Jesus Christ is the I Am

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14 ESV)

Sacred Scripture or the Bible, which is the living Word of God, His communication to His people, is not just a collection of writings or a simply a history. The Holy Spirit not only indwells Christians he also indwells Sacred Scripture. When believers read and study the Word of God, The Holy Spirit works through it to accomplish spiritual, eternal work within them. God communicates with His people primarily through His Word. One of the main goals in this is God’s revelation of Himself to those who love Him.

Jesus Christ is the interpretive key to Sacred Scripture. Any other hermeneutic will lead people into various forms of heresy or unbelief. If anyone has ever debated a Jehovah Witness apologist or a Morman apologist or an Islamic apologist then you know how difficult it can be to address their complete misunderstanding of who Jesus Christ is and what His role is all things pertaining to our faith and creation. However, if we do view all of scripture from this key, it enables us to see clearly the utter depravity of fallen man because it imparts this to us via God’s Word by the Holy Spirit working in our consciences and minds. We see that the Gospel is not what most of us have conceived of as we have listened to some preacher’s water-down version of it. No, we see that Christ is the center and purpose of all creation and that the Word of God clearly shows us God’s plan of redemption of those chosen before the foundation of the World.   Continue at Mike Ratliff

The Deity of Christ — J.C. Ryle

“My Father has given me authority over everything. No one really knows the Son except the Father, and no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” – Luke 10:22

“These are the words of one who was very God of very God, and no mere man. We read of no patriarch, or prophet, or apostle, or saint, of any age, who ever used words like these. They reveal to our wondering eyes a little of the mighty majesty of our Lord’s nature and person. They show Him to us, as the Head over all things, and King of kings–’all things are delivered to me of my Father.’ They show Him as one distinct from the Father, and yet entirely one with Him, and knowing Him in an unspeakable manner. ‘No man knows who the Son is but the Father–and who the Father is but the Son.’ They show Him, not least, as the Mighty Revealer of the Father to the sons of men, as the God who pardons iniquity, and loves sinners for His Son’s sake–’no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’   Continue at Eric T. Youn

A Practical Example Showing Why Doctrine Is Important

Here's a set of talking points the Jehovah's Witnesses hand to their door-to-door teams to instruct them on how to foment doubt about the deity of Christ. Some lazy JW saw an article I wrote on the deity of Christ and as a kind of shorthand reply, he e-mailed me a copy of the handout he was given by his church.^*

I wonder how many evangelicals would be prepared to give an answer. Continue at  Phil Johnson

Gandhi Doesn't Like Us

How many times have you come across this quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi? “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I must have read it a hundred times in books, magazines, articles, tweets. It is used by believers and unbelievers to point to the hypocrisy of Christians and to call us to more and to better. Our inability to live what we preach is driving the multitudes away. Or so we are told. After all, that’s what Gandhi said.

We need to stop using this quote and I’m going to give you two good reasons to do so. In the first place, Gandhi was hardly an authority on Jesus. When he says, “I like your Christ” he is referring to a Jesus of his own making, a Jesus plucked haphazardly from the pages of Scripture, a Jeffersonian kind of Jesus, picked and chosen from the accounts of his life. He certainly was not referring to the Jesus—the true and complete Jesus—revealed from the first page of Scripture to the last. He did not refer to the Jesus who stands reading with a sword of judgment, the Jesus who made unwavering claims of his own deity and eternality, who declared that he was and is the only way to be made right with God. Jesus the good man, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the moralist, perhaps, but never Jesus who was and is and is to come.  Continue at Tim Challies

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Who Exactly is This Extraordinary Man, Jesus Christ?

At the center of biblical Christianity we find, not ideas and instructions, but a person and events. Jesus is the person and the events are His doing, dying and rising again. Christ, unlike other religious leaders, didn’t come here merely to tell us how to live, but as the God/Man he came to actually live, die and rise again in our place.

Throughout the ages, apart from Jesus, there have been three principal religious teachers, Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed. These men either taught on how we could improve ourselves or instructed us on what to do to find God. But Jesus wasn’t part of their club. In fact He can’t even be compared with any of them. When comparing these world religions the issue is not whether Buddha out-taught Jesus or whether Jesus had better things to say than Confucius. The issue is this, Jesus claimed to be God. Buddha didn’t do that, nor did Mohammed nor did any of the other founders of the world’s great religions. Jesus, therefore, stands apart from them all.

So was Jesus mistaken about Himself? Was He out of His depth? Was he simply nuts when he claimed that He would be the great end time Judge (Matt 25:31-46)? Was He lying when He said that if we have seen Him we have seen the Father (Jn 14:9). Was he deluded when He allowed Thomas to fall down before Him and address Him as, “My Lord and My God?”(Jn 20:28).

 Although Jesus had many revolutionary things to say about ethics and outclassed all other teachers in this department, at the heart of His message He taught, not on self-improvement, but about Himself. He Himself was the message and at the heart of this message was His claim to being the man who was God. Indeed, so angered were the Jewish leaders by these frequent claims that they made plans to kill him (See John 5 and John 10:33).  Keep Reading >>>

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The Controversy of Christmas

Mention “Christmas” and “controversy” together in the same sentence, and most evangelicals will assume you’re talking about Santa Claus, Christmas trees, or the secularization of the winter holiday season.

But, from a historical perspective, a much more significant controversy surrounded Christmas for the first five centuries of church history; and its effects still linger in some circles today. It centered on the very essence of Jesus’ birth  – the doctrine of His incarnation.

There is, of course, an element of mystery in the incarnation. After all, how can one person be both fully God and fully man at the same time? Yet, that is precisely the miraculous truth that the Scriptures affirm regarding the Person of Jesus Christ.

Nonetheless, despite the clarity of biblical revelation, the doctrine of Christ’s incarnation came under attack from the very beginning. 

The Ebionites, a legalistic first- and second-century cult, denied the Virgin Birth and the very idea of the incarnation. They accepted the fact that Jesus was a man, but utterly rejected the notion that He was God in human flesh.

In the second and third centuries, the Gnostics likewise denied the incarnation. Not only did they teach that Christ was one of many gods, they also rejected the idea that His humanity was real. In Gnostic teaching, Christ’s humanity was merely an illusion. Thus, the incarnation did not really occur; it was only a mirage.

In the fourth century, the Arians affirmed the humanity of Christ, but denied His full deity. In particular, they denied Christ’s equality with the Father.  Thus, while His manhood was upheld, His place as the Second Member of the Trinity was rejected.  Keep Reading >>>

So You Believe in Christ, Do You? Are You Sure?

Allow me to describe an all too common phenomenon in human experience. A previous generation of human beings strive and struggle to make or accomplish a great achievement only to see later generations squander the hard earned fruits of the previous generation’s labors. For example, a father who works and slaves to build a business empire to leave to his son only to see the son (or maybe the grandson) run the business empire into the ground. This doesn’t always happen, but it frequently happens.

OK, so what does this have to do with Christianity? A lot! Today’s average American evangelical Christian does not have a strong grasp on theology and church history, and this is a bad thing. It’s not to say that every Christian has to be a professional theologian or church historian, but Christians should have some rudimentary knowledge of what they believe and how what they believe came to be. In our educational institutions, we teach our children American history and we also teach them the U.S. Constitution. Now you can make all sorts of arguments as to the quality of this education; that’s not the point. The point is that as a society, we feel it’s important to impart to our children the history of our nation and the principles upon which this nation was founded.    Continue Reading...

Problems with Arminian Universal Redemption

Amongst the archives of the Banner of Truth website, I came across this article. The site does not specify the author.

Serious objections must be lodged against Arminian universal redemption, among which are these: 

It slanders God’s attributes, such as his love. Arminianism presents a love that actually doesn’t save. It is a love that loves and then, if refused, turns to hatred and anger. It is not unchangeable love that endures from everlasting to everlasting. It provides atonement for all, but then withholds the means of grace that would make that salvation effectual in all lives. Are we to believe that Christ died for everyone in the deepest jungle and the darkest city, but his love doesn’t provide the missionaries, preachers, or sermons that would make his death effectual?

It slanders God’s wisdom. Why would God make a plan to save everyone, then not carry it out? Would he be so foolish as to have his Son pay for the salvation of all if he knew that Christ would not be able to obtain what he paid for? Some say he didn’t realise the consequences; he saw far enough to provide atonement, but couldn’t see that some wouldn’t take it. Does not that assertion slander the wisdom of God? Could God plan and provide atonement, but not realise that his atonement would not be accepted?

I would feel foolish if I went into a store and bought something, then walked out without it. Yet Arminianism asks us to believe that this is true of salvation — that there was a purchase made, a redemption, and yet the Lord walked away without those whom he had redeemed. That view slanders the wisdom of God.

It slanders God’s power. Arminian universalism obliges us to believe that God was able to accomplish the meriting aspect of salvation, but that the applying aspect is dependent on man and his free will. It asks us to believe that God has worked out everyone’s salvation up to a point, but no further for anyone. The implication is that God has built the bridge of salvation between him and us, and we have only to walk over it by accepting his terms of salvation through a free act of the will. ‘God does his part,’ Arminians say, ‘and now we must do our part.’    Keep Reading...

The Death of History’s Worst Heretic

Who is church history’s most notorious false teacher?
 

It might not be possible to answer that question definitively. But if we were to create a top-ten “most wanted” list, the name Arius would undoubtedly be near the top.

In ancient times, Arius’s teachings presented the foremost threat to orthodox Christianity — which is why historians like Alexander Mackay have labeled him “the greatest heretic of antiquity.” None other than Martin Luther said this about Arius:

The heretic Arius [denied] that Christ is true God. He did much harm with his false doctrine throughout Christendom, and it took four hundred years after his death to combat its injurious influence, yea, it is not even yet fully eradicated. In the death of this man the Lord God exalted His honor in a marvelous manner.

In case his name doesn’t sound familiar, Arius was a famous fourth-century false teacher who taught that the Son of God was a created being. Consequently, Arius denied Christ’s equality with God the Father, and along with it, the doctrine of the Trinity. Essentially, he was the original Jehovah’s Witness. His views were very popular during his lifetime and for many years afterward, even though they were denounced at the Council of Nicaea in 325 (and again at the Council of Constantinople in 381).    Keep Reading...

Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth by Alister McGrath

Somehow the notion has gotten around that ideas condemned by the church as heretical are a lot more interesting and attractive than stodgy old orthodoxy. In fact some scholars to try to suggest that what are now regarded as heretical versions of the faith were in fact more authentically Christian than orthodox teaching. To make things worse, it is claimed that orthodox Christians were the big bullies of church history. They were not above using the dark arts of political manipulation to impose their will on the church at the expense of poor, downtrodden heretics. On a popular level Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code perpetuates the idea that the development of orthodox Christian faith was little better than a grand theo-political conspiracy. Keep Reading...

Arius: Know Your Heretics

Arius (256-336 A.D.) is the most famous heretic of Christian theology. He was born in Libya and died in Constantinople. Arius held a prominent position as a priest in the Church of Alexandria when he started a theological controversy in 318. Arius denied the eternal deity of Christ and his equality with the Father. He argued that Christ was created by the Father.

Since the age of the Apostles, Jesus had always been considered divine by his followers, but his precise relation to the Godhead had not yet been defined. Thanks to Arius, the Trinitarian controversy regarding the status of Jesus Christ erupted. Read the rest HERE

Is Jesus God & Did Jesus Claim to be God?

The Compelling Testimony of Scripture that Jesus is the Christ