Jesus Christ
JESUS CHRIST [smith]
"The life and character of Jesus Christ," says Dr. Schaff, "is the holy of holies in the history of the world."- NAME. --The name Jesus signifies saviour . It is the Greek form of
JEHOSHUA (Joshua). The name Christ signifies anointed. Jesus was both priest and king. Among the Jews priests were anointed, as their inauguration to their office. (1Â Chronicles 16:22) In the New Testament the name Christ is used as equivalent to the Hebrew Messiah (anointed), (John 1:41) the name given to the long-promised Prophet and King whom the Jews had been taught by their prophets to expect. (Matthew 11:3; Acts 19:4) The use of this name, as applied to the Lord, has always a reference to the promises of the prophets. The name of Jesus is the proper name of our Lord, and that of Christ is added to identify him with the promised Messiah. Other names are sometimes added to the names Jesus Christ, thus, "Lord," "a king," "King of Israel," "Emmanuel," "Son of David," "chosen of God." II. BIRTH. --Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, God being his father, at Bethlehem of Judea, six miles south of Jerusalem. The date of his birth was most probably in December, B.C. 5, four years before the era from which we count our years. That era was not used till several hundred years after Christ. The calculations were made by a learned monk, Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, who made an error of four years; so that to get the exact date from the birth of Christ we must add four years to our usual dates; i.e. A.D. 1882 is really 1886 years since the birth of Christ. It is also more than likely that our usual date for Christmas, December 25, is not far from the real date of Christ?s birth. Since the 25th of December comes when the longest night gives way to the returning sun on his triumphant march, it makes an appropriate anniversary to make the birth of him who appeared in the darkest night of error and sin as the true Light of the world. At the time of Christ?s birth Augustus Caesar was emperor of Rome, and Herod the Great king of Judea, but subject of Rome. God?s providence had prepared the world for the coming of Christ, and this was the fittest time in all its history. - All the world was subject to one government, so that the apostles could travel everywhere: the door of every land was open for the gospel.
- The world was at peace, so that the gospel could have free course.
- The Greek language was spoken everywhere with their other languages.
- The Jews were scattered everywhere with synagogues and Bibles. III. EARLY LIFE. --Jesus, having a manger at Bethlehem for his cradle, received a visit of adoration from the three wise men of the East. At forty days old he was taken to the temple at Jerusalem; and returning to Bethlehem, was soon taken to Egypt to escape Herod?s massacre of the infants there. After a few months stay there, Herod having died in April, B.C. 4, the family returned to their Nazareth home, where Jesus lived till he was about thirty years old, subject to his parent, and increasing "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." The only incident recorded of his early life is his going up to Jerusalem to attend the passover when he was twelve years old, and his conversation with the learned men in the temple. But we can understand the childhood and youth of Jesus better when we remember the surrounding influences amid which he grew.
- The natural scenery was rugged and mountainous, but full of beauty. He breathed the pure air. He lived in a village, not in a city.
- The Roman dominion was irksome and galling. The people of God were subject to a foreign yoke. The taxes were heavy. Roman soldiers, laws, money, every reminded them of their subjection, when they ought to be free and themselves the rulers of the world. When Jesus was ten years old, there was a great insurrection, (Acts 5:37) in Galilee. He who was to be King of the Jews heard and felt all this.
- The Jewish hopes of a Redeemer, of throwing off their bondage, of becoming the glorious nation promised in the prophet, were in the very air he breathed. The conversation at home and in the streets was full of them.
- Within his view, and his boyish excursions, were many remarkable historic places, --rivers, hills, cities, plains, --that would keep in mind the history of his people and God?s dealings with them.
- His school training. Mr. Deutsch, in the Quarterly Review, says, "Eighty years before Christ, schools flourished throughout the length and the breadth of the land: education had been made compulsory. While there is not a single term for ?school? to be found before the captivity, there were by that time about a dozen in common usage. Here are a few of the innumerable popular sayings of the period: ?Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction of the young was neglected.? ?The world is only saved by the breath of the school-children.? ?Even for the rebuilding of the temple the schools must not be interrupted.?"
- His home training. According to Ellicott, the stages of Jewish childhood were marked as follows: "At three the boy was weaned, and word for the first time the fringed or tasselled garment prescribed by (Numbers 15:38-41) and Deuteronomy 22:12 His education began at first under the mother?s care. At five he was to learn the law, at first by extracts written on scrolls of the more important passages, the Shema or creed of (2:4) the Hallel or festival psalms, Psal 114, 118, 136, and by catechetical teaching in school. At twelve he became more directly responsible for his obedience of the law; and on the day when he attained the age of thirteen, put on for the first time the phylacteries which were worn at the recital of his daily prayer." In addition to this, Jesus no doubt learned the carpenter?s trade of his reputed father Joseph, and, as Joseph probably died before Jesus began his public ministry, he may have contributed to the support of his mother. (IV. PUBLIC MINISTRY. --All the leading events recorded of Jesus? life are given at the end of this volume in the Chronological Chart and in the Chronological Table of the life of Christ; so that here will be given only a general survey. Jesus began to enter upon his ministry when he was "about thirty years old;" that is, he was not very far from thirty, older or younger. He is regarded as nearly thirty-one by Andrews (in the tables of chronology referred to above) and by most others. Having been baptized by John early in the winter of 26-27, he spent the larger portion of his year in Judea and about the lower Jordan, till in December he went northward to Galilee through Samaria. The next year and a half, from December, A.D. 27, to October or November, A.D. 29, was spent in Galilee and norther Palestine, chiefly in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee. In November, 29, Jesus made his final departure from Galilee, and the rest of his ministry was in Judea and Perea, beyond Jordan, till his crucifixion, April 7, A.D. 30. After three days he proved his divinity by rising from the dead; and after appearing on eleven different occasions to his disciples during forty days, he finally ascended to heaven, where he is the living, ever present, all-powerful Saviour of his people. Jesus Christ, being both human and divine, is fitted to be the true Saviour of men. In this, as in every action and character, he is shown to be "the wisdom and power of God unto salvation." As human, he reaches down to our natures, sympathizes with us, shows us that God knows all our feelings and weaknesses and sorrows and sins, brings God near to us, who otherwise could not realize the Infinite and Eternal as a father and friend. He is divine, in order that he may be an all-powerful, all-loving Saviour, able and willing to defend us from every enemy, to subdue all temptations, to deliver from all sin, and to bring each of his people, and the whole Church, into complete and final victory. Jesus Christ is the centre of the world?s history, as he is the centre of the Bible. --ED.)
Jesus Christ [baker]
[S]By anyone's account, Jesus of Nazareth is the most significant person who has ever lived. He has influenced more lives and had more written about him than any other person in history. He is the only one who ever made a credible claim to being more than just another human being and to this day almost a billion people revere him as the supreme revelation of God. The purpose of this article is to provide a summary of Jesus' life and his basic teachings, with each topic being introduced by a short account of the modern discussion that surrounds it. Introducing the whole is a brief discussion of the nature of the sources from which Jesus' life and teachings are derived and concluding it is a discussion of who Jesus understood himself to be.
The Nature of the Sources. The primary sources for the life of Jesus are and will probably always be the four Gospels of the New Testament. New discoveries are made periodically, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic Scriptures at Nag Hammadi, but immensely valuable as they are, they tell us nothing new about Jesus. They are either too late in time, too tangential, too geographically distant, or too obviously a distortion of more traditional Christian thought to be of much value. Some of this material has been available for a long time and has been made available in such works as R. McL. Wilson's New Testament Apochrypha (2 vols.), but no one was inclined to rewrite the story of Jesus on the basis of that. Other fragmentary material from Jewish and pagan sources is also well known and has a certain corroborative value that is quite helpful. We learn that Jesus lived during the reign of Tiberius Caesar (a.d. 14-37) somewhere in Palestine; that he was a religious leader who worked miracles and exorcised demons and was later regarded as a deity by his followers; that he was executed by crucifixion by the Jewish and Roman authorities during a Passover season; that reports circulated about his resurrection from the dead. All of this is very helpful, even if the Christian faith is sometimes described by these very sources as an unfounded superstition, because in its own way it reflects what Christians believes. It does not add anything new to what we know about Jesus, however. For that, one must turn to the four Gospels.
Because the Gospels are basically the only sources we possess for the life of Jesus, the question inevitably arises concerning reliability. Regarding this, four things can be said. First, there is no agreed definition of reliability. Everyone approaches sources from a point of view that either includes, excludes, or leaves open the possibility of what is recorded. Given Christian presuppositions, the story makes perfect sense; given non-Christian presuppositions, the rejection of the sources as unreliable is understandable. It is not really a question of the sources, but a question of the interpreter of the sources. Second, the Gospel writers and their subject matter argue in favor of their truthfulness. They were attempting to present a true account of the One who claimed to be the Truth, did so on the basis of careful research (Luke 1:1-4), and were willing to die for the results of their efforts. That does not necessarily make it true, but it does mean they were not inventing things they knew to be false. Third, the church from the beginning believed that God had a hand in the writing of the material and that guaranteed its trustworthiness. This does not make it so, but that belief did arise from contact with those who knew Jesus and contact with the risen Jesus who confirmed in their own experience what the sources said about him as incarnate. If they were right in this, it confirms the reliability of the sources. Fourth, the Gospels are all we have. If they are allowed to speak for themselves, they present a consistent picture that gave rise to the Christian faith and has been confirmed in the lives of believers from that day to this. The simple fact is, there is no other Jesus available than the one presented in the Gospels. Either that is accepted or one creates his or her own Jesus on the basis of what is thought to be possible or likely. It might be a Jesus acceptable to the modern or postmodern mind, but it will not be the Jesus of the Gospels.
The Gospels as sources are what they are, shot through with supernatural occurrences from beginning to end and they present a Jesus who is both powerful and puzzling to our modern mind. They ought to be examined with the utmost care, but allowed to speak for themselves and appreciated for what they are, documents written from within the faith, honestly depicting what they believed Jesus said and did, to the best of their recollection.
The Life of Jesus. The Search for the Real Jesus. From the time when Jesus lived until the eighteenth century it would never have occurred to anyone to search for a real Jesus. The Gospels were considered to be divinely inspired, accurate accounts of Jesus' life; hence, the real Jesus was found by reading them. A change occurred with the coming of the Enlightenment that no longer saw the truth of the Gospels as guaranteed by God. They were to be read as any other book; the supernatural elements were to be discounted entirely or taken as myths or symbols of some higher truth. This meant that the real Jesus, a Jesus fully explainable in human terms, had to be disentangled from the pious, but historically inaccurate elements that smothered him.
During the nineteenth century an enormous number of lives of Jesus were written that attempted to reconstruct who Jesus really was, some of them showing real insight but most straying so far from the Gospels as to make Jesus virtually unrecognizable. A few achieved immense popularity because of their radical originality, like D. F. Strauss's The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835) and E. Renan's Life of Jesus (1863), but most came and went and in fact are almost unknown today. In 1903 Albert Schweitzer surveyed over two hundred such lives and convincingly showed that none of them had found the real Jesus.
This earliest attempt to find the real Jesus, which came to be known as "the Old Quest, " was set aside in the early twentieth century by a group of theologians led by Rudolph Bultmann, who felt that the "historical" Jesus was essentially irrelevant to Christian faith. Christians were to put their faith in the risen Christ, not a reconstructed historical Jesus. They also believed that none of the supernatural elements of the Gospels, such as the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, or his bodily resurrection was true, anyway, but only an ancient way of describing an existential experience of the present day.
The extreme skepticism of this movement brought about a strong reaction in the 1950s, called the "New Quest of the Historical Jesus, " led by some of Bultmann's students, notably E. Kä emann and G. Bornkamm. Bornkamm's Jesus of Nazareth (1956) and J. M. Robinson's A New Quest of the Historical Jesus (1959) were the high points, but this quest also faded away, itself being too problematic and inconclusive to help much.
Following this, numerous renewed attempts to find the real Jesus were made, which are together called the "Third Quest." They include everything from depicting Jesus as a magician (M. Smith, Jesus the Magician, 1979), a Marxist (M. Machorec, A Marxist Looks at Jesus, 1976), to an outright fraud (B. Thiering, Jesus the Man, 1992). Others wrote of Jesus along more traditional lines (D. Guthrie, Jesus the Messiah, 1972; B. F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus, 1979) and yet others wrote scholarly attempts to understand what could be known purely as history about Jesus, such as E. P. Sanders (The Historical Figure of Jesus, 1995) and J. P. Meier (A Marginal Jew, 2 vols., 1991, 1995). John Reumann has attempted to classify all of this (taking it back to 1900) into twenty different categories as "Types of Lives … Some Key Examples" (The New Testament and its Modern Interpreters, eds. E. J. Epp and G. W. MacRae, pp. 520-24).
This confusing welter of lives raises the question whether there is a "real" Jesus. The answer to that, in the end, must go back to the only real sources that we have, namely, the four Gospels of the New Testament. Any reconstruction that differs fundamentally from what is depicted there will not qualify, nor strengthen the church, nor stand the test of time. Jesus will always elude us if we look for him only in history and any attempt to depict him as simply another part of history will inevitably be unconvincing.
The Life of Jesus. Jesus' Birth and Youth. Two of our four canonical gospels (Matthew and Luke) contain material dealing with Jesus' earthly life prior to the beginning of his public ministry. Matthew's basic emphasis is on Jesus as descendant of David; hence he focuses on Joseph's line, Jesus being the legal heir of Joseph. Luke presents information gathered from Mary's side, either from Mary herself or from those who knew her. There is very little overlap between the accounts.
The events that precede Jesus' birth concern primarily two miraculous conceptions, that of John the Baptist and, of course, Jesus. John's father, the priest Zechariah, was told by the angel Gabriel that his aged wife Elizabeth would bear a son in her old age. Mary was told by the same angel, Gabriel, that she would bear a son, though a virgin. Zechariah's response was incredulity, where Mary's was respectful joy and acceptance (Luke 1:18,38).
A census decreed by Caesar Augustus sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem where, during the last years of Herod the Great, Jesus was born to the acclaim of angels and shepherds. The exact date of Jesus' birth is debated by any time from late 7 to 5 b.c. is possible. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke 2:21) and on the fortieth day taken to the temple in Jerusalem, where he was presented to the Lord and his parents were ceremonially purified according to levitical custom (Luke 2:22-38; Lev 12:1-8). They returned to Bethlehem were, apparently, they intended to stay. Magi came from the east, following a miraculous star. They found Jesus after making inquiries in Jerusalem, upsetting the rulers there. This visit could have been up to two years after Jesus' birth. Herod's desire to kill the child Jesus was thwarted by God and the family escaped to Egypt. After Herod the Great's death in 4 b.c., the family decided to return to Nazareth after hearing that Archelaus was ruling over Judea (where Bethlehem was) in place of his father. Only one episode is recorded of Jesus' early years. When he was twelve years old, on the eve of adulthood according to Jewish custom (Luke 2:41-50), he showed his profound identification with the temple and the things of God.
These events are characterized by the miraculous and the extraordinary. Modern attempts to make them pious fiction or mythological are only required if one is unable to accept God's direct intervention in human affairs. They are wholly consistent with the rest of Jesus' extraordinary career and, indeed, make an appropriate introduction to it.
The Year of Obscurity. James Stalker described the three-year public ministry of Jesus as the year of obscurity, the year of public favor, and the year of opposition. Although not wholly accurate, this does serve as a handy guide to those years.
The year of obscurity began sometime in a.d. 26. John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness near the Dead Sea preaching a message of baptism and repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Some scholars have connected John with the Qumran community. Although this is possible, the message of John is altogether different from theirs. He was an exceptional figure, recalling the days of Elijah. He spoke out against false trust in one's Jewishness, demanded conversion in the light of the coming judgment, required a changed life as evidence of conversion, and spoke of the coming Messiah, of whom he was the forerunner. John's denunciation of Herod Antipas's illegal marriage to his brother's wife provoked her ire, his imprisonment, and ultimately his death. Jesus spoke in the highest possible terms of John and his ministry, in spite of John's troubled questionings while in prison at Machaerus.
Jesus went from Nazareth to be baptized by John in order "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt 3:15). Jesus showed his sense of mission by identifying with the sins of the world at the very beginning of his ministry. Divine confirmation came from heaven with the voice of God and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove (Matt 3:16-17). This affirmation of the Trinity will later by repeated at the end of Matthew's Gospel (28:19).
A time of severe testing in the wilderness followed Jesus' baptism, in which Jesus' commitment to his task and understanding of his mission were resolved.
After a short trip to Cana in Galilee where the water was turned into wine Jesus returned to Jerusalem for the Passover of a.d. 27. His expulsion of the moneychangers from the temple was more than just a rejection of corrupt practices. He was rejecting the temple itself by offering himself as a new temple for a new people of God (John 2:18-21).
Sometime in the fall of a.d. 27 John the Baptist was arrested. Jesus took this as a sign to return to Galilee to begin his own ministry. As long as John was preaching, he held back. Now that John was gone, the time of fulfillment had arrived. On the trip back to Galilee, Jesus rather openly declared to the woman at Jacob's well in Samaria some of his challenging, new ideas. The time has arrived when true worship of God will not concern where it takes place, whether in Samaria or Jerusalem, but how it takes place. God seeks the right attitude, spirituality, and truth, not the right location (John 4:21-24).
Jesus was warmly received upon his arrival in Galilee (John 4:45) and everyone praised him as he began to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:15; Luke 4:14-15).
The Year of Public Favor. Jesus' ministry in Galilee and the regions to the north of it are described in some detail by the Gospel writers and, although, in general, it was a time of public acclaim by the people, the clouds of opposition were arising from official quarters in Jerusalem.
After an initial rebuff in his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus settled in at Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, using it as a base of operations for his ministry in Galilee. Large crowds began to follow Jesus because of the miraculous events and healing that were taking place, but also because of the gracious words that he spoke. Rather than focusing on the minute regulations that had grown up along with biblical tradition, Jesus stressed the love and nearness of God to everyone personally. Rules were made for people, not people for the rules. The Good News of the kingdom is that the power of God is available for all who put their trust in God and are poor in spirit, pure in heart, loving, merciful, and followers of peace. Jesus saw himself as the embodiment and establisher of that kingdom and offered himself to the people as the one who was bringing that kingdom to pass (Matt 11:25-30). Matthew summarizes this by saying "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people" (4:23).
Jesus made at least three major preaching tours through Galilee at this time, as well as two that took him into Gentile territory to the north and east. In one instance, he felt it necessary to send out his recently appointed leaders, the apostles, to engage in ministry in his name, because the task was too large to be done single-handedly (Mark 9:1-2).
It would be hard to say which of the many episodes that are recounted in the Gospels are the most important, because what we have are a selection of those deemed most important to begin with. However, four stand out as particularly instructive. First, Jesus chose twelve of his followers to become a nucleus of leadership (Mark 3:13-19). This was to establish a new Israel that would in time replace the old Israel as the people of God. Second, when John the Baptist asked Jesus from prison if he was the Messiah, Jesus replied with a definition of messiahship that was one of service and suffering rather than of immediate triumph (Matt 11:2-19). Here, again, Jesus pointed out that the old age was drawing to a close and that the new age was dawning. Third, at the miraculous feeding of the five thousand and the subsequent sermon in Capernaum reflecting on that event, Jesus offers himself as the essence of the kingdom, as the bread come down from heaven and a new manna in a new wilderness (Matt 14:13-21; John 6:1-69). Fourth, during Jesus' second trip outside of Galilee, he disclosed at Caesarea Philippi and at his transfiguration who he really was and what his ultimate task was to be (Mark 8:27-38; 9:2). He was the eternal Son of God who had come to die for the sins of the world.
The Year of Opposition. As Jesus' ministry in Galilee was drawing to a close, he was preparing to move south to continue his work in the regions of Perea and Judea. He knew that he was moving into dangerous territory. Even while he was in Galilee spies and representatives were being sent from Jerusalem to observe his actions and, perhaps, to find some grounds for legal action against him. In three areas they were dissatisfied with what he was doing: he was violating the Sabbath rules (Matt 12:1-8; Mark 3:1-6); his miraculous healings were attributed to demonic activity, rather than to divine intervention (Mark 3:22-30); and he set aside traditional rules regarding hand washing, and, adding insult to injury, accused the leadership of being hypocritical (Mark 7:1-13). While he was in Galilee, he was more or less out of their jurisdiction, but traveling to Jerusalem would provoke open conflict.
Jesus arrived in time for the feast of Tabernacles (September-October) in a.d. 29. Conflict immediately broke out, some saying he was the Messiah or a Prophet, others denying it (John 7:11-13,40-43). Jesus proclaimed himself to be the water of life, the light of the world, the special representative of the Father, the dispenser of eternal life, and timeless in his existence (John 7:16, 37-38; 8:12, 16, 28, 51, 56-58). Further controversy arose after Jesus healed a man who had been born blind. This could not be denied by the rulers and only deepened their hostility toward him.
Jesus traveled throughout Judea and Perea, teaching, preaching, and healing, as he had done in Galilee. At one point he sent out a group of seventy-two disciples, by twos, to preach and heal in his name, knowing that his time was growing short. He spent some time in Bethany, where another notable miracle took place (the raising of Lazarus from the dead). After a short trip back north, taking him to the border of Galilee once more, Jesus returned by way of Jericho to Jerusalem for the last time.
During this time Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was coming, although they had a difficult time accepting the fact that he was going to Jerusalem to die and rise again. Their thoughts were full of coming glory and the power that Jesus so manifestly displayed. For Jesus triumph in Jerusalem meant death and resurrection; for the disciples it meant a special and obvious place in God's kingdom. Jesus tried to explain what the cost of discipleship would be, but his disciples seemed incapable of hearing it (Luke 14:25-35).
The Trial and Death of Jesus. Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on the Sunday before Passover (March-April) of a.d. 30, entering the city to the acclaim of the people and in triumphal glory. He repeated his actions of three years earlier, again demonstrating his authority over the temple. This created a great stir among the people and a murderous hatred in the hearts of the leaders.
During that week there was public and unresolved conflict with the authorities and they made plans to do away with Jesus, penetrating the group by way of Judas, one of the twelve apostles.
On Thursday night Jesus ate a Passover meal with his followers and established a communal ceremony for them that consisted of a participation in his coming death, concretized in the partaking of bread and wine. This was the establishment of the New Covenant that had been prophesied by Jeremiah (Luke 22:17-20; see Jer 31:31-34).
Jesus' agony began in the garden of Gethsemane where he was arrested after going there to pray. He was taken to the high priest's compound where he was interviewed, first by Annas, then by Caiphas, then when it had fully gathered, by the whole Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews. It was difficult to get the witnesses to agree, but a charge of blasphemy was settled on, because Jesus had claimed to be equal to God (Matt 26:63-68). By now it was near morning and Peter had disgraced himself by denying publicly that he even knew Jesus.
The Jewish authorities took Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, for him to ratify their sentence of death (they did not have the authority to execute it). The grounds of their condemnation of Jesus had expanded considerably on their way to Pilate. They charged that Jesus had actively misled the people, opposed payment of taxes to Caesar, and claimed to be the Messiah, a king (Luke 23:2). They later added a fourth charge—Jesus was a revolutionary, inciting people to riot (Luke 23:5). Pilate made a series of attempts to release Jesus, including the offer to release a prisoner (they chose Barabbas instead) and the flogging of Jesus as punishment, but death by crucifixion was their ultimate demand. With mingled contempt and fear, Pilate granted them their wish when they accused him of being unfaithful to Caesar, by allowing one who claimed to be a king to live.
Jesus was crucified at 9 a.m. on Friday morning, the actual day of Passover, and died at 3 p.m. that afternoon. He prayed forgiveness for his tormentors, went through a sense of abandonment by God, and expired with "It is finished; Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit." Jesus had finished the work he had come to do — to die for the sins of the world.
Jesus' body was hastily placed in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, because the day ended at 6 p.m. according to Jewish reckoning and everything must be finished before the Sabbath. A seal was set on the tomb and the women were waiting for the Sabbath to end so they could prepare the body properly for permanent burial.
Jesus' Resurrection and Ascension. Early on Sunday morning, when the women went to visit the tomb, they were startled to see that the tomb was empty and an angel announced the good news: "He has risen! He is not here" (Mark 16:6). There followed that day a confusing set of actions that included other visits to the tomb, visits to the apostles, and appearances of Jesus. Three of these appearances are especially noteworthy. First, Jesus appeared to two disciples as they were on their way out of town in utter dejection and nearing Emmaus. Jesus explained the Scriptures to them, especially the necessity of his suffering, in order to enter his glory (Luke 24:35). Jesus fellowshiped together with them and their eyes were opened to see the truth. Second, a special appearance was granted to the apostle Peter (Luke 24:34; cf. John 21:15-23) in order to strengthen him after his ignominious failure. Third, Jesus appeared to the eleven (minus Judas) in Jerusalem to show that the reports were true; he had, indeed, risen and was the same Jesus, now glorified. He was not a ghost or spirit, but risen in a body capable of being seen, touched, and participating in events related to this life (Luke 24:36-43).
Other appearances followed over a period of forty days, both in Jerusalem and in Galilee. There were appearances to individuals, groups of individuals, and in one case to over five hundred people at one time (1 Cor 15:6). They occurred in various places and at various times of day. All of this was to remove any doubt whatsoever about the reality of what had taken place. Jesus had risen and the once fearful flock was now emboldened and empowered to preach the message of the risen Christ as the salvation of the world. In the end neither rejection, nor persecution, nor death could shake their conviction that Jesus had conquered death. He had risen, indeed.
After forty days Jesus left this earth as miraculously as he had come. During the forty days Jesus had confirmed the fact of his resurrection, instructed his disciples about his new relationship to them, and promised them a new work by the Holy Spirit in their lives. His ascension was the return to his Father that he had spoken about (John 20:17) and the inauguration of his reign that would be consummated on this earth with his second coming (Acts 1:9-11). Thus began a new phase of Jesus' dealings with his followers. His physical presence was replaced by a spiritual presence (Matt 28:20) as they set out to fulfill his last commission to them, to be witnesses unto the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
The Teaching of Jesus. The Search for the Real Words of Jesus. The search for the real words of Jesus arose at the same time that the search for the real Jesus began, with the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. With the collapse of confidence in the Gospels as infallible sources of information about Jesus came skepticism about what Jesus said as well. However, that did not come to the same degree or at the same time as skepticism about his life, the reason being it was easier to reinterpret what Jesus said in modern terms than many of the things he was recorded to have done. His walking on water or raising the dead could only be understood as ancient superstitions or myth. His statements about the kingdom of God or messiahship could rather easily be turned into modern ethical statements and made consistent with other religious teachings.
The teaching of Jesus as understood by the "Old Quest" concerned individual piety, personal relations, and the social betterment of the world. The kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed was understood to be the gradual improvement of society by permeating it with the lofty moral ideals of Jesus. This conception reached its classic statement in Adolf von Harnack's What Is Christianity? (1901) with his epitomizing Jesus' teachings as the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of all human beings, and the infinite value of the human soul.
It was Johannes Weiss (Jesus' Teaching on the Kingdom of God, 1892) and Albert Schweitzer (The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1903) who helped bring an end to this understanding of Jesus' words by pointing out that just as Jesus as a person did not fit into modern categories, neither did his message. Jesus was not a Kantian ethicist, but rather an ancient apocalyptic prophet, proclaiming the end of the age with the coming of an enigmatic figure called the "Son of Man."
The existentialist underpinnings of both the Bultmannian rejection of the Old Quest and the subsequent New Quest of the Historical Jesus made the search for Jesus' real words theologically secondary. The primary importance of Jesus' words—what we may know of them—is to challenge us to new life or a new self-understanding. Taken in their historical context Jesus' words were nothing more than what historical research could show them to be, whether rabbinic, apocalyptic, esoteric, or basically indeterminate. But as used by God, they become an existential challenge to our smug self-satisfaction and a call to encounter the living God.
The need to know what Jesus really said did not go away, however, and many in the New Quest and the subsequent "Third Quest" went back to the task of seeking Jesus' real words. There was a problem, however. The problem was now, in the light of developed Gospel studies, how to sift the material so that later additions and changes made by the church communities, the redactors, the legend-making propensities of the time, the oral transmitters of the tradition and the final "author" of the finished gospel can be set aside, leaving us only what Jesus really said. So the search for criteria to distinguish the authentic from the inauthentic began. To date, no fewer than twenty-five such criteria have been suggested, some of them mutually exclusive, such as multiple source attestation, dissimilarity, consensus of scholars, multiple forms of a statement, and Palestinian environment. Interestingly, rather than create more confidence in the gospel materials, in general, this has brought about a greater skepticism.
The recent "Jesus Seminar" has also taken a skeptical line on this. After working six years trying to answer the question "What did Jesus really say?" these seventy scholars published their results in The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (1993)—the fifth gospel being the apocryphal "Gospel of Thomas." They concluded "Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the gospels were not actually spoken by him" (The Five Gospels, p. 5).
Responses to this excessive skepticism are now arising in such works as C. Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (1987), Jesus Under Fire (1995), eds. M. J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, and Is the New Testament Reliable? by Paul Barnett. No doubt, the pendulum will swing back toward a more sensible position in the future.
The Teaching of Jesus. Jesus' Teaching Method. Jesus was in every respect a master communicator. He employed methods that were sufficiently familiar to his hearers to make them comfortable but sufficiently different to arrest their attention. What struck them most forcefully of all, however, was the person himself—Jesus taught them as one having authority. It is hard to define, even inhuman terms, what authority really is, but in Jesus' case it is even more difficult, because his authority made claims that went beyond the merely human, causing those who heard him to exclaim "Who is this man?" At least three things combined to make Jesus' very presence an unsettling challenge, a call to decision. First and foremost, he embodied what he taught, and what he taught seemed clearly beyond human capacities. Yet he embodied those principles to the highest degree without any embarrassment or arrogance. Was he more than merely human?—that was the implied question on everyone's mind. Second, his teaching was derived solely from the Old Testament, which was, of course, God's Word, and it was mediated directly through himself; he identified directly with it. The rabbis found it necessary to bolster their interpretations by extensive references to one another. Jesus never quoted another rabbi. "You have heard it said, but I say unto you" is how Jesus taught. God's word and his own words merged into one. Third, Jesus' words were backed up by demonstrations of power. Anyone can claim anything, but only one with more than human authority can say to the waves "Be still" and have those waves obey him.
Jesus' very presence caused the crowds to gather, but what he said caused them to gather as well. His teaching method was very much like the parables that he taught. It was designed to reveal enough of the truth to draw people it, but to conceal enough to cause people to stop and reflect. These people had heard biblical truth on many occasions; Jesus' task was to cause them to hear it afresh, perhaps even to hear it as a reality for the first time. To accomplish this Jesus would sometimes bury his meaning somewhere below the surface, so that people would have to dig for it. On other occasions, Jesus would use highly graphic language to make a point. It certainly caught their attention when he told them to take the plank out of their eye in order to see the speck in another's (Matt 7:3-5) and called their religious leaders snakes (Matt 23:33). Sometimes Jesus' words were seemingly self-contradictory ("The first will be last, and the last will be first" — Mark 10:31) and at times even shocking ("Cut off your hand cut off your foot" — Mark 9:42-48). In all of this, Jesus' creative use of language was designed to force his hearers to a decision. He knew that giving them information was not enough. They must be challenged to embody and act on that information in order for it to change them. When attempting to do that they would be forced to confront their own inabilities and cast themselves on God, which was Jesus' ultimate intention. So Jesus and his message and his method of delivery all blended together to challenge the people. They either believed or they were offended and left.
Jesus' View of God. The foundation of everything that Jesus said and did was his conviction that God existed, knew what he was doing, and was involved in human affairs. From the very earliest time of Jesus' life of which we have record, he was in the house of God busy about his Father's affairs (Luke 2:46-49). Jesus lived in unbroken and immediate fellowship with God, virtually a life of prayer. He spent long periods of time in intimate communion with God and at critical junctures during his public career, such as his baptism, his transfiguration, his agony in the garden, and his death, God's presence was a vivid reality, more real than even the seemingly substantial reality around him. It was out of this profound personal experience that what Jesus had to say about God arose. He never doubted that God existed nor did it occur to him to attempt to prove that there was a God. All of Jesus' reassuring began with the fact of God and moved downward toward human affairs. He never started with an undefined human situation and argued his way to the conclusion that somehow God must be there. For him that God existed was a given.
For Jesus, that God could be known personally, directly, and intimately was also a given. This meant that religious ritual and complicated ceremonial activity should not be inserted between a person and God. Too often these things become primary and the vision of God is obscured. The term that Jesus used most frequently to define what kind of person God is was heavenly Father. This term is found in the Old Testament, as, indeed, virtually everything Jesus says about God's nature and actions is, but it had become so vague by Jesus' time as to be almost meaningless. Consequently, Jesus emphasized this in order to make it alive for us once more. Jesus' chief concern was to renew in the people of his day a sense of the divine reality—the presence of a personal, loving God, who is our heavenly Father. It is for this reason that Jesus never mentioned what might be called the harder aspects of God's being, calling God King or Judge. He knew very well that God was both King and Judge, but he wanted people to know that a heavenly Father ruled and judged.
The attributes, or qualities, that God possesses are all derived from God's self-revelation in the Old Testament and can be verified anew in the life of the believer. God is good, glorious, true, loving, giving, righteous, perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing, wise, and sovereign, to mention just a few. Sometimes these are stated as abstract theological truth or fact (e.g., "All things are possible with God" — Mark 10:27) but most often they are related to concrete human situations. God, in the totality of his being, is vitally concerned with human beings in every aspect of their lives, from the number of hairs on their head, to the need for daily bread, to their eternal salvation.
It was Jesus' supreme desire that people know God as he really is once more. He set out to accomplish this by offering himself as the unique embodiment of that reality and introducing them to the one true God, their heavenly Father.
The Kingdom of God. That God existed was the essence of Jesus' teaching; that God ruled over the world he had created was the way in which what might have been simply an abstract idea (God is) was concretely related to everyday human life. The term Jesus chose to express this understanding was the "kingdom of God." This was no new idea, but drawn directly from the Old Testament (1 Chron 16:31; Psalm 9:7-8; 97:1). What Jesus wanted the people to see was that the reign of God had been brought down from heaven to earth in the work that he was doing and in the gospel of salvation that he was preaching.
What was this kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming? Primarily, it was a spiritual realm or reality where God's will was being accomplished and people were invited to enter it. It was not restricted to one small nation or geographical place, but included everything. God exercised his sovereignty everywhere. But Jesus was proclaiming more than just the generalized providence of God. Jesus was preaching the kingdom as the realm where God's saving will was being done. In this sense the kingdom of God was nothing less than eternal salvation. To be in the kingdom was to be saved; to refuse entrance into the kingdom was to be lost.
Another important aspect of the kingdom as Jesus proclaimed it was that it is both a present and a future reality. In Jewish theology the kingdom was commonly understood to be arriving at the end of this sinful age. When this world ends, the kingdom of God will begin. For Jesus the kingdom is both present and future. We may enter into God's eternal salvation now and begin to experience its benefits at this present time, while still living in this fallen age. From now until the end of this age we will be in the world but not of it. But the kingdom is also future, in that, when this age ends only the kingdom will remain. So we look forward to that day when God will be all in all and pray "Your kingdom come."
Many things are said by Jesus about entering into the kingdom. The simplest way to say it was repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:14-15). In another instance Jesus said we must be converted and become like little children (Matt 18:3). To Nicodemus he says "you must be born again" (John 3:3). Jesus likens this to entering through a narrow gate (Matt 7:13-14) and building a house upon a rock (Matt 7:24-27). It is of such immense value that we should be willing to sacrifice anything for it (Matt 18:8-9), hard as that might be, as it was for the rich young man (Matt 19:23-24). When Jesus' disciples asked how then anyone could be saved, his answer was, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matt 19:26), which is the whole point. To enter the kingdom by our own effort is impossible; it takes the renewing power of God to make us new people and establish us in God's kingdom.
Salvation as New Life in God's Kingdom. When, by the renewing grace of God, one enters the kingdom, that person is converted, born again, made new, and a whole new life begins. The newness of life is not an option, but a fact. Being in the kingdom means being new. If there is no newness of life, regardless of what one says—even, "Lord, Lord" (Matt 7:21)—that person is not truly known by God. Jesus likens this to a bush or a tree. Good trees produce good fruit, bad trees produce bad fruit (Matt 7:16-20).
Jesus' mission was that we might have life at its fullest (John 10:10) and that is to be found in the kingdom. Life outside the kingdom is not really life at all. Throughout his teaching Jesus contrasted true life in the kingdom and false life on the outside. Those outside the kingdom imagine that the true purpose of life is to amass possessions, or gain status, or appear pious, or see the fruits of our human endeavors, or achieve some inner self-realization. None of these things embody the essence of true life. Life does not consist of the abundance of our possessions (Luke 12:15-21) and we are not to store up for ourselves treasures on earth (Matt 6:19-20). Nor does life consist of our privileged position or status no matter how exalted that might be (Matt 21:43; Luke 11:27-28). Even outward piety and religious correctness are of no value in defining what life is (Matt 6:16). As for human endeavor, what profit would there be if we gained the whole world and lost our soul in the process (Mark 8:36-37)? And the one who seeks to fulfill life by saving it, will in fact lose it (Mark 8:35). All of the values that are operative in the world are to be left behind when one enters the kingdom. There is an entirely different set of values operating that in fact reverse the values of the world.
The new life that Jesus offers when we enter the kingdom is like an inexhaustible well of water within us that refreshes us in this life and springs up into life eternal (John 4:13-14; 7:37-38). The most characteristic feature of the new being that we have become is love. We are to love God with all of our being as or highest priority (Mark 12:30). The second requirement of living in the kingdom is to love our neighbor as well (Mark 12:31). The transformed heart is able to do what humanly cannot be done. We are enabled to dethrone ourselves and our own ambitions and give God his proper place in our lives and see him reflected in those around us (Matt 25:44-45). A new set of positive spiritual qualities replaces the destructive, self-defeating characteristics of the old life. Jesus summarizes these in the Beatitudes as poverty of spirit, meekness, desire for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, the ability to bring peace, and the ability to love and forgive those who revile us (Matt 5:1-12). All of these spiritual qualities will express themselves in concrete action toward those around us, even our enemies, and in doing this we will be showing that we are true children of our heavenly Father, who also loves in this way (Matt 5:43-48).
Humanity and Sin. In Jesus' teaching there is no finely developed doctrine of the human person and of sin. He was too busy dealing with the practical consequences of humanity's weaknesses and sinfulness to spend much time speculating about it. He had compassion on the crowds, seeing them as sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34). It is possible, however, to draw together what Jesus did say and get a rather clear picture of what he taught.
The most fundamental thing to be said about human beings is that they are created by God. When this is understood, everything else falls into its proper place. As creatures of God, we are not answerable to ourselves or to anyone else, but to God. We do not own ourselves, or define ourselves, or live for ourselves, but rather for God. By the same token, we cannot own someone else or define them either. We are all alike in our creaturely status, made in God's image and responsible for one another to God. Being made by God, we must find out what God intended us to be, if we are to fulfill our true destiny. It is only when we live up to what he intended that we find out who we really are. For Jesus, the finding of our true selves will take place only in the kingdom of God, which is our true home.
Jesus taught that all human beings are valuable (Matt 10:31; 12:11-12), we are not to be anxious about our lives and the necessities of life. We have a heavenly Father who knows our needs and has made provision for them (Matt 6:25-33). Even the hairs of our head are numbered (Matt 10:30). God does not discriminate, but sends his blessings, rain and sun, upon the just and the unjust alike (Matt 5:45). Because we are valued by God, we can value ourselves and others, and relax in the knowledge that God cares infinitely for us and has our best interest at heart.
That we are sinful was also taught by Jesus. He made no special point of emphasizing this. It was simply taken for granted (Matt 7:11). What is extraordinary about Jesus' attitude is that he did not see this as an ultimate barrier between us and God but as a platform from which to rise. Indeed, we must start with the frank recognition of our helplessness if we are to make any progress at all. "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, " is how Jesus put it (Luke 5:32). Jesus saw the tragic consequences of sin everywhere, rebuked the self-righteous who would not acknowledge their own sinfulness, and severely criticized those who caused other people to sin (Luke 17:1-2). But Jesus looked beyond sin to the ultimate intention of God for us. Our sinfulness is not the essence of what we are but rather a distortion of that essence. Salvation in God's kingdom restores us to what God intended us to be.
Eschatology. Eschatology is the doctrine of the last things and deals with the ultimate fate of both the individual and the universe. Jesus had much to say on both aspects of this subject, but never as an attempt to satisfy mere curiosity. He always spoke in terms of the subject's profound significance and of the effect it should have on our life as we live it now. What awaits the individual is death, the intermediate state, the resurrection of the body, the last judgment, and the eternal state in heaven or hell. What awaits the universe, in particular the world in which we live, is the events leading up to the end of the age, the second coming of the Messiah, the millennial age, the renovation of this world order, and the final state of the cosmos. Personal and cosmic eschatology intersect at the point of the messiah's second coming when the resurrection of the just and the last judgment occur. There will be one generation of people, the very last, who experience both personal and cosmic eschatology at the same time. Many theologians, from the earliest days of the church until now, do not believe Jesus taught a millennial age for this earth, so they would telescope the return of Christ, the resurrection of the just and the unjust, the last judgment, the renovation of the universe, and entrance into the eternal state into one momentous event.
Individuals, whether redeemed or unredeemed, will live out their lives in this age and pass through death to the intermediate state, there to await the end of the age, either in blessedness or in self-chosen separation from God (Luke 16:19-31). We will take with us into the afterlife what we are, either our redemption or our condemnation. Jesus speaks of no second chance after death or of any reincarnation to provide an opportunity for salvation in a second or third lifetime. Jesus speaks of the believer's death as in fact not being death at all, but a shift from a more limited interaction with God to a fulfillment of that, hence "whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25-26). To the thief on the cross he says, "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). The unbelievers, however, will die in their sins and cannot go where Jesus is (heaven) because they have refused the salvation of God (John 3:18, 36; 8:21-24).
This age continues on until it is brought to a close with the second coming of Christ. Jesus was asked by his disciples to explain all of this and much of what he said is found in the so-called Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24-25). There he outlines the conditions that will prevail until this age ends and some of the events that must take place before that occurs, such as apostasy (Matt 24:10), false christs (Matt 24:11,24), increase of evil (Matt 24:12), wars and rumors of wars (Matt 24:8) and the worldwide proclamation of the gospel (Matt 24:14). The exact time of Jesus' second coming is unknown to us (Matt 24:42; 25:13); it will be sudden (Mark 13:33-36) and unexpected (Matt 24:44), like a thief in the night (Matt 24:42-44).
When Jesus returns at the end of the age, it will be from heaven in great glory, accompanied by angels, to gather his saints together for the new age that is arriving (Matt 24:29-31). It is at this point that the resurrection takes place (Mark 12:26-27; Luke 20:37-38; John 5:21-29; 6:39-40). Some theologians make this a general resurrection, in which both the saved and the lost are raised. At this point also the last judgment takes place that Jesus frequently spoke of in general terms to emphasize the contrast between the saved and the lost, such as the parables of the net (Matt 13:47-50), the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46), and the wheat and the weeds (Matt 13:24-43). The judgment will be based upon the use of our opportunities on earth (Matt 11:20-24; 16:27; Luke 12:42-48).
After the millennial reign on earth (Matt 5:5; 19:27-28; 25:34; Luke 22:29-30), the redeemed inherit eternal life in heaven (Matt 6:19-21; Luke 10:20). Jesus calls this his father's house (John 14:2) and the place where he is (John 12:26; 14:4; 17:24). Those who have rejected the salvation that God offered to them will enter into a place of condemnation (John 5:29), anguish (Matt 25:29-30), and destruction (Matt 7:13). Jesus likens it to a burning furnace (Matt 13:42) of eternal fire (Matt 25:41), and calls it hell, where both body and soul are destroyed (Matt 10:28).
The heavens and earth all pass away in accordance with Jesus' word (Matt 5:18; 24:35) and the final state begins. The Gospels do not record exactly what Jesus said about the new heavens and the new earth that is to come but no doubt his two apostles, Peter (2 Peter 3:10-13) and John (Rev 21:1-22:6), reflect this when they speak of the glories to come.
Jesus' Understanding of Himself. The Jesus who is presented to us by the four Gospels is a figure who defies purely human characterization. The only conclusion the rest of the New Testament can draw with respect to him is that he was in fact Immanuel, God with us (Matt 1:23; John 1:1, 18; 20:28; Rom 9:5; Col 1:19; Titus 2:13; Rev 19:16). Jesus was a human being, fully human in every way, but was vastly more than that, and that "moreness" could only be understood as essential deity. Jesus was nothing less than an incarnation of the eternal God himself. But the question arises, What did Jesus claim about this? Did he see himself as in some way an incarnation of God? If the Gospels are taken at face value, the answer must be yes. Modern critical scholarship denies this by asserting that the early church, convinced by its "Easter faith" that Jesus was something exceptional, altered his historical utterances and made up yet others reflecting this and then read them back into the life of this historical Jesus, a Jesus who never made such claims. This theory is based on the presupposition that Jesus could not be more than human and that God could not have become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. If, however, one does not categorically reject that possibility, then Jesus' claims, the teaching of the Gospels, and the rest of the New Testament paint a consistent picture that challenges the confronted person to the utmost. Is Jesus or is Jesus not the ultimate revelation and embodiment of the eternal God? The challenge was no different two thousand years ago than it is today.
The evidence for the uniqueness of Jesus as presented in the Gospels falls into two categories: those things that Jesus did not say and do and those things that he did in fact say and do. Both sets point to Jesus as unique among us.
What Jesus did not say and do. Simply put, Jesus never put himself in the same category as other human beings. What he was with respect to God was something he was alone; he never invited anyone to share his relationship with God. Consequently, Jesus never said to his disciples, Let us worship God together; Let us put our faith in God; Let us pray together; Let us trust or hope in God. Jesus never asked forgiveness from God, nor showed any awareness of sin in his life. He never called God his savior, as though he needed saving. Jesus never even called God Father or God and included his followers. It is always "your heavenly Father; your God" and "my Father; my God." He never used an expression that includes them, such as our Father, our God, our faith, our trust. The one time he did use an expression like that was to accentuate the difference that existed between him and his followers. When asked by his disciples to teach them to pray, he said to them, "This is how you should pray, our Father …" (Matt 6:9-13), but he himself never prayed that with them. When he did pray, it was as one wholly apart, as at the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). Jesus knew that he was not simply one of us and never invited us to become what he was, nor did he put himself in the same category that he put us.
What Jesus claimed for himself. When asked about his origin, Jesus said "I am from above… I am not of this world… I came from God and now am here… You are from below… You are of this world" (John 8:21-23,42); "I have come down from heaven… I am the bread that came down from heaven" (John 6:32-42). He who has come down from heaven is the only one who has ever known God (John 6:46) and those who have seen him, have seen the Father (John 14:8-11) because he and the Father are one (John 10:30-33). At another point Jesus startles his hearers by claiming to be the "I Am" who antedated Abraham and spoke to Moses in the desert (John 8:54-59). The Gospel of John also provides a series of supernatural claims by Jesus based on the "I Am" formula—I am the bread of life (6:35), the light of the world (8:12), the gate for the sheep (10:7), the good shepherd (10:11), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the true vine (15:1), and the way, the truth, and the life (14:6). All of these claims are deeply rooted in God's revelation of himself in the Old Testament and are claims by Jesus to represent deity.
In other instances Jesus exercised God's authority in forgiving sins (Mark 2:1-12; Luke 7:44-49) and accepted honors that are due to God alone, such as prayer, praise, and worship (Matt 14:33; 15:25; 21:15-16; 28:9, 17).
The Scriptures were understood by Jesus and the Jews of his day to be the Word of God. Jesus claimed that the Scriptures spoke directly about him (John 5:39) and he was the fulfillment of its prophecies (Luke 4:16-21), indeed of the whole of Scripture (Matt 5:17).
The temple and the Sabbath represented the highest expressions of God's presence to the Jewish mind, yet Jesus claimed to be greater than the temple (Matt 12:6), in his own person being a new temple (Matt 26:59-61; John 2:19-21), and also the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8).
Jesus believed that his words had special, indeed, eternal significance: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matt 24:35). Those who keep Jesus' words will live forever (John 8:51; 11:26) and those who reject his words will personally be rejected by him (Mark 8:38). Over seventy times Jesus uses a special formula to introduce his words—"Amen, I say unto you." Ordinarily "Amen" follows a statement or prayer, affirming its truth. In Jesus' case it comes first, asserting that whatever he said was true, simply because he said it. No one else spoke that way in his time.
Jesus claimed to be the answer to humanity's deepest needs (Matt 10:28-30; John 10:10) and that our eternal destiny depends on him (Matt 7:21-23; Mark 8:34-38). He claims to have power over space (Matt 18:20) and time (Matt 28:20) and to possess cosmic significance; bringing about the end of the age (Matt 24:30-31). He had power over the supernatural forces, both angels (Matt 26:53) and demons (Mark 5:6-8), and he sent his disciples out with his authority to cast out demons and to heal (Luke 9:1-2).
Jesus offered himself to his generation as the Messiah, God's special representative (Matt 11:2-6; 26:62-68; Luke 19:37-40; John 4:25-26). The Book of Daniel (7:13-14) had prophesied a coming supernatural "Son of Man, " whose kingdom would never end and who would be worshiped by all the nations of the world, and Jesus claimed to be that Son of Man (Matt 16:13-16).
Conclusion. Christianity centers around Jesus Christ; indeed, some have said Christianity is Christ. To attempt to abstract from Jesus a "religion" that can operate independently of who he is, what he did, and what he taught would not be Christianity at all. Some attempts have been made to formulate a "uNIVersal" religion, that is, one that seeks a commonality in the major religious points of view in the world. Such attempts have invariably failed. Although it is true that the religious ideas of some of the other major religions can be separated from their founders to be pulled together into a collective "religion, " the same cannot be said of Christianity. It stands or falls with its founder. He is inextricably a part of what he preached; his message is essentially who he was and what he did; his actions presuppose what he said about himself and his mission; the ultimate validation of the salvation (if that be called "religion") that he offered is found in his present ministry as crucified and risen again.
Walter A. Elwell
See also Ascensionof Jesus Christ; Beatitudes;Christ,Christology; Cross,Crufixion; Deathof Christ; God;Immanuel;JesusChrist; Kingdomof God; Lamb,Lamb of God; Lord'sPrayer, the; Messiah;Resurrection;SecondComing of Christ; Sermonof the Mount; VirginBirth
Bibliography. C. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels; G. A. Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God?; F. F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus; B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research; W. L. Craig, The Son Arises; idem, The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus; C. A. Evans, Life of Jesus Research: An Annotated Bibliography; idem, Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation; L. Goppelt, Theology of the New Testament: The Ministry of Jesus in Its Theological Significance; J. B. Green, S. McKnight, and I. H. Marshall, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels; M. Green, The Empty Cross of Jesus; A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus; T. W. Manson, The Teaching of Jesus; J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus; B. F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus; L. Morris, New Testament Theology; J. Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries; R. H. Stein, The Method and Message of Jesus' Teaching; D. Wenham, ed., Gospel Perspectives V: The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels; J. Wenham, Easter Enigma; M. J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, Jesus under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus; B. Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus; N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God; idem, Who Was Jesus?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[S] indicates this entry was also found in Smith's Bible Dictionary
JESUS CHRIST [bridgeway]
‘Jesus’ was a common Jewish name and appears in the Greek language of the New Testament as the equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Joshua’ in the Old Testament. The name meant ‘Yahweh (Jehovah) is our Saviour’, and therefore was a fitting name to give to the one who would save his people, Yahweh’s people, from their sins (Matt 1:21). ‘Christ’ was a Greek word equivalent to the Hebrew ‘Messiah’ (Matt 22:42). (For the significance of this name see MESSIAH.)Life of Jesus
The writers of the four Gospels provide most of the information concerning Jesus’ life and teaching, but they make no attempt to give a detailed biography of Jesus. They wrote at different times, for different people, in different places, for different purposes, and they selected their material accordingly (Luke 1:1-4; John 20:30-31). Yet there is no disagreement in the picture of Jesus they present: he is God in human flesh, the Lord and Saviour of the world. (See also GOSPELS.)
For convenience we can divide the Gospels’ record of Jesus’ life into three main sections. The first has to do with his birth and early childhood, the second concerns his public ministry (i.e. his teachings, healings, miracles and other recorded activities) and the third centres on the events of his death and resurrection.
Stories that describe events surrounding Jesus’ birth are recorded at some length. Nothing more is recorded of Jesus’ childhood till he was twelve years old. Even at that early age Jesus knew that he existed in a special relation with God; for he was God’s Son (Luke 2:42,49).
There is no record of the next eighteen years or so of Jesus’ life. Then, when about thirty years of age (Luke 3:23), he was baptized and began his public ministry. His baptism showed on the one hand his complete willingness to carry out all God’s purposes, and on the other his complete identification with the people whose sins he would bear. God then showed, through the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove upon Jesus, that he had equipped him for this task (Matt 3:13-17; Acts 10:38; see BAPTISM; HOLY SPIRIT). Jesus had the Spirit’s power in unlimited measure (John 3:34), but he had to exercise it in keeping with his position of willing submission to the Father.
Almost immediately after Jesus received this special power from the Father, Satan tempted him to use it according to his own will, independently of the Father; but Jesus overcame the temptation (Matt 4:1-11; see TEMPTATION). He then began to move about doing the work that his Father had entrusted to him.
This public ministry of Jesus seems to have lasted about three and a half years. He did much of his work in the northern part of Palestine known as Galilee (Matt 4:12,23), though he met his fiercest opposition in Judea in the south, particularly in Jerusalem, which was the centre of Jewish religious power.
The Jewish leaders considered that Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God was blasphemy (Mark 2:7; 3:22; 14:61-64; John 7:25,40-44; 8:56-59; 11:55-57). Jesus knew that he eventually would be killed by the Jews in Jerusalem (Matt 16:21; 20:18-19; Luke 9:51), but he knew also that first he had to complete the work his Father had sent him to do (John 4:34; 9:4). Only when he had finished that work and the time appointed by his Father had come would he allow the Jews to take him and crucify him (John 7:30; 10:18; 13:1; 17:4-11).
Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem was full of tension and activity and is recorded in greater detail than any other part of his life. He entered Jerusalem as Israel’s Messiah-King, cleansed the temple, debated with the Jews and gave teaching to his disciples on many subjects. He then allowed his enemies to arrest him, treat him cruelly, condemn him falsely and finally crucify him. Three days later he rose from the dead and during the next six weeks appeared to his disciples and others on a number of occasions in various places (Acts 1:3). His final appearance concluded with his ascension to heaven, though heavenly messengers reassured his disciples that one day he would come again (Acts 1:9-11; cf. John 14:3).
God in human form (the Incarnation)
In Jesus Christ, God became incarnate; that is, he took upon himself human form. Jesus Christ was the embodiment of God and, by coming into the world, made God known to the world. This shows that Jesus must have existed as God before he was born into this world; for only one who was previously with God could make God known (John 1:1,18; 3:13; 12:41; 17:5; 1 Cor 10:4). When he came into the world, Jesus added humanity to the deity that he always had (John 1:14; Heb 1:3).
As the eternally existent Son of God, Jesus had no beginning (John 8:58; Col 1:17; Rev 1:8), but as a human being he had a beginning when he was born as a baby in Bethlehem. God became flesh (John 1:14; Gal 4:4; 1 Tim 3:16; 1 John 1:1-4; see SON OF GOD; WORD). This came about through the miraculous work of God’s Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, so that the child who was born, though having no human father, was nevertheless fully human. He was not an ordinary person whom God adopted as his Son, but a unique person who was actually God’s Son (Luke 1:27,31,35).
In becoming a human being, Jesus did not cease to be God. His deity was not lessened in any way. When Philippians 2:7 says that Jesus, in being born into the world, ‘emptied himself’, it does not mean that he lost, voluntarily or otherwise, any of his divine attributes or qualities. Its meaning is well explained in the verses before and after, where it is clear that to empty oneself means to deny oneself totally, to sacrifice all self-interest.
Jesus from all eternity had existed as God, yet he willingly sacrificed the supreme glory of heaven and took instead the place of a servant. What he sacrificed was not his deity, but the heavenly glories that were his by right. The limitation that he accepted in being born a human being was not a lessening of his divine powers or being, but the limitation of living like other human beings in a world of imperfection and suffering (Phil 2:5-8; cf. John 17:5; 2 Cor 8:9; Heb 2:9).
Not only Jesus’ physical form but also his human nature was like that of human beings in general; except that, whereas the human nature common to all other people is infected by sin from birth, Jesus’ human nature was not. Because his oneness with humankind was complete, he was able to die for his fellow human beings and so free them from the evil results of sin (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 2:14-15).
Fully divine yet fully human
Though human, Jesus retained his divine being and powers (Col 1:19; 2:9; Titus 2:13). His human and divine natures existed together – complete, united and inseparable – without either one lessening the other.
Jesus was still the creator and controller of the universe (Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:2-3), the Lord of life (Luke 7:22; John 5:21,26; 8:51; 10:10,28), the forgiver of sins (Mark 2:5,7,10; 2 Cor 5:19), and the judge of the world (Matt 13:41-43; 25:31-32; John 5:26-27; 2 Cor 5:10). He was still the originator of divine truth (Matt 5:22,28,32,34,39,44; 12:5-8; Mark 13:31; John 14:6,10), the possessor of superhuman knowledge (John 6:64; 11:14; 18:4), the satisfier of people’s deepest needs (Matt 11:28-30; John 4:14; 6:35; 11:25) and the object of people’s worship (Matt 2:11; John 5:23; 9:38).
Being the Son of God, Jesus was equal in deity with the Father (John 10:30). So completely were they united that Jesus could say that whoever saw him saw the Father (John 14:9; cf. Matt 1:23; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). Therefore, whoever received him received the Father and whoever rejected him rejected the Father (Matt 10:40; Luke 10:16; John 12:44; 15:23; 1 John 2:23). Because he was God, Jesus demanded that total allegiance which only God could demand (Matt 10:37-39; Mark 8:34-35; John 3:36).
At the same time Jesus was fully human (1 Tim 2:5; 1 John 1:1). He knew how it felt to be hungry, thirsty and tired (Matt 21:18; John 4:6; 19:28). He experienced poverty and sorrow as well as joy (Luke 9:58; 10:21; John 11:33-36; 15:11; Heb 5:7). He showed some of the emotional reactions common to human nature such as astonishment, disappointment, pity and anger (Mark 3:5; 6:6; 8:2; 10:14; Luke 7:9). He was inwardly troubled as he saw his crucifixion drawing near, and he desired the sympathetic company of his closest friends during his time of spiritual conflict in Gethsemane the night before his death (Mark 14:32-41; Luke 12:50; John 12:27).
A person who can help
Jesus exercised self-control in all aspects of his life and behaviour, and had the same sorts of temptations that other people have (Matt 4:1-11; Heb 2:17-18; 4:15; 1 Peter 2:23). Yet through it all he never sinned (Heb 4:15). Those who lived closest to him, and who saw more of him than anyone else, asserted that he never sinned (1 Peter 1:19; 2:22; 1 John 3:5). Even his enemies, when challenged to accuse him of sin, were unable to do so (John 8:46; cf. Matt 27:3-4).
On account of Jesus’ endurance and obedience through all his temptations and sufferings, his life was one of continuous yet perfect development and maturing. The perfect boy grew into the perfect man, who thus became the perfect Saviour for all people (Luke 2:40,52; Heb 2:10; 5:8). He can sympathize with the human weaknesses that people normally experience, but more than that he can help them triumph over those weaknesses (Heb 2:18; 4:15). Their Saviour is God, but he is a God who has lived as one of them in their world.
To deny that Jesus was either fully divine or fully human is to deny that which is basic to Christian faith (1 John 2:22-25; 4:2-3; 5:6-12). Only because of the divine oneness between Father and Son can Jesus bring God to the people of the world, and only because of the human oneness between Jesus and his fellow humans can he bring people back to God (John 14:6-10; 1 Tim 2:4-6).
The obedient servant
In becoming human Jesus accepted the limitations that his humanity required. If, for example, he wanted to go from one place to another, he travelled the same as others and put up with the weariness of the journey. He did not use his divine powers to avoid the trials of human existence (John 4:3-6). He had taken upon himself the nature of a servant and he lived in obedience to and dependence on his Father. That was one reason why he prayed constantly (Mark 1:35; 6:46; Luke 6:12).
Jesus’ acceptance of the limitations of human life meant also that if he wanted information he asked questions (Luke 2:46; Mark 5:30; 6:38; 9:21). Being God, he must have had all knowledge, but his human consciousness of that knowledge and the way he used it were always in submission to his Father’s will.
Certain areas of Jesus’ knowledge, therefore, may have been deliberately kept below the level of his human consciousness so that he could have no unnatural advantage over his fellows. But if his Father directed, Jesus could draw upon that knowledge (John 12:49; 14:10,24). As the obedient Son who took the humble place of a servant, he knew, and desired to know, only what his Father wanted him to know (Mark 13:32; John 8:55).
This may help to explain why on some occasions Jesus’ knowledge was limited but on other occasions it was not. The Father allowed him certain knowledge that was in keeping with the mission for which the Father had sent him into the world. In these cases Jesus’ superhuman knowledge was not to give him a kind of magical solution to a problem, but to enable him to carry out the specific work that his Father required him to carry out at that particular time (Luke 6:8; John 1:47-49; 2:25; 4:18,29; 11:11-14; 12:49).
The superhuman knowledge that Jesus showed on such occasions was fully in keeping with the divine knowledge he repeatedly displayed in relation to the work his Father had sent him to do. That is why none of the events surrounding his death took him by surprise. He knew in advance that those events were part of his Father’s will for him (Matt 12:40; 16:21; 20:18; John 3:14; 6:64; 12:7; 13:38; 14:29; 16:32).
In summary, then, Jesus exercised his divine knowledge in the same way as he exercised his divine power – always in complete dependence upon and obedience to his Father. He never exercised it for his personal benefit (John 5:19,30; 7:16; 12:49; cf. Matt 26:53-54).
If Satan tempted Jesus to use his divine powers for his own benefit, Jesus must have possessed those powers (Matt 4:3-4; 26:53-54). Any limitation on Jesus’ physical capacity or knowledge was an indication not of a lessening of his divinity but of his submission to his Father’s will (John 8:28-29). Although Jesus lived a genuinely human life, he did so in the perfection that his deity demanded.
Mission and teaching
All that Jesus did and said was in some way a revelation of who he was. He was not simply a doer of good works or a teacher of religious truths, but the Son of God who came into the world to be its Saviour. His works and words are inseparably tied up with the nature of his person and mission (John 5:19,24,30,36; 14:7,10; see SON OF GOD).
A central theme in all the works and teaching of Jesus was that in him the kingdom of God had come visibly into the world. The kingdom of God is the kingly rule of God, and Jesus proclaimed and exercised that rule as he released sick and demonized people from the power of Satan (Matt 4:23-24; 12:28). Even among people who were not diseased, Jesus preached the kingdom, urging them to enter the kingdom voluntarily in humble faith and so receive eternal life (Mark 1:15; Matt 6:33; 18:3; 19:16,19-23; see KINGDOM OF GOD). He assured the repentant and the unrepentant that they would stand before him, for better or for worse, when he returns at the end of the age to bring the kingdom to its triumphant climax (Matt 13:47-50; 19:28; 25:34,41; cf. 2 Cor 5:10).
In relation to the kingdom of God, Jesus often referred to himself as the Son of man. This title was taken from the heavenly figure of Daniel 7:13-14, to whom the Almighty gave a kingdom that was worldwide and everlasting (Matt 24:30-31; 25:31; Mark 8:38; 14:62; see SON OF MAN). Jesus rarely referred to himself as the Messiah, probably because of the widespread misunderstanding among Jews concerning the sort of Messiah they wanted.
Jesus preferred the title ‘Son of man’ because it made people think about who he was. He wanted people to see for themselves that he, the Son of man, was both a heavenly figure and the Davidic Messiah (Matt 16:13-16; Mark 2:10,28; John 6:62; 9:35-36; 12:23,34; see MESSIAH). He wanted people to see also that he was the Lord’s suffering servant. The Messiah had to die before he could reign in the full glory of his kingdom (Matt 16:21; 20:28; see SERVANT OF THE LORD).
Likewise Jesus’ miracles were directed towards revealing who he was, though in a way designed to lead people to saving faith (Mark 2:9-12; Luke 4:18; John 9:16-17; 20:30-31; see MIRACLES). His parables had a similar purpose. They made people think, and those who understood and accepted their message entered the kingdom of their Saviour-Messiah (Matt 13:10-16; see PARABLES).
Having entered that kingdom, people had to live by its standards. Jesus’ moral teaching, however, was not a code of legal regulations like the law of Moses; nor was it like the burdensome system of the rabbis. He wanted to change people inwardly and so produce a quality of life and character that no law-code could ever produce (Matt 5:21-22,27-28; 7:29; see ETHICS; SERMON ON THE MOUNT).
Jesus’ teaching had authority because he came from God, made known the character of God, brought people into a relationship with the living God, and enabled them to reproduce within themselves something of the character of God (Matt 5:48; 11:25-27; John 7:16-18).
Jesus as Lord
The Greek word kurios (i.e. Lord) in the New Testament is the same word that was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the Hebrew word yahweh (i.e. Jehovah) (cf. Ps 32:2 with Rom 4:8; cf. Isa 40:13 with Rom 11:34). In the original Hebrew, Yahweh, the name of God, was a mysterious name that Jews of later times considered so sacred that they refused to speak it. The name was linguistically connected with the words ‘I am’ and referred to the eternal, unchangeable, ever-present God (Exod 3:13-16; see YAHWEH). Jesus identified himself with Yahweh by calling himself ‘I am’ (John 8:58; see also John 4:26; 6:35; 8:12; 10:7,11; 11:25; 14:6; 18:5; Mark 14:62).
The New Testament writers also emphasized this identification of Jesus with the God of the Old Testament. Repeatedly they quoted Old Testament references to Yahweh as applying to Jesus (cf. Ps 16:8 with Acts 2:24-25; cf. Isa 40:3 with Mark 1:1-3; cf. Jer 9:23-24 with 1 Cor 1:30-31; cf. Isa 8:13 with 1 Peter 3:15; cf. Ps 110:1 with Matt 22:41-45).
Both the words of Jesus and the quotations of the New Testament writers reflect the Hebrew background of the New Testament. According to that background, to call Jesus ‘Lord’ is to call him God.
Most of the early Christians, however, did not come from a Hebrew background. They were Gentiles, not Jews, and they had no history of the usage of the name Yahweh to influence their thinking. Yet to them also, to call Jesus ‘Lord’ (kurios) was to call him God. Their understanding of kurios came from its usage in the Greek-speaking Gentile world in which they lived.
In common speech, kurios may sometimes have meant no more than ‘sir’ or ‘master’ (Matt 21:30; Luke 12:45; John 12:21; Acts 25:26), but it was also the usual word people used when referring to the Greek and Roman gods (1 Cor 8:5). The Greek-speaking Christians’ use of this word for Jesus showed that they considered him to be God; not just one of many gods, but the one true God who was the creator and ruler of the universe, the controller of life and death (Acts 1:24; 13:10-12; 17:24; Rom 14:9,11; 1 Tim 6:15-16).
Through the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ, God declared dramatically the absolute lordship of Christ (Acts 2:36; Rom 1:4; Phil 2:9-11). Believers in Christ gladly acknowledge him as Lord. They submit to him as to one who has complete authority over their lives, yet they love him as one who has saved them and given them new joy, peace and hope (John 20:28; Acts 10:36; Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 1:2-3; Eph 1:22-23; 2 Thess 3:16; Rev 22:20).
One day Jesus Christ will return in power and glory. In that great day there will be universal acknowledgment that he is indeed Lord (1 Cor 15:24-26; Phil 2:11; 2 Thess 1:7; Rev 19:16; see DAY OF THE LORD).
The death of Jesus
Great though the incarnation and unique life of Jesus may be, they are not in themselves enough to meet the needs of a sinful human race. The incarnate Son of God had also to die. Salvation is not through the birth of Christ, nor through his life, but through his death (Matt 20:28; Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 15:2-3; Heb 9:12-14; Rev 5:9-10).
Jesus knew that the chief purpose for which he had been given a human life was that he might offer that life back to God as a sacrifice for people’s sins. But the offering of that life could be an acceptable sacrifice only because Jesus lived it in full obedience to his Father, without sin (John 4:34; 6:38,51; 8:29; 12:27; Rom 5:19; Heb 10:5-10).
This devotion to his Father’s will drove Jesus on, even though he knew it was leading to crucifixion (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 14:36; Luke 9:51; 12:50; John 12:23-24; see CRUCIFIXION). He saw the whole of his life, including his suffering and crucifixion, as a fulfilment of the Old Testament Scriptures (Matt 26:53-54; Mark 14:21,27; Luke 4:18-21; 18:31-34; 22:37; 24:25-27; 24:44-46). This did not mean that he felt no distress or temptation in the face of death. More likely it increased his suffering, but he resisted all attempts to turn him away from the cross. He gave his life willingly (Matt 16:21-23; 26:53; John 10:18; 12:27).
Jesus’ death, then, was not an unfortunate accident, nor was it the heroic deed of a martyr. It was the great act, the only act, by which God could deal with sin and release the guilty from sin’s punishment. Jesus gave his life as a ransom. He paid the price to deliver guilty sinners from the power of sin and death (Matt 20:28; 26:26-28; 1 Tim 1:15; Heb 9:12-14; 1 Peter 1:18-20; see FORGIVENESS; REDEMPTION).
Although Jesus was crucified by wicked men, his death was according to God’s plan (Acts 2:23). He was under the curse of God as he hung on the cross, but it was the curse he bore on behalf of sinners (Gal 3:13). He who was sinless bore the sins of those who were sinful (2 Cor 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; see JUSTIFICATION). He who was not under God’s judgment bore that judgment in place of those who were. He bore the wrath of God so that he might bring guilty sinners back to God (Rom 3:23-25; Col 1:20; 1 John 2:2; 4:10; see BLOOD; PROPITIATION; RECONCILIATION).
Christ’s one sacrifice is sufficient to bring complete salvation. It needs nothing to be added to it. It does not need to be repeated. It is a finished work – complete, final, perfect (Heb 9:12,25-26; 10:12-14; cf. John 17:4; 19:30; Rom 8:31-39; Col 2:13-15).
Resurrection and exaltation
Jesus’ death was not for his own sins (for he had none) but for the sins of others. Therefore, death could have no power over him. He rose from death as proof to all that the Father was pleased with the Son’s entire work. Jesus had made full atonement for sin and was the triumphant Lord, Messiah and Saviour (Acts 2:24,36; 3:13; Rom 1:4; 4:25; 1 Cor 15:3-4; Phil 2:8-11; Heb 2:14-15).
The resurrection body of Jesus, however, was not simply a corpse brought back to life. It was a glorified ‘spiritual’ body, belonging to an entirely new order of existence that he brought into being and that all believers will one day share in (1 Cor 15:20-23,42-49). God raised him up and gave him glory, exalting him to heaven’s highest place (Acts 2:32-33; 5:30-31; Eph 1:20-22; 2:6; Heb 1:3; 2:9; 1 Peter 1:21).
Although he now existed in a glorified and exalted state, Jesus graciously made a number of appearances to his disciples over a period of forty days after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). Besides giving them further teaching, he proved to them that although his resurrection was a literal bodily resurrection, his resurrection state was uniquely different from his previous state. He could make himself visible to human eyes, or invisible, as he wished (Luke 24:31,39,43; John 20:19,26-27; see RESURRECTION).
When he disappeared from his disciples for the last time, Jesus showed by the means of his departure that he would appear to them no more. He would, however, send the Holy Spirit to be with them, as he himself had been with them. Jesus meanwhile would remain in the heavenly world, exalted in his Father’s presence, till the time came for him to return (Luke 24:50-51; John 16:7; Acts 1:9-11; 2:33; 1 Peter 3:22; see HOLY SPIRIT).
Even in his exalted place in heaven, Jesus continues his work on behalf of his people. He claims the blessings of God for them, defends them against the accusations of Satan, and guarantees the continued forgiveness of their sins, all on the basis of his sacrificial death (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 9:24; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:1; see ADVOCATE; PRIEST, sub-heading ‘The high priesthood of Jesus’).
Christ’s return and final triumph
In considering the second coming of Jesus, we should not think of it independently of his first coming. His return and the events connected with it form the climax of what he did through his life, death and resurrection. All that he achieved at his first coming will find its full and final expression in the events of his second coming: the conquest of sin, death and Satan (1 Cor 15:54-57; Rev 20:10; cf. Heb 2:14); the salvation of sinners (Heb 9:28; cf. Eph 2:8); the gift of eternal life (Matt 25:46; 2 Cor 5:4; cf. John 5:24); the healing of the physical world (Rom 8:18-23; cf. Mark 1:31,42; 4:39); and the establishment of God’s kingdom (Matt 25:34; 1 Cor 15:24-28; cf. Luke 17:21).
Jesus’ second coming is that great and final ‘day of the Lord’ that people of both Old and New Testament eras saw as the climax of the world’s history. God will intervene in human affairs and bring his purposes to fulfilment (Zech 14:9; 1 Cor 1:7-8; 2 Peter 3:11-13; see DAY OF THE LORD).
Preceding and accompanying this day of the Lord there will be great wonders in the heavens and great distress upon earth. In an event as sudden, as open and as startling as a flash of lightning, Jesus will return in power and glory to save his people and judge his enemies (Matt 24:27-31; 2 Thess 1:7-10; 2:8; Rev 19:11-16). Believers of former generations will be raised from death and, along with believers still alive, will enter a new order of existence in imperishable, spiritual bodies. They will then be with Christ for ever (1 Cor 15:20-23,42-57; Phil 3:21; 1 Thess 4:13-18; see RESURRECTION).
The above characteristics of Christ’s return are expressed in the three Greek words that the New Testament most commonly uses of it. Christ’s return is an apokalupsis, indicating a revealing of himself in majesty and power (1 Cor 1:7; 2 Thess 1:7; 1 Peter 1:7,13; 4:13). It is an epiphaneia, indicating his appearing visibly before people’s eyes (2 Thess 2:8; 1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 1:10; 4:1,8; Titus 2:13). It is a parousia, indicating his coming, arrival and presence (Matt 24:3,27,37; 1 Thess 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 2 Thess 2:1,8; 1 John 2:28).
Judgment is an inevitable consequence of Christ’s return (Matt 24:30-31,40-42; 25:31-32,46). While unbelievers will have no way of escaping condemnation and punishment, believers can face the coming judgment with confidence. They know that Christ has already delivered them from the wrath of God (Rom 5:9; 1 Thess 1:10; 5:9).
Yet, though saved from eternal condemnation, believers are not saved from all judgment. They are answerable to God for the way they have lived on earth, and on that day they will face God and their lives will be examined (Rom 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10; 1 Thess 2:19; see JUDGMENT).
The second coming of Jesus, therefore, though it is something Christians look forward to (Titus 2:13; see HOPE), is also something that urges them to be holy, diligent and sincere in the way they live now (Phil 1:10; 1 Thess 3:13; 5:23; 2 Tim 4:8; 2 Peter 3:11-13; Rev 22:12). In addition it makes them more earnest in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world (Matt 24:14; 2 Peter 3:9-10; Rev 22:12-14). Since Jesus will return when least expected, Christians must be ready always (Matt 24:42-44; 1 Thess 5:2-6).
Not only believers, but the physical creation also will be redeemed at Christ’s return. The world of nature, which has suffered because of human sin, will receive its full glory. The triumph of Christ’s kingdom is seen in a triumphant Christ reigning with his redeemed people over a redeemed earth ( Rom 8:19-23; 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 5:9-10; 20:4).
Finally, having destroyed all enemies and removed all wickedness, Jesus Christ will have the satisfaction of seeing that the victory he achieved at the cross is effectual throughout the universe (Phil 2:10-11; Rev 11:15; 20:10). The Father had entrusted to him the work of overcoming all rebellion and bringing all things into perfect submission to the sovereign God. That work will now have reached its triumphant climax (1 Cor 15:24-28).
