Category virgin birth

Sep 13 2008

The deity of Jesus …Fact or fiction #2


I am always amazed what nuggets of truth can be discovered in scripture that are more often than not passed right over, and for the most part go unnoticed. 1 Peter 1:11 is such a verse. Peter is speaking about the gospel of Jesus, the trials, joys and hope that accompanies those who trust Him, and then he talks of the prophets of ages past who prophesied concerning the suffering and glory of Christ. In verse 11 he says about those prophets “… the spirit of Christ in them was indicating the sufferings of Christ…” Centuries before a birth in Bethlehem, before the cross, before the resurrection of Jesus, He was active in revealing partially to the prophets the salvation that had been planned long before the creation of the universe. The spirit of Christ could hardly be doing anything hundreds of years before He would come in flesh had he not existed prior to His humble birth as Mary’s child.

Another example of Christ being active in Old Testament history is found in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4. Paul is warning against idolatry and he says “For I want you to know, brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ”. Even a rank skeptic must agree that if the Bible is true, then Jesus lived before His birth.  

Jesus existed before His natural birth “in time”. Post # number 3 will show that Christ also existed before time began, that He is God and is eternal.

In Him,
Royce

Jan 18 2008

The Deity of Jesus…part 1


Was Jesus God? Surely the deity of Jesus Christ is one of the essential beliefs of the historic Christian faith. Yet many people who claim to be Christians boldly deny that Jesus was truly God in flesh.I continue to be shocked and saddened by the rampant unbelief of professing followers of Jesus. Not only is Christ’s deity questioned but the resurrection of Christ is debunked by some of these same people.

In the next few post I will present a biblical case for the deity of Jesus Christ. I will not give you my opinion but rather the clear unvarnished testimony of the Word of God. Do I expect everyone to believe what the Bible says? Absolutely not. Perhaps somebody you will see the truth and abandon your unbelief.

Jesus when speaking to unbelieving Jews made this statement. “Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” (John 8:42-47 NIV)

How you respond to God’s truth was the acid test in the first century and it is the same today. Those who do not belong to God reject truth and those who do belong to God accept it. Like those Jews of Jesus’ day who rejected His words, those today who reject His words have a father but it is not God.

Jesus claimed to be God, the prophets said he would be God, His mastery over nature proved He was God, His supernatural knowledge proved He was God, and His resurrection from the dead proved He was God.

If Jesus was God He necessarily then would have to possess the eternal attributes of God. The first of those is His eternal existence. Jesus did not have His beginning in the cradle of Bethlehem. Far from it. What is the record of the Word of God? I will mention a few verses.

The fist and perhaps the most obvious one is in John 1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5 NKJV) Verse 14 makes it clear who is being spoken of in verses 1- 5, “And the Word became flesh and we beheld His glory…”

Not only did Christ precede creation but was also the Creator. For Jesus to be God He could not be “a god” as some of the cults teach, He could not be “created”. No He had to exist outside of time, outside of creation. These words in John 1 leave no doubt to those who are willing to accept truth. Jesus existed before the world was created. The prophet Micah in Micah 5:2 said of Him “… Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting”. Jesus said to the Jews “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58 NKJV) Then in Jesus great prayer in John 17 He said these words of Himself claiming His eternal existence, “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5 NKJV)

There are other verses that make the same point. I believe it should be clear to any honest seeker of truth that according to the Bible Jesus existed in eternity before the creation of planet earth and teaches clearly that He lives forever, His life has no end.

Only God is separate from creation, separate from time, not bound by natural law, and has the ability to create by His spoken word. Next time we will examine other texts that show indeed that Christ was in fact God in human form.

His peace,

Royce Ogle

Dec 4 2007

God-with-us


It is a wonderful thing, but an odd thing, that the Creator God would love His creatures so that He would choose to come and live among them on planet earth. I can’t imagine an earthly king who would one day say to himself “I think it would be good to go out of  the palace, through the courts, and out the gate and go live with the commoners“. Such an idea flies in the face of reason. Why would royalty desire the humble means of those poor souls who are only a harvest away from starvation? How could the one whose servants stand at the ready to care for every detail of need want to come and make his abode with the lowly?

Ah, Christmas, the season when we remember the time when earth was interrupted by the birth of a baby boy. His first hours were lived in the most humble setting, a cattle stall with the smell of dung and odor of the animals near by. Yet this child was a King whose birth had been foretold by the prophets, long years ago. His mother was told He would save His people from their sins, and Matthew reminded the readers of his book that according to Isaiah his name would mean “God-with-us”.

The wonder of Christmas is that not only did a King come for a visit but He came on a mission. Men and women and boys and girls were groping along in the darkness of their sins with no hope of life after the earthly tent was finally folded. But He appeared…”To save His people from their sins”. His life would be short by today’s standards but it was one that perfectly met every holy demand of God the Father’s law. His ministry would be to the human trash of the day to heal brokenness, to give sight to the blind, to make cripples run, jump, and shout for joy. He would raise the dead, feed thousands with enough for only a few.

He would break all the rules of religion, he would squash racial divides, he would talk to the wind….and it would listen. He would round up some unlikely candidates to help Him with His mission. The twelve were truly a cross section of the lower rungs of society. He would laugh and love with them, eat with them, pray with them, minister with them, and then be abandoned by them and even denied and betrayed by them. But, oh how He loved them. But the wonder of this One is that He loved everyone intensely. And, He would die to prove it.

A child was born, a son given, a life lived, a live given. He defeated the forces of darkness by defeating death, by satisfying God’s demands about sin and its penalty, and offers to all who will accept the gift, eternal life. He is the only human who could have justly condemned, but He didn’t come for that. For you see, people were already condemned. No, He came to give life, and forgiveness, and peace.

There are still those who deny Him. Some even declare with their lips that He never even existed. But every one of them declares His life and death every time they write a date on a check, or a note to a friend. No other person in human history has been so opposed as this man. The ultimate oddity is that this man of all men who ever lived would have had opposition. He only gave, and gave, and then gave Himself as a complete payment for every man’s sins and today lives so we too can live.

God-with-us! Merry Christmas.

His peace,
Royce Ogle