A gracEmail subscriber asks the meaning of the words "Messiah" and "Christ," and why the Jews rejected Jesus when their prophets had foretold his coming. Part 1 The English word "Messiah" is spelled from the Hebrew word Meshiach which means "an anointed one." The English word "Christ" is spelled from the Greek word Christos, which means the same thing. In the Old Testament, prophets, priests and kings were "anointed" with oil as part of their ordination or coronation. This symbolized that they were God's appointed people, chosen by him for particular service and accountable to him for … [Read more...]
JESUS LEADS TO GOD
A gracEmail reader in England asks, "If Jesus calls himself the 'way' to the Father, then Jesus is the route and God his Father is the destination. Yet most Christian churches seem to focus on Jesus rather than on God. Is that really biblical?" * * * Christians believe the claims made by Jesus of Nazareth that the one and only living God was his Father in a unique sense which is true of no other human who ever lived. Jesus said that he came to earth from the Father and that he was going back to the Father (John 16:28). He insisted that whoever sees him sees the Father (John 14:8-9). He … [Read more...]
THE BEGINNING OF JESUS
A gracEmail subscriber asks: "Did Jesus Christ have a body before he became a man?" * * * Next door to me live Jesus, his wife and their son Jesus. Grandpa Jesus lives across the street. Although "Jesus" is a common Latino name it is rarely used among Anglos like myself. (Interestingly, both practices express the same intent, namely to show respect for Jesus Christ.) We therefore need to be reminded that the designation "Jesus Christ" includes both a name, "Jesus" (from the Hebrew "Yeshua," also translated "Joshua" in English), and a title, "Christ" (Greek for "The Anointed," or "Messiah" … [Read more...]
JESUS, JOHN’S GOSPEL & THE CREEDS
A friend urges that we accept the language of ancient Christian creeds concerning Jesus' existence before the Incarnation as eternally "God the Son." The Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, say we should translate John 1:1 as "the Word was a god" and deny that God actually came as a man. What is the biblical balance here? * * * Certainly John 1 says that the Logos was divine, or God, and that it became incarnate in the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. The Jehovah's Witnesses' "New World Translation" of the New Testament stands quite alone in claiming otherwise. On the other hand, it … [Read more...]
HUMANITY’S PURPOSE FULFILLED
Did you ever look at a starry sky on a clear night and feel very small indeed? Jesse's son David did, 3,000 years ago, as he watched his father's sheep out on the hills around Bethlehem. Later he wrote about it in Psalm 8. "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (Ps. 8:4). Measured by the heavens, we humans are tiny almost to the point of invisible. Yet we have a most significant position in the divine order. God made us to exercise caring … [Read more...]
PAUL AND EARTHLY JESUS
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether Saul of Tarsus (later the Apostle Paul) ever encountered Jesus in Palestine during the years of Jesus' personal ministry. * * * We cannot know whether Paul ever saw Jesus personally on earth or not. Scholars believe that Paul (his Roman name) or Saul (his Hebrew name) was born about the same time as Jesus, although in Tarsus (in modern Turkey) far from Palestine. The New Testament first mentions Paul as an accessory to the murder of Stephen (Acts 7:58) and identifies him as a "young man." This was before Paul's conversion which likely occurred in about … [Read more...]
‘THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST’
Although I cry easily, I wanted to view Mel Gibson's movie The Passion dispassionately. So I braced myself, purposed not to look at my wife beside me and watched without moving a muscle from the opening scene until the end. Despite the English subtitles (all the narrative is in Aramaic and Latin), this is surely the most powerful film ever produced -- both emotionally and spiritually -- portraying the suffering and death of our Savior. Almost everyone in our theater audience sat in silence through the final credits then rose and left with scarcely a sound to be heard. Critics have said much … [Read more...]
WAS JESUS TRULY TEMPTED?
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether Jesus Christ was truly tempted to sin as we are, or whether he only encountered the temptation but without any accompanying enticement. * * * Although Jesus was the divine Word made flesh, in the Incarnation he truly became human and lived as one of us (Heb. 2:14). In so doing, he graciously "emptied" himself of divine prerogatives and advantages (Phil.2:7; 2 Cor. 8:9). Although God cannot be tempted by evil, in his humanity Jesus was fully "tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (James 1:13; Heb. 4:15). Because he did experience our … [Read more...]
NOW FOREVER HUMAN
A gracEmail subscriber writes: “It is too simplistic to say that Jesus was mortal since Jesus never forfeited his eternal nature -- he was and always remained the Son of God. When the agony of the cross was over, Jesus resumed the existence he had before he 'stepped down' from his spiritual divinity to undertake our atonement. Of course our finite minds cannot grasp all this.” * * * Indeed, the fullness of deity inhabited the human being we know as Jesus of Nazareth (Col. 2:9). In Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God truly became flesh and blood (Heb. 2:3-4). Jesus was fully human and, … [Read more...]
JESUS — ‘SON OF MAN’ (2)
A gracEmail subscriber from New Hampshire asks the meaning of Jesus' frequent description of himself as the Son of Man. * * * Daniel described God's messianic figure as "Son of Man" 500 years before Jesus was born. As Son of Man, Jesus would eventually receive dominion, power, glory and an eternal kingdom -- for himself and for all God's people. What no one but God knew in advance, whether prophet, king, sage or heavenly angel, is that the Son of Man would first suffer and die, then rise again. The Messiah, this "man of God's own choosing" as the hymn puts it, scandalized even his inner … [Read more...]