Archive for the ‘Jesus’ tag
Who is Jesus and What Makes Him Different
Note: This article is loosly based on Josh McDowell’s book “More Than a Carpenter.” I highly recommend this short book if you want powerful evidence supporting what Jesus claims in the New Testament.
He claimed to be God
Did Buddha, Muhammad, or Confucius claim to be God? No.
Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Mark 14:61-62
When asked if Jesus ever existed, most will say yes but qualify the answer with something like, “I believe he was just a great moral teacher.” But why were the Jews (not the Romans, by-the-way) so determined to kill him? The Jews, assisted by the Romans, did eventually kill Him by crucifixion. So, why would the Jews want to kill a good moral teacher? It’s because of his claims of deity! Consider these additional verses:
Did Jesus go to Hell Between his Death and Resurrection?
On this website, under the “My World View” link, I use the Apostles’ Creed as a succinct statement of what I believe. I was recently asked about the statement “He descended into Hell.” Did Jesus really descend into Hell? All I could say was, “I think so, but I’ve never studied this in depth; I’ll have to get back with you with a more informed response.” The following essay captures what I’ve learned after some recent study.
The phrase “He descended into Hell” does not occur in the Bible, however, it is commonly found in the Apostles’ Creed. The Apostles’ Creed was defined over a long period of time from about A.D 200 – 750. The phase in question has been added and dropped a few times over the years and is now found in most, if not all, versions of the Creed. For example, it can be found in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
The phrase remains somewhat controversial based on what I’ve read. For example, there are many websites containing very detailed studies of this topic that conclude Jesus did indeed descend into Hell after he died. On the other hand, I have a book titled “Systematic Theology” by Wayne Grudem that has a Chapter 27, Section C.2.f “Did Christ Descend Into Hell? that concludes “Concerning the doctrinal question of whether Christ did descend into hell after he died, the answer from several passages of Scripture seems clearly to be no.”
With that said, here are the notes I’ve captured on the topic and my conclusion.