Category Archives: Jesus The Messiah

Jesus, called Christ, the Messiah

Jesus – Seen or Perceived? Which are You?

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Jesus to Thomas: Stop doubting and believe! (John 20.27)

Stop doubting and believe. (John 20.27)

A Resurrection Day Meditation

After Jesus rose from the dead, he didn’t appear to everyone. Who did he appear to? His apostles and some select disciples. I say “select” because I’m confident Jesus had more than the 500 + disciples that are mentioned in 1 Cor 15.6 that the apostle reports Jesus appeared to after his resurrection.

The obvious question, at least in my mind is, why didn’t Jesus appear to more people? If the resurrection is the most convincing proof of the Christian message – that Yeshua – Jesus of Nazareth – is the promised messiah, the Son of God and the promised divine “Son of Man” to whom all authority is given, (Dan 7.13-14) why didn’t he make it plain to everyone by appearing to more people? Continue Reading

Yes Dennis, Yeshua is God

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Torah Scroll - Deuteronomy 18:15

This is the first time I’ve written an article like this: with a specific person in mind to address a specific question. But I feel a nudging at my heart that I’m thinking is the prompting of the Holy Spirit to write this. Another first:  Yeshua is the Jewish way to say Jesus, and when I’m not quoting someone, since this is directed to a Jewish audience, I’ll be using Yeshua.

My wife, a loyal listener to Jack Hibbs, wanted me to listen to a particular message: “Ask a Jew, Ask a Gentile with Dennis Prager and Jack Hibbs.”[1] I have great respect for both of these men. And I’m thankful for all the work Dennis has done with PragerU to “influence”, as he says, particularly young people toward a Judeo-Christian worldview.

During the interview Dennis was asked, “Dennis does, to my knowledge, does not believe that Jesus, fits the prophetic word from the Old Testament that Jesus is not who that Old Testament is painting as the messiah. My question to both of you, one is to Dennis – different question, same topic, is: Dennis why do you not believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of those prophecies that were painted?”

Dennis’ response:

“This may come to a surprise to you. The dividing line between Judaism and Christianity theologically is not with regard to whether Jesus was the messiah. It’s whether Jesus was God.”
…

“The issue is the Trinity and Jesus being regarded as God or the son of God. That was the dividing line.”

In this he has nailed it precisely on the head, for this is what the New Testament records as the essence of the issue for the Jews of Yeshua’s day.  Why did the first century Jews have Yeshua killed? Scripture is clear: Continue Reading

Rejoicing in the Revelation of the King

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Arthur pulls the sword from the stone - Stained Glass

Arthur pulls the sword from the stone as the people recognize the new King

A Christmas Meditation

There’s a recurring theme – both in scripture and in literature where the king, for various reasons, winds up incognito among the people. But even then the king cannot long be hidden. But being incognito for a time is of course a great setup for a dramatic revelation of the king to the people – (though sometimes the revelation is so subtle it goes over the head of the people as in John 6.29-30). But often the revelation is made when the king does something that only a king can, thus revealing his true identity. This is doubly true for the King of Creation – who did many things only the Creator and thus only the rightful king  could do.

But since the king came incognito and is hard for some to see, many religions claim a false king. And atheists claim there is no king. But Christianity makes a unique claim. It claims the Creator, the King entered his creation, though for a time he was incognito.  Not all religions claim that the God who created every created thing himself entered into that creation and interacted with it. Such a creator, the true King of all creation cannot be mistaken for those seeking him.

So for this Christmas meditation we’re going to meditate on how difficult or easy it would be to identify the king, the creator, were he to enter into his creation. For those really interested, the true king is not hard to identify.  Continue Reading

The Gilgamesh Epic – A problem for the flood?

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Gilgamesh cube vessel

Correct proportions of the vessel in the “Gilgamesh Epic – a cube, not a ship

The Gilgamesh Epic is a series of Sumerian poems that tell heroic stories about the Sumerian god Gilgamesh. Included in the poems is a story of a global flood. That story is named after the people in Mesopotamia who occupied the land after the Sumerians – the Babylonians. The stories are written in clay tablets in cuneiform – one of the oldest, if not the oldest, form of writing known. Thus the Epic of Gilgamesh has come to be known as the Babylonian flood epic, and is one of the oldest written stories known.

Secularists who (true to form) deny the existence of the supernatural of course do not believe the Babylonian flood epic either. But they use it as a means to try to disprove the Biblical flood epic since that is clearly a symbol of divine judgment. Using the story of Pandora as an example, their logic goes something like this:

The story of Pandora and the closed box of evil that she opens which releases all manner of evil upon the world is myth, not to be believed.

The story of Eve in the garden of Eden who takes a bite of the forbidden fruit, which releases all manner of sin and evil upon the world is borrowed from the story of Pandora, and thus is also a myth, not to be believed.

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Who Can See the Resurrection? (A meditation)

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The risen Messiah is revealed to Mary Magdalene

Jesus reveals himself to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. “The Bible”, Ep 10 “Courage”

A resurrection day meditation 

In the palm Sunday service this past Sunday, the pastor at my church mentioned that “the great crowd” (John 12.12) that had come out to see Jesus was huge. He mentioned it was likely multiple tens of thousand of people, something I hadn’t considered before. That’s a staggering number. So like a good Berean (Acts 17.11), I got out my Bible history to check.

Sure enough, in “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus” in an excursus on the number of visitors to Jerusalem during the Passover, Bible historian Jeremias summarizes: Continue Reading

The Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn: A Christmas Meditation

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Jupiter (the brighter object) and Saturn, December 8, 2020 – getting closer to their closest approach on December 21, 2020 – The Darkside Observatory

Christmas is a time of intersections. Think back to the first Christmas. God intersected with man in the person of Christ. Angels intersected with shepherds. Wisemen intersected with the human appointed King of Judah, as well as the divinely appointed King of kings. And if I’m right about the star of Bethlehem (see my meditation on it last year here) God announced the work he was about to do with a number of intersections concerning the star of Bethlehem. One of those intersections was the triple conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn, which I argued was understood by the wise men as a King (as in God’s king) was coming to Judah. That happened about the time that Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, was born.

Interestingly enough, there are some striking parallels between the intersections then, and intersections today, which though not perfect, make for some interesting thoughts to consider and meditate on – which of course is the purpose of a meditation. Let’s start with the king who was ruling at the time of the first advent: Herod, known as the Great, King of Judea. Continue Reading

Knowledge of the Holy One Part 5: The Trinity

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“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Prov 9:10

 

Who is the Holy One?

Having laid down the foundation, we can now answer the question, who is the Holy One? Answering the questions will of course also allow us to answer who the Holy One is not.

In the previous articles the ground work was laid for stating explicitly what scripture presents implicitly. We see God revealed in a number of ways in scripture. The revelations we are given are of a holy, transcendent God who exists as: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Yet there is one God. Not three Gods, one God. Three persons sharing one divine essence with all its qualities: omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, etc. Not one God switching between three roles (modalist Unitarianism), rather we see God revealed as one God eternally existing as three distinct persons. This is the Holy One presented in scripture. From the time he first refers to himself, God does so using plural pronouns:

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,”
Gen 1.26

Continue Reading

Knowledge of the Holy One Part 4: The Holy Spirit

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The Filling of the Indwelling Spirit


In scripture we have a very clear picture of Jesus, the Son of God as we saw in part 1. Since he is the only means of salvation (Acts 4.12) that is to be expected. We also have a very clear picture of God the Father. The sacrificing love of God the Father is also clear in scripture, from the love that covered the sin of Adam and Eve and promised a savior (Gen 3.21, 3.15), to his gift of salvation offered to the world (John 3.16) as we saw in the previous article. And now we come to the third person of the holy Trinity: God the Holy Spirit. Though he is as active in all aspects of salvation and all that God does, as are the first and second person, for reasons that will soon become apparent, he is not seen in revelations as often as the first and second person of the Trinity. Why is that? We’ll answer that in the course of answering our main question:

Who is God the Holy Spirit?

In scripture, we often see the father revealed in a couple of common ways: as the “Ancient of Days” (Dan 7.9), and perhaps even more often only as the glory of God, the dwelling presence of God known in Jewish circles as the Shekinah glory of God. (Ex 29.43, 33.22; Rev 15.8, 21.23). Continue Reading

Knowledge of the Holy One Part 2: Jesus – The Holy One Denied

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Fun house mirrors are amusing for a short time. Like caricatures they emphasize some features while diminishing others – or making them completely disappear. But the reason they’re enjoyable is because you know what the true image looks like, and you’re only seeing the distortion for a short time for amusement. And everyone looking at the distortion knows it’s a distortion. That’s why you stand before the distorting mirrors in the first place – to be amused by how the mirror will distort your features.

 But how would you feel if all that people knew about you was the distorted image? What if they never saw the real you, the undistorted you? What if all your life you had to deal with people thinking that you were in fact the distortion they saw?

Contents

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Knowledge of the Holy One Part 1: Jesus – the Holy One Revealed

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“Who do you say I am?”

This is one of the most well-known questions Jesus asked his disciples. Perhaps because it is arguably the most significant. Significant not just for his disciples, but for everyone – because at some point everyone must answer that question.

Amid the cacophony of false idols, false religions, false gods, false ideas, hearsay and slander against Jesus everyone must answer the question Jesus puts to them: “Who do you say I am?” (Matt 16.15)  It was no different for the disciples or the people of Jesus’ day. Consider the context in which Jesus asks his disciples the question:  Having just fed more than 4,000 people, Jesus was approached by the unbelieving and treacherous Pharisees and Sadducees who came “and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.” (Matt 16.1) So right off the bat there’s a clear indication that they would not have believed any sign he gave them because he had just performed a miraculous sign. No, they weren’t looking for reasons to believe. They were looking for reasons to justify unbelief, and put him on trial so they could sentence him to death. Continue Reading