directs the hearer’s allegiance.
For this stage of the study, the scriptural anchors remain clear:
Jesus is anointed by God. He is sent. He identifies the Father as the source of his teaching. His messengers proclaim him while taking the place of servants.
Those relationships belong within the examination of any Christ being presented to us.
Threads to Follow
Anointing, sending, and the work entrusted to Jesus.
The Father’s name and claims made in one’s own name.
The source and purpose of a teaching.
Messengers who serve and the allegiance they request.
How a proclamation can present “another Jesus.”
False portrayals and their connection with misplaced devotion.
The books were opened…
🌿 By Maria Emilia
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