Water Baptism: the National Baptism

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on water baptism. For the rest of the series, go here.

baptism

source

This week we’ll be thinking about global baptism as represented through the Exodus from Egypt and the passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea. Three aspects of water help us to understand its significance in the gospel narrative: water removes what is corrupt, refills what is empty, and revitalizes what is dead.

In our second example of Biblical baptism, the persistent corruption of sin permeates not simply the world from a general perspective, but a specific nation, oppressing that nation through the direct, physical oppression of another. After a long recovery from and continued struggle with sin as described in the pages of Genesis through the Patriarchs of Israel, the Jewish people found themselves not simply warring against sin at a personal level but actually becoming enslaved by sin, embodied by the Egyptians and their oppressive regime of power and self-worship.

The story in itself is an awful chapter in Jewish history, where political and social oppression enslaved the Jewish people at the hands of the Egyptians. For us, the story represents the destructive, corrupting, enslaving power of sin, and in turn, the need for a water baptism from God in which the qualities present in the Flood were in effect once more.

Removes what is corrupt

The word “slavery” is for most synonymous with “corrupt.” In order to enslave another, or to justify slavery, one must possess a corrupt character. While much can be said and written about the corrupt nature of Egyptian Pharaoh worship or the social practices of ancient Egypt, in the presence of slavery there is little need to pile up reasons to make the argument that the Jewish people were firmly entrenched within a corrupt world. The slavery forced upon the Jewish people was heartless and cruel. The Jewish people were used for whatever muscle power they possessed and then discarded as easily as a used light bulb. To the Egyptians, the Jewish people were alive simply for the use of their bodies, aside from which they served no other purpose. In a similar way that slavery in the United States of America used and discarded millions of African Americans for their strength, so were the Jewish people used for the lavish building projects for which Egypt is now so famous.

Before the rise of Moses, the outlook of the Jewish people was completely hopeless. They felt helpless to affect change in their social and political status. They also felt abandoned and distant from the God of their forefathers and thus felt hopeless spiritually. The desire for freedom was alive in the hearts of the Israelites but the attainment of that freedom seemed impossibly out of reach, and thus useless to ponder. From this place of hopelessness and helplessness, God decided to bring forth Moses as his mediator and tool to bring about the salvation of Israel from the grip of Egypt. As detailed in the Book of Exodus, Moses confronted Pharaoh with the power and words of God and took the Israelites out of Egypt to the shores of the Red Sea.

At this moment, the Jewish people had seen the world beyond their slavery, revealing hope in a new life and a new creation as a nation. However, the threat of Egypt still remained and hopes of freedom began to waver as the Israelites saw the Pharaoh’s chariots swiftly approaching. There was hope, but there was also fear. What was needed was a conclusive cleansing of that corruption embodied by the Egyptians, and that cleansing came in the form of the miraculous Red Sea crossing. As the Israelites stepped onto the opposite shore of the Red Sea, the walls of water held in place for the purpose of rescuing the Jewish nation were let loose and the waters crashed violently onto the Egyptians. The Red Sea miracle ended the Egyptian threat of political and social oppression and revealed a clean beginning for the Jewish people to take hold of and fill with the glory and righteousness of the living God.

Refills what is empty

Just as the corrupt world of Noah’s day was in need of a Flood to complete cleansing from the destruction of sin at that time, upon being rescued from the hands of Egypt the Jewish people needed to fill what was at that time simply empty after years of slavery and years of silence in their relationship with God. After the high-octane drama of Exodus, the books that follow pale in comparison in regards to action and become progressively more tiresome with rules, restrictions and innocuous detail that cause many to abandon their “Read the Bible in One Year” plan.

While the steady stream of laws and contractual language can be a daunting burden to the drama-hungry reader, from the perspective of the Red Sea miracle as a baptism that Removes, Refills and Revitalizes, the shift in content becomes increasingly clear. At the point of liberation, the Jewish people had no central government, no central social structure, no central legal system and no direction. What they did have were miles and miles of open desert with little food and supplies to start new. What they needed was a miracle. But what they needed was essentially anything. From that point of nothingness, God established his authority as lawmaker, king and God, filling the void left by the Egyptian enslavement and the desolation of their nation through political and social oppression. For most people, especially in the modern West, it is assumed that there are laws in existence and authorities in place that can and will protect their freedoms, and that those authorities are involved in a system of checks and balances for the people. These laws and regulations that provide the freedom and liberty most of us are blessed to have are made up of thousands and thousands of lines of legal jargon that only a select group of lawyers and legislators are even aware of or understand. Like the fine print of a contract, which is there for a reason but overlooked by most people, the stage in the baptism of the Jewish nation following the physical liberation through the Red Sea miracle is where God filled that which was previously empty in the Jewish nation due to their enslavement. They had literally nothing. God gave them everything. With precision and accuracy, God gave the Jewish people no room to hold on to bad habits and removed the defense of ignorance concerning future transgressions. God gave them new life and gave them a new life in which to live.

Revitalizes what is dead

The final point arguing the need for baptism in the case of Israel is probably the easiest to make. In slavery, the Jewish people were literally dying due to abuse, with no life to live of their own with little reason to live it. Thus, if a person survived a day, that individual might question why they were kept alive, and if death would graciously accept them upon the following sunrise. Just as a person is spiritually dead in sin as a result of the fall, the Jewish people were literally alive in death as they were oppressed closer and closer to their ultimate death with each passing day. Without the baptism of the Red Sea, the Jewish people had no nation. The Jewish people were not a people. The Jewish people were destined to disappear, forgotten by the world, left to return to dust in unmarked graves for future generations to forget. Without the baptism of the Red Sea, there is no baptism of Jesus and there is no Christianity.

The story of the Jewish people’s oppression and enslavement, leading to their ultimate liberation and baptism in the Red Sea, comes to us today as a warning against the personal enslavement of sin and the oppressive power that it has on our lives, regardless of how unjust we view the oppression to be and no matter how hard we try to break the bond of our own imprisonment. What we learn from the Red Sea baptism is that it took God to intervene and save Israel, and it took God to rebuild what was being permanently erased. What we learn from the Red Sea baptism is also that God has given us not only a warning of sin in the Egyptian oppression but has also given us an invitation to liberation by the healing water of Jesus Christ and his permanent liberation from sin in his new covenant for a new life: alive in the spirit of God, destined for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Water Baptism: the Global Baptism

Reflections

baptism

source

This week we’ll be thinking about global baptism as represented through the Flood that covered the earth in the days of Noah (found in Genesis 6-9). Three aspects of water help us to understand the Flood’s significance in the gospel narrative: water removes what is corrupt, refills what is empty, and revitalizes what is dead.

Removes what is corrupt

The Flood was a result of the unleashing of sin onto humanity through the Fall, because the sinfulness of man had thoroughly consumed the hearts of men. In reading the chapters in Genesis about the Flood, we find what was at one time pure and powerfully made in the image of God reduced to utter filth and nothingness, resembling the dust of creation more than the breath of life from God himself:

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they Created by Mobile Word Ministry married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” Genesis 6:1-7

While many find the complete destruction of the Flood offensive due to the thought of “innocent” lives lost, this reaction fails to recognize the corruption in the preflood state of humanity. This corruption was born out of addiction to sin. This addiction, as addiction tends to do, placed the needs of self over all else, regardless of the methods by which it sought to find satisfaction and gratification. This hunger to please the self had no regard for the well being of others, had no consideration of the rights and feelings of others and no care for the impact their selfish behavior had on others.

This corruption was not simply a sin here and there, or simply not being perfect. This corruption was like rust that quickly eats through the shimmering exterior of the brilliant finish to a vintage automobile. This corruption was akin to the power of weeds to completely overpower a pristine, pruned flowerbed overnight. The corruption was like a cancer persistently eating through the healthy cells of the human body. Once one comes to the realization of the depth of the corruption, then the frantic search for a cure begins. Whether in the example of rust, weeds or cancer, the search for an immediate cure or solution is the primary concern for reversing the destruction. If there is a way to stop the corruption, the owner of the car, the garden or the body will do just about anything to fix the problem.

In the case of the world before the Flood, God knew that the only way to reveal hope for future generations to live in his peace and love was to cleanse the world through the power of the mighty floodwaters from below ground and above. Although the floodwaters took life, the floodwaters ultimately cleansed the world to reveal the lives of many more to come that would find the hope of living in the Lord’s presence, free from the clutches of sin, as a result of the flood.

Refills what is empty

When considering how sin had overpowered righteousness in the days of Noah, we must not merely understand the depths of sin in the human heart at that time but must also understand the vast expanse of sin present in the world. The corruption of sin in the days of Noah was not confined to a certain sect of society or to a specific portion of the population. The corruption of sin was complete. The entire world was so consumed by sin that in order to start anew, the cleansing had to, in its turn, consume the world. In the presence of sin, one cannot simply remove the sin without filling that now empty space with the righteousness of God. Upon being emptied, without the presence of God’s righteousness now taking up the space previously occupied by sin, the space quickly yields itself to sin once more, thus continuing the spread of destruction.

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” Luke 11:24-26

For the world then, the only way to reveal the hopes that find completion in Jesus thousands of years later was to move from a state of complete ruin to a state of complete purity. While sin still existed in the hearts of man post-flood, the earth was thus relieved of the burdens of sin for the time being, given a new beginning and a new endurance to bear the burdens of human sin until the coming of the Messiah in Jesus Christ.

Revitalizes what is dead

After the Fall, God made it clear to Adam and Eve that the penalty of sin is death. Thus, in the state of the world at the time of Noah, it is clear that the entire creation was charging violently and destructively toward one destination. The hunger for sin in the heart of man was so quickly consuming every inch of the human heart and the world that without cleansing the world of this blight, the entire creation was destined to die with and in its sin. The floodwaters filled the entire world, taking the place of the sin and preparing the new foundation for God’s work to be revealed and refilled. The floodwaters also gave new life to the world and to the human race in the same way that water in the human body works its way through the human system, reenergizing and reintroducing life where there was previously an utter lack. The floodwaters slowly receded, revealing the plant life created by God. The floodwaters supplied the animals alive in the ark with the water necessary to live and thrive in the new creation. The floodwaters also revealed a world to Noah and his family that was reborn out of the grip of sin and ready to be populated once again. This time it would be with the righteousness of God born out of his love and grace, by cleansing the corruption unleashed by sin in the attempt to destroy the image of God in man and replace that image with the image of sin and the human self.

Reflection Series: Water Baptism

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on water baptism. You can find the whole series here.

baptism

source

The practice of water baptism as a fundamental of the Christian faith can easily be grounded and supported by, “because the Bible says so.” While the authority of the Word of God in the Bible is supreme and, as believers, we are called to obey it, the presence of a command in the Bible rarely rests simply at a command without a much deeper reason, or more importantly, a need to obey. In the case of water baptism, at a closer look, the practice transitions from a direct command to a necessary step in the life of a Christian in the process of being remade and recreated in the image of Jesus Christ.

Water possesses unique qualities that other substances lack in cleansing and provision. Few substances clean in the way that water can. Few substances so effectively fill an empty space in the way that water does. No substance revitalizes and brings life in the way that water does. In the case of water baptism in the Christian faith, we can see that for a new Christian, these qualities of water are as important in the process of being born again as they are from a strictly biological, chemical and physical standpoint of hydrogen and oxygen molecules. This month, we will discuss how water achieves three objectives in its natural state and how it achieves these objectives in the life of a born again Christian. Water effectively:

Removes what is corrupt
Refills what is empty
Revitalizes what is dead

In discussing these qualities of water and how they relate to water baptism, we will discuss three baptisms mentioned in the Bible, finishing with the baptism made famous by Jesus and John the Baptist in the early chapters of the Gospel narratives.

“Global Baptism”/ The Flood of Noah
“National Baptism”/ The Sea of Moses
“Personal Baptism”/ The River of Jesus

Jesus is God in the Flesh: Forgiveness

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the divinity of Jesus Christ.

source

If you profess faith in the Christian message, yet lack this belief about Jesus’ identity, you expose a complete lack of understanding of the very Bible wherein you find the figure of Jesus in the first place. The Gospel narratives leave no possibility to reject the deity of Jesus. Rather, they appreciate, rely on, and believe in the message that he spoke.

We can better understand this vital truth about Jesus with these four points concerning Jesus and his teaching.

The man of “The Name”
The man of Authority
The man of Unity
The man of Forgiveness

For the next several weeks, we’re going to reflect on these indicators that support the divinity of Christ Jesus.

The Man of “Forgiveness”

Although the Crucifixion testifies to the divine nature of Jesus, one can find enough support for the divinity of Jesus Christ prior to his sacrificial death upon Golgotha. Throughout his ministry, Jesus became popular for a number of reasons. While the number of people who believed in him as the Messiah and as God grew, the number of people simply hungry for miracles tended to occupy the daily majority. Just as people in today’s world are hungry for entertainment, so were the first-century people in Palestine.

Repeatedly in the Gospel narratives, we find people who are much more interested in the healing power of Jesus rather than his identity or greater mission to save the world and redeem all people from their sin. But Jesus always makes forgiveness of sin paramount over the physical healing alone. According to Jesus, there was a deeper sickness, a deeper problem and a deeper need for his power than any physical ailment present in a person’s life.

Repeatedly Jesus forgives a person’s sin, in response to someone asking for the healing of his or her body.

But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” Luke 5:19-20

Jesus saw the deepest problem was sin, so he thrust himself into the center of all sins as the focal point from which forgiveness was to be given. All sins go much deeper and further than the person being sinned against, because ultimately, all sins are against God. Therefore, only God has the right and authority to forgive anyone their sins. In the context of human sin and the transformative healing power that Jesus also exhibited, the only reasonable person in human history that could make a case for having the power to forgive sin and thus be God in human form is Jesus Christ.

Jesus is God in the Flesh: the Authority

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the divinity of Jesus Christ.

source

We can better understand this vital truth about Jesus with these four points concerning Jesus and his teaching.

The man of “The Name”
The man of Authority
The man of Unity
The man of Forgiveness

For the next several weeks, we’re going to reflect on these indicators that support the divinity of Christ Jesus.

The Man of Authority

We find in the Gospels that Jesus was not just careful with the words he chose, he was precise and deliberate. His words are not the categorical babble of the megalomaniac. They wield the same power, precision, and beauty of a sword. Realizing this, we become even more dumbfounded by his claims.

Aside from his words of authority concerning sickness, death and sin, Jesus claims the authority of certain knowledge that only God could possess. He recounts the falling of Satan in Luke 10:17-20. He recounts his personal use of prophets, calling them into service in order to preach his truths to Israel and the world in Matthew 23:34. He professes his longing to shelter all Israel as a hen shelters her baby chicks in Luke 13:34. Jesus even goes so far as to openly assert that he existed before the Patriarch Abraham in John 8:58.

These claims tend to get lost in between the longer sermons and parables, but not because they are unimportant. Rather, they may be overlooked by some because of the apparently casual manner in which Jesus says them. Jesus speaks these words in the same way we would recount our day at work or our meal at lunchtime. To him, his identity was so obvious that to say such things needed no ceremonious delivery. He spoke these words to anyone, anywhere, because it was his very nature and identity. Not who he claimed to be or who his followers believed him to be. To disbelieve these claims, or to insist that Christ made such claims falsely or mistakenly, is to celebrate a complete maniac that has no grasp on reality whatsoever. This man would never be worthy of a person’s faith or worship.

Jesus is God in the Flesh: the Name

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the divinity of Jesus Christ.

source

We can better understand this vital truth about Jesus with these four points concerning Jesus and his teaching.

The man of “The Name”
The man of Authority
The man of Unity
The man of Forgiveness

For the next several weeks, we’re going to reflect on these indicators that support the divinity of Christ Jesus.

The Man of “The Name”

As we have discussed in previous reflections, the question concerning the historical existence of Jesus is a question that at the present has more or less been answered by believers and non-believers alike. Such is our hard-heartedness to the Word of God that the moment one question is answered we seek protection behind yet another wall of objection. Thus, with history proving the existence of Jesus with the passing of time, the more common debate over Jesus more or less concerns his identity. Was he just a good teacher? Was he a prophet? Was he simply a rabbi? Did he view himself as anything more than any of these things? The fact that the Christian church survived, grew and continues to flourish is a testimony to the deity of Jesus and his oneness with the Father that we will soon discuss in further detail. However, since the current debate concerning Jesus not only calls into question who Jesus was to his followers, but who Jesus himself professed to be, the best source for His words is in the Gospels themselves.

What we find is that there are many times that Jesus clearly refers to himself as God. No words of his are more conclusive in this matter than the two words he uses frequently throughout the Gospel of John in settling any doubt as to who he knew he was. The two words are “I am.”

The words “I am” when translated reference the Hebrew name that God applied to himself, by himself, for himself in Exodus 6:11-15:

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.”

In Hebrew, the name is “Yahweh,” which translates into English simply as, “I am.” While the translation in English fails to capture the weight behind such a name, upon a closer look at the origins of the name in Jewish history and the Hebrew language, it is complete madness that Jesus chose to use the name the way he did and that his followers chose to include this detail in the Gospels.

According to the Jewish people, the name of God was so holy that it was illegal to say in public. So holy that scribes writing out the scriptures were required to cleanse themselves and destroy their writing utensils after writing the name due to its divine holiness. This was a Word that if uttered in public was punishable by death. In Israel, no one spoke this name aloud. Yet, the Gospel writers openly include the historical fact that Jesus chose to use this name not once, but many times, in public, to those he conversed with.

“I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger.” John 6:35

“I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12

“I am the gate; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” John 10:9

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for His sheep.” John 10:11

“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.” John 11:25

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” John 14:6

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” John 15:1

This behavior was unprecedented before Jesus. Jesus took it upon himself to use this illegal, holy name for one reason and one reason alone. He used it because it belonged to him.

Reflection: The Virgin Birth

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

source

Support for belief in the Virgin Birth can be traced backwards through five important events in the history of the Christian Faith:

The Ascension
The Resurrection/The Crucifixion
The Gospel
The Virgin Birth

In our final week reflecting on the virgin birth of Christ, let’s consider what that event means for faith in Jesus.

After tracing the story backwards from the Ascension, to the Resurrection and Crucifixion, to the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, we find ourselves at the place where the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus can be believed, where the Gospels and the writers of Gospels begin in the flesh. Whereas Matthew and Luke both include the story of the Virgin Birth in their narratives of Jesus Christ, the prophecies that the Messiah would born to a Virgin in the specific town and from the exact line that God had guided and blessed since the first man of Eden no longer seem historically unbelievable. The impossible becomes not only possible but plausible, and the life of Jesus Christ stands as the one and only Savior of the world, born to direct us to the hand of God at work in the world we live in. “With God all things are possible,” as the angel Gabriel told Mary, and as one traces these landmark events in the Christian faith back, including the virgin birth, one finds that God does not require belief purely on blind-faith in the impossible, but rather we discover a greater faith in the impossible becoming possible through the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Virgin Birth: the Gospel

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

source

Support for belief in the Virgin Birth can be traced backwards through five important events in the history of the Christian Faith:

The Ascension
The Resurrection/The Crucifixion
The Gospel
The Virgin Birth

This week, let’s consider how the Gospel and ministry of Jesus support our faith in the Virgin Birth.

For years the Gospels were viewed by many critics and unbelievers as works of fiction compiled by believers desperate to create a story worth believing, hell-bent on forcing others to believe in it. As history has come to validate the life and death of the man named Jesus, history has done the Gospels equal justice. The years in which the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were estimated to have been written have slowly worked their way closer and closer to the actual time of Jesus’ passing in roughly 33 C.E. In the presence of more research and study of the Palestine area, the information in the Gospel of Luke has slowly been legitimized piece by piece as fact, as opposed to fabrication or amateur scholarship. The Gospels as we find them now, of a man who clearly died and must have resurrected in order for the discussion of the virgin birth to be happening in the first place, are not only more evidence of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but included within them are incidences of divine power unparalleled by any prophet, teacher or spiritual leader. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only time in history where the Creator God literally entered into human existence in order to display his unlimited power over creation in the man of Jesus Christ. The Gospels document these moments by those who witnessed the divine power firsthand, as John recounts:

1 John 1-4: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

Thus we find ourselves in a place where the Ascension, Resurrection and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ have been given solid footing in historical fact. Now we find ourselves in a place where the Gospels and the writers of them have been given historical validation as being the source of a life lived by the man Jesus Christ from a place of eyewitness testimony.

The Virgin Birth: Crucifixion and Resurrection

Reflections

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

(source)

Support for belief in the Virgin Birth can be traced backwards through five important events in the history of the Christian Faith:

The Ascension
The Resurrection/The Crucifixion
The Gospel
The Virgin Birth

This week, let’s consider how the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus support our faith in the Virgin Birth.

The Crucifixion and the Resurrection provide similar ideas and thus will be discussed together. Just as the previous post referenced the discussion of the Virgin Birth as being less important than the discussion of Christianity in general, the same point applies to the Resurrection and Crucifixion. While Jesus never personally wrote anything down, and while we do not have physical proof of his body or a tomb, his name has come down to us as arguably the most important in human history. Debates about Jesus are typically over whether or not he was divine, or thought of himself as divine, or if his followers applied those attributes to his name only after his death. However, historians and scholars alike agree that there was, in fact, a man named Jesus Christ, who lived in Israel at the time that the Gospels place him there and that this man was crucified.

Just as the discussion of the virgin birth leads one to belief in the Ascension, the same applies to the discussion of the Ascension leading one to belief in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In order for there to be Ascension, there must be a place from which to ascend. As history brings Jesus to us a real man who was crucified under Roman governor Pontius Pilate, this man named Jesus must have died under this punishment, and that death should have ended his followers’ allegiance. With crucifixion a death reserved to torture and execute the worst of criminals, the followers of Jesus must have been, and were, as stated in the Gospel of Luke, in utter grief and confusion at the time of his death on the cross.

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”
Luke 24:13-24

The fact that grief of these disciples became devotion, worship, and belief gives us a story of a man that was completely man enough to die but likewise God in his power to rise and ascend in victory. At this point, as we trace the story of Jesus backwards from the Ascension, we are left with the man of Jesus: clearly in this world, but not from this world.

Reflection: The Virgin Birth and the Ascension

Reflections

source

The Reflection Series for this month is adapted from Reasoning the Rest, which you can read or download from the main menu. This month, we’re reflecting on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

Support for my belief in the virgin birth can be traced backwards through five important events in the history of the Christian Faith:

The Ascension
The Resurrection/The Crucifixion
The Gospel
The Virgin Birth

This week, let’s consider how the Ascension supports and fulfills our faith in the Virgin Birth.

Debate about the origins of Christianity and its various doctrines often dominate, and at times tend to hijack, opportunities to share and witness the Good News to believers and non-believers alike. While debate often arises over certain topics like the Virgin Birth, in some ways this becomes the classic example of putting the cart before the horse. Instead of arguing or debating the historicity of the virgin birth, we should be asking a much more important question: “Why are we discussing Christianity in the first place?” The mere fact that Christianity is being discussed is a much more important topic for discussion and inquiry.

The only reasonable explanation for the emergence and survival of the Christian faith is that a man named Jesus Christ actually lived, died, was buried, resurrected and then ultimately ascended into heaven, out of the sight and reach of his believers, only to then bless them with the power necessary to teach and physically heal the world through the power of his name. The mere fact that the Christian faith has survived persecution, outlasted empires, emperors, tyrants and wars is an almost unbelievable historical fact. The fact that men and women throughout history have affected the world the way they have, in the name of Jesus Christ, is evidence that they were touched, healed and gifted with extraordinary abilities that are inexplicable even to the persons who received them except by the one Name: Jesus. The fact that there is a debate about the virgin birth is proof that Christianity is a faith worth discussing. Jesus did not live and die an old, wise man in the arms of his faithful followers, but, after a violent death, he resurrected and ascended as he promised, and is currently seated at the right hand of the Father.