"But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Jesus. 4. For if he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.”
A “primary source” is a source in research that goes back to the date of the incident, or the closest date, that is being written about. I was a history major in college and I used to love to go back to magazine articles that were about the subject that I happened to be researching. Primary resources are generally considered the most viable. Well, there is a primary resource for Jesus, and that is the New Testament. It is the only primary source. I think that it was by God’s design that nothing authoritative outside of the New Testament was written about Jesus. That’s why these movies and books about Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, and other outlandish things, are ridiculous. Where did they get their information? Some of it came from apocryphal writings that are patently false.* What we know about Jesus is revealed in the four gospels and in other New Testament documents, e.g., Paul’s letters. You can see from our text, that preaching of “another Jesus” was a problem in the early church. It was something that the apostles had to combat all of the time. Satan knows that if he can distort who Christ is and make Him into something other than how He is portrayed to be in the New Testament, he can hinder the gospel message. The New Testament portrays Christ as the long-awaited Messiah, who came to earth, born of a virgin, and lived a perfect life. He died on the cross in order that people might be saved. He arose on the third day, ministered to His disciples for forty days and ascended to the Father. One day He will return to claim His people. That is who and what Christ is – the Savior of the world. There is no such thing as a “cosmic Christ” that I read about some time ago. This “cosmic Christ” is really whatever anyone wants him to be. If one wants him to be a roving revolutionary that is what he will become. If one wants him to be a libertine who says that anything and everything goes, that is what he will be. This is the “New Age” take on who and what Christ is. These philosophies usually take all of the power out of the hands of Jesus, and put it into the hands of humanity. (That’s a scary thought, given the history of humanity.) This “New Age” Christ smiles on everything. He would certainly never have cleansed the temple, because he would not have wanted to offend those who bought and sold there. He would certainly never have condemned the self-righteous Pharisees, lest he offend them. He would not have claimed to be “the way, the truth and the life.” He would not have claimed to be the only way to the Father, because he wouldn’t have wanted to offend the sensibilities of other religions. This “cosmic Christ” would be good friends with Buddha, Allah and all of the other assorted gods out there. In fact, he would just be “one of the guys,” lumped in with whatever people wanted to worship. Needless to say, this is not the New Testament view of Christ. We need to be aware that this “other Christ” which Paul had to deal with is still being preached today, and people are still buying it. They are buying it because it gives them a savior with no claim on their lives. A savior who would make no demands, have no will and who would have no moral compass. We need to choose the Christ who claimed the authority of Yahweh, and was able to say: “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This is the Christ who is “the way, the truth and the life.” This is the Christ who has “gone to prepare a place for us.” Claim Him! Embrace Him! Believe Him! Bro. Joe *I refer you to The Real Jesus, written by Lee Strobel
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|