Humanity’s fall is not just a theological statement; human history and experience show us that the image has been defaced in us all. As Paul puts it, ‘We have all fallen short of God’s standard’. But does this mean that God’s image has never been seen in its fullness since the beginning? No, because Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God. That is the New Testament’s bold declaration. The task of his mission was to lead us back to God and to restore the image in us.
This is where the New Testament connects the study of Christ with the study of humankind. Because Jesus is both true likeness of God and perfect man, he is the promise of a renewed humanity. To be ‘in Christ‘ is to belong to a ‘new humanity‘, just as to be ‘in Adam’ is to belong to the old, sinful humanity. The apostle Paul wrote of the ‘new nature which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’. As the ‘image of the invisible God‘, Jesus is the model of what men and women were created to be. Read more
The Christian faith teaches that it is possible to know God through Jesus Christ. For Jesus is risen from the dead and is alive for evermore. Through the Holy Spirit, he is present in the lives of those who trust and follow him. And so it is perhaps initially surprising that this faith should attach supreme importance to a book, a book which is a collection of documents all written in the ancient world some 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. If we can know the living God today, why should we bother with ancient documents? Yet the fact is that Christians do attach, and always have attached, central importance to the Bible. Why is this so? Read more
The New Testament also takes its starting-point in the confession and the commandment that God is one. Jesus himself repeats the opening words of the ‘Shema’; Paul writes to the Corinthians: ‘For us there is one God, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.’ James writes: You believe that God is one; you do well.’ The apostles time and again speak of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the Father and Jesus are clearly distinguished. Yet the same writers say, with equal emphasis, that Jesus Christ himself is also God. Read more
Throughout human history people have had different pictures of time, especially when they think of eternity or immortality. For many ancient cultures, especially in Africa, Asia and the South Pacific, the rhythmical pattern of the seasons - seed-time and harvest, hot and cold, wet and dry-has given meaning to life itself. The sun, the moon and the stars are the reference points. The goal of living is to harmonize through festivals with the cycle of nature. Read more
An accent on experience is associated with Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher was a child of the Romanticism which dawned as the eighteenth century ended. Romanticism was geared towards feelings, and Schleiermacher based his theology on religious experience. Kant had dismissed revealed truth, and this seemed to leave theologians nothing to rest on or work with. But Schleiermacher maintained that the gap could be filled by the Christian ‘God-consciousness’, the church’s shared sense of dependence on God through the God-filled man Jesus Christ. True theology is God-feelings put into words. Read more
Martin Luther (1483-1546) and his most distinguished admirer, John Calvin (1509-1564), the two chief architects of Reformation theology, were Bible men. Their theology, like the New Testament’s, revolved round the themes of sin and saving grace, Christ and the church. They avoided commitment to any particular system of philosophy; that was not their interest. And they rejected scholasticism, which they knew well, as unbiblical. Their great aim was to let the Bible, the living word of the living God, speak for itself.
From the Bible they proclaimed the God of the church’s faith — transcendent, three-in-one. They set him forth as the holy judge of sin, who graciously gives sinners peace with himself, through faith, on the basis of the death and mediation of Jesus Christ. Read more
‘He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.’ What exactly do these words in the Apostles’ Creed mean?
In Eastern or Roman culture, to sit on the right-hand side of the emperor was the same as sharing his political and military power. This role of co-regent was reserved for the eldest son, and his accession to the throne was celebrated as a national festival. Read more
The claim that God raised Jesus from the grave is so stupendous that no one could be expected to believe it without very strong evidence. Yet without the resurrection there would have been no gospel, no Christian faith, no church and no New Testament. There might, of course, have been a community of people who honored Jesus of Nazareth and tried to follow his teaching, but that would have been an entirely different thing. So the question is: does such evidence exist? Read more
‘Two thousand years ago,’ wrote Swami Sivananda, ‘Divinity incarnated upon this planet to show all humanity the glorious path to everlasting life by actually living the divine life upon this earth. Jesus was … the divine power and love incarnated … ‘
This response to Jesus Christ, which would echo the sentiments of millions of Hindus, is the result of two centuries of Christian service in India by the world-wide church. Read more
Was a common first name for a Jewish man. Nine others of this name are known at the time. It was the Greek version of three common Hebrew names,
Joshua, Jehoshua and Jeshua. This was the name by which Jesus was known in his lifetime, and it occurs nearly 600 “ales in the Gospels. Its meaning was: ‘The Lord (Yahweh) is my help’ or ‘Yahweh rescues’. Later New Testament writers use the name rarely; only the writer to the Hebrews uses it much. It stresses Jesus‘ humanity, as the carpenter of Nazareth. Read more
