Who is this Man Session 1

Jesus questioned His disciples asking them, “Who do you say I am?”  How would one answer this question?  What evidence would one use to support their conclusion?  I placed myself at the feet of Jesus as He asked the question, and thought how I would answer.  Is He the Son of God?  Is He the eternal infinite God-man?  Is He just a man whom God selected to be a redeemer?  Who is this man who said He is truth?  Jesus is God made flesh.  He died to redeem men from the shackles of sin and resurrected Himself from the dead to give me eternal life. I will sustain my assertion in two parts: First, establishing the historicity of Jesus, His claim to divinity, and the assurance of this truth.  Second, in an abridged systematic overview of the Scriptures as the inspired, infallible word of God having complete authority over all theological controversies and general revelation; the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; the attributes of God and how they relate to all believers; the omniscience of God; Who is man; Christology, why did Christ die; Justification by faith; Sanctification; the Holy Spirit, Who or What is He; Does the Holy Spirit guide Christians, and what is the Church?

                                              PART I

THE HISTORICITY AND DIVINITY OF JESUS

There are intellectuals today, as in the past that attempt to establish doubt and negate not only the divinity, but the existence, of the man Jesus Christ.  However, just as there has been and to the present day is an attempt to deny the holocaust ever having taken place during World War II (though there are existing reliable witnesses and documentary evidence to refute those claims), there exists written documentation from established and recognized secular and Christian historians of the first, second, and third centuries who have recorded the existence of the individual called “Christus” and the sect of men that were “given to a new superstition”,[i] along with accounts of the founding and intensification of the Christian faith. 

 

              SECULAR HISTORIANS

Thallus a chronologer during the 1^st century to the latter part of the 2^nd century is mentioned in the works of the early Christians writers.  He has been cited for the details on Syrian and Assyrian history and has been identified in the Chronicles of Eusebius of Caesarea as the author of a history of the Mediterranean from the fall of Troy to the Olympiad of 109 B.C.  He was first mentioned by Theophilus Bishop of Antioch in A.D. 180 in his Ad Autolycun.  In A.D. 221 Julius Africanus cites from Thallus’ History of the Mediterranean World from the Trojan War up to his own time, which was c. A.D. 52, in response to Thallus’ comment on the darkness that enveloped the afternoon sky during the crucifixion of Jesus.  In the third book of his three books, Thallus explains away the darkness that enveloped the sky on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion as an eclipse of the sun.[ii]  Thallus is the first historian to mention the man Jesus and gives us insight that the account of the crucifixion of Jesus and the darkness that occurred was a known fact, even then, requiring an explanation.

Cornillius Tacitus, c. A.D. 56(7) - 120 called the greatest historian of ancient Rome, in the Annals XV covers the reign of Nero and the fire of Rome which was blamed on the sect of Christians.[iii] 

Nero “. . . ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome.  Hence to suppress the rumor he falsely charged with great guilt, and punished with most exquisite torture, the persons commonly called Christians . . . the founder Christus, was put to death by Pontius Pilate procurator of Judea during the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only throughout Judea, where it originated, but through the city of Rome also”. (Annals XV 44)

 

It is commonly believed that this pernicious superstition is in reference to the resurrection of Jesus.[iv]

Gaius Seutonius Tranquillus, c. A.D. 70 to 130 or a little after, a Roman historian, court official and annalist under the Emperor Hadrian, wrote in the Life of Claudius, “Judaeos, impulsores Chresto, assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit”, ("Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Claudius] expelled them from Rome). The Jews were expelled from Rome in A.D. 49 by Claudius because of their disturbances, for not worshipping idols and for loving all, including their tormentors the Christians, (Life of Claudius 25:4), which were being instigated by the one called Chrestus [Christus].[v]  This same incident is recorded by Luke in Acts 18:2.  In his Lives of the Caesers, 26.2, Tranquillus writes, “Nero inflicted punishment on the Christians, a sect given to a new and mischievous religious belief.”  This places the Christians in Rome less then twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4B.C.- A.D.65, born in Córdoba, Spain, Roman philosopher, dramatist, and statesman, was one of the most eminent writers of the Silver Age of Latin literature. Educated in rhetoric and philosophy in Rome, Seneca the Younger, as he was known, was deeply influenced by the teachings of the Stoics, whose doctrines he later developed.  In A.D.49 Seneca was made a praetor and appointed tutor to Nero, the adopted son of the Emperor Claudius.  Upon the death of Claudius in 54, Nero became emperor. Much of the decency and moderation of the first five years of his rule was the result of the sane guidance of Seneca and Sextus Afranius Burrus, Roman commander of the Praetorian Guard. By 62, however, Seneca had lost all control over the emperor. The great wealth that Seneca had amassed aroused the jealousy of Nero, who attempted unsuccessfully to have him poisoned. Seneca, by this time in retirement, devoted himself to philosophical study and writing.  In 65, however, he was implicated in a conspiracy to kill Nero, led by the plebeian Gaius Calpurnius Piso, and he committed suicide by imperial order.  Seneca is considered one of the outstanding Stoic philosophers of Rome.  He wrote of the horrors inflicted upon the Christians in his Espitulae Morales, Epistle 14, On the Reasons for withdrawing from the World: “The other kind of evil comes, so to speak, in the form of a huge parade.  Surrounding it is a retinue of swords and fire and chains and a mob of beasts to be let loose upon the disemboweled entrails of men. . . Think of human limbs torn apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, of the terrible shirt smeared and interwoven with inflammable materials, and of all the other contrivances devised by cruelty, in addition to those which I have mentioned.”

Flavius Josephus, born Josephus ben Mattathias in Jerusalem in A.D.37/38 - A.D.101, a Jewish historian, was of both royal and priestly lineage.  A man both learned and worldly, he was a member of the Pharisees, and also a public figure who, before the Jewish revolt against Rome A.D. 66, had made friends at the court of Emperor Nero.  In his Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 33 he wrote that there was a man called Jesus and that it can be questioned if he really was a man because of all the good works that he did.  He makes the additional controversial statement that this Jesus was the Christ, and that after being put to death by Pontius Pilate at the instigation of principle men within the Jews, this Jesus appeared to many of his followers after three days, just as the prophets had foretold.

 

SATIRIST AND POETS

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, A.D.65 – A.D.128, was a Roman satirical poet, born in Aquinum in southern Italy. All that is known of his life is that he had a short army career, fell out of favor with the Emperor Domitian, and was exiled (perhaps to Egypt). On his return to Rome he lived in poverty, but toward the end of his life his circumstances improved—probably because of the favor of the Emperor Hadrian.  In his Satires, Juvenal references the torture of the Christians by Nero. 

Lucian of Samosata, spoke contemptuously against both the Christians and Christ, never assuming or denying their existence, or that they and Jesus were not real.[vi]  “The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day, the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . .”[vii]

---

[i] Josh McDowell, New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, (Nashville, Nelson Publishers 1999) p 121

[ii] Ibid. p 122

[iii] Michael Grant, The Ancient Historians, (New York, Barnes and Noble 1970) pp 275, 280

[iv] Josh McDowell, New Evidence, p 120, 121;

[v] Ibid. p 121

[vi] Ibid. p 121

[vii] Internet resource, westarkchurchof Christ.org/library