Truth really can be stranger than fiction.
First Page - Now launched! All the stories are true, or based on real events. Unlimited reading for $4.99 / month. No downloads. Read on your phone, tablet or computer.
La verdad puede ser más extraña que la ficción.
First Page - ¡Ya está en marcha! Todas las historias son verídicas, o están basadas en hechos reales. Lectura ilimitada por $4.99 / mes. No hay que descargar nada. Lea en su teléfono, tableta u ordenador.
Manna Minutes Podcast: Eye-opening Bible study in less than five minutes! Access all episodes here.
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Estudio bíblico que nos hace abrir los ojos en menos de cinco minutos! Acceda a todos los episodios aquí.
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Augenöffnendes Bibelstudium in weniger als fünf Minuten! Alle Episoden finden Sie hier.
Was There A Curse On Helen's Romantic Life?
The Third Man by Angela Sheffield is based on a true story. Read chapter one now!
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¿Qué tiene que ver conmigo? por Teófila Gottfried
Lo que leemos en la Biblia tiene que ver con todos los seres humanos, sean cristianos o judíos, ateos o agnósticos, budistas, musulmanes o adherentes a alguna de las filosofías o nuevas religiones que surgen en el mundo. ¿Por qué? Ver mayor información sobre este interesante libro.
Scripture of The Day - St. John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Escritura del día - San Juan 14,6
Jesús le dijo: Yo soy el camino, y la verdad, y la vida; nadie viene al Padre, sino por mí.
Bibelstelle des Tages - Johannes 14,6
Jesus spricht zu ihm: Ich bin der Weg und die Wahrheit und das Leben; niemand kommt zum Vater, denn durch mich!
Was Not Jesus Christ Really A Demigod? Half Man Half God?
St. John 1:1 tells us, "...the Word was God". St. John 1:14 tells us, "...the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The first chapter of St. John is one of several biblical passages that clearly identify Jesus Christ as the Word who was made flesh. Consequently, Christians rightfully teach that Jesus is one of the three persons of the triune God. That He is God. But we teach that Jesus was also a man. In light of this, we face legitimate questions such as:
1. Wasn't Jesus just another demi-god like Perseus and so many other figures in mythology? If Mary was His mother, and God was His Father, doesn't that make Him half God and half man?
2. If Jesus was truly God, how could He also truly be a man?
Mortal Mother And Divine Father
The Bible tells us Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary (Luke 1:30-31). The Bible also reveals Jesus as saying to God, "...a body hast thou prepared me" (Hebrews 10:5). So, how did God prepare the body? Did He use one of Mary's eggs? And, why do we need to know this? Answer: Because it's revealed in Scripture. And ALL scripture is profitable for doctrine (Timothy 3:16).
Now we know the first man God created was Adam. And we know God made Adam's body out of the dust of the ground, and breathed breath into his nostrils to make Adam alive (Genesis 2:7). Before this, Adam was just a lifeless lump of clay. Dead. The breath God breathed into Adam became Adam's spirit and soul. This is what made him a living being. We know this, because Scripture says that a body without a spirit is a dead body (James 2:26). Conclusion: The breath is the spirit.
So, did God form Jesus' body out of the dust of the ground, and breath into His nostrils, like He did with Adam? If so, how would that make Christ any different from Adam? First, Jesus' body was NOT formed from the dust of the ground. Christ reveals how His body was prepared, when He says, "...I proceeded forth and came from God..." (St. John 8:42). He did not come from dirt. He came out of God. A biological child comes out of his father's body, and cannot help but to be half of his father...in the physical sense, and half of his mother.
The prepared body of Jesus did not come out of the earth. It came out of the very body of God. Now, because God is Spirit (St. John 4:24), the body had to me turned into flesh, which is why we read, "And the Word was MADE flesh" (St. John 1:14). Yes, spirit turned into flesh. We know God can turn spirit into flesh, because metamorphosis is a power that even the angels have. This is why we're told to be careful to be hospitable. The person we think we're helping might be an angel. We read, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2).
If angels have the power to turn angelic spirit into flesh, certainly God can...and did, on more than one occasion in the Old and New Testaments. God took on the form of three men in the plains of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-2). He took on the form of a man as Melchizedek in Genesis, and blessed Abraham. So, when Jesus says He came out of God, that is what He means. He came out of God as a child comes out of his biological father. And just as a son can look like his father, the Bible reveals that Jesus looks just like God! In the natural world, we could call Him the "spitting image" of His Father. We read, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God..." (Colossians 1:15)
Hebrews 1:3 even tells us Jesus is the "express image of his person". "His" in reference to God the Father. It is no wonder Christ said, "...He that hath seen me hath seen the Father..." (St. John 14:9).
Now then, did God breath into Jesus' nostrils to make Him alive, like He did in the case of Adam? No. Remember. Christ was not a lump of clay taken from the ground like Adam. He was the very substance of God, having come out of God. All of the substance of God is life. Any substance that comes out of Him cannot help but to be alive. We see this even in the case of the creation of Eve. While God breathed a spirit into Adam to animate him, we do not read that He breathed one into Eve to animate her. Remember, God took substance out of Adam...his rib, and the flesh around the rib with which he made Eve (Gen 2:21-22). Adam then says, in reference to Eve, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man" (Gen. 2:23). Eve was alive, because she came out of Adam who was spiritually and physically alive at the time she was taken out of him. Adam's body was prepared outside of God from the ground, which is why he started out lifeless. Jesus came directly out of God. Night and day difference.
But what about Mary as Jesus' mother? Unlike Adam and Eve, the prepared baby Jesus' body was placed in the womb of Mary, a mortal. Could it be that one of her eggs was somehow involved with the preparation of His body? Did God take half of Jesus out of Himself, and use one of Mary's eggs as the other half? That is totally impossible in light of Scripture. In the beginning, God limited all of His creation to reproducing after its own kind (see the first chapter of Genesis). This is why dogs do not give birth to cats, nor do elephants give birth to bears. People reproduce more people. With that said, Mary was a mortal. She was born a sinner like every other descendant of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve could only reproduce more sinners, because that is what they had become themselves, and remained under the divine law that every form of life must reproduce its kind...and only its kind. Mary's eggs, therefore, could only give rise to another sinner like herself. So, there's a huge problem with saying Jesus came from one of her eggs. None of her eggs could have been involved with the preparation of the body of Jesus, because we are told Jesus never sinned (2 Corinthians 5:21). If Mary had been Christ's biological mother, Christ would have been formed in sin in her womb, and unfit to be a ransom on the cross for us. King David is one of many in the Bible who reveal that all of Adam's descendants are born sinners. David said, "...I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5).
Now then, because Jesus came out of God, and has no mortal parent, how can Christians say that He was truly a man like all mankind? How could He have been anything other than pure God?
He was fully man, because He was not only made flesh, he was also "lowered" to the level of mankind for the work He came to do. He had to be lowered, because when He was first prepared out of the body of God, He was "made so much better than the angels." (Hebrews 1:4) We read, "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death..." (Hebrews 2:9). Note now what is said of mankind. We read, "What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." (Psalm 8:4-5)
The Psalm passage is in reference to the creation of mankind. Adam was made a little lower than the angels, as in created a little lower than angels. He was crowned with glory and honour. Yes, Adam was crowned. He ruled the world, before he sinned. And there is no doubt that he shined with glory from God, before he ate from the forbidden tree. This is not speculation. Adam was in direct and constant communion with God before he sinned. Do we forget that Moses' faced shined so brightly that Israel could not stand to look at him for the glory of God on him? (Exodus 34:35) Why? Because Moses spent so much time in the presence of God his face began to shine with God's glory.
If Moses' face was so bright that he covered his face with a veil when he spoke to the people, can we imagine the glory with which Adam must have shined before his fall from grace?
So, Jesus was lowered to man's level for His work of redemption. He was, however, fully man, composed of the same three parts of which all men are composed: physical body, spirit and soul (1 Thessalonians 5:23). When Jesus died on the cross, his spiritual body left his physical body, which is what happens when a person dies. The words "gave up the ghost" appear in the Bible in reference to death, because the body without the ghost (spirit) is dead (James 2:26). We read, "And Ananias, hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost..." (Acts 5:5). Ananias died, because his spirit left his body. Now we also read, "And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost." (Mark 15:37). Jesus died, because His spirit left His body. His death was no less real than any other man's death. His ghost was his spiritual body just like Ananias' ghost was his spiritual body. We cannot doubt the real and actual death of Jesus on the cross, because our salvation rests on all that He did for us. And the redemptive work He did for us was not finished until He died. This is why we read, "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." (St. John 19:30)
Finally, the Bible completely destroys all thought that Jesus was made up of half of Mary, which would make Him a demi-god, by revealing a most important truth. A corpse rots, which is known in the Bible as "corruption", often expressed as the body "seeing corruption". Sin is corruption. And that corruption is physically expressed in the final enemy, which is death. However, because Jesus did not ever sin, His body did not decompose when He died. This is why we read, "For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he, whom God raised again, saw NO corruption." (Acts 13:36-37)
Verse 33 of the thirteenth chapter of Acts reveals that the One God raised from the dead is Jesus. Had any part of the body of Jesus come from one of Mary's eggs, He would have sinned. And when He died, that sinful body would have seen the corruption that all sinful bodies undergo.
Let's briefly summarize what we've learned:
1. Adam came from the dirt (Gen. 2:7), but Jesus came directly out of the person of God Himself (St. John 8:42), just as a biological child comes from within his or her father.
2. Jesus could not have been a demi-god, because he did not come from one of Mary's eggs. We know this, because He never sinned (2 Cor. 5:21). And because He never sinned, His body never decomposed (saw corruption) when He died (Acts 13:36-37).
3. God did not turn to Adam--not even before Adam sinned--and tell him, "You are my son, and I am your father." But, God did turn to Jesus and say these words (Hebrews 1:5-6). We know this, because this is what makes Jesus the FIRST begotten Son. God begat, or "fathered" Him when He took Him out of Himself. Had Adam been the son of God in the way Jesus is, Jesus would have been the second-begotten. But the Bible says He is the FIRST. The first-begotten Son of God is also the ONLY-begotten Son of God. No one else was begotten of God in the way Christ was. No one else came directly out of the body of God like Jesus did. That makes Christ the only-begotten Son of God. Every true believer in the only-begotten Son is an adopted son or daughter who, by the Spirit of adoption, cries Abba, Father (Romans 8:15).
Based on true events, The Third Man by Angela Sheffield, brings the Bible up close and personal as the characters face real issues of life: Betrayal, deceit, romance, bitterness, anger against God, hopelessness, will power, perplexity, triumph, unforgiveness, mental illness, and the "Alcohol made me do it" excuse. Read chapter one FREE now.
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