As you are going home from work, two well-dressed gentlemen accost you, handing you some literature explaining what they believe. You glance over it and are drawn to this sentence: “Jesus was a man and as such could not also be God.” Seeing the puzzled look on your face, one of the men asks you what you think of this claim.
With this scenario in mind, let’s take a moment to look at the humanity of Jesus from a Biblical perspective. The Bible says that Jesus was born in a manger, growing, and learning and subject to hunger, anxiety, doubt, disappointment and finally a physical death (Elwell, 239 & 1 Peter 3:18). The Bible also tells us that He had a physical resurrection (Luke 24:13-25; 24:42-43, Mathew 28:9). As we are born today and experience
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When we look at the Bible we can see the deity of Jesus throughout the entire Bible, but more so in the New Testament. One example of His deity is found at the baptism of Jesus where God calls Jesus is His Beloved Son (Mathew 3:16-17). As Elwell states, this has the most profound Christological implication and points out that He is not simply a son but the Son (John 20:17 & Elwell, 240). We can see through the Scripture that the Son and the Father are One (John 5:19, 30; 16:32). The Bible tells us that the Father loves the Son and gives Him the authority to judge (John 5:22 & Elwell, …show more content…
He experienced everything as both God and as man, even though He was one Person. This was necessary so that He could be the Mediator between God and man (1Timothy 2:5 & Towns, 205).
It was necessary for Jesus to become incarnate to save humanity, because we are unable to save ourselves (Romans 4:1-12). God is unchanging and no man can escape his sin nature; therefore, no man can keep the law. We had to have Jesus incarnate to save humanity from itself. God loves us so He provided Jesus to suffer our punishment, even though He was without sin, He shed His blood for us (Genesis 22:8 & Towns, 217).
We should not overemphasize nor deny the deity or humanity of Jesus Christ. When we overemphasize His humanity, we do not give acknowledgement that He is God and that He is divine in nature. While acknowledging His deity, we must never forget that without His human nature and the shedding of His blood and resurrection, we would still be lost and without hope of salvation (Hebrew
Also, there would not be Christianity without the incarnation, atonement, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when God took human form through his Son, Jesus became fully human and God. He was the Messiah that Gods people longed for to save humanity from a sinful life (“Lecture 4”, 2017). Also, it is important to understand as a Christian that before Jesus Christ died humanity could not enter Gods Holy Kingdom after they passed because humanity was sinful. God sacrificing his son was a way to lay a path for humanity to follow if they choose to and if they follow Gods commandments can join God in his holy Kingdom after they pass away (“Lecture 4”, 2017). The truth of the Bible is the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Even though the incarnation was torturous Jesus knew it would be and God new how much torcher was needed to make clear that reconciliation accrued. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but he is also our Godhead or divine Trinity. He is humanity’s
Jesus was the son of God, who was created by God and the second person within the trinity. God is viewed as the father, the son, and the holy spirit, according to the Christian worldview. Jesus was created from God planting a seed in Virgin Mary. Jesus was thus born to spread the word about God and all the gospel. Jesus lived a life as a human as all of us do now. He experienced a lot of things we as human’s experience. Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins where he died on the cross. Jesus is important to the Christian worldview because he is the ultimate reason we are who we are today. “God is both holy and just, so although he created humanity to be immortal, he could not accept them into his holy kingdom in their sinful state (Lecture 5). After Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, this served as redemption and it was then that god allowed them into the
Another point that can be made to show Jesus’ Deity is His coequality with God. John 5:19 states that He “can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do”. It may seem that Jesus shouldn’t need to be praying to the Father if He is God, yet Jesus was both “God and man” (Slick, CARM) and was under the Law, just as all other men were. But, “with these two natures, came the fulfillment of the Messianic Prophesies” (Slick, CARM). This goes to show that Jesus and God are equal in persons, although they are two separate persons in the Trinity.
Jesus is alive, for he continued to work in the lives of his disciples. The change of the lives of his followers demonstrate the work of Christ in them. Our historical knowledge relies on testimonies. The testimonies of the disciples are valid because eleven of them dies for their belief in the claims that Jesus made (McDowell 89-90). The power of Jesus is shown through them. Initially, they were cowards in their faith. Peter denied Jesus three time, and Thomas doubted Jesus’ resurrection. The disciples’ weak faith in Jesus and doubt in his resurrection suddenly transformed into an undeniable belief that led them to give up their lives for this Jesus. What could have changed the disciples’ minds so suddenly besides the witnessing of the resurrection of Jesus. They all personally had an encounter with the resurrected body of Jesus. Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus, proclaimed that
Hebrews 1:2-3 says, “But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (NIV). In an article in The Christian Crier, author Jack Wellman gives a great description of Jesus.
One of the first major points that describes who Jesus Christ is how he displays the “…image of the invisible God…” however, he is God but in human form being Christ. He reflects the nature of his father, God. His son, Jesus, is the image of God. He is “… the firstborn of all creation” meaning that
As creatures created by God and who share in His life, we all have “inestimable value” (JP II 2). By virtue of the fact that He sent His Son to die for us on the cross in order to bridge what was broken in the Garden, God shows how much He really loves humanity. The Incarnation is proof positive how important human life is in the eyes of the Trinity. Jesus Christ could have taken on any form, yet as Philippians 2:7 teaches us, He took the form of a human servant and died a human death on the cross in order to provide salvation for humankind. Because of this relationship, all humans are valuable and share a divine dignity with one another and with God.
Jesus Christ, God incarnate came to earth to save everyone from eternal damnation in hell. As humans, with Adam and Eve as our representatives in the Garden of Eden, they broke God’s one commandment, therefore allowing sin to come into the world. Because of this fall, we all deserve damnation, and because of the sin nature inside of us, everyone deserves to die and be eternally punished. However, because of the loving and gracious nature of God, He sent his only son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to be our representative for sin. When he took the cross, not only did he bear the physical pain of the lashes, the dehydration, and the cross itself, but he also drank God’s cup of wrath for us. Everyone on earth deserves to be on that cross, but Jesus, through his great love for us, paid the ultimate price of his own life to save us.
The main message of this gospel account is “Jesus is the Son who reveals His Father” to the world (Strauss, 2011, p. 7448). Jesus sees and has seen God as the Father (Strauss, 2011, p. 7448). Although, Jesus is a distinct entity from the Father, Jesus is fully and wholly God (Strauss, 2011, p. 7448). Furthermore, Jesus is the Word of God and the Father’s “self-revelation” (Strauss, 2011, p. 7448). Anyone who sees Jesus has seen the Father (Strauss, 2011, p. 7448).
There is a big difference between person and nature. Human nature if composed of body and soul, in a human person is found the added perfection which makes each one an individual, distinct from all others. A human person has only one human nature. Christ is a divine Person having the nature of God and the nature of man. God through time has proved He had both nature of God and the nature of man, which are two totally separate things. This was all by doing some things that only God could do and other things that men do. But let’s make it clear that Christ only is one person.
Next we must understand that Jesus was fully God and fully human. We must have both parts in order to understand that he saved us and that he was one and the same with God. McGrath says, “Although all people are children of God in some sense of the word, the New Testament holds that Jesus is the son of God.”(McGrath, 67) This shows us that Jesus is directly connected to God and therefore he
Jesus has to be God, because if He is not God, His death would not have been enough to pay the penalty for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). Only God could pay such an infinite penalty (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus had to be God so that He could pay our debt. Jesus had to be man so He could die. Salvation is available only through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus’ divinity is why He is the only way of salvation. Jesus’ divinity is why He proclaimed, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Jesus is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who died for our sins. If we do not recognize our own failings and inadequacies, we cannot
However this concept has been falsely interpreted. Two misconceptions are discussed. The first false meaning suggests that Christ let go of some of His divine attributes when He came to earth in the flesh. The second false meaning defends that Christ covered up His full deity when He became flesh. Both of these meanings are biblically and theologically false because Christ never relinquished His divinity when He took the form of a man. He was and is fully God and fully man while He was on
If Jesus is who he says he is, man is not living for himself, but a greater purpose. In order to validate this, one must examine the validity of the resurrection. From a Biblical perspective, Jesus predicted his resurrection, and after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to hundreds of his followers (Bright, n.d.). Additionally, the impact Jesus’ life and resurrection had on the lives of others created a chain reaction that can only be explained by the historicity of the resurrection. Starting with the disciples who were willing to die for their faith, to the growth of the Christian church throughout in the era after Christ’s death, and the continual growth of Christianity and the testimony of millions of lives transformed by the saving work of Christ, it is evident the resurrection of Jesus was a real event that really has impact on the trajectory of humankind (Bright, n.d.). Since the resurrection is indeed a historically proven fact, it has repercussions for all of humanity. The resurrection proved the Christ was indeed divine, that Christ holds the power to forgive sin, the power Christ held over death, and the ultimately, defeated God’s enemy (Bright, n.d.). Additionally, no other religion has a leader that has broken the power of death and overcome sin once and for all (Bright, n.d.). In light of this, when Christians place their hope in Jesus Christ, they are placing their hope in God, which places them in subjection to a power that is above themselves. In conjunction, however, is a relationship between a Father and a child of God centered in love and motivated by relationships. When a man understands the great love that has been gifted to him through Jesus’ death, resurrection, defeat of sin, and promise to return, he cannot help but reciprocate this love and extend this love to others. If Jesus is in fact God in the flesh, man should understand himself to be created in God’s image, and therefore, a reflection of his character. Through the sacrifice of his only Son, God exemplified his nature of love and mercy, so when Christians are sanctified by Christ, they should exemplify these characteristics in their interactions with others. In conclusion, a person