Page 156 - Bible Writers Theology Original

140 ♦ Bible Writers' Theology Chapter Seven
There was a time when the puzzled Jews, in their turn, asked a straight forward question, when they felt unable to identify Christ: "Who art thou?" (John 8:25). John 10:24 gives a vivid picture of their situation: "Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him. How long dost thou make
us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Obviously to the devout Jew, who claimed to be Abraham's children and versed in the law and the prophets, it was hard to recognize Christ as "greater" than their father,
"Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" (John 8:53,57).
Later, among the Jewish Christians, the Ebionite sect in the second cen- . tury wereknownfortheirbeliefthatJesuswasthehumansonofJosephand
Mary. They further believed that the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, light edonHimatHisbaptismintheJordanRiver. Theywereknowntohave rejected the Pauline epistles and to have used only the Gospel of Matthew.
Tothisday,theyarestillaffectingpeoplewhoholdtheirdogmas. Theycre ated so much confusion and contradiction that today's theologians believe John wrote the prologue of the Gospel of John in defense of the truth that the Logos became flesh, refuting Ebionite Christology Qohn 1:1-18; ICorinthians 15.39-50). So called theologians that support the Ebionite doctrine interpret
Romans 8:29-30; I Corinthians 15:40-50; 1 John 3:1-3; II Peter 1:2-4; and
aatians3.27-29tobestrictlymetaphorical. Theycontinuetosaythepar- ^ ngwiththeSpiritandfleshofJesusChristisasarelationshipbetween
us andandwife. Theirideaisnotbiblical. Inreality.Evewasapartaker
1^ ® her husband (earthly Adam) in the same way the Church is a so the partaker of the nature of the second Adam, Christ (Genesis 2:21,23;
tpnesians5:30). EveryonemustacceptPaul'scalltobelieve"...thatChrist jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1 Timothy 1:15-17)
The living Word of God is ever existing in God and when time was u ycomet eWordbecamefleshanddweltamongus(John1:14)Johnthe
fK^^ e wor
^inied. BeholdtheLambofGod,whichtakethawaythesinof (John 1.29). Jesus also testified of Himself, "I came out from
orth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I
1
leavetheworld,andgototheFather" (John16:27-28).
. viewpoint also penetrated into the Christian church, and me ear y genuine Christian belief by speculating that the incarnation
p re yan appearance of God without the real assumption of humanity,
nrvwa \ ^te^hing of the "kenoss" theory was very popular. This the- "Kenw" which means "to make of no rep
utation. to make nothing or to empty". (Read Philippians 2:7.)