day no. 17,430: in the cave or out of it?

"While Christians and Jews share the Old Testament, we come down here to a foundational principle of division. Jesus either rose from the dead or He did not. The Old Testament either prophesied that He would, or it didn’t. If He did not rise, then as the apostle Paul noted, we Christians are the most pitiable creatures ever (1 Cor. 15:19). If He did rise from the dead, then He is the promised Messiah that the entire Old Testament was pointing toward. That would make the Jews the most to be pitied." — Douglas Wilson, By the Rivers of an Everlasting Babylon

Judeo-Christian is an oxymoron. They cannot coexist. Both cannot be true Israel. 

Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

There is only one God.

Deuteronomy 6:5 

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

You cannot have another god because there could not be anything left for him. If you love the one, true God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you would have no heart, soul, mind, or strength to give to another and no god would suffer such indignity. 

"And whether Jesus rose from the dead is one of those binary things. He either did or He didn’t. There is no halfway. If He didn’t, then what honest man would want to be one of those deluded Christians? If He did rise, then every sensible person would want everyone else to know and acknowledge it. But the one thing we cannot do with whether He remained in the grave or came out of it is . . . split the difference. Splitting the difference is not a rational option. There is no difference that can be split." — Douglas Wilson, By the Rivers of an Everlasting Babylon

If Jesus is God, worship Him, if not, then don't. If Judaism was the packaging that the Messiah came in, so be it, but no one treats the packaging like they do the product it contained. You might keep a package to read some instructions about the product, but you don't keep the zip ties that held the product in place or the mold in which the product rested in order to be displayed. Some want to make the whole thing a collectible by keeping the product in its original packaging by insisting that no one open it. They put it on a shelf and stare at it. They may offer it some form of worship and adoration and even show it off to their friends or others who appreciate such things, but they do not appreciate the product for what it is. They do not respect its Maker by making His work into an idol kept behind a clear sheet of plastic. 

1 Kings 18:21

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." And the people answered him not a word.

Do not split the difference. If Christ is risen, do not worship the cave He walked out of. You can and should revisit it in contemplating His achievement in overcoming it, but you cannot and must not worship a buried-Christ, you must bow before the risen Christ. Judeo-Christian is wanting to have the cave and beat it too. Either Jesus has grown out of Judaism or Judaism put down Jesus. Either He overcame the grave or the Jews sent Him forever to one.

Jesus is either still in His grave clothes somewhere or He is sitting at the right hand of God the Father and from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

day no. 17,416: eastern mystery and western logic

"The Three Kings came to Bethlehem bringing gold and frankincense and myrrh. If they had only brought Truth and Purity and Love there would have been no Christian art and no Christian Civilization... There were three things prefigured and promised by the gifts in the cave in Bethlehem concerning the Child who received them; that He would be crowned like a King; that He should be worshipped like a God; and that He should die like a man. And these things would sound like Eastern flattery, were it not for the third." — G.K. Chesterton (speaking of the three gifts the wise men presented)

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Christianity is more than forms and philosophy. The Word was with God and the Word was God. Christianity is more than the physical and pragmatics. It is truth, goodness, and beauty. It is the idea of those things and the manifestation of those things. It is not just invisible in the air, it is visible on the ground. It is both/and.

Jesus is a prophet, a priest, and a king, but He is also the sacrifice. He is the prophet who died for the truth, the priest who sacrificed Himself, and the King who was subjected Himself to His subjects.

Jesus is eastern mystery and western logic. He is the secret things of God and the things of God revealed.

day no. 17,410: the juxtaposition of the incarnation

"We can never reach the end even of our own ideas about the child who was a father and the mother who was a child." — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

The unapproachable God made Himself assailable. The One whose throne room could not be entered by mortal men became so mortal He could be nailed to a tree. The eternal Son became an earthbound babe. The Word of God became called Mary, "Mom." The incarnation is the ultimate juxtaposition. Christ is the God who became a creature. Mary held the Pioneer and Perfecter of her faith in her hands.

day no. 16,982: and all the king's men

Acts 13:22-23

And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave their testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. Of this man's seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus.

King David was a man after God’s own heart, but Jesus Christ was God with the heart of a man.

Revelation 5:9-10

Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

The King of kings became a man in order to make men into kings.

day no. 16,959: along came the Rock

And the face of the tyrant is darkened,
His spirit is torn,
For a new King is throned of a nation—

A child is born.

— G.K. Chesterton, The Nativity

Herod hated the idea of another king. His cowardice feared the foretold Christ and his countenance fell at the tales of His fruition. So, he had the sons of Bethlehem slain. He cast a wide net in order to catch the Christ and killed more kids than he needed to in order to make sure he could accommodate the mystical math of the prophets. 

Yet, for all of Herod’s froth and bubble, the King escaped his impotent rage and was born. He reigned in His mother's womb before He reigned in the manger. He reigned in the caravan as a kid before He reigned in Cana as the barkeep. He took on the tent of human flesh in order to camp among us. He set up shop and got to work. And the temper tantrums of a tinpot tyrant could not stop the Son of God as He went forth to war.

Herod was deposed and his throne was exposed. He was sitting on sand when along came the Rock.

day no. 16,947: a reference guide

"There was a man who dwelt in the east centuries ago, and now I cannot look at a sheep or a sparrow, a lily or a sunset, a vineyard or a mountain, without thinking of Him.” — G.K. Chesterton

The world is derivative. The Word is substantive. It came first.

Everything that is, at one time wasn't. Nothing that is remains on its own. 

John 1:1-3

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Everything has a reference point and that reference point became flesh and dwelt among us.

John 1:14

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

God is glorious and generous. As such, we discover glories everywhere we go, but those glories are signs and symbols of the greater glory who is their Author.

Ephesians 4:4-6

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

God is above all and through all, and in Chris,t He is in every Christian. The Christian can see the glory all around him because he has the Spirit within him and he cannot see anything without seeing the Glory behind it

day no. 16,334: the Son of Man and the sins of man

"(Jesus) assumed the flesh of unfallen man: it is not for nothing that Paul tells us that he came, not in sinful flesh, but in 'the likeness of sinful flesh' (Rom. 8:3). But this does not mean that the flesh he assumed was not under a curse: it means that the curse under which his flesh rested was not the curse of Adam’s first sin but the curse of the sins of his people: 'him who knew no sin, he made sin in our behalf'; he who was not, even as man, under a curse, 'became a curse for us.' He was accursed, not because he became man, but because he bore the sins of his people; he suffered and died not because of the flesh he took but because of the sins he took. He was, no doubt, born of a woman, born under the law (Gal. 4:4), in one concrete act; he issued from the Virgin’s womb already our sin-bearer. But he was not sin-bearer because made of a woman; he was made of a woman that he might become sin-bearer." -- B.B. Warfield, The Emotional Life of Our Lord

There is nothing inherently sinful about material. If there were, Christ would have committed a sin in becoming flesh. God made stuff. He didn't have to, but He wanted to. In the beginning, through the Word and by His Spirit, He made everything ex nihilo. Everything is made out of nothing plus the Word of God. If God's Word were to be removed, what you'd be left with is nothing. Nothing has existence on its own other than God. He is the only immortal. He alone is the I Am. Nothing exists on its own save Him.

Jesus was not under a curse because He was a man, He was under a curse because as the Son of Man, He took on Himself the sins of man. Jesus was not guilty of sin because He was human, but because He took onto Himself the sins of humanity. Christ was born under the law, but placed Himself under its curse. He kept the Law and fulfilled it for our righteousness and took on its curse and satisfied it for our justification. Jesus was not subject to death by virtue of being a man, but by virtue of being a substitute for mankind.

day no. 16,327: mercy that does not hate sin is vice, not virtue

"True mercy is no less the product of anger than of pity: that what differentiates the divine virtue of mercy from 'the vice of insensibility' which is called 'tolerance,' is just the under-lying presence of indignation. Thus — so the reasoning runs, — 'the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful,' and it was therefore precisely the anger of Christ which proved that the unbounded compassion he manifested to sinners 'was really mercy and not mere tolerance.'" -- B.B. Warfield, The Emotional Life of Our Lord

Mercy is not the tolerance of evil. Where evil is tolerated, mercy is unnecessary. If sin is not wicked, there is nothing to overlook.  If evil is not counted against us, it is nothing to say that you do not count it against someone else. If sin is nothing to be angry about it, it is not a virtue to keep your calm about it. But if sin is wicked, then it would be wicked to overlook it. If sins count, it would be wicked to discount it. If sins are hateful, it would be wrong not to hate them. 

Mercy of the kind that merely tolerates sin, then, is a vice, not a virtue. It lacks, as Warfield says, sense. If it doesn't hate the sin it seeks to cover, it just another sin. If it doesn't despise the evil it dies for, it defies its own ends. Why should anyone have to die? But if someone must die, it becomes virtuous to substitute yourself in order to spare the one on death row.

All that to say, if you do not hate sin, you cannot be merciful. You can be tolerant. You can be empathetic. You can be all kinds of things, but merciful may not be named among them. You must hate sin if you want to be merciful. 

God is merciful because He hates sin. Jesus showed great mercy in despising the cross and its shame on His way to and through it (Heb. 12:2). Jesus does not tolerate sins, He dies for them. He does not paint over dirt, He bulldozes the building and rebuilds brand spanking new. If the old could be improved, nothing new would be needed. If sinners could be sainted by twelve step programs, the Son of God died for nothing. If time could heal all wounds, Jesus was unnecessary. But if sin is serious, someone has to die. And if someone has to die, it is merciful to be the one who does the dying in the condemned person's place.

John 15:13

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

day no. 16,326: in flaming wrath against the foe

"The spectacle of the distress of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus because it brought poignantly home to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its 'violent tyranny' as Calvin (on verse 38) phrases it. In Mary’s grief, he 'contemplates' — still to adopt Calvin’s words (on verse 33), — 'the general misery of the whole human race' and burns with rage against the oppressor of men. Inextinguishable fury seizes upon him; his whole being is discomposed and perturbed; and his heart, if not his lips, cries out, —

'For the innumerable dead

Is my soul disquieted.'

It is death that is the object of his wrath, and behind death him who has the power of death, and whom he has come into the world to destroy. Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental. His soul is held by rage: and he advances to the tomb, in Calvin’s words again, 'as a champion who prepares for conflict.' The raising of Lazarus thus becomes, not an isolated marvel, but — as indeed it is presented throughout the whole narrative (compare especially, verses 24-26) — a decisive instance and open symbol of Jesus’ conquest of death and hell. What John does for us in this particular statement is to uncover to us the heart of Jesus, as he wins for us our salvation. Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe, Jesus smites on our behalf. He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us; he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption." -- B.B. Warfield, The Emotional Life of Our Lord

Jesus is not a dispassionate deliverer. He doesn't deliver merely because it's the right thing to do or because His dad said so. His heart is in it. He wants to rise up and lift up those crushed by the tyranny of sin, Satan, and death. He longed to smash the serpent's skull. He didn't shrink back with feminine meekness at the thought, but leaned in with masculine fierceness to thrust his heel down hard enough to hear the bones crack. 

Jesus is a Champion. He had prepared for the fight and was excited to put His powers to good use. He did not grapple without grit. He came to destroy the works of the evil one and He delighted in demolishing them. He found pleasure in pulling it down and satisfaction in seeing it crumble. Jesus burns with rage and an inextinguishable fury when it comes to sin. He will not stop until it is utterly stopped.

Psalm 2:12

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,

and ye perish from the way,

when his wrath is kindled but a little.

Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Revelation 6:16

“Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:” 

day no. 16.269: the walking Word

John 7:15-16

The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me."

This is a subtle proof of Christ's divinity. How did He know the Bible so well? He never went to seminary and yet He knew the Bible like the back of His band. He likely didn't even own a Bible or have physical access to all of the books and scrolls that made up the Old Testament; and yet He knew it inside and out.

How could this be?

He knew the Bible because, well, He wrote it. He didn't need to gather the scrolls together to know what was in there. He was the essence behind the ink and the power behind the pen. He didn't need access to the scrolls in order to have access to God. He was the Word of God in flesh appearing. Jesus loved the Scriptures because He wrote them, but for the same reason, He didn't need to attend Sunday school in order to apprehend them. That said, He did not point this out in order to convince people to put down their Bibles, but all the more to pick them up. The fact that He didn't need a hard copy was not to imply that you don't either, but to enforce, all the more, your need for one in order to get it into your DNA like it was in the walking Word who lived, breathed, died and rose again among us.

day no. 16,054: risen from the dead, descended from David

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel.

Do not forget Jesus:

(1) resurrected from the dead

(2) related to David

Remember the risen Lord. Recall how He laid Himself down and picked Himself back up. Do not forget that He holds the keys of death and Hades.

Revelation 1:18

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

Remember His flesh. He is the promised Son of David who sits enthroned forever in righteousness that cannot be usurped. He is inexorable and immutable. He cannot be overcome and He never wears out. His head does not grow heavy under the weight of His crown. He rules and reigns in perfect righteousness forever. He is a glorified man and as such, the firstborn from the dead, the first fruits of all who will follow in His footsteps. His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

Romans 9:5

Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Remember Jesus Christ: risen from the dead, descended from David.

Receive and believe.

Keep in mind that He died and yet lives and do not forget that He descended to David's form in order to descend from His family so that sons of men might ascend to be sons of God.

day no. 15,649: mediating for millennia

"The book of Hebrews has much to say about the Lord Jesus Christ as our great high priest, buy only in John 17 do we have a sample of that mediating intercessory ministry. This is the only example in Scripture of what He has been doing in heaven incessantly since His ascension... The cross was accomplished in hours, the resurrection in days, but several thousand years have already passed in the course of Jesus' intercessory work. We read in Hebrews 7:25, 'He always lives to make intercession for them.' For 2,000 years, Jesus has been praying us into heaven against the force of sin that assails us." -- John MacArthur, The Lord's Greatest Prayer, Part 2 in The John MacArthur Handbook of Effective Biblical Leadership

Jesus lived roughly 33 years and spent around 3 of those in public ministry. He spent hours on the cross and days in grave and weeks in His resurrected state among men. Every day prior to His incarnation, He existed in perfect, eternal divinity as the second member of the Trinity and every day since His ascension, He has been seated at the right hand of the Father in perfect, eternal divinity making intercession for those His Father has given to Him: those elected before the foundation of the world and enrolled in the Lamb's Book of Life before life on earth began. 

Jesus has been mediating and interceding on behalf of His people for millennia. At this very moment, He is there and He is praying for those who are His right here and right now, and He will continue to do so until the time He stands up in order to descend and visit His earth again in person.

Hebrews 9:28
Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

day no. 15,541 continued... the goodly fere

Joe Boot introduced me to the following poem, Ballad of the Goodly Fere by Ezra Pound on Saturday, May 1 at the Fight Laugh Feast Rally in Rapid City, SD when he referred to it in a talk titled, Jesus is the King of Tyrants.

Ballad of the Goodly Fere

- Ezra Pound - 1885-1972

***Simon Zelotes speaking after the Crucifixion. Fere = Mate, Companion

Ha' we lost the goodliest fere o' all

For the priests and the gallows tree?

Aye lover he was of brawny men,

O' ships and the open sea.

When they came wi' a host to take Our Man

His smile was good to see,

"First let these go!" quo' our Goodly Fere,

"Or I'll see ye damned," says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears

And the scorn of his laugh rang free,

"Why took ye not me when I walked about

Alone in the town?" says he.

Oh we drank his "Hale" in the good red wine

When we last made company,

No capon priest was the Goodly Fere

But a man o' men was he.

I ha' seen him drive a hundred men

Wi' a bundle o' cords swung free,

That they took the high and holy house

For their pawn and treasury.

They'll no' get him a' in a book I think

Though they write it cunningly;

No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere

But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha' snared our Goodly Fere

They are fools to the last degree.

"I'll go to the feast," quo' our Goodly Fere,

"Though I go to the gallows tree."

"Ye ha' seen me heal the lame and blind,

And wake the dead," says he,

"Ye shall see one thing to master all:

'Tis how a brave man dies on the tree."

A son of God was the Goodly Fere

That bade us his brothers be.

I ha' seen him cow a thousand men.

I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails

And the blood gushed hot and free,

The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue

But never a cry cried he.

I ha' seen him cow a thousand men

On the hills o' Galilee,

They whined as he walked out calm between,

Wi' his eyes like the grey o' the sea,

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging

With the winds unleashed and free,

Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret

Wi' twey words spoke' suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,

A mate of the wind and sea,

If they think they ha' slain our Goodly Fere

They are fools eternally.

I ha' seen him eat o' the honey-comb

Sin' they nailed him to the tree.

day no. 15,216: He is before all things

Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the Head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.

Jesus is the reconciliation of all things, whether on earth or in heaven. His blood on His cross make peace in heaven, on earth and between heaven and earth.

day no. 15,210: hanging there soberly

Hebrews 4:14-16
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Note, Jesus did not EMPATHIZE with our weakness. If He had done that, we all would be done for. But because He sympathized with us, we are saved. He kept one foot on solid ground and then entered into our sin to retrieve us. If He had surrendered the solid ground (empathy), we all would have drowned and no one would be saved.

So Jesus became like us, but not completely, but enough to SYMPATHIZE with us.

Hebrews 2:14-18
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.

If Jesus had merely shouted advice from His solid ground, we would continue to sink in quicksand... quickly. But because He entered into the quicksand with us to make propitiation for our sin, we can be saved. But only because He entered in without abandoning His solid ground. His help truly helped precisely because He had solid ground to return us to. His solid ground became OUR solid ground because He entered in to our situation without abandoning the only situation which could save us. He entered into in without Himself sinning. He related to sinners without sinning in order to relate. He adopted rebels by bringing us into His family, not by hating His Father along with us in rebellion.

"One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not when you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Jesus did not become drunk in order to save drunkards, but He was willing to be accused and killed as a drunkard though He hung there soberly. He did not rebel against God in order to save rebels, but He was willing to be accused of treason and murdered by capital punishment as a traitor though He bled there in obedience, not defiance. He did not become bad in order to save bad people, but He was willing to be accursed as a bad man though He died the only good man the world had ever known.

day no. 14,906: Jesus is Lord

Luke 22:65

And they said many other things against him, blaspheming Him.

If Jesus was not God, you could not blaspheme Him. But since He is, that is what Luke records happened in this incident. Whether those doing the blaspheming recognized what they were doing or not is less germane than seeing that Luke, in retrospect, reports what they were, in fact, doing -- blaspheming Jesus.

There are many proof texts demonstrating that Jesus is God, but additionally, much of what is written doesn't make sense unless Jesus' divinity is assumed as an underlying truth.

Colossians 3:23-24 is another example.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 

Paul's argument is simple: when you work, work as though you are working for God knowing that He is the one who will pay your wages when it's all said and done. He has the inheritance and exists in eternity future where He will give it to you. When you do this, you are serving Jesus, because He is God. Thus the admonition and recognition that all service done for God is service for Jesus only makes sense if Jesus and God are not in competition, but are, in fact, the same. 

Or even more simply, we work for the Lord and expect our wages from the Lord. That Lord is named Jesus Christ.

day no. 14,853: circumcised and baptized

Colossians 2:9-12
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Jesus fulfilled every requirement of the human body. He was born and died, was both circumcised and baptized, followed and flogged, crucified and resurrected, buried in the earth and raised up into the heavens. He was crowned with thorns and with glory and put on our sins so that we could put off our body of flesh. 

day no. 13,349: coming down to step forward‏

John 18:4

Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him, so he stepped forward to meet them. “Who are you looking for?” he asked.

Jesus was not ignorant to His situation.

In fact, He CAME DOWN for this very purpose.

So since He came down for this, He STEPS FORWARD.

day no. 13,328: one gracious blessing after another‏

John 1:16

From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

Jesus has everything.

And with it all, He is very generous.

He is gracious.

He gives blessing after blessing out of the overflow of His desire to bless.

day no. 13,085 continued... not Christ comma Jesus‏

Too many people claiming to be Christians ignore the Christ.

 

Christ was not Jesus’ last name.

 

He wasn’t listed in the phone book as Christ, Jesus.

 

Christ is a title.

It means Messiah.

 

Jesus the Christ: the Savior, the Messiah, the Rescuer, the Promise One, etc…

 

The early gathering of those who believed that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection fulfilled the promises of God and completely provided the means by which to be saved and sanctified were called Christians.

Acts 11:26b

For a whole year they met with the church and taught large numbers. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

 

Christian meaning “those identified above anything else by their association with Jesus

Christ.”

 

So it is curious today that so many people who call themselves Christians reject entirely their need for a Christ.

 

They don’t believe they are bad people in need of saving.

Many don’t believe that they are dead people in need of regeneration.

Most don’t believe that they are disqualified from Heaven on their own merit.

 

To call oneself a Christian is to confess, at the very least, that a Savior is necessary.

To call yourself a Christian is to confess that there is only One who can save.

 

God saves sinners and His Christ is the only means by which we are reconciled to Him.

 

Many in churches today are not Christians.

They are Moralists and Good Worksians.

1 Timothy 2:5-6

⁵ For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,⁶who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

 

To be a Christian means to confess a Christ and not just any Christ, but a very specific Christ named Jesus.