The throne on the king’s right hand was traditionally the seat of one appointed to exercise the king’s own authority. Ruling with his Father in heaven, Jesus is Lord over the Church and all creation, with authority to equip his Church, advance his kingdom, bring sinners into saving fellowship with God the Father, and finally establish justice and peace upon the earth.
Jesus ascended into heaven so that, through him, his Father might send us the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, Christians together are united to Christ, the living Head of his Body, the Church.
Jesus was taken up out of human sight and returned in his humanity to the glory he had shared with the Father before his incarnation. There he intercedes for, and receives into heavenly life, all who come to him in faith. Though absent in body, Jesus is always with me by his Spirit and hears me when I pray.
Following his resurrection, Jesus spent forty days visiting and teaching his followers. He appeared to his disciples, spoke to them, invited them to touch him and see his scars, and ate with them.
Today I'm reading a Homily from the Book of Homilies. This one's long title is: An Homily or Sermon Concerning the Nativity and Birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Merry (or happy, depending where you live) Christmas!!
It means that Jesus was not simply resuscitated; God restored him physically from death to life in his resurrected body, never to die again. His tomb was empty; Jesus had risen bodily from the dead. The risen Jesus was seen by his apostles and hundreds of other witnesses.
That Jesus descended to the dead means that he truly died and entered the place of the departed.
The Creed emphasizes Jesus’ death to counter suspicions that Jesus did not truly die on the Cross, to celebrate the fact that he died there to secure our salvation, and to prepare our minds to grasp the glory of his bodily resurrection.
The Creed makes the point to emphasize that Jesus died a real, bodily death such as all people face because of our sins.
Jesus bore my sins and died the death that I deserve, so that I could be saved from sin and eternal condemnation and reconciled to God.
Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures by dying on the Cross as a sacrifice for sin in obedience to his Father. He thereby showed the depth of the love of God for his fallen creation, satisfying the justice of God on our behalf and breaking the power of sin, Satan, and death.
Jesus was executed as a common criminal. He was scourged, mocked, and nailed to a Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Though humanly a miscarriage of justice, his execution fulfilled God’s plan of salvation.
The Creed thus makes clear that Jesus’ life and death were real events that occurred at a particular time and place in Judea in the first century AD.
Jesus has experienced our sufferings, understands our sorrows, and is able to sympathize with our weakness. Therefore, I should bear my sufferings with perseverance and hope, for my Savior is with me in them, and through them I will come to know him more fully.
On earth, the incarnate Son shared physically, emotionally, and spiritually in the temptations and sufferings common to all people, yet without sin. In his agony and desolation on the Cross, he uniquely suffered in my place for my sins and, in so doing, revealed God’s love and compassion for fallen and suffering humanity.
Jesus suffered as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could have peace with God, as prophesied in the Old Testament: “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
All Jesus does as a human being he also does as God. His human words and deeds are saving because they are the words and deeds of God the Son.
At the moment of Jesus’ conception, the divine nature of the one eternal Person of the Son was united to our human nature. Therefore, Jesus Christ is fully and truly both divine and human, but without sin. His two natures are united without division, separation, mixture, or change.
Jesus was conceived not through a human father but by the Holy Spirit coming upon the Virgin Mary in power. The eternal Son, whom God named Jesus, assumed a fully human nature from his mother, the Virgin Mary, at the moment of conception in her womb. It is important to affirm that he is one of us: truly human, born to a human mother, and raised in a human family. While still a virgin, Mary submitted to the will of God and bore the Son of God. Therefore, she is held in high honor. However, in obe...
Jesus alone is God the Son, coequal and coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He alone is the image of the invisible Father, the one who makes the Father known. He is now and forever will be incarnate as a human, bearing his God-given human Name. The Father created and now rules all things in heaven and earth through Jesus Christ our Lord. I acknowledge Jesus’ divine authority over the Church and all creation, over all societies and their leaders, and over every aspect of my lif...
Jesus the Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit to perfectly fulfill these roles, and he rules now as Prophet, Priest, and King over his Church and all creation.
“Jesus” means “God saves” and is taken from the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua. In Jesus, God has come to save us from the power of sin and death. Christos is the Greek term for the Hebrew title Messiah, meaning “Anointed One.” Old Testament kings, priests, and prophets were anointed with oil. Jesus the Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit to perfectly fulfill these roles, and he rules now as Prophet, Priest, and King over his Church and all creation.
Jesus Christ is the eternal Word and Son of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He took on human nature to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world, the only Mediator between God and fallen humanity.
Yes. God created all things and called them “very good” (Genesis 1:31). However, through sin, evil and death have come into the world and corrupted it. Adam and Eve rebelled against God, thus bringing upon all humanity pain, toil, alienation from God and each other, and death. I have inherited this fallen and corrupted human nature; consequently, I too sin and fall short of God’s glory. Because of sin, those apart from Christ are spiritually dead, separated from God, under his righteous condemna...
It means that all things, whether visible or invisible, physical or spiritual, were brought into being out of nothing by the Word of the eternal God.
I acknowledge that God created for his own glory everything that exists. He created human beings, male and female, in his image and appointed us stewards of creation. God’s creation is thus a gift to enjoy as we work and care for it.
I call God the Father “Creator” because he made all things. He creates and sustains all things through his Word, and gives life to all creatures through his Spirit.
I call the Father “Almighty” because he has power over everything and accomplishes everything he wills. Together with his Son and Holy Spirit, the Father is all-knowing and ever present in every place.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only divine Son of the Father. He called God “Father” and taught his disciples to do the same. God gives believers his Holy Spirit and adopts us as his children, enabling us to call him “Father.” When I call God “Father,” I declare that I was created for relationship with him, that I trust in God as my Protector and Provider, and that I put my hope in God as his child and heir in Christ.
God the Father is the first Person of the Holy Trinity, from whom the Son is eternally begotten and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds.
