Jesus Christ
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the man jesus
INTRODUCTION
The man Jesus Christ is acclaimed to be the most popular and most influential figure in the history of civilization in the secular circles, no matter ones vocation or tribe one will somehow come into contact with an individual or object that is attributed to Jesus, a man that lived on this earth over two thousand years ago. Why is he still so popular after so many years of his demise. A travel through Ghana from the capital to the farthest points of the land one is amazed at the number of worship places where people meet to call upon the name of Jesus. It is said that “the African is notoriously religious” most of hitherto social grounds and schools have all been converted into meeting places for worship. Most of these churches profess Jesus Christ as the central figure in their worship and social life, there are diversity of worship styles from some having a more solemn services with the singing of orchestral style of hymn singing to very loud high spirited and loud music services and all claim the Lordship of Jesus Christ and head.
The popularity of Jesus Christ is aptly described by Jaroslav Pelikan professor of History, Yale University “regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super-magnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least trace of his name, how much would be left”. Most of the moral issues that underpin what is socially acceptable and what is not can be directly or indirectly attributed to what He did or say.
There are two sides of Jesus that emerges as one begin to study the materials that forms the basis for the New Testament document, it has to do with his humanity and divinity, through church history the earthly nature and the divine nature is evident and clear as can be deduced from the Nicene Creed of the orthodox churches;
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ the only Son of God,
Eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light
Tue God from true God, begotten and not made, of one being with the father
The creed embodies the basic belief in Christendom and most Christians believe in the two sides of Jesus as their basis of their belief, he was here with us on earth and went through everything that we are going through and He is not just a historical myth but a true human being who actually dwelt with us and also completely divine with attributes that is beyond humanity.
In the New Testament Jesus is the central figure, every book is written because of him and in a way about him. The New Testament tells a man named “Jesus” who lived in Galilee and who said and did many remarkable things before eventually being crucified, secondly the texts also portrays a Jesus that is exalted, eternal who existed prior to creation and who now continues to reign from heaven, seated at the right hand of God and dwelling in the hearts of those who believe in him
It is important to stress that Christian faith do not see two Jesuses but the unity of these two figures. In theological circles Easter (death and resurrection) is seen as the separator and distinguisher between the earthly and eternally exalted Jesus often referred to as pre-Easter Jesus and post-Easter Jesus. This distinction is made clear mostly the sayings of Jesus himself “You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me” (Matt. 26:11) and I will be with you always (matt 28:20) was he contradicting himself or he was pointing us to a reality that will be discovered after he had left the earth. But theologians can say that the eternally exalted Jesus (the post-Easter Jesus) remains present in a way that the earthly, historical figure does not.
THE PRE-EASTER JESUS (EARTHLY)
Jesus was a Jew as portrayed in all the gospels and he hailed from Nazareth a small village in the province of Galilee. His parents were Joseph and Mary, and it is believed he had other siblings, it is believed he worked as a tekton some sort of a carpenter or a builder or a construction worker. No records of his early life are available but by inference we can assume that he had a form of education since we read that he could read at a point in his ministry. “Deity did not eclipse humanity so as to render the process of learning unnecessary”. It is not known whether he was ever married. He was baptised by the fiery preaching John the Baptist, Jesus began his ministry