Knowing Christianity

Robert Reymond defines the incarnation as “the act whereby the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, without ceasing to be what he is, God the Son, took into union with himself what he before the act did not posses, a human nature, ‘and so [He] was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever’ (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 21).” [1] The word means “in flesh” and it denotes the fact that the pre-existing, eternal Son of God, by becoming a man took to Himself a complete sinless human nature, (body, soul, spirit). God and man became one without diminishing any essential qualities of either nature. Paul Enns notes that the " result is that Christ remains forever unblemished deity, which He has had from eternity past; but He also possesses true, sinless humanity in one Person forever (cf. John 1:14; Phil. 2:7-8; 1 Tim. 3:16).” [2] The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin (Matt. 1:18 , 22-23, 25; Lu...

Although the denial of the deity of Christ is nothing new, it is true that for decades now, liberal theologians have stepped up this attack on what is the cardinal doctrine of the Faith. To deny the deity of Christ is to deny the Faith, to deny the very essence of Christianity. Nothing else matters much if Christ is not who He claimed to be, whom the writers of Scripture claimed He was, if He is not whom the Bible teaches He is. Christ is Christianity! If Christ isn’t God then salvation isn’t possible. For how could He have died a substitutionary death to provide salvation for a sinful race? As a mere human, His death would not have satisfied the justice of God, He couldn’t have made propitiation for our sin. Lets us consider the Scriptural evidence for the deity of Christ. We will briefly discuss a few of the lines of evidence we find in Scripture that clearly teach and affirm the deity of Christ. His Attributes Omnipresent – John 1:50 ; 14:23 ; Matt. 18:20 ; 28:20. Om...

Except for the sinful nature, Christ had all the characteristics of man. The humanity of Christ is as important as His deity, why? Several reasons come to mind: (1) If He was not fully human, then the Bible cannot be trusted since it clearly teaches that He was. (2) If He was not human, then He couldn’t have possibly died a substitutionary death and made propitiation for our sins. Although He was conceived miraculously (Matt. 1:20 ), He had a normal birth, like everybody else’s. He was born of a virgin ( 1:23 ) and had a human body (Matt. 1:18 ; Luke 2:52 ; Gal 4:4), He referred to Himself as a human and everybody He ever came in contact with recognized Him as such (John 8:40 ; 1 John 1:1). Remember, He was fully human, which means that He not only possessed a human body but that He also possessed a human soul and spirit. His humanity included both the material and immaterial aspects (Matt. 26:38; Luke 23:46 ). He manifested other human characteristics: He was hungry (M...

Paul Enns states, “The eternality and deity of Christ are inseparably linked together. Those who deny His eternality also deny His deity. If the deity of Christ is established, there is no problem accepting His eternality.” [1] There are many passages both in the Old and New Testament that clearly affirm the eternality of Jesus Christ. This list of passages is not meant to be an exhaustive one: Old Testament (1) Micah 5:2 – this verse clearly teaches that although Jesus was physically born in Bethlehem , He existed before that, “…from of old, from everlasting” (NKJV). (2) Isa. 9:6 – in this passage, Christ is called the “Eternal Father,” not to be understood that Christ is the Father but rather the He also possesses the title of Father, a designation that clearly implies His pre-existence and eternality. New Testament   (1) John 1:1 – the word “was” in the Greek stresses continual existence in the past. What John is saying is that as far back ...

Benjamin Warfield defines the Trinity as follows, “There is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence.” [1] Chafer states, “The Trinity is composed of three united Persons without separate existence—so completely united as to form one God. The divine nature subsists in three distinctions—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” [2] Geisler, in giving the meaning of Trinity, he states, “ It means that God is a triunity: He is a plurality within unity. God has a plurality of persons and a unity of essence; God is three persons in one nature. There is only one ‘What’ (essence) in God, but there are three ‘Whos’ (persons) in that one What. God has three ‘I’s’ in His one ‘It’—there are three Subjects in one Object.” [3] The Athanasian Creed clearly sets forth the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, “That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending thei...

A ugustus Strong defines the attributes of God as, “those distinguishing characteristics of the divine nature which are inseparable from the idea of God and which constitute the basis and ground for his various manifestations to his creatures.” [1] Theologians tend to classify God’s attributes into two categories. Attributes that only God possesses, those that belong to God alone, often referred to as absolute, incommunicable, non-moral, or infinite attributes. The attributes that God does transmit, and that man has to a certain degree, are often referred to as relative, communicable, moral, or personal attributes. A couple of points need to be made at this stage: (1) No one attribute should be elevated or exalted over another because doing so could provide a distorted view of God. (2) In order to gain a proper understanding of the nature of God, all His attributes need to be taken together, for by doing this we gain a “complete picture” of God. Incommunicable Att...

Charles Ryrie states that traditionally there have been two lines of argument used to demonstrate the existence of God, the naturalistic and the biblical arguments. [1] Here I will evaluate those that fall within both the naturalistic as well as the biblical arguments. Naturalistic Arguments Dan Story contends that  “it doesn’t take much reflection for us to realize that we exist, and we did not create ourselves. And since that’s true, it’s easy to figure out that something or someone besides ourselves brought us to be. And with a little more reflection, we can also see that the entire universe came to be in one of three possible ways: (1) it created itself; (2) it has always existed, and therefore had no Creator; or (3) it was created by something or someone outside of itself.” [2] Cosmological Argument A well-established philosophical principle is ex nihilo nihil fit (Latin meaning, “from nothing, nothing comes” ). The idea or point of the principle is that yo...