Is Jesus God In Human Form?

(Written by Jack Kelley)
Recently my belief that Jesus is God in human form was challenged again.  This has happened to me several times in the past and while I've laid out the Biblical basis for my belief in several articles I've never specifically addressed the common objections others have put forth. In this study I'll do just that.

But first I want to lay a brief theological foundation that in my opinion proves that Jesus has to be God in human form. In fact I think it will demonstrate that if Jesus isn't God then none of us is saved.  It's based on three points.

1.      All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)
2.      Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin  (Hebrews 9:22)
3.      A righteous man for an unrighteous mankind (1 Peter 3:18)

What's Going On In Damascus?

(Written by Jack Kelley)

The city of Damascus is mentioned 60 times in the Bible from Genesis 14:15 to Acts 22:10.  Abraham's chief servant, Eliazer, was from Damascus and Paul spent his first days as a Christian there.  According to Flavius Josephus, Damascus was founded by Uz, the son of Aram who was the patriarch of the Aramean people.  Aram was the 5th son of Shem, and Uz was the first son of Aram. (According to Job 1:1, Job was from the land of Uz.)

 

Throughout its history Damascus has been conquered many times. Most notably by the Israelites (1000 BC), the Assyrians (732 BC), the Babylonians (605 BC), the Persians (530 BC), the Greeks (330 BC), the Nabateans (85 BC), the Romans (63 BC), the Byzantines (634 AD), the Mamelukes (1250 AD) and the Ottoman Turks (1516 AD). But the city itself has always survived and is now claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.           

Several of these conquests are referred to in the Bible. 2 Samuel 8:6-7 describes David and the Israelites. Parts of Isaiah 17 involve the Assyrians, Jeremiah 49:23-27 is about the Babylonian conquest and Zechariah 9:1-2 was fulfilled by Alexander the Great.   

Becoming who we are!

(Written by Jack Kelley)

If you like, you can think of this as a follow up to our study titled OK, I'm Saved.  Now What? Having shown that once we became a believer all the sins of our life were forgiven at the cross, and the Lord not longer counts our sins against us, we now turn to the logical follow up question.  How should a believer respond to such an incredible gift?

Paul devoted much time to describing the appropriate response to the free gift of eternal life and it's summed up in his admonition “Only let us live up to what we've already attained” (Phil 3:16). By the wording he used we know this is not something we do to achieve or maintain our salvation. He said we've already attained that. We do this as an expression of our heart felt gratitude for having been given the gift of eternal life.  Make no mistake here, as unbelievers we were surely destined for the fires of hell.

Ok, I am saved. What now?

(Written by Jack Kelley)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: The old has gone, the new has come! (2 Cor. 5:17).  Only let us live up to what we have already attained (Phil 3:16).

These two verses summarize all that the New Testament has to say about life after salvation.  Once we're saved, God sees us as a new creation.  Note the use of the past perfect tense in these verses; the old has gone, the new has come, we have already attained.  We  don't make ourselves into a new creation, we have been made into a new creation.  It's not a process we undertake through hard work and self-sacrifice.  It's not even something that happens over time through careful submission to the prodding of the Holy Spirit.  It has already happened.  Hebrews 10:12-14 clearly states that the Lord's once-for-all-time sacrifice has made us perfect forever. (Has made, not is making, or will make.)

REBUILDING BABYLON: Prophetic significance?

(Written by Joel C. Rosenberg)

Bible prophecy indicates that in the End Times, the nation we know today as the Republic of Iraq — known variously in Scripture as Babel, Babylon, Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Shinar — will emerge as the global center of wealth, power and terrible evil. Eventually Iraq will pose a direct and existential threat to the State of Israel, particularly during the Tribulation.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime in 2003, Iraq has not been a regional threat, much less a danger to Israel. Some have assumed, therefore, that Iraq would no longer play a major role in Middle Eastern or global affairs in the future. But such a conclusion would be a mistake. As I wrote about in my first non-fiction book, Epicenter, those who read, understand and believe Bible prophecy have been watching for Iraq to: 1) begin rebuilding its offensive military capability; 2) begin rebuilding its economy; 3) continue rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon into a major center of commerce and tourism.
Interestingly, all three developments are currently underway.

Messianic Prophecy In The Old Testament

(Written by Jack Kelley)
In the time after their sin and expulsion from the Garden Adam and Eve must have felt incredible despair. They had experienced life both before and after the curse, the only ones to do so, and had first hand knowledge of the difference. And what a difference it was. Even the part of it we can relate to had to have been devastating.

For example suppose that one day you were the resident manager of the world’s richest and most luxurious estate, with all of its comforts and privileges, and the next you were a poor hardscrabble farmer, at the opposite end of the economic and social structure. And that was just the beginning. How about no longer being immortal, no longer one with your Creator in spirit.

What really happened at Christmas?

(Written by Jack Kelley)

In the past I’ve made the case that Jesus probably was born sometime in September. If that’s the case then what really happened in December? Is Christmas just the result of overlaying Christian beliefs on a formerly pagan holiday as some believe, or is there more to it?

Happy Hanukkah

To find the answer we begin with a look at the Jewish Feast of Hanukkah. Maybe you’ve heard the story of Hanukkah, but if not here’s a brief summary. In 165 BC, during the time of the Maccabean Revolt, the Jews recaptured their desecrated Temple from Syrian dictator Antiochus Epiphanes and undertook a rebuilding and cleansing process to make it fit for worship again. (Angry with the Jews and defiant toward God, Antiochus had captured the Temple, sacrificed a pig on the altar, and erected a statue of the Greek god Zeus in the Holy Place requiring everyone to worship it on pain of death. This outrageous act rendered the Temple unclean and became known as the Abomination of Desolation.)

The Gospel of the Kingdom vs the Gospel of Grace

Part 2. The Gospel Of Grace

(Written by Jack Kelley)

The word “grace” appears 170 times in the English translation of the Bible, 37 of them in the Old Testament.  Of the 133 remaining, only four are contained in the gospels and they all refer to the Lord Jesus (Luke 2:40, John 1:14, 16, 17).  The Book of Acts contains 10 appearances, and  2 others can be found in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 1:4, Rev. 22:21) where they essentially open and close the book. That leaves 117 references to grace in the various Epistles.

As it's used in the New Testament, grace is clearly a word that is meant for the Church. It comes from the Greek word charis, which is defined as “the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.”

The Gospel of the Kingdom vs the Gospel of Grace

Part 1.  The Gospel Of The Kingdom

Written by Jack Kelley)
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matt. 3:1-2)

Prophecies of a Messianic King appear throughout the Old Testament and many in the Jewish leadership saw John's arrival on the scene as their fulfillment.  They sent representatives to the place where John was baptizing to see if he was the promised Messiah. He said he wasn't, but that the one they had been expecting was even then in their midst (John 1:19-28).

750 years earlier Isaiah had said when the Messiah came He would reign on David's throne forever (Isaiah 9:6-7) but the throne of David had been vacant for 600 years.  John had come to tell them the time was finally at hand and they had better get ready for Him.

When Jesus began His ministry, John introduced Him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:8) and publicly testified that Jesus was the Son of God (John 1:34).  Right from the beginning Jesus began teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was near (Matt. 4:17), and sent His disciples through out the land to alert the people to this fact as well (Matt. 10:7-8). 

Why Ezekiel 38 Will Precede Daniel 9

(Written by Jack Kelley)
“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy.

“Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble” (Daniel 9:24-25).

Dispensationalists believe, with good reason, that there’s one “seven” left to fulfill from the promise the angel Gabriel delivered to Daniel near the end of the Babylonian captivity. From the King James translation we know the prophecy as Daniel’s 70 weeks, where each week represents 7 years. 69 of these weeks (7 plus 62) had passed when the Messiah presented Himself to Israel as their King on the only day in His life that He did so. On our calendar it became known as the first Palm Sunday.

Life Is About Decisions

(Written by Grant Phillips) 

Have you ever thought back over your life and considered the decisions you have made; especially those that have taken you in a new direction? We have all made good decisions and bad ones. Hopefully, there have been more good ones than bad, and there would be, if we would just stop and think before we act.

Far too many of our decisions have been made because of emotional circumstances, and these can often get us into trouble. For example:

·        A young boy and girl are together, and their hormones are raging. If they don’t cool down, their emotions will take over, and their lives take a course they hadn’t planned on.

The End Times Empire Part 2

(Written by Jack Kelley)
Periodically over the past six years I've written about the similarities between Islamic prophecies of an end times leader they call al Mahdi and Biblical prophecies about the one we call the anti-Christ. In their respective prophecies they're both said to come on the scene during a time of great turmoil on Earth, both will claim a desire to restore peace, both have a seven year reign, both head a one world religion and one world government, both claim supernatural origins, and both reigns end in a battle between good and evil that brings Earth's final judgment.

The End Times Empire Part 1

(Written by Jack Kelley)
In the updated commentary on Rev. 17-18 I recently posted, I briefly summarized two major opinions concerning the end times world government. The view that it will be a revival of the Biblical Roman Empire has been universally accepted among believers for generations, but recent world events have caused some to propose an alternative in the form of an Islamic Empire.
The purpose of this study is to is to look at these alternatives in greater detail than I was able to do in the Rev. 17-18 commentary and see if we can come to a conclusion about which is more likely, because as I think you'll see they both have some pretty compelling support.