This box: view • talk • edit Christian views of Jesus consist of the teachings and beliefs held by Christian groups about Jesus, including his divinity, humanity, and earthly life. As indicated by the name "Christianity," the focus of a Christian's life is a firm belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah or Christ . Jesus refers to himself as both the Son of Man and Son of God in the New Testament. The title "Messiah" comes from the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ ( māšiáħ ) meaning anointed one (see The Gospel according to the Hebrews). The Greek translation Χριστός ( Christos ) is the source of the English word Christ .
The core Christian belief is that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. Theologian and bishop Lesslie Newbigin says "the whole of Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were not events in real history but stories told to illustrate truths which are valid apart from these happenings." Most Christians do believe that Jesus was fully Jewish man and fully God, God in human form—having all of our frailties and desires but never acting on them, only seeking to do the will of His father in heaven, never once seeking to make Himself happy in any way but willfully submitting to God as a man, never doing what He wanted to do but what He saw His Father in heaven doing. They hold that Jesus' first coming was the fulfillment of most messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and that the rest will be fulfilled on his second coming.
While there have been theological disputes over the nature of Jesus, Trinitarian Christians generally believe that Jesus is God incarnate, God the Son, and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, yet he did not sin. As fully God, he defeated death and rose to life again. According to the Bible, God raised him from the dead. He ascended to heaven, to the "right hand of God," and he will return again to fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy such as the Resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment and establishment of the physical Kingdom of God.
According to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical Gospels. However, infancy Gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the Gospels contained within the New Testament. The Biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
Overview
This section presents a brief overview of different views held by certain Christians concerning Jesus. Each point is detailed in subsequent sections. Because groups describing themselves as Christian hold differing views about Jesus, the predominant, traditional view is presented first, followed by variants.
Predominant view
Christians predominantly profess that Jesus is the Christ ( Matthew 16:16–17 ; 1 Corinthians 2:8 ), the only Son of the Living God, the Lord, and the eternal Word. They profess Jesus to be the second of three divine persons, or hypostases, of the Holy Trinity: Jesus the Son constitutes, together with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, the single substance of the One God. Furthermore, Jesus is defined to be one person with a fully human and fully God, a doctrine known as the Hypostatic union.
Christians predominantly profess that Jesus became man in the incarnation, so that those who believe in him might have eternal life. They further hold that he was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit in an event described as the miraculous virgin birth.
Christians predominantly profess that Jesus is the Messiah (Greek: Christos ; English: Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament. In his life Jesus proclaimed the "good news" (Middle English: gospel ; Greek: euangelion, ευαγγελιον ) that the coming Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and established the Christian Church, which is the seed of the kingdom, into which Christ calls the poor in spirit. Jesus' actions at the Last Supper, where he instituted the Eucharist, are understood as central to worship and communion with God. They profess that Jesus suffered death by crucifixion, descended into hell (hades, place of the dead), and rose bodily from the dead in the definitive miracle that foreshadows the resurrection of humanity at the end of time, when Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, resulting in election to Heaven or damnation to Hell.
Christians predominantly profess that through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus restored man's communion with God in the blood of the New Covenant. His death on a cross is understood as the redemptive sacrifice: the source of humanity's salvation and the atonement for sin, which had entered human history through the sin of Adam.
Other views
Other groups hold different views concerning Jesus' divinity and humanity. Nestorianism teaches that Jesus was two persons, rather than one, rejecting the unity of Jesus' natures, whereas Monophysitism teaches that Jesus had one nature, rather than two. Neither of these views differ concerning the other points. Docetism, conversely, teaches that Jesus' humanity was merely an illusion, and instead he is understood as purely divine. This view does not teach the incarnation or the mortal death of Jesus by crucifixion, and understands the resurrection in significantly different terms.
Non-trinitarianism does not define God in terms of three divine persons. Some of these groups teach that Jesus is not, or at least was not always, God. Others see Jesus as God, but not distinct from the Father or Spirit, often describing those as merely changes in appearance, or modes of existence. Mormons consider Jesus to be a separate being, united as one with the Father and Spirit only in purpose.
Some Liberal Christians generally consider Jesus to have been an ordinary man only. They generally believe that miraculous and prophetic events in Jesus' life were not historical. They sometimes find a metaphorical meaning in what they consider fictitious accounts of his life. Jesus' relationship with God is described in widely diverse views within this group.
Sources used
Christian views of Jesus are derived from various sources, but especially from the canonical Gospels. Christians predominantly hold that these works are historically true. Christians do not limit themselves to merely historical methods, but because they believe the Bible is inspired by God, they employ religious methods as well, such as typology and other forms of exegesis. Similarly, they follow the theological insights, concerning Jesus, of the New Testament epistles.
The Roman Catholic view is expressed in the Second Vatican council document, Dei Verbum :
Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught…. The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus.
Furthermore, Catholic and Orthodox Christians develop their views of Jesus from Sacred Tradition, which includes the decrees of Ecumenical Councils, and material from the writings of the Church Fathers. Additionally, a prominent place is given for the teachings of certain theologians, called "Doctors of the Church," known for their orthodoxy, eminent learning, and sanctity. Most Protestant Christians also consider these sources valuable in developing their views of Jesus.
Some ancient texts, known as apocrypha or "secret writing," filled in the silence of the New Testament writings and the Apostolic Fathers on certain matters with often fantastic and picturesque accounts. Other texts had more doctrinal aims, some of which presented teachings condemned by the early Church. Concerning Christian use of these texts for developing views of Jesus, in antiquity Origen expressed the position still predominantly held by Christians today:
We are not unaware that many of these secret writings were produced by wicked men, famous for their iniquity…. We must therefore use caution in accepting all these secret writings
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