Vol. 1, No. 3
Evidence for the Resurrection
“He was buried and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”
Ready for an adventure? When was the last time you prayed, “Lord, make me willing to go, to serve, to do your will”?
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” –John 4:34-35
–Glen Richmond, Editor
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“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Jesus was only in the grave for TWO nights.
Jesus made a mistake, therefore he could not have been God.
I think it is evident that Jesus used a biblical stories and apocalyptic imagery to explain his visions and illustrate their significance for people. Pinpoint accuracy was either not a concern for him or for Yahweh, who revealed it to him. It was more like signs pointing in the right direction – to get people in the right frame of mind – as exemplified by the expectation of the immanent final establishment of the kingdom of God that is evident in the early church and has been a framework for christian living ever since – we daily pray ‘Thy kingdom come’.
Furthermore, Jesus – being a human being with a corruptible body like ours – would conceivably be unable and possibly even be unwilling (see the Phlippians ch 2 v 6-8) to manifest all aspects of his divinity.
In what sense do you believe that Jesus claimed to be God, prior to his resurrection and exhaltation?
The incarnation of some ontological aspects of divinity that may seem crucial to you and me was not, as far as I can discern, a focus of the NT authors, in their portrayal of the life of Jesus and of his self conception. They had their focus on Jesus incarnation of the identity of the God of the bible – that is who God is, rather that what divinity is. Only later did ontological aspects of Jesus divinity became important for greek influenced Christian thinkers. Such concerns are reflected in the Niceno-Constatinopolitan Creed.
My current understanding is that Jesus was viewed by the NT authors as intentionally embodying the identity of Yahweh in his human life – behaving with sovereignty in relation to the incarnational symbols of judaism (most obviously temple and torah) – reaching out in love to redeem the outcasts and and broken people, to warn and proclaim judgememt on those who did not choose the way of peace, and finally to take upon himself all accusations against his beloved family, in order to set us free to be more fully human beings in the coming kingdom of God and anticipate the kingdom in the way we relate to other people and to Gods good creation in general.
That was what the incarnation of Yahweh looked like, according to the NT authors.
A huge round of applause for Glen Richmond!
Thank you Tyson. But if it weren’t for our Savior, it would be a one-handed clap 🙂