Study 3 Objective:
To discuss who Jesus Christ is and why he is central to the faith of the believer
Back to Bible Study 3:
Christianity is about Jesus Christ
“At its heart, Christianity is not a beautifully complex philosophical system like Buddhism, a towering code of morals like Islam, or a delicate set of rituals as some churches have presented it. The crucial starting point for any discussion about this topic is the fact that ‘Christianity’ – as the word suggests – is all about a person, Jesus Christ” (Dickson 1999:11). Christianity, although initially regarded as a Jewish sect, was different from Judaism. The Jews had faith in God, but most did not accept Jesus as the Christ. Another group alluded to in the New Testament, the gentile “God Fearers”, of whom Cornelius was one (Acts 10:2), also had faith in God, but, again, not all accepted Jesus as the Messiah. “The person of Jesus Christ is of central importance to Christian theology. Whereas ‘theology’ could be defined as ‘talk about God’ in general, ‘Christian theology” accords a central role to Jesus Christ” (McGrath 1997:322). “Christianity is not a set of self-contained and free-standing ideas; it represents a sustained response to the questions raised by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christianity is an historical religion, which came into being in response to a specific set of events, which centre upon Jesus Christ..” (ibid). There is no Christianity without Jesus Christ. Who was this Jesus? What was so special about him that Satan wanted to destroy him and suppress the story of His birth? (Revelation 12: 4-5; Matthew 2:1-18)? |
What was it about Him that made His disciples so bold that they were accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6)?
Reflection: How would you distinguish Christianity from other faiths? God comes to us through Christ
The last study ended by stressing that we can know God only through Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:27), who is the true reflection of God’s inner being (Hebrews 1:3). It is through Jesus that we can know what God is like because Jesus alone is the revealed image of the Father (Colossians 1:15). The Gospels explain that God entered the human condition through the person of Jesus Christ. The apostle John wrote that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Word is identified as Jesus, who “became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Thus Jesus, the Word, is the second person of the Godhead, in whom “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, Son of Man and Son of God. “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell” (Colossians 1:19), “and of His fullness we have all received” (John 1:16). “Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no |