Category Archives: Jesus Christ

Did Jesus know Greek?

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‘The New Testament itself is written in a language Jesus never spoke.’

So claims Richard Rohr (The Divine Dance: The Trinity and your transformation) in a throwaway comment.  It is one of a large number of careless and inaccurate statements by this writer.

The two main languages spoken by Jews at the time were Aramaic (in everyday communication) and Hebrew (in more formal religious matters).  But what about Greek?  This language had been spoken in Palestine for several centuries. …

Christ our example

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ReferenceAdmonition, in substanceLink to teaching concerning Christ’s person and work
Rom. 15:2, 3Please the neighbor“for Christ also pleased not himself.”
Rom. 15:7Extend a hearty welcome to each other. (Receive one another.)“just as Christ also welcomed (received) you.”
2 Cor. 8:7–9Abound in the grace of giving to the needy“for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that through his poverty you might become rich.”
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Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

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How can we preach Christ from the Old Testament?  Sydney Greidanus outlines seven ways:-

1. Redemptive-historical progression—seeing the message of the passage in the context of redemptive history from beginning to end, especially following the progression of redemptive history as it moves forward from the text’s historical setting to Jesus’ First and/or Second Coming.  [Example: Gen 3 and the ‘Fall’, finding its remedy in the saving work of Christ]
2. Promise-fulfillment—showing that the promise of a coming Messiah was fulfilled in Jesus’ First Coming or will be fulfilled in his Second Coming.  …

How does Christ rule his church?

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After his resurrection, Jesus declared that ‘all authority is heaven and on earth’ had been given to him (Mt 28:18).  As Christians, then, we confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Phil 2:9-11).

How does Christ exercise his authority in the church today?  Four possible answers have been given:-

  1. The Roman Catholic answer is that Christ rules his church through the magisterium, the teaching of the Pope and his bishops both in the past and in the present.
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Jesus, the ineligible bachelor

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In the Jewish society of Jesus’ day, it was almost unthinkable that a man would remain unmarried beyond the age of 20 or so.  After all, the very first commandment of the Torah is to ‘go and multiply’).  Few indeed are the recorded instances of unmarried men.  There was a studious rabbi by the name of Simeon ben Azzi.  And even he probably had been married, but had become a widower.

Girls were usually married by the age of twelve, and men by the age of twenty.…

Christ – the true God

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He is

  1. ‘the truth’, Jn 14:6 – who leads us into the truth and delivers us from error
  2. ‘the true God’, 1 Jn 5:20 – the object of our worship
  3. ‘the true bread’, Jn 6:32 – who gives us lasting nourishment and satisfaction
  4. ‘the true vine’, Jn 15:1 – we are to abide in him and be fruitful
  5. ‘the Holy and True’, Rev 3:7 – let us be holy and true to him
  6. the ‘true light’, Jn 1:9 – who lightens our way through a dark world
  7. ‘the true witness’ – Rev 3:14 – let us attend to his words

(Adapted from Naismith, 1200 Scripture Outlines, p194)…

How much did Jesus know?

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At times – according to the Gospel narratives – Jesus showed evidence of extraordinary knowledge.  This included knowledge of what others were thinking (e.g., Mark 2:6-8; Mark 11:2; John 1:48-49).  But such knowledge is not necessarily evidence of our Lord’s divinity, since at other times he displays ignorance.  And this combination of extraordinary knowledge about some things and ignorance about others also characterised the prophets of the Old Testament.

According to Raymond E. Brown, this limitation does nothing to diminish our admiration for Jesus Christ, for it shows ‘what depths divine condescension went in the incarnation–it would show just how human was the humanity of Jesus.’…

The incarnate Christ did not cease to be divine

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It is one thing to affirm that Christ was (and is) both human and divine.  It is another to seek to understand how these truths relate to one another.

Peter Lewis has some helpful comments on our belief that the incarnate Christ did not cease to be divine.

According to John 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh’.  ‘However,’ writes Lewis, ‘we are not to think of the Son as leaving a sort of gap in the Godhead, a vacancy in the Trinity, at his coming down to earth as a man.  …

Why did Christ become a human being?

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Grudem (Systematic Theology, p541f) outlines a number of reasons.  What follows is based on his discussion.

  1. To be our representative.  Jesus obeyed where Adam had failed to obey.  This is seen in the parallels between the time of testing in the garden, Gen 2:15-3:7, and Jesus’ time of temptation in the wilderness.  It is seen also in Paul’s comparison of Adam and Christ in Rom 5:18f; cf. 1 Cor 15:45,47.
  2. To be our substitute.  
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Christ had a human mind

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Apollinarianism

Whereas the Christian doctrine of the incarnation first came under threat from docetism, which denied that Christ had a real human body, Apollinarianism soon followed, with its denial that that he had a real human psychology.

Apollinaris was, by all accounts, a deeply spiritual man whose theology was in many respects perfectly orthodox.  But he was condemned as a heretic by the Council of Constantinople in 381.  He taught that although Christ took on a human body, he did not take on a human mind.  …