If God Became Man

In his bestselling Evidence That Demand a Verdict, Josh McDowell posed this question: “If God became a man what would we expect Him to be like?”

One of the 8 answers that McDowell proposed was, “If God became a man we would expect Him to have an unusual entrance into this life.” In Isaiah 7:14, we see this prophecy: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Before, people questioned whether there was really a prophecy because there was a time that the only Old Testament Hebrew text we have had was the Masoretic text, which a group of scribes complied around A.D. 500. That’s 500 years after Christ. So, these critics are accusing that it was not really a prophecy but something written after the fact. But, in 1947, a young Bedouin shepherd discovered ancient scrolls of the Old Testament in a cave near the Dead Sea. These scrolls were dated 550 to 900 years earlier. As in, at least 50 to 400 years before Christ! Among the scrolls found was a complete scroll of Isaiah. Thus, this proves that there’s really a prophecy about the miraculous virgin birth of our Lord Jesus.

And, of course, the virgin birth itself is an unusual entrance. Dr. John MacArthur, Jr., wrote, “Those who deny the virgin birth argue that it is biologically impossible. They're right! It was also biologically impossible to create Adam from dirt, but God did it. It was also biologically impossible to create Eve from the side of Adam, but God did that, too.” (From his study guide, Is the Bible Reliable?) There were attempts to discredit the virgin birth of Christ. Early rabbis accused that Jesus was actually the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. If you remember, in the movie The Nativity, the Roman soldier angle was one of the questions raised by the father of Mary when she announced that she is pregnant. But a Jewish skeptic himself countered this allegation. “There would be no object in making such a claim unless the Christian original genealogy made some claim that the birth of Jesus was not normal.” In other words, the accusation is actually proof of the fact that the early Christians taught that Jesus was born of a virgin.

Brethren, our Lord Jesus is God who became man!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“Ubus-ubos Biyaya, Bukas Nakatunganga”

Image
That’s what my mother always told us when we were still kids. (Translation: “You spend everything today, you will have nothing tomorrow.” ) Image source: So, What's New ? Dionie did just that. Last April 2008, he won PHP14,125,032 in the Lotto 6/42 draw. Excitedly, he “lived the life of a millionaire, something he had been longing to experience. He lived in a P4-million house in a posh subdivision, drove around in a sports utility vehicle [which he bought the very same day he claimed his prize] , and gave goodwill money, ranging P1,000 to P 850,000, to relatives and friends. He also gambled daily, womanized, and went on regular drinking sprees.” (Source: Manila Bulletin ) He estimated that he squandered a minimum of P100,000 almost every day. He also lent money even to people he did not really know. “I just gave them and told them not to pay me back.” (Ibid) His bank had to issue him a special card so he can withdraw huge amounts of money quickly from the automated teller m
Read more

God Knows Judas Not Pay

In the National Geographic Magazine (May 2006 issue), in its cover story, The Judas Gospel , Professor Eliane Pagels of Princeton University claimed that the so-called gospel of Judas “ changes the history of early Christianity. ” Even UP Professor Randy David took notice of the Judas Gospel: “Strictly from a sociological standpoint, I think the discovery of the Gospel of Judas makes Christianity a far more interesting religion than what centuries of metaphysical theology has made of it.” (A Gospel for the Postmodern, Phil. Daily Inquirer, April 16, 2006) That’s why I spoke in our Young Pro Fellowship a few days ago on God Knows Judas Not Pay (A Biblical Response on the Judas Gospel). I believe opportunities like this hype on the Judas Gospel or the Da Vinci Code opens a door for us to share the true Gospel. For those who did not attend last Thursday, let me share briefly why we reject the Judas gospel. I came up with the acronym J-U-D-A-S. J udas was portrayed as a traitor in the Bibl
Read more

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!”

Image
Forty years ago, this expression became known as a description of blind obedience.   Source: Los Angeles Times On November 18, 1978, members of Peoples Temple, a cult group in Guyana, drank Kool-Aid drink laced with cyanide to commit a mass suicide “at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones”. [1] According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , “The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 age 17 and under, making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history. ”  [2]  What made those people submit to such atrocity? According to Stella Morabito, a senior contributor to The Federalist online magazine, Peoples Temple is “Exhibit A… [of]  the dangers of the cult mindset or how vulnerable all people are to cult tactics.”  [3] She pointed out that, Coercive persuasion has immense power to shape and twist the human mind.  …[Jones’] utopian preaching of a humane world in which all lived happily in harmony resonated with the
Read more