The New Testament Scriptures are the primary witness of Spirit-enlightened men to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the implications of that story for humankind. These Christian writings also are a reflection upon the meaning of the older, Hebrew Scriptures in the light of Jesus Christ.
Someone has said that the New Testament is the Old Testament plus Jesus. Jesus "fulfilled" the Prophets' inspired predictions, but he also filled full the highest prophetic dreams, ideals, aspirations and hopes. For example ....
Christ in the Psalms (two gracEmails)
New Testament authors quote the Book of Psalms more than any other Old Testament book except Isaiah (Deuteronomy has third place), echoing at least 101 of its 150 individual Psalms. Small wonder that Jesus taught his disciples about himself from the Psalms (Luke 24:27, 44-45).
A gracEmail subscriber from England writes: "Edward, can you give us just one scriptural verse that adds to the fact of Jesus' virginal birth ... the 'fact' that Jesus is deity, i.e., that he pre-existed his human birth?"
A gracEmail subscriber's 26-year-old son believes that whatever Scripture teaches is true but suggests to his mom that the Bible is not "black and white" that Jesus was born of a virgin. The young man's mother considers this to be a foundational doctrine and asks for my assistance.
The greater miracle, it has been said, is not the virgin birth of Jesus but the fact that in that wondrous conception the eternal God took on human nature and the Creator condescended to join his creation. . . . Compared to this truth, the virginal conception is merely the mechanics.
A gracEmail subscriber writes: "If Abraham's three visitors were men, and one of the men was also 'the Lord,' wouldn't that man have been Jesus Christ, a pre-incarnation?"
The Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the most gospel-packed yet least-studied books of the New Testament. It focuses squarely on Jesus Christ as our high priest and personal representative before the Father. Jesus is indeed "Our Man In Heaven." Our greatest need is to keep need is to keep our eyes fixed firmly on Jesus. Three times the author of Hebrews urges us to do just that.
A gracEmail subscriber asks if Jesus was God's son even before he was born in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary.
A gracEmail subscriber from New Hampshire asks the meaning of Jesus' frequent description of himself as the Son of Man.
A gracEmail subscriber writes: “It is too simplistic to say that Jesus was mortal since Jesus never forfeited his eternal nature -- he was and always remained the Son of God. When the agony of the cross was over, Jesus resumed the existence he had before he 'stepped down' from his spiritual divinity to undertake our atonement. Of course our finite minds cannot grasp all this.”
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether Jesus Christ was truly tempted to sin as we are, or whether he only encountered the temptation but without any accompanying enticement.
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether Jesus was really tempted to sin, since the Bible says that God cannot be tempted and we say that Jesus was God in human flesh.
Although I cry easily, I wanted to view Mel Gibson's movie The Passion dispassionately. So I braced myself, purposed not to look at my wife beside me and watched without moving a muscle from the opening scene until the end.
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether Saul of Tarsus (later the Apostle Paul) ever encountered Jesus in Palestine during the years of Jesus' personal ministry.
Did you ever look at a starry sky on a clear night and feel very small indeed? Jesse's son David did, 3,000 years ago, as he watched his father's sheep out on the hills around Bethlehem. Later he wrote about it in Psalm 8.
Jesus, John's gospel and the creeds
A friend urges that we accept the language of ancient Christian creeds concerning Jesus ... as eternally "God the Son." The Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, ... deny that God actually came as a man. What is the biblical balance here?
A gracEmail subscriber asks: "Did Jesus Christ have a body before he became a man?"
A gracEmail reader in England asks, "If Jesus calls himself the 'way' to the Father, then Jesus is the route and God his Father is the destination. Yet most Christian churches seem to focus on Jesus rather than on God. Is that really biblical?"
Jesus, Messiah, Christ (four gracEmails)
A gracEmail subscriber asks the meaning of the words "Messiah" and "Christ," and why the Jews rejected Jesus when their prophets had foretold his coming.
A Jewish believer in Jesus writes concerning Jesus as the great Prophet.... Some Jews point to Jesus' crucifixion as evidence that Jesus was not ... "the Prophet" of all prophets as Christians claim. "Is there other Scripture that may support or refute the claims in this most important impasse?"
A gracEmail subscriber in Korea asks, "How could God, who abhors human sacrifice, sacrifice his own Son? How could the murder of an innocent man (Jesus) be necessary to bring about our forgiveness by God?"
A gracEmail subscriber asks why Jesus instructed his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah, although he already had been healing people and performing miracles
For centuries Christians in many parts of the world have greeted each other on Easter morning with the joyful declaration "He is risen!" To which the person greeted has responded "He is risen indeed!" What does it mean, I ask myself, that Jesus is risen from the dead?