Acts 17:18 -
'And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,” - because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.' The Word was divine but the Word became flesh.
We only belong to the truth if what we live out is the real truth so the real truth gets seen in us. We need to be of good courage to admit to ourselves and to others what the real truth is - that the Word was divine, the Son of Man and Son of God from before all things were created, but the Word became flesh, Jesus, still the Son of God but now flesh and blood and resurrected in the love and power of God the Father. Such He is still. He who is seen and heard and looked upon and touched by humans such as He has become. Luke did not see it appropriate to call Him a deity because deities were thought of as above such human interaction and neither flesh nor blood but spirit only. Jesus still has flesh and blood. We need to live out this truth. He became like us so we can now live like Him and if we hold to this truth we must live as He lived. "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth." John's first epistle chapter 1 verse 6.
Once upon a time the followers of Jesus were deemed a cult. I guess it changed when Catholicism became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Personally I take up the cross of the disgrace of being deemed part of a cult and outside of the official religion of the equivalent today of that Roman Empire if it comes with following Jesus. The alternative is to deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which is the spirit of antichrist falsehood.
Jesus ceased to be a deity when He was incarnated. He truly became a human like all humans - a sinless one - yet still Son of God loved by God. That is how it is we can copy Him. That is how it is He died when crucified. That is what a marvel it is that He became the resurected firstborn from the dead and lives forever as Great High Priest over God's House and sits on David's Throne.
This Jesus Christ Himself taught a monotheism where only the Father is to be worshipped as God. This Father is the One Jesus proclaimed as indeed His own God and Father and also His disciples' God and Father.
Luke in writing the passage I quoted in Acts did not think regarding Jesus as a deity was correct - I can tell that by his description of the comments of Epicurians and Stoics who he writes 'thought they were preaching a new deity' when they preached Jesus. Clearly he is denying that it would be correct thinking to regard the preaching by the Apostles as preaching Jesus as a new deity. So clearly he too knew that Jesus becoming flesh at His incarnation was leaving behind the divinity to fully become a child and grow to be a genuine flesh and blood man with DNA and the like. They think they might have a bone fragment of Jesus' cousin John the Baptist and if they sequenced it they would see something close to Jesus' DNA sequence being so closely related. That is how human He is. So He can be the way that we too can come to God His Father. Now He is Lord too.
Not everyone is philosophically inclined to split hairs. The truth is for all though that Jesus is the Word made flesh and that before He was made flesh He was divine and known as the Son of Man and this identity He made clear He retained by identifying Himself as the Son of Man repeatedly before His crucifixion and then God raised Him which God did because Jesus is the Son of God. To say He is a deity is to miss or confuse of obscure the truth that He has become flesh and blood. Luke in 'Acts' (Acts 17:18) pointed out that this mistake was being voiced by Stoics and Epicureans after hearing the Apostle Paul preach.
As Christians many perpetuate a lie that Jesus has not fully become a human setting aside His former deity yet remaining The Son of Man. As Muslims many perpetuate a lie that Jesus is not the Son of God. Both know the teaching that liars will perish at the Judgment in the Lake of Fire.
So a third of the world might hate me for turning from other gods to serve One true God and a third might hate me for confessing truth that Jesus is this one God's beloved Son and is alive from the dead having died on the cross and now a third might hate me for confessing truth that Jesus is man and has become fully man though before this He was the divine Word of God and was together with God in the beginning. It is not being shunned by anyone I should fear but the God who can put me in that Lake of Fire on Judgment Day.
'And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,” - because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.' The Word was divine but the Word became flesh.
We only belong to the truth if what we live out is the real truth so the real truth gets seen in us. We need to be of good courage to admit to ourselves and to others what the real truth is - that the Word was divine, the Son of Man and Son of God from before all things were created, but the Word became flesh, Jesus, still the Son of God but now flesh and blood and resurrected in the love and power of God the Father. Such He is still. He who is seen and heard and looked upon and touched by humans such as He has become. Luke did not see it appropriate to call Him a deity because deities were thought of as above such human interaction and neither flesh nor blood but spirit only. Jesus still has flesh and blood. We need to live out this truth. He became like us so we can now live like Him and if we hold to this truth we must live as He lived. "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth." John's first epistle chapter 1 verse 6.
Once upon a time the followers of Jesus were deemed a cult. I guess it changed when Catholicism became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Personally I take up the cross of the disgrace of being deemed part of a cult and outside of the official religion of the equivalent today of that Roman Empire if it comes with following Jesus. The alternative is to deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which is the spirit of antichrist falsehood.
Jesus ceased to be a deity when He was incarnated. He truly became a human like all humans - a sinless one - yet still Son of God loved by God. That is how it is we can copy Him. That is how it is He died when crucified. That is what a marvel it is that He became the resurected firstborn from the dead and lives forever as Great High Priest over God's House and sits on David's Throne.
This Jesus Christ Himself taught a monotheism where only the Father is to be worshipped as God. This Father is the One Jesus proclaimed as indeed His own God and Father and also His disciples' God and Father.
Luke in writing the passage I quoted in Acts did not think regarding Jesus as a deity was correct - I can tell that by his description of the comments of Epicurians and Stoics who he writes 'thought they were preaching a new deity' when they preached Jesus. Clearly he is denying that it would be correct thinking to regard the preaching by the Apostles as preaching Jesus as a new deity. So clearly he too knew that Jesus becoming flesh at His incarnation was leaving behind the divinity to fully become a child and grow to be a genuine flesh and blood man with DNA and the like. They think they might have a bone fragment of Jesus' cousin John the Baptist and if they sequenced it they would see something close to Jesus' DNA sequence being so closely related. That is how human He is. So He can be the way that we too can come to God His Father. Now He is Lord too.
Not everyone is philosophically inclined to split hairs. The truth is for all though that Jesus is the Word made flesh and that before He was made flesh He was divine and known as the Son of Man and this identity He made clear He retained by identifying Himself as the Son of Man repeatedly before His crucifixion and then God raised Him which God did because Jesus is the Son of God. To say He is a deity is to miss or confuse of obscure the truth that He has become flesh and blood. Luke in 'Acts' (Acts 17:18) pointed out that this mistake was being voiced by Stoics and Epicureans after hearing the Apostle Paul preach.
As Christians many perpetuate a lie that Jesus has not fully become a human setting aside His former deity yet remaining The Son of Man. As Muslims many perpetuate a lie that Jesus is not the Son of God. Both know the teaching that liars will perish at the Judgment in the Lake of Fire.
So a third of the world might hate me for turning from other gods to serve One true God and a third might hate me for confessing truth that Jesus is this one God's beloved Son and is alive from the dead having died on the cross and now a third might hate me for confessing truth that Jesus is man and has become fully man though before this He was the divine Word of God and was together with God in the beginning. It is not being shunned by anyone I should fear but the God who can put me in that Lake of Fire on Judgment Day.
