Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?: The Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ

By Larry Dixon [1] [2]

Introduction

“One reason why I find the Incarnation compelling…, in the figure of Jesus the Christ there is something that escapes us. He has been the subject of the greatest efforts at systematization in the history of man. But anyone who has ever tried this has had, in the end, to admit that the seams keep bursting. He sooner or later discovers that he is in touch, not with a pale Galilean, but with a towering, and furious figure who will not be managed” (Thomas Howard, Christ the Tiger). 

“The Christ that [the church historian] Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a dark well” (George Tyrrell). 

“Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” (Jesus in Matthew 16:13).

There is today a collection of scholars which reminds me of a group of schoolboys on a warm summer’s day, sitting outside, playing marbles. Having been one of the best in my neighborhood, I recall with delight the occasions when my “shooter,” firmly placed between my thumb and forefinger, was unleashed with an adolescent power which scattered many of the cat’s-eyes and other kinds of marbles outside the circle. Those that went outside the circle became mine. I also remember losing my favorite shooter to Butch, the neighborhood bully. The game of marbles is great when you’re winning; it’s a sad day when all your marbles are gone.

One might ask whether the seventy-four scholars who comprise the Jesus Seminar think tank in Sonoma, California, have lost all their marbles. None come from evangelical, Bible-believing colleges or seminaries, but these men have taken upon themselves the task of evaluating the sayings ascribed to Jesus in the four Gospels. Using colored beads (I like to think of them as marbles), these men vote on the probability of a particular New Testament saying’s authenticity. A red marble means: “That must be Jesus!” A pink indicates: “Sure sounds like Jesus!” A gray is the way of saying, “Well, maybe.” And a black marble means “There’s been some mistake!” As a result of their game of marbles, they have concluded that 82% of the words of Jesus found in the Gospels were not said by Jesus. [3] They even reject John 3:16 as spoken by Jesus, thus eliminating from the Lord’s lips the words, “For God so loved the world.”

The agenda of the Jesus Seminar was clearly stated by its founder Robert Funk in 1994: “It isn’t Jesus bashing…. We want to liberate Jesus. The only Jesus most people want is a mythic one. They don’t want the real Jesus. They want the one they can worship. The cultic Jesus.” [4] The “real Jesus,” as one writer says, is “different from the one worshiped by Christians.” [5] This “real Jesus” to the scholars in the Jesus Seminar was an ordinary man who had no supernatural power, was decidedly not divine, and died a martyr’s death. He did not rise from the dead and will not be returning to judge the world. A clear distinction must be made between the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith” (the creation of the church, a misguided Apostle Paul, and the early creeds).

This group has published The Five Gospels which is a translation of the four canonical gospels with the addition of a fifth book, the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. The introduction to The Five Gospels is entitled, “The Search for the Real Jesus: Darwin, Scopes and All That.” The intention seems clear: one must agree with the thesis that “theological tyranny” has smothered the historical Jesus who needs to be “liberated.” For various reasons, the work of the Jesus Seminar should be seen as “not responsible, or even critical, scholarship. It is a self-indulgent charade.” [6] Duke University Professor Richard Hays states that “the case argued by this book would not stand up in any court.” [7] I think the Seminar’s nonsense should be, if you’ll forgive the expression, black-balled!

In our preceding article, we argued that the Bible, the Word of God (which does not contain the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas!) is our only trustworthy source for what we are to believe. Although we desperately need Christian scholars, we should not ultimately depend upon them for telling us what to hold as true, for only God’s Word is to be our ultimate authority.

A Preliminary Issue: The Historical Fact of Jesus Christ

What does the Word of God teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ? Before we examine that question, one preliminary matter deserves our attention. Many years ago the skeptic Bertrand Russell stated that the historical evidence for Jesus the man is flimsy. Was he right in that statement? What are our historical evidences for the existence of Jesus?

Perhaps you have had an experience similar to mine in sharing the gospel with some non-Christians. I have said, “You need to believe in Jesus in order to be saved.” They’ve said, “I don’t believe Jesus ever lived.” I responded, “Well, the Bible declares that He lived — and demands that only personal faith in Him will save you from your sins.” “Well,” says the non-Christian, “I don’t accept the authority of the Bible.” “Why not?” I asked. “The Bible was written by the followers of Jesus, and I don’t believe what they say!” I responded, “But you need to!” The non-Christian says, “No, I don’t.” I responded, “Yes, you do.” And the discussion seemed to fade off into the sunset.

Have you had that same kind of conversation? It appears that we Christians insist that the non-Christian accept the authority of the Bible before they trust Christ as their Savior. I know that there may be differences of opinion on this issue, but upon what basis do we demand such a commitment? And what do we say to someone who doesn’t accept the Bible’s testimony? Mormons also ask non-Mormons to believe that the Book of Mormon is true, and even to pray that God will show them that it is the Word of God. How does Christianity differ from that kind of demand for blind faith?

A person does not need to believe that the Bible is the Word of God to be saved. But what if a person does not even think the Bible is historically reliable? Why should that person accept the New Testament’s testimony to Jesus?

Extra-Biblical Evidences for Jesus

To the person who says “I don’t accept the Bible as historically reliable regarding the person of Jesus,” one might respond with the question, “Then what would you accept as evidence that Jesus really lived?” The non-Christian might respond with, “What else do you have?” The good news is, Christian, we have evidence for the historicity of Jesus outside the New Testament!

The Jewish Evidence

Although the Jews of Jesus’ day rejected Him, we have some surprising references to Jesus in Jewish historical material. For example, the well-known Jewish historian Josephus makes a statement in a.d. 94 about James, “the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ” in his Antiquities of the Jews (20.200). The most astounding contribution to the historicity of Jesus from Josephus, who never became a follower of Jesus as far as we know, comes from that same work:

Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again at the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and 10,000 other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Antiquities, 10.63-64)

What an incredible paragraph! The statements are such that many scholars have concluded that the paragraph is an interpolation (an insertion by a Christian of this material into Josephus’ work). I do not hold that the above paragraph is an interpolation, but rather that Josephus was saying these things about Jesus in biting sarcasm. The point, however, is that this is an early reference to the historicity of Jesus which cannot be ignored. [8]

There is also a fascinating paragraph in the Babylonian Talmud, a Jewish commentary on the Hebrew laws, which was composed from around a.d. 200–700. The section entitled “Sanhedrin 43a” states:

On the eve of Passover Yeshua was hanged. For forty days before the execution a herald went forth and cried, “He is going to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.” But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of Passover.

This clear reference to the historicity of Jesus makes several points. First, it charges Jesus with sorcery, an acknowledgment that He did superhuman acts (similar to the charge raised by the Pharisees of Jesus’ day that He was empowered by Beelzebub, Matthew 12:22–32). Second, it suggests that there was a forty-day grace period in which defenders of Jesus could step forward. We know from the New Testament that such a grace period did not take place, so some have suggested that the Talmud is here attempting to “clean up” the gospels’ picture of Jesus’ speedy (and illegal) rush-to-judgment. A third observation is that this paragraph says that Jesus was going to be “stoned,” the Jewish method of execution. However, it concludes with the statement that He was “hanged” (i.e. crucified). The point of referring to this material in the Babylonian Talmud is to show that there is evidence for the historicity of Jesus outside the gospel accounts.

There are a few other references in Jewish material to Jesus, [9] but not many. Why would the Jews not write more about Jesus? The answer is obvious. Why would they write about someone they had rejected as their Messiah and helped

to have executed? But the point is that there is some material for the historicity of Jesus outside the gospel accounts.

The Roman Material

Are there any references to Jesus in Roman sources? Yes! For example, we have the reliable Roman historian Gaius Suetonius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars referring to “Chrestus,” an obvious allusion to Jesus (in the section entitled “Claudius 25.4”). The well-respected historian Cornelius Tacitus composed his Annals around a.d. 115 and tells us that Christians got their name “from one Christus, who was put to death in the principate of Tiberius by the Procurator Pontius Pilate”! (Annals 15.44).

Pliny the Younger, the imperial legate of the Roman province of Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan around a.d. 115 to ask his advice about how to interrogate Christians. He gives testimony that the early Christians regularly met before daybreak to “recite a hymn antiphonally to Christ, as to a god,” etc. (Letters, 10.96). The Emperor writes to encourage Pliny to follow good protocol in his trying of Christians for their refusal to worship the Roman gods. [10]

Why is there not more material in Roman sources to Jesus? The answer seems to be that the early Christians were considered a sect of Judaism, and the Jews were, if you will pardon my candor, a pain in the neck to the Romans! Why would the Romans write more about an obscure Jewish rabbi of a despised and conquered people?

The point of all this is that there is evidence for the historicity of Jesus outside the gospel accounts. And we should use such material! We also should show that the four gospels are reliable history, [11] so that the thinking non-Christian is not simply being told by us to believe the testimony of the Bible.

The Humanity of Jesus

If the New Testament, specifically the four gospels, presents reliable information about Jesus, what do we learn about His humanity? A brief summary must include the following considerations. The Bible is clear concerning the Lord’s human parentage (that He was “born of a woman,” Galatians 4:4, without the involvement of a human male). The doctrine of the virgin birth is clearly set forth in both Matthew 1:18 and Luke 1:26–38. Although there are many ramifications of His coming into the world through a virgin, at the very least the uniqueness of His conception indicates His status as the “second Adam” (Romans 5) through whom redemption would come. [12]

A second line of evidence of Christ’s humanity is His natural growth and development. The Bible is clear that the Second Person of the Trinity was fully human, experiencing physical, intellectual, social, and even spiritual growth (Luke 2:40 and 52). Although Philippians 2 has often been debated by Christians, the text declares that Christ was “found in appearance as a man” (Phil. 2:8). Natural, human growth is not sinful, and the Lord Jesus became fully human without giving up His deity.

A third line of evidence for His humanity concerns His temptations. That forty-day period in the wilderness exposed Him to several levels of tempting by the Evil One (Matt. 4:1–11), temptations which were not confined to that period. [13] The Bible teaches that God cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13). The humanity of Jesus was that avenue by which He was tempted by evil. We must not forget that “he himself suffered when he was tempted” so that “he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:18). As our great high priest, it is critical that we flee to Him when we are tempted. Hebrews 4 says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin” (Heb. 4:15). No Christian can ever say when temptation has its stranglehold around his or her neck, “Jesus can’t understand what I’m going through!” No, because of His experience of resisting temptation, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:16). To the often-debated question, “Could God Incarnate Sin?,” [14] the Bible, it appears to me, is silent. It proclaims with utmost clarity the sinlessness of Christ (John 8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; etc.) as well as the genuineness of His temptations (Heb. 2:17–18; 5:8, 14–16).

A fourth line of evidence for the humanity of Jesus concerns His human emotions. [15] Not only did He weep (John 11:35), but He also expressed anger (Mark 3:5), surprise (Mark 6:6), grief (Mark 14:32–42), disappointment (Matt. 14:31), and joy (Heb. 12:2). Elton Trueblood’s excellent book, The Humor of Christ, [16] suggests that, although the Lord Jesus is the “man of sorrows,” we should not make the sad story the whole story. Surely He was a joy to be around (note the many occasions when He was in the company of publicans and sinners), and although we have no verse that says “and Jesus laughed” (similar to John 11:35’s statement “and Jesus wept”), it is a logical inference that He was also a man of laughter. Philip Yancey criticizes what he calls the image of a “Prozac Jesus,” arguing that, although the gospels say nothing about Jesus’ physical appearance, they clearly “depict him performing his first miracle at a wedding, giving playful nicknames to his disciples, and somehow gaining a reputation as a ‘gluttonous man and a wine-bibber.’” [17] We must ask, how has the church lost the humor of its Savior? [18]

There are other evidences of the humanity of Christ which could be examined (He could be touched, He could suffer pain and die, He was acknowledged to be a man by the religious leaders of His day [John 10:33], etc.), but we must move on. Some of you know that there was a kind of incipient docetism in the early Brethren movement, that is, an over-emphasis on the deity of Christ that sometimes minimized His humanity. So we need to be careful. As George MacDonald (in a book entitled Getting to Know Jesus) has so aptly said of Christ:

He lives; he is the man, and there is no man but Him.… Why, we men are not but a quarter made yet; we are only in process of becoming men and women, and poor specimens at that. He is the only Man, perfect, complete, radiant, clear, the very image of the invisible God, and this Man it is that says: “Come unto Me.” [19]

The Deity of Jesus Christ

Even though the term “Trinity” is never used in the Bible, the doctrine that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity is made clear throughout the New Testament. Not only is He called “God” (John 1:1; 20:28) and referred to as “the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8; 22:13–16), He receives worship (Matt. 2:2, 11; 28:9, 17; John 9:38; Heb. 1:6) and considers Himself equal with Jehovah (John 10:33) by exercising prerogatives that belong only to God (for example, Mark 2:1–12). In John 6 He makes claims of being the manna from heaven (6:32–33), of being able to give eternal life to all who believe in Him (6:40), of being the one who will raise up from the dead those who trust in Him (6:44), of speaking in the place of God the Father (6:45), of being the only one who has seen the Father (6:46), etc.

The Apostle Paul makes it clear in Colossians that Christ:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together…. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col. 1:15–20, NIV).

Without a divine-human Savior, the debt of sin could not have been paid. When Charles Wesley considered his own conversion, he penned those mighty words, “Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”

The Works of Jesus Christ

By the works of the Savior we are thinking of His teaching, His atoning work, His so-called “descent into hell,” His resurrection, and His ascension. Only brief, summary statements can be made on each of these areas in this article.

The Teaching of the Lord Jesus

“Never man spake like this man!” (John 7:46 KJV), remarked the guards who had been sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees to arrest Jesus. Christ was described as one who “taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law” (Mark 1:22). The fine theological writer Dorothy Sayers points out that the Lord Jesus never bored a soul in thirty-three years. She elaborates:

The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore — on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium…. He was emphatically not a dull man in His human lifetime, and if He was God, there can be nothing dull about God either. But He had a “daily beauty in His life that made us ugly,” and officialdom felt that the established order of things would be more secure without Him. So they did away with God in the name of peace and quietness. [20]

Much can be learned about teaching from observing the Lord Jesus, Truth Incarnate, as He preached the good news of the kingdom of God. I have a good friend in Canada who says, “Surely it must be a sin to bore God’s people with God’s Word!” He is right. Some of us who teach and preach have much to learn (or unlearn) in order to be effective in communicating the truths of God.

Two particular teaching methods of Jesus stand out to me. The first is the often-studied parabolic method which Jesus did not create but generously employed in His public preaching. [21] Contrary to popular opinion, a parable does not necessarily have only one point to make (the story of the prodigal son not only teaches about his waywardness, but also about the father’s love, and especially about the older brother’s hardheartedness, see Luke 15:11–32). We must, however, be careful lest we try to make every detail of a parable appear to have deep spiritual meaning (the error of the early church father Origen and his allegorizing descendents).

The other teaching method of Jesus which deserves serious study is what I call His interrogatory method. By this we mean His use of questions for a variety of purposes. This is a rich area, and I’m not going to do your work for you here. [22] Let me recommend that you take an older Bible, one that you don’t mind marking up, and read through one of the four gospels, underlining each question of the Lord Jesus. Try to figure out what His purpose was in asking that particular question. You’ll be surprised what you discover!

The Atoning Work of the Lord Jesus

Because we will consider this subject much more in-depth in our article on the doctrine of salvation, let me only make a brief few comments on this glorious subject here. The “atonement” should be defined as the way in which God dealt with the problem of sin through Jesus Christ on the cross. The idea of substitution (that Jesus Christ took my place on that cross, bearing the judgment of God against sin) is clearly taught in such passages as Matthew 20:28; 2 Corinthians 5:21; and 1 Peter 3:18. Christ has accomplished redemption for us, as Peter puts it, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Pet. 1:18–19).

The Lord Jesus became the ransom for sin (Matt. 20:28; 2 Pet. 2:1; Rev. 5:9), indicating that our salvation was costly. His sacrifice involved the removal of the debt of sin, as Paul teaches in Ephesians 1:7. There is then the blessing of release from the bondage of sin, as we learn in Romans 6. Paul asks, how can we who have “died to sin…live in it any longer?” (Rom. 6:2). Jesus Christ turned away the righteous wrath of God which we deserved. The term for this aspect of His saving work is propitiation. 1 John 2:2 teaches that “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins” and Romans 3:25 states that “God presented [Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

There are many other aspects to the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ which could be studied. Whenever people are tempted to think that either man is too good to be judged by God or that God is too loving to act in judgment,

we need to remind them of what Oswald Chambers once said in his classic work, My Utmost for His Highest:

Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours. Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God. [23]

Jesus’ “Descent into Hell”

There are some today who believe that Jesus Christ, between His death and His physical resurrection, descended in His spirit to the place of the departed dead. Some suggest that He went to hell to proclaim His victory over demonic forces. Others think that such a descent might indicate that there will be opportunities after death for some to hear and believe the gospel. Theologian Donald Bloesch declares that “we can affirm salvation on the other side of the grave…[and that] this so-called realm of the dead…is not outside the compass of the Gospel, since our Lord preached to the spirits who were in prison.” [24] The primary texts to be considered here are 1 Peter 3:18–20 (regarding Jesus “preaching to the spirits who were in prison”), Acts 2:27 (the prophesy that the Father would not abandon His Holy One in hell), Romans 10:6–7, and Ephesians 4:8–9.

I would suggest that Jesus Himself declared that He would immediately go to His Father after His death, taking the repentant thief on the neighboring cross with him (“today you will be with me in paradise,” Luke 23:43; cf. verse 46). His words, rather than elaborate theological speculations, should determine what view the believer holds.

There are some who suggest that Jesus needed to go to hell in order to complete the work of salvation. I believe He bore our hell on the cross, and that John 19:30’s declaration (“It is finished”) indicates the completion of His atoning work.

Of one truth we may be certain: the Bible does not hold out any hope of salvation after death. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” Luke 16 is quite emphatic that there is no possibility of escape from hell once one has gone there. [25]

My suggestion is that 1 Peter 3 is saying that the spirit of Christ preached through Noah to the people of Noah’s day. The “preaching to the spirits in prison” is not something that happened between the death and resurrection of Jesus, but something that happened during the time of Noah to those who are now (at the time of Peter’s writing) “spirits in prison.”

By the way, I have no problem reciting the Apostles’ Creed (including the sentence, “He descended into hell”), for there is historical reason to believe that that phrase meant that Jesus bore God’s wrath on the cross, rather than a literal descent to the place of the departed dead. [26]

The Resurrection of Christ

One writer has said that “the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history.” Jesus Himself predicted His own resurrection in John 10. “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father” (John 10:18). He claims to have the power to raise up all who believe in Him (John 6:39–40, 44, 54). He challenged the Jewish leaders with the words: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19). Peter appears to attribute the resurrection of Christ to the Father, for he says to those at Pentecost, “God has raised this Jesus to life” (Acts 2:32; see also verse 24; 3:15; 5:30; etc.). The truth is both: both Father and Son (and Spirit, Rom. 1:4) were active in the raising of Jesus from the dead.

Two particular theories have been offered to challenge the reality of the bodily resurrection of Christ. The first, advocated by Hugh Schonfield, is called the “Passover Plot.” It suggests that Jesus engineered many events in His life, [27] including His own crucifixion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus only fainted. He revived in the tomb and subsequently showed Himself alive to His disciples, who gullibly believed that He had conquered death and the grave.

But the details of the Passover Plot defy logic. [28] To suggest that Jesus merely fainted on the cross (this view is sometimes also referred to as the “Swoon Theory”) contradicts what we know of the finely-tuned method of execution called crucifixion (invented by the Phoenicians and perfected by the Romans). The New Testament clearly declares that experts in crucifixion were requested by the Jewish leaders to break the legs of Jesus and the two being crucified with Him because of the approaching Sabbath. Jesus’ legs were not broken because He was already dead. (John 19:31–33). In fact, “one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:34). This coagulation or separation of those two fluids is strong forensic evidence of death.

The second theory proposed to explain away the resurrection of Christ is that His body was stolen from the tomb. Some have suggested that the Jewish leaders removed it so that Jesus’ followers would not have a chance to steal it. But the obvious question is why would the enemies of Christ not produce the body they took when the early Christians began proclaiming the bodily resurrection of Jesus in the very city in which He was executed? The answer is, of course, they couldn’t! They didn’t have the body.

Others have suggested that the disciples of Jesus stole His body in order to make it appear that their Lord had conquered death. But the disciples could not have stolen the body even if they had wanted to, for the tomb was guarded (Matt. 27:62–66). Furthermore, the disciples would not have stolen the body even if they could have, for they did not believe Jesus when He repeatedly predicted His rising from the dead. Instead of finding the disciples anticipating the resurrection of their Lord, we see them cowering in the upper room together, fearing their own crucifixions (note John 20:19’s words: “with the doors locked for fear of the Jews”).

Although much more could be said in support of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, these few points will have to suffice. [29] We Evangelicals have to be careful that we do not rely too much on our own subjective experience with the risen Christ when we are asked for reasons why the unbeliever should acknowledge that the Savior rose from the dead. [30]

The Ascension of the Lord

After a forty-day period of showing Himself alive to His disciples, the Lord Jesus was taken up to heaven. Acts 1 describes the event known as His ascension. Although few preach on this key, concluding episode in the Savior’s life on earth, the ascension teaches us at least three truths. First, it teaches us that the atoning work of the Lord Jesus was completely accepted by the Father. He who had become man was received back into heaven. The One who “became obedient to death — even death on a cross!,” God has “exalted him to the highest place and [given] him the name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:8–9).

Second, the ascension begins Christ’s high priestly ministry of intercession for His people. The writer to the Hebrews declares:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:14–16).

We now have a mediator in heaven for us, One who continues to be fully human. Paul writes to Timothy: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Third, the ascension of the Lord Jesus is the guarantee that He will one day return for His people. In one of Scripture’s more humorous texts, we have an interesting interchange between angels and Jesus’ disciples. Acts 1 describes how Jesus was “taken up before their very eyes” (Acts1:9). As the disciples are “looking intently up into the sky as he was going…suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them” (Acts1:10). These were obviously angels which are described as spiritual spectators in 1 Peter 1:12. “Men of Galilee,” they say, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts1:11). Do you see the humor? The disciples are rebuked for standing and gawking by those who by nature gawk at what we humans enjoy! The point, however, is that Jesus, “this same Jesus,” will return from heaven to take His people to heaven (see further John 14:1–3). The ascension of the Lord Jesus guarantees His physical return to gather up His people for glory. Are you ready, believer?

In our next article, we will examine some of what the Scriptures say about the character of God who is perfectly revealed in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. What are some evidences for the existence of God? Is there anything that God cannot do? What is idolatry — and why is it such a serious sin? What does God want from us in this life?

Notes

1. We Saw in this series’ first article (“Developing a Distaste for Doctrine,” The Emmaus Journal 7 [Winter 1998]: 241-253) that various reasons are given by Christians for not delving into “theology” and doctrinal issues. In our second article (“Learning to Listen: The Absolute Need for Absolute Authority,” The Emmaus Journal 8 [Summer 1999]: 79-89) we surveyed the four sources for doctrine (ecclesiastical authority, personal experience, reason, and supernatural revelation) which people employ for discovering their beliefs, concluding that Christians are to be “people of the Book,” the word of God. In this third article, we will briefly examine what the Bible has to say about the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Larry Dixon is a graduate of Emmaus Bible College and is Professor of Church History and Theology at Columbia Biblical Seminary and School of Missions in Columbia, South Carolina. He attends Woodland Hills Community Church in Columbia. This is chapter three in a series of articles entitled Back to the Basics: A. Fairly Serious Survey of the Fundamentals of the Faith.
3. R. Laird Harris, “The Jesus Seminar—They Found What They Were Looking For,” The Biblical Bulletin 88 (Fall 1995).
4. Interview in the Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1994.
5. Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Jesus Seminar’s Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus,” Christian Century (Jan. 3–10, 1996): 17.
6. Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Jesus Seminar’s Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus,” 22.
7. Richard Hays, “The Corrected Jesus,” First Things (May 1994). Cited in Luke Timothy Johnson’s “The Jesus Seminar’s Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus,” 22.
8. For a helpful discussion of references to Jesus in both Jewish and pagan material, see F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974).
9. For example, Jesus is referred to as Jesus “Ben Panthera,” a mockery of the early Christians’ belief in the virgin (parthenos) birth of Christ. (“Panther” was a common name of Roman soldiers, see Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, 57–58.)
10. Some of this material gives insight into the practices of the early Christians and the pressure they were under to deny their faith in Christ.
11. John Warwick Montgomery’s History and Christianity (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1964) as well as F.F. Bruce’s The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) both do a fine job here.
12. For an in-depth discussion of what David MacLeod rightly calls “The Virginal Conception of Our Lord in Matthew 1:18–25, ” see his article by that title in The Emmaus Journal 8 (Summer 1999): 3-42.
13. Note Matthew 16:23 and John 6:15.
14. For a vigorous challenge to Richard De Haan’s opinion on this issue by David Boyd Long, see Long’s Could God Incarnate Sin? (Toronto: Everyday Publications, 1979).
15. G. Walter Hansen writes: “I am spellbound by the intensity of Jesus’ emotions: not a twinge of pity, but heartbroken compassion; not a passing irritation, but terrifying anger; not a silent tear, but groans of anguish; not a weak smile, but ecstatic celebration. Jesus’ emotions are like a mountain river cascading with clear water. My emotions are more like a muddy foam or a feeble trickle.” G. Walter Hansen, “The Emotions of Jesus, Christianity Today (Feb. 3, 1997): 46.
16. Elton Trueblood, The Humor of Christ (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
17. Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 86–87.
18. Sherwood Eliot Wirt’s article, “The Heresy of the Serious” Christianity Today (April 8, 1991): 43-44, is helpful in this neglected area of study.
19. George MacDonald, Getting to Know Jesus, selected and edited by Warren A. Hutchinson (New York: Balantine, 1980).
20. Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1974 reprint), 6–7.
21. Sometimes the parable of Jesus made the exact opposite point than did contemporary Jewish parables which existed in Jesus’ day (for example, note Luke 16:19–31 and the Jewish fable of Tantalus in Alfred Edersheim’s, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [MacDonald Publishing Company, n.d.], 455).
22. One fascinating aspect of His questioning method concerns the ability in the Greek language to ask a question which expects or hopes for a “no” answer. The negative μή (mē) is used when such a question is being asked. That construction is used often in the gospel of John, and is well worth studying (see John 3:4; 4:29; 6:67; 8:53; 9:27 [this one is hilarious!]).
23. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1935), 325.
24. Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, Vol. 2: “Life, Ministry, and Hope” (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), 227 and 186. For an in-depth refutation of the possibility of post-mortem (after-death) conversion, see my The Other Side of the Good News (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1992), chapter 4: “The Other Side: Will It Have Any Redeemable Occupants?”
25. Please see our discussion on Luke 16 in The Other Side of the Good News, chapter 5: “The Other Side According to Jesus.”
26. For further discussion, please see Wayne Grudem’s The First Epistle of Peter, rev. ed., TNCT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988). For an opposing view, see David P. Scaer’s “He Did Descend into Hell: In Defense of the Apostles’ Creed,” in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 35 (March 1992): 91-99.
27. Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York: Bantam, 1967). We might ask Schonfield how a person could engineer where he was to be born.
28. The distinguished German skeptic Strauss once said about this view (revived by Schonfield): “It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept around weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening, and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that he was conqueror of death and the grave, the Prince of Life: an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which he had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac [mournful] voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.” (quoted in Dale and Elaine Rhoton Can We Know? An Examination into the Claims of Christianity [London: Morrison and Gibb, Ltd., 1965], 37).
29. For a more thorough discussion on the resurrection see David J. MacLeod, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Myth, Hoax, or History?” The Emmaus Journal 7 (Winter 1998): 157-199.
30. We are fond of singing, “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.” That is important evidence. However the early Christians in Acts did not limit their defense of Christianity to their own experiences. The liberal theologian David Edwards says that he doubts the historicity of the resurrection of Christ, declaring that what is important to him is that “He lives within my heart”! (John R.W. Stott and David L. Edwards, Evangelical Essentials [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988], 196).