Author: believersarmedanddangerous

Years ago, I was sitting in a gym’s steam room with several other guys, and two were discussing Eternal Security, whether you can lose your salvation.  After a while I asked them if they both believed John 3:16 was true.  They both agreed it was.  Then I asked if God gave us eternal life and took it back because we sinned or something, was it really eternal and is John 3:16 was wrong?

We can know we’re saved.  The same apostle John that penned the gospel wrote this:

1 John 5:13  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

Throughout Scripture, we are told we will have eternal life if we accept Christ as Lord of our lives.  We can be confident in that.  There is an old issue, though, is Hebrews 6:4-6:

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

This is often interpreted as Christians can lose their salvation.  The denominations that believe this tend to shy away from the rest of the passage which says once you’ve lost it, you can never regain it.  They will instead welcome the repentant back into the flock.

Every time I read this passage I think of Simon Magus in Acts 8:9-24.  We’re told Simon heard the gospel and believed, he had been enlightened, had tasted the heavenly gift, he had even shared in the work the Holy Spirit was doing, tasted the goodness of the Word and had heard of the powers of the age to come. 

Sin was found in Simon, though (vs 20-24).  In fact, the Apostolic Father, the disciples of the apostles, often used Simon as an example of a false teacher and a false disciple.  Simon went on to become the leader of a heretical Gnostic group.

So, it is very possible, the church can have false members who have heard the message of the gospel and act like Christians in every way but have not really turned over their lives to Christ.  Sometimes it’s just ignorance.  The person doesn’t understand making a commitment to Jesus as Lord of their life is required for salvation.  They pray, they attend church, they give, they even serve, yet the Holy Spirit does not live in them.  They’re not evil, just uninformed. We need to do better to be sure everyone understands all that is involved in the salvation message.

Sometimes, a person might enter into a church to “network.”  A lot of professionals benefit from having a large number of people trusting in them and church membership lends to their credibility.  Yet, there is no dedication to the Lord, only to the bottom line.

Most people, though, in our Bible believing churches are sincere children of God (John 1:12).  I believe Simons represent a very small portion of the congregations.  It is too easy to be noticed there.  So, we shouldn’t go looking for Simons under every pew.  They are not the rule.

Sincere children of God can know their salvation is assured and sealed by the Holy Spirit:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Eph 4:30).

Why is this important?

 We Christians should be confident in our relationship with God.  Once we give our lives to Christ, our fate is sealed. One of Satan’s most effective tools against the Christian is doubt. If he can “sterilize” us, he’s happy.

I heard a message today about the ark of Noah.  Once inside the ark, the door was closed, those inside were sealed and safely included in God’s salvation from the flood.  It is the same for us.  Once we are sealed by God the Holy Spirit into His body, no power can ever break that seal?

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38-39)

Something only members of Christianity and Judaism can do is to ask non-believers to examine the truth claims of their faiths.  Even early on, Christian apologists argued that Christianity is founded on fact, not blind faith.  The apostles argued they had actually seen the risen Christ.  They were eye witnesses.  Their faith was founded on fact.

Within a hundred years of Christ’s ascension, Christian apologists were arguing in public letters to the Roman emperor that Christianity makes sense, it’s rational, and that Christians add to the empire because of their faith.  They were good workers, taxpayers, charitable, and helpful to others. 

The Romans rejected the Christians, though, not directly because of what they believed but because Christians would not engage in the Roman public sacrifices to their gods.  The Romans saw that as a lack of unity and, thus, rebellious and anti-Roman, a danger to the unity of the empire, so they continued to persecute Christians.

Had Christians not stood up and claimed their religion was true, it may not have convinced so many.  As Roger E. Olson puts it in his book, The Story of Christian Theology, “that gospel would quickly devolve into mere folk religion and lose all conviction as truth and influence on the church or society.”

Claiming to be true and testable brought Christianity to the forefront in the marketplace of ideas in the Roman Empire, so much so, it became the official Roman religion by the early fourth century.

So, did apostles claim Christianity is true?  Of course they did and even asked skeptics to examine their faith, to test it and see if it were true.  The apostles also challenged Christians to test all things including their faith (1 Thess 5:20-21), to have an answer for everyone who asked (1 Peter 3:15), to earnestly contend for the faith (Jude 3).  You don’t make these kinds of statements unless your belief system is testable, rational, and defensible.

God has given us the evidence.  We need only to present it.  The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the central teaching of the Christian faith.  If Christ is not raised, the faith has nothing to stand on (1 Cor. 15:17).

God prompted the writers of the New Testament to give us eye witness accounts of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  Others outside the faith admit to His resurrection as a belief of first century Christians.  Josephus, a Roman historian wrote of Christ’s resurrection as a historic event.  Tacitus, another Roman historian mentions Christ’s resurrection as a superstition accepted by the Christians.  When your enemies acknowledge your beliefs, you have near certainty they are true.

The belief the Bible is inspired of God is another Christian claim.  External evidence shows we have a text today which is better than 99% reliably representative of the original writings of the New Testament.  We have more than 25,000 handwritten manuscripts of the New Testaments.  Some fragments of the gospel writings can be dated back to the late first or early second centuries.  So, we can rebuild what the originals say by examining the vast number of manuscripts.  We also have other writings like the apostolic fathers (the disciples of the disciples) who quoted Scripture frequently. 

We need to remember Diocletian, the Roman Emperor at the end of the third century through the beginning of the fourth, ordered all Christian writings destroyed throughout the empire.  Also the great library at Antioch, a great center of Christian thought, was destroyed in 363 a.d.  Calif Omar burned the Alexandrian Library of more than 200,000 scrolls in 640 a.d.  Alexandria was another center for Christian thought and education.  These three events made it difficult to find early manuscripts since most were copied from the holdings of these two libraries.

The church recovered even though the New Testament had become a somewhat rare book.  Scriptoriums (copy centers) were set up to make up for the shortage.  Also, the opinion of older manuscripts was not the same as it is today.  Even as late as 1844, a scholar named Tishendorf staying at the monastery on Mount Sinai saw the monks using old manuscripts to light their fires on cold nights.  Tishendorf rescued the oldest existent complete New Testament manuscript dated to the mid fourth century.  Who knows, the monks might have destroyed even earlier manuscripts. 

One proof for the inspiration of the Bible is fulfilled prophecies.  There is a detailed prophecy in Ezekiel 26:3-5 which describes the city of Tyre, an important city in the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy, completely destroyed and scraped clean from the earth so that the fishermen would dry their nets on the site.  Today that city is still a place where fishermen dry their nets.  I wrote about this a couple of years ago: the city of Tyre 

Why is this important?

Christians need to be assured ours is not a blind faith.  It is a faith found in fact.  We have a long tradition of logical argumentation for our beliefs, and they stand unbowed.  Unlike other major religions, Christianity offers absolutes, objective moral standards, and major truth claims.

The word for “tithe” in Hebrew (maser) and the word in Greek (dekatos) both mean a tenth.  So, whether the tithe is for today or not, we should agree “tithe” means a tenth.

The two main views on the tithe, of course, are that it is for today or it is not.  Simple, you say, but not so simple to explain.  I’ll try to give some arguments I’ve heard for each side objectively and let you decide what you think God is telling you to do.

There are two basic arguments in favor of the tithe not being for today I am aware of.  The first is the tithe is no longer binding since it is not repeated as an instruction in the New Testament, and secondly, the Mosaic Law where it does appear has been fulfilled.  We are free from the Law.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  (Matthew 5:17)

So, if the Law has been fulfilled by Christ, we should no longer be shackled to the tithes of the Old Testament.  Even worse, if you add up all the tithes of the Old Testament, you’ll end up with much more than 10%.  The total comes to more like 23%.  The average church member would have great difficulty being cheerful giving 23% (2 Cor. 9:7). 

I hope I’ve stated the arguments for this well.  Now let’s look at the arguments in favor of the tithe.

The first tithe was given by Abraham to Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20

¹⁸ And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; ²⁰and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

There is a lot to study in this passage: “bread and wine,” “priest of God Most High.”  Many believe Melchizedek was either the pre-incarnate Christ or a type of Christ.  Either way, this passage tells us the tithe was a practice prior to the Mosaic Law.  So, the argument goes, this should remain as the standard.

Another passage that comes into play here is when Jesus is discussing a point of behavior with the Pharisees:

“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others (Luke 11:42).

Jesus commended the Pharisees for tithing mint and rue, etc. saying “These you ought to have done, . . .“  So, Jesus may well have been endorsing tithing.

To be fair, this was during Old Testament times when Jesus said this, but so was nearly all of what He said since the Old Testament period didn’t end until Passion Week.

Why is this important?

Some rely on 2 Cor. 9:7 saying “I only need give a little to make me happy,” but look at the verse prior:

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Without wanting to sound like some of the TV hucksters, our blessings often depend on our sacrifices. 

Some become legalistic concerning tithing.  “It must be 10% or nothing,” they might say.  That’s not good either and lends itself to legalism.

We as Christians seek to please God and no one else.  Whether, like the widow in Mark 12:41-44, we give all we have or give exactly what our spirit prompts, our concern should be to please our Lord God.  What we give is nobody’s business but ours:

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matt 6:3-4).

Some of us thought when we became Christians, “Wow.  Now that I accepted Christ, my life will be perfect.”  Sadly, that’s not so.  We are all tested in our Christian walks. So, why do Christians have trials in our lives?

The first thing that comes to my mind is if Christians had perfect and peaceful lives, everyone would want to become a Christian without the commitment.  This would leave out the sin issue.  It would be a purely personal and selfish act. That’s not the sort of thing God is looking for.

Another reason might be because Jesus said the rain falls on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:44-45)

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).  He shows no partiality.  The few decades we spend here on earth mean so little compared with eternity with Christ.  And, God has things for us to learn while here through trials.

James chapter one is pretty much about trials, and it tells us to “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials.”  The Greek there tells us to embrace our trials as friends.  Why would that be?  James answers that for us: “For the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect and complete.” (James 1:2-4)

A friend told me years God is like an old piano teacher.  He will give you the same test over and over again until you’ve learned your part and then move on.  Sound familiar? So, we need to try and learn from our trials so we don’t repeat them.

Sorry. No time off for good behavior.  We will all face trials.

There is still another reason for trials.  Look at Deut. 4:34

Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

How would a god draw a nation to Him through the use of trials?  Well, we tend to turn to God when we’ve reached our lowest point.  So, trials in our lives cause us to draw nearer to God.  He likes us, you know.  He wants our attention and will get it in whatever way necessary.

There’s a story of John Wesley, the famous founder of the Methodist Church and circuit rider/preacher.  John didn’t feel he’d had any trials in a few days and thought maybe God had left him.  So, he got off his horse, knelt down next to a wall in a town.  The guy on the other side of the wall was cleaning up his yard and threw a brick over the wall hitting John.  Wesley smiled, returned to his horse, and continued on his way thanking God.

Why is this important?

The Christian should expect trials.  Jesus Himself told us we would face trials

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Trials are not a problem but a blessing.  God uses them in the life of the Christian to mold him into a better ambassador for Christ.  The things we go through that test us are things we can use later on to help those who will go through the same things.

So, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.  It’s God speaking to you making a new you out of the old one.

“Communion”, or “The Lord’s Supper”, is the remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice through the taking of bread and wine.  This is celebrated regularly by Christian churches worldwide with only a few exceptions.  The early church called this “the Eucharist” (taken from the Greek word, eucharistia meaning “thankful” or “grateful”).  It has been a Christian practice since the Last Supper.

The Protestant church has represented communion as an ordinance – a prescribed religious rite.  At the Last Supper, Jesus commanded us to do this in remembrance of His sacrifice (1 Cor. 11:25).  It is symbolic.  The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches celebrate the Eucharist as a sacrament, a practice that bestows grace on the participant.

To most Protestants, Communion is symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice.  He gave His blood as a ransom for us (Rev, 5:9).  He bore our sins upon His body at Calvary (1 Peter 2:24).  So, communion is a serious practice, a time when we remember what Christ gave up for us so we might qualify to spend eternity with Him.

There are those who see more than a remembrance in the Lord’s Supper, though.  Lutherans, for instance, believe in “consubstantiation.”  This is the doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine remain bread and wine, but Christ is somehow present “in and around” the elements. 

The Orthodox and Catholics believe in forms of “Transubstantiation” which is the belief the “host,” the elements of bread and wine, actually become the flesh and blood of Christ but not in form.  The elements still appear as bread and wine.  There are some minor differences between the Orthodox view and that of the Catholic Church, but not enough to go into here.

The Bible doesn’t describe the bread and wine as anything more than symbols of Christ’s sacrifice.  When Jesus held up the bread and broke it, He said “This is my body . . . ,“  was that really His body?  No.  When He held up the cup and said “This is my blood . . . ,“ was that His blood?  No.  Jesus was giving us a practice we were to repeat whenever we ate bread and wine to remember what He has done for us.

The early church was actually accused of cannibalism due to many Christians quoting what Jesus said in John 6:53-56:  “ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”

This was just one of the misunderstandings the world had about Christians even then.  The Romans also believed Christians were incestuous since we would marry a “brother” or “sister” in the faith.  All this helped the Roman leadership influence the citizens against the Christians.

So, Communion is a simple thing but certainly not a meaningless practice.

Why is this important?

As the church has always understood, communion is a time for reflection on what has been done for us, for the grace which has been bestowed upon us through Christ’s sacrifice.  It is a time to be thankful, a time for gratitude.

Let us remember that cup of juice and the cracker mean more than just a habit we perform every so often.  It is a physical remembrance of a spiritual reality.

Baptism II

I thought I’d address infant baptism and where it comes from then some teachings of why we baptize.

The idea of infant baptism comes from an assumption made from Scripture and not a direct command.  A passage in Acts speaks of the entire household of Lydia being baptized (Acts 16:15).  The assumption is that “household” in these two verses must include infants.  The passage itself does not say anything about infants in Lydia’s home, yet many Christians believe it should be assumed. 

A major rule of biblical interpretation is not to assume anything.  Just go with what the text says.  Reading your opinion into a passage is known as eisegesis and leads to error.

There is nothing in Scripture prohibiting infant baptism, so there’s no reason to criticize others who want to do this.  Some churches who practice infant baptism see it as more of a dedication to Christ while others see it as something more meaningful.  My opinion is that it is not a salvation issue and therefore should not be condemned.  We can discuss it, but don’t condemn those who disagree on this.

Baptism is a command (Matt. 28:18-19) and is an ordinance in Protestant churches.  Eastern Orthodox and Catholics see it as a sacrament.  The difference is an ordinance is something God has commanded us to do to symbolize something such as rebirth in the case of baptism.  A sacrament is something which carries great spiritual value.  For instance, the Orthodox and Catholics believe salvation begins with baptism.

Protestants restrict themselves to the Bible alone and what it says.  That is the position of this blog, and is the view expressed here.  Baptism is simply a public declaration of an inward change.  When we are baptized, no matter in what form, we are telling the world we have accepted Jesus as our Savior and He has changed us.  We are new creatures resurrected from our dead life of sin into our glorious new life In Christ.

Baptism was so important in the early church, particularly once the persecutions began, that those who were under instruction and not yet baptized, catacumens, were not allowed to hear the message during the service.  They were asked to leave after the worship portion.  However, all churches had training for the catacumens, some required as much as three years of training before the candidate could be baptized and welcomed into the family of God.  So, baptism was an important issue in the early church.

The Romans were killing Christians just because of their faith.  What seems to be extremely long training for new believers was a commitment to make sure they knew what they were getting into, the reasons why they should believe, to prepare them to defend the faith, and for death if necessary. 

Some denominations still do something like this.  My wife was raised in a Lutheran church.  She was baptized as a child but went through two years of confirmation as a young adult where she had weekly classes at the church and daily lessons she needed to complete.  The first year was learning the Old Testament, the second year the New.  Finally, she was tested by the pastoral staff before she was “confirmed” and able to take communion.  Certainly, this is something carried over from the early church and something that would benefit churches today.

Why is this important?

While baptism is not a condition of our salvation, it is extremely important, and should be considered as such.  Baptism is not something one should enter into lightly.  Self-examination, certainty of what you believe, and much fasting and prayer would prepare you for this wonderful ordinance.

Rom. 6:1-4What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

In a real sense, baptism shows exactly what Romans 6:1-4 describes.  We have been dead and buried to sin.  This is exemplified by putting us under the water, burying us.  Then when we come out of the water, we show symbolically we are a new person, raised from death and sin into new life in Christ.

Next week communion.

Baptism is one of those Christian rituals that are often disagreed upon within the church.  Some Christians believe we must be baptized to be saved, others believe baptism was for the early church alone.  Some believe infants should be baptized, others believe only those who are believers should be.  The forms of baptism are often disagreed upon from sprinkling to pouring to immersion.  So, the common and usually simple act of baptism has become one of the more controversial teachings of the church.

The Greek word for “baptize” (baptizo) means “to dip or to immerse” which would lend itself to baptism by immersion.  But, what do you do if you don’t have a large amount of water nearby?  A Baptist church in Texas during a drought several years ago had to roll the newly converted in the local river because it had so little water, and they had no baptistery. 

In the early church, there was a document called the Didache, a sort of church instruction manual dated around the end of the first century.  Chapter seven of the document addresses baptism:

“Concerning baptism, baptize in this way. Having instructed him in all of these teachings, baptize the catechumen in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in running water. But if you do not have running water, then baptize in other water. And if you cannot in cold water, use warm. But if you have neither, then pour water on the head three times, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And before the baptism, let both the baptizer and the catechumen fast, and also any others who are able. And be sure that the catechumen fasts a day or two before.”

So, it looks like pouring water on the convert was acceptable but not the first choice.  No doubt convenience took charge, and pouring became more popular especially since public baptism during the persecutions would have brought danger to all in attendance.  Later sprinkling became acceptable as well even after the persecutions ended.

During the reformation, a group formed called the “Anabaptists.”  The name means roughly to be baptized again.  Since most of Europe was Catholic prior to the Reformation, pretty much everyone was baptized as infants.  The Anabaptists believed baptism was for believers alone and that all believers should be baptized again.  They were persecuted by both the Protestant and Catholic churches but still about four million exist worldwide today.  Two of the best known Anabaptist sects are the Mennonites and the Amish.  They see themselves not as Protestants but as their own division within Christianity.

An error in the church – Baptismal Regeneration, salvation through baptism – is s group of beliefs: all our sins are washed away when we are baptized, baptism saves you, or baptism is simply necessary for salvation.  This was also practiced very early in church history.  Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine, would not agree to be baptized until just a few days before he died because he believed this and wanted all his sins to be forgiven prior to stepping into glory.

The problem with Baptismal Regeneration is it requires a work for salvation, something other than the blood of Christ to save us.  True, baptism is a command (Matt. 29:18-19).  To ignore or to break one of God’s commands is a sin but does not result in God’s rejection of the believer. 

Paul says this in 1 Cor. 1:17: “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”  So, baptism was not a part of the gospel and, therefore, no required for salvation.

Why is this important?

When presenting the gospel to the lost, we need to tell them about baptism and relate it to them accurately.  Baptism is not required for salvation.  Acts 10:44-48 speaks of a Centurion who was saved along with his family.  They displayed spiritual gifts as a sign of being filled with the Holy Spirit, itself a sign of their salvation.  Only after these things happened was the idea of baptism presented.  Baptism is not required, but it is a command.  We should be baptized soon after accepting Christ as a sign, a public declaration, of  our new life in Christ.  More on this next week.

Over the centuries, there have been many denials of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  I’d like to look at some of these in case you run into them.

The Swoon Theory – This is the belief Jesus didn’t die on the cross but fainted (swooned).  Once in the tomb, He revived due to the cool damp conditions and escaped.  He then claimed resurrection and remained with His disciples for a time.

     Let’s go through this briefly.  There was the Roman scourging. This was done with a sort of “cat of nine tails.” The whip had sharpened pieces of stone, metal, and glass embedded in the strands meant to tear the flesh from the bone of the victim. The Jews allowed only 39 stripes when scourging. The Romans had no such limitation. The soldier could lay as many stripes on Jesus as he wished. The men who did the scourging usually enjoyed their job. Many who were scourged died from it even before they reached the cross.

Additionally, we know Jesus was crucified, nailed to a cross, and a spear pierced His side reaching His heart, but was He dead?  Pilate himself ordered Jesus’ body be checked to be sure He was dead. He was inspected and pronounced dead by a Roman soldier who’s assigned duty was pronouncing the victims dead after crucifixion. (Mark 15:44-45). Jesus was definitely dead.

       He was then left wrapped in strips of cloth, immobile, for three days, somehow He revived, and moved a 1.5 to 2 ton stone aside by Himself in a weakened state and stepped into history?  Silly, don’t you think?

It was the Wrong Tomb – This is the idea the women went to the wrong tomb on Easter morning and found it empty.  This would mean Joseph of Arimathea, the owner of the tomb, went to the wrong tomb.  Nicodemus went to the wrong tomb. The Romans went to the wrong tomb, the Jews went to the wrong tomb, and John and Peter went to the same wrong tomb (John 19:38-42).  And, we still have the problem of Jesus showing Himself alive to more than 500 people (1 Cor. 15:6).  Highly unlikely!

The Twin Theory – This is one of my favorites.  It states that Jesus had a twin brother He knew nothing about.  It happened on the third day, this twin brother entered Jerusalem and was mistaken for Jesus and went with it fooling Jesus’ disciples who had spent every day for three years with Jesus.  He carried no scars from the scourging, no marks of the nails or crown of thorns, and the disciples did not go to the tomb to verify He was gone. Really?

Someone Stole the Body – This is the answer the Jews had thought of (Matt. 28:13).  The Jews started the story the disciples had stolen the body.  There are a lot of problems with is one.  The disciples were huddled in fear of the Jews (John 20:19).  They weren’t going to steal the body.  They were scared to death they would be next. Then there was the 1.5 to 2 ton stone to move quietly so as not to wake the Roman guard.

The tomb had been sealed with a Roman seal and guarded by Roman guards (Matt. 27:66).  The penalty for breaking a Roman seal was death.  The punishment for a Roman soldier sleeping on duty was to be burned to death in a fire started with his own clothes.  These soldiers were tough.  They used the Roman soldiers’ training manual to train our Green Berets.  Roman soldiers proudly claimed the Emperor could be defended by only nine of them.  Tough guys.  Notice the soldiers didn’t run to their commander but to the Jewish leaders (Matt. 28:11).  They knew telling their commander meant death. 

     So, the disciples didn’t steal the body nor did the Romans.  Who was left, the Jews?  No.  They wanted the body to stay in the tomb because they knew Jesus had predicted raising it (John 2:18-22).  The only one remaining who could have removed the body is Jesus.

Why is this important?

The biggest problem all of these theories need to face is the fact within a few weeks of Christ’s crucifixion, in the very city where He was crucified, men and women began to claim Jesus had risen, and thousands believed this and came to Jesus as their Savior.  Over the next few decades, all but one of the apostles, the eye witnesses, died telling the same story of the death, burial, and miraculous resurrection of Jesus. None testified otherwise even to save their own life.

Jesus’ resurrection is the one central doctrine upon which our faith rests.  This is why so many have attacked this miracle.  We need to have answers for those who would discount this grand miracle.  I hope I’ve provided some.

If there is no resurrection, we are all to be pitied:

¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins (1 Cor. 15:7)

If you would like to see some of the evidence for Christ’s physical resurrection, look at my blog from last Easter: He is Risen Indeed.

The word translated “gospel” in the New Testament is euangelion from which we get our word “evangelism.”  Long before Christ, euangelion meant the gift you gave to someone who brought you glad tidings.  By the time of Jesus, the word came to mean simply glad tidings, and that’s what it means in the New Testament, “good news” or “glad tidings.”

 There are four ways we Christians use the word “gospel.

First, we use “gospel” when we speak of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  This is the central truth and core of our Christian faith.  This use of the word “gospel” speaks of  a perfect man, Adam, having fallen into sin and, as the sole representative of humanity, giving that sin nature to us all.  Because it was a perfect man who fell, there needed to be a perfect man to pay the price for Adam’s sin. 

God didn’t create another perfect man to pay the price.  He didn’t even send an angel and make that angel into a perfect man to die for man’s sin.  He gave His all. God the Son came Himself.  He emptied Himself of His glory, took on the form of man, and became obedient to the Father, obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross (Phil. 2:5-8).  Then God raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24).  This meant God the Father raised Jesus(Gal. 1:1), God the Son raised His own dead body (John 2:18-22), and God the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 8:11).

This use of the word “gospel” speaks of the miracle of Christ’s resurrection.  Believe it or not, this miracle is the best documented event in ancient history.  We have documents of eye witnesses who saw it.  We have enemies who admit the tomb was empty on Easter morning, we have non-Christian historians who acknowledge the resurrection was taught in the early church. The evidence is there.

The second use of the word is as in “the gospel of the kingdom,” the good news of the kingdom.  There are two parts to this.  The first is the gospel of the kingdom from the beginning of John the Baptist’s preaching to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews.  This gospel of the kingdom gave us a Mediator in Christ (1 Tim. 2:5) This was promised in 2 Sam. 7:16.  The second part is the kingdom to be established in the future, the Gospel of Grace which begins with the rapture of the church.

The third use of the term “gospel” is a negative use, a “different” gospel  (2 Cor. 11:4) or a “false” gospel.  This was prevalent even in the early church when “certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness, who deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).

We see these people in our churches today as well.  These are people who are convinced they have found new truth, have a “new spin” on an “old doctrine.”  The church needs to be on the watch (Acts 20:28-30).  Whether meaning well or knowing just what they are doing, they will rob the church of its unity and purity.

The fourth use of the term “gospel” is of the four biographical writings of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  These are writings by eye witnesses to the miracles of Christ or, as in the case of Luke, were testimonies personally relayed from eye witnesses to the writer (Luke 1:1-4). 

The Gospels are divided into two parts, the synoptic and John.  “Synoptic” means of the same view.  Even a casual reader has to admit the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very similar.  Many scholars even believe Mark was written first, and the writers of Matthew and Luke used Mark to prompt their memories of the acts of Jesus of Nazareth.  John, on the other hand, is very different.  It was written some thirty years after the other three, nearly seventy years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.  No doubt John had read the other three, and the Holy Spirit had prompted him to add more to the story.  John is written to another audience as well, to the Greek speaking world.  He speaks of Jesus existing with the Father in eternity past (John 1:1).  He calls Jesus the “Word,” the “Logos.”  This is a term used by the Greeks meaning “the Revealer.”  John wrote in His gospel how Jesus revealed Himself to be God (1:1, 1:14, 5:18, 8:58, 10:33, 20:28).  The entire world would know God had visited us in the Person of Jesus.

Why is this important?

It is our task as Christians to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel (Matt. 28:19).  There is a gospel we need to use to encourage each other of the kingdom now present with its Mediator Jesus Christ.  We also must encourage one another of the kingdom yet to come but promised to us.  We need to warn each other of false gospels, different gospels which can draw us away from the truth.  Last of all, we need to devote ourselves to the teachings of the apostles as did the early church (Acts. 2:42).  When we hold the New Testament, we hold the very teachings of the apostles given to us.  Together, let’s share this good news, this gospel, with a blind world.

From the looks of it, I haven’t even used the word “incarnation” in a blog post for over a year.  The last post directly addressing this wonderful doctrine was three years ago.  So, I’m going to include it in this series of Basic Teachings.

The incarnation is the biblical doctrine that God came to earth in the form of a man (Phil 2:5-11).  According to this passage, Jesus was initially in the form of God but emptied Himself and took the form of a man.  Now what did He empty Himself of?  If He were to empty Himself of His deity, the nature of God would change, and the trinity would no longer exist.  That can’t happen (Mal. 3:6).  So, it must have been something else.

In the garden just before Jesus was dragged off to trial, He asked the Father to restore His glory to Him, the glory He had with the Father before creation (John 17:5).  So, Jesus emptied Himself of His glory.  The emptying of His glory seems also to have required strongly limiting or eliminating the use of His divine attributes.

When Jesus walked the earth, He said He could do nothing Himself.  It was the Father working through Him (John 5:19, 30).  If Jesus emptied Himself of His glory, then that’s why He was unable to do anything without the Father.  He was still God.  He still had His divine nature.  But, He couldn’t act as God.   I like to use the example of our eyes to explain this.  By nature, our eyes see, but if we drape them in flesh as Jesus did His divine nature, the eye can no longer see, but its nature hasn’t changed.  God’s full glory is so great it cannot exist in a frail human body.

Yes, Jesus still has a human body today, but it has been changed to a glorious spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:42-44).  “What is a spiritual body,” you might ask.  I don’t know.  If our spiritual bodies are to be like Jesus’, they will be bodies able to thrive in heaven and will have a different set of aspects and abilities.

Back to Jesus’ incarnation, though.  God became man.  How can someone be both God and man at the same time?  The answer is the two are not mutually exclusive.  A stapler can be both black and plastic at the same time. Two natures together. A human form as we have could not contain God’s glory, certainly.  !t wasn’t until after Jesus was raised that He regained His divine attributes.

The fact Jesus is both human and God explains a lot of passages in Scripture.  Jesus prayed to the Father (Matt. 11:25).  He called Someone else (the Father) His God (John 20:17), He said the Father is greater than He (John 14:28).  If Jesus is God, then how can He say these things?  It’s because He is God in human flesh.  He took on human form, so He was limited to doing only what a sinless man with a loving Father in heaven could do.  He told us we could do the same things and even greater works than He did (John 14:12).  Jesus, as a human being, had a God. 

This is a hard point to understand.  In John 2:18-22, Jesus predicts He would raise His own body from the dead.  Pretty good trick if you are only human.  How could a dead human raise Himself?  It was the divine nature of Jesus which raised His body, and Jesus calls it His body.  The Person we know as the Son is the Person we know as the Word (John 1:1) who has always existed and He is the human being we know as Jesus who began to exist in Mary’s womb.  Both the Word and Jesus are the same Person.  He just has two natures. His human nature did not always exist.

Why is this important?

We as Christians need to realize God did not die on the cross at Calvary.  It was Jesus’ human nature, His body which died.  It was Jesus’ divine nature, God the Son Who raised that body.  Along with that, we need to realize Jesus didn’t just enter into a “human envelope” at the incarnation and that envelope died.  Jesus was fully man and felt death just as all humans do (Phil. 3:10). While God the Son did not die, He tasted death for us all (Heb. 2:9)

Jesus humbly emptied Himself and became a man. Hesacrificed His life for us.  The very least we can do is give our life to Him.