The Christ? Really?
Skeptics in Scriptures
"Is not this the
carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren,
James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?" Matthew 16:16 (KJV)
A number of dismissals of
Jesus as the Christ appear in Scripture.
Personally, I think this adds intellectual credibility to the New
Testament. Documents that make up Jesus as the Christ certainly would
not point to those who denied that Jesus is the Christ.
Statements as Jesus could not do any miracles in his home town add to
the account.
At the cross, there were those who mocked him and taunted him saying,
"if you are the son of God, come down."
Important to the theme of Jesus as the Christ is that he had to be weak
as any other human being. How could he be legitimately crucified for
the forgiveness of sins as God the Spirit or God the Father?
In seminary, peers and professors would dismiss Jesus as God in the
flesh because he prayed to God demonstrating a very human quality being
so weak that he had to pray to God. How could he pray to himself?
But that is part of the point of Scripture. Jesus as God in the flesh
would have exhibited such human qualities as praying to God.
That statement isn't some heavy duty theology. And I am sure that some
theological giants could do a far deeper job of speaking to that
statement or rejecting it than I just did.
My sole, simple point, is that Jesus was dismissed because he was seen
as a mere human being. It is in faith that one grasps that this
carpenter's son is the Son of God, and indeed being the Son of God is
the physical manifestation of God.
