How can the Incarnation be reconciled with God’s immutability?
Great theological minds have had to wrestle with this very question, often in the course of responding to false teachers. As the early theologians formulated their answers, they upheld the affirmations of Scripture. On the one hand, they upheld the full divinity of Jesus Christ, and rightly so. There are biblical passages that explicitly assert…
Where was Jesus born?
The Bible chronicles Jesus Christ’s birth in Matthew 1:18–25; 2:1–12; Luke 1:26–38; and 2:1–20. At the time of Mary’s pregnancy, a decree by Caesar Augustus went out that “all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1). This meant that every person in the Roman Territory was required to return to the city of their ancestors…
What is the passion of Christ?
Answer The word passion is from the Latin pati, which simply means “to endure” or “to suffer.” The term passion of Christ has taken on a technical or semi-technical meaning in theology, referring to the time from Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane to His death on the cross—the time of His greatest suffering.…
How should a Christian respond to people who claim, “I saw Jesus”?
During His earthly ministry, Jesus often had large crowds following Him wherever He went, and there were many people who saw and heard, were healed by, and spoke with Jesus. After His resurrection, Jesus was also seen by His disciples, Mary Magdalene, and over five hundred other people (1 Corinthians 15:6). Since His ascension, however,…
What did Jesus look like?
The Bible nowhere gives a physical description of what Jesus looked like during His incarnation. The closest thing we get to a description is in Isaiah 53:2b, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” All this tells us is that Jesus’ appearance…
What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb of God?
When Jesus is called the Lamb of God in John 1:29 and John 1:36, it is referring to Him as the perfect and ultimate sacrifice for sin. In order to understand who Christ was and what He did, we must begin with the Old Testament, which contains prophecies concerning the coming of Christ as a…
Did the Romans give Jesus 39 lashes?
Just before His crucifixion, Jesus was scourged by the Romans (John 19:1). The Bible does not directly indicate how many lashes Jesus received. Deuteronomy 25:3 states that a criminal should not receive more than forty lashes. In order to avoid possibly accidentally breaking this command, the Jews would only give a criminal 39 lashes. The…
Is Jesus dead?
Many world leaders have left their marks on the pages of history. Religious gurus have helped shape culture and thought. But regardless of what they taught, accomplished, or believed, they all have one thing in common—they are all dead. There was a point at which each mystic, emperor, and philosopher came into being and another…
Why did blood and water come out of Jesus’ side when He was pierced?
The Roman flogging or scourging that Jesus endured prior to being crucified normally consisted of 39 lashes, but could have been more (Mark 15:15; John 19:1). The whip that was used, called a flagrum, consisted of braided leather thongs with metal balls and pieces of sharp bone woven into or intertwined with the braids. The…
Why should I believe in Christ’s resurrection?
It is a fairly well-established fact that Jesus Christ was publicly executed in Judea in the 1st Century A.D., under Pontius Pilate, by means of crucifixion, at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin. The non-Christian historical accounts of Flavius Josephus, Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Maimonides and even the Jewish Sanhedrin corroborate the early Christian…