Born to Rule

Every year as winter begins, millions of sincere Christians eagerly celebrate the birth of Jesus with good will and Christmas cheer, scrumptious dinners and endless parties, eggnog and Yule logs, loads of gifts and lot of carols. On Christmas Eve, as on Easter Sunday, the churches are full, and all seems right with the world. For many, the Christmas season is their favorite time of the year.

However, with all the commercialism infusing this particular holiday, the birth of Jesus has slipped far enough from its place of primacy that many concerned Christians make a point of urging their friends and neighbors to return the worship of Jesus to Christmas. “He’s the Reason for the season!” they argue. “Put Christ back in Christmas!”

A fine sentiment, undoubtedly expressed in all fervency, but it is entirely misguided.

Such a statement is probably shocking to many, but it is true nonetheless because Jesus Christ was never in Christmas. The holiday is an entirely manmade celebration, instituted by Catholic Church fathers—Pope Julius officially sanctioned December 25 as the birthday of Christ in AD 350—to encourage the conversion of pagans to Christianity. It is no coincidence that Christmas coincides with the Roman Saturnalia, the Empire’s winter solstice celebration, because Christmas was instituted to replace the Saturnalia’s pagan rites with more wholesome, Christian ones. This covering-over or blending of non-Christian practices with Christian ones (called “syncretism”) accounts for the many pagan elements that have become indelibly fused with Christmas observance.

The Bible itself is silent on the Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth. One would think that if God the Father wanted His Beloved Son’s birth to be honored, He would have taken special care to ensure that the Good Book contained a directive to do so. But what do we find? Instead, Jesus Himself instructs us to remember—not His birth—but His death (Luke 22:14-20; I Corinthians 11:23-26)! The coming of the Savior into the world is certainly important, but at that point, Jesus was a helpless baby who had as yet done nothing. It was what He did with His life over the next thirty-three years that makes all the difference!

The Bible contains the true account of Jesus’ begettal and birth in the early chapters of Matthew and Luke. These authors’ aims were 1) to give an accurate account of the circumstances, and 2) to reveal certain elements of spiritual significance to their readers. Matthew, a Jew writing mainly to other Jews, weaves his story around specific Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in these events. He is trying to show that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah and heir of David, and thus the true King of Israel. For this reason, his account is interspersed with quotations from the prophets.

Luke, however, was a Gentile writing primarily to other Gentiles, so he is not as interested in fulfillments of prophecy or Jesus’ Jewish roots. He wants his readers to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men and women of every age and condition. In other words, he is intent on revealing Jesus as the universal Christ and Second Adam, through whom came life (see I Corinthians 15:20-22). These two perspectives and objectives go a long way in explaining the differences in their narratives. They are not contradictory but complementary.

This distinction is perhaps best seen in their different genealogies of Jesus. Matthew begins his book with Jesus’ family tree (Matthew 1:1-17) because a person’s heritage was of primary importance to Jews. It is clear that Mattew's list of Jesus’ forefathers is, in fact, His stepfather Joseph’s line of descent, meaning that Matthew is most interested in establishing Jesus’ legal status as “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (verse 1). In other words, He has a valid, legal claim to the throne of Israel; He meets the qualifications.

Luke has a very different list (Luke 3:23-38). It is evidently Mary’s genealogy, and thus Jesus’ natural genealogy. In addition, Luke takes the record all the way back to Adam and then to God Himself (verse 38), showing that, not only is Jesus the Son of Man, but He is also the Son of God. Jesus, then, has both a natural and a supernatural right to be mankind’s Savior and Sovereign.

The story of Jesus’ birth we all know well. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary, announcing that God had chosen her to bear His Son (Luke 1:26-38). At some point soon thereafter, she conceives through a miracle from God. When she is found to be pregnant, her betrothed husband Joseph decides to divorce her quietly, but an angel informs him in a dream that what had happened was from God (Matthew 1:18-20). The Child is to be named Jesus, and He would “save His people from their sins” (verse 21).

About the time that the Baby is due, Joseph and Mary travel down to Bethlehem to comply with a Roman census, and there Jesus was born, most likely in the early autumn (Luke 2:1-7; Matthew 2:1). To shepherds in the fields, an angel in great glory announces “good tidings of great joy which will be to all people,” and the shepherds, after seeing Him for themselves (Luke 2:8-16), spread the good news far and wide (verses 17-18). In accordance with the law, Jesus is circumcised on the eighth day (verse 21) and after forty days presented at the Temple along with an offering (verses 22-24). At that time, Simeon and Anna witness to His being the promised Redeemer (verses 25-38).

Sometime after Jesus’ birth, an unknown number of wise men from the East come and worship Him, presenting Him with rich gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:1-12). These are typically gifts given to royalty, which He was, and signify—among other interpretations—His righteous life, complete sacrifice, and efficacious death. After the wise men leave, His parents are divinely warned to flee to Egypt, which they do (verses 13-15). While they are gone, Herod massacres the children of Bethlehem under two years of age in an attempt to stamp out his rival to the throne (verses 16-18). Returning to Judea after Herod’s death soon thereafter, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus live in Nazareth until He begins His ministry about thirty years later (verses 19-23; Luke 2:39-40; 3:23).

The constant theme that emerges from both accounts of Jesus’ birth is that He was born into this world to save humanity from sin and rule as King of kings. His birth was the inauguration of a life dedicated to the service of God and all mankind.

The Pre-Incarnate Christ

Where did Jesus come from? A person reading the Bible for the first time could easily finish the last verses of Malachi and begin to read Matthew only to feel somewhat blindsided by the sudden announcement and birth of Jesus, called Immanuel, "God with us." From one page to the next, the Messiah appears out of the blue, as it were, the divine abruptly breaking into human affairs.

Of course, this is only a perception by some, not reality. In fact, many Jews of that day, watching the signs of the times, were expecting the Messiah at any time. First-century ad Judea was awash in Messianic expectation and fervor. Every few years, a new Messianic candidate would arise, gather a following, revolt against the Romans, and be executed (see, for instance, Acts 5:36-37; 21:38). Between the death of Herod the Great in 4 bc and the suppression of the Bar Kochba Revolt in ad 135, as many as eighteen men, including Jesus of Nazareth, were acclaimed Messiah in the region of Roman Judea.

In the midst of this period, the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:24, "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ," a principle suggesting that the Old Testament is a guide in preparation for Messiah. In this context, it implies that the Old Testament is full of references, allusions, prophecies, and instructions concerning the true Christ. In other words, far from being mostly silent about Jesus, the Old Testament is a vital source of revelation about Him! Jesus verifies this Himself in Luke 24:44, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me" (see also Acts 18:28; 28:23).

Most people realize that the Old Testament contains many prophecies of Christ, and in fact, Jesus fulfilled about 300 individual prophetic details. More broadly, however, the Old Testament chronicles, not just prophecies of His coming, but also the historical activities of the One who became Jesus Christ. Unlike other humans, Jesus was not a created Being but God the Word who "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). In short, He pre-existed as God—with all that entails—before His physical life and ministry.

In the famous passage in Philippians 2:5-8, Paul declares:

. . . Jesus Christ, . . . being in the form of God, did not consider it [a thing to be grasped] to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Clearly, Paul believes that Jesus had existed as a divine Being before His birth, and that He volunteered to divest Himself of much of His glory, power, and prerogatives to become a lowly human being and to die to redeem humanity from its sins. Moreover, the apostle asserts in other places that the pre-incarnate Christ was Creator of all things (I Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), that He led Israel through the wilderness (I Corinthians 10:1-4), and that, as "Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, . . . [He] met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him" (Hebrews 7:1-3).

Did Jesus makes similar claims about Himself—that He had existed as God before His birth to Mary? Yes, many times! The Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—contain many claims of divinity and pre-existence, though few of them are explicit. In Matthew 12:8, He proclaims, "For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath," equating Himself with the Creator, who "rested on the seventh day" and hallowed it (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:11). When Jesus drove out the moneychangers, He claims the Temple to be "My house" (Matthew 21:13). In lamenting over Jerusalem, He grieves over how He wanted to comfort and protect the people "often" throughout history, but they resisted (Matthew 23:37). After the scribes argue, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Jesus specifically says, ". . . the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins," a not-so-subtle declaration of His divinity, which He backs up with an astounding miracle of healing (Mark 2:7, 10-12). In Luke 10:18, He tells His disciples, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," referring to an event that occurred before man was created (see Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:12-16). Later, under arrest and facing the Sanhedrin, He answers the question, "Are You then the Son of God?" with a firm, "You rightly say that I am" (Luke 22:70).

In contrast, the gospel of John proclaims the divine nature of Christ from its opening salvo: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). John shows Jesus doing little to obscure His divinity. Before the first chapter ends, He is acknowledged as "the Son of God" and "the King of Israel" (verse 49), and He Himself declares, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (verse 51). When in John 5:17 Jesus asserts, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working," the Jewish authorities "sought all the more to kill Him, because He . . . said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God" (verse 18). In John 5:26, He claims to have "life in Himself," that is, inherent life as ever-living God. He informs the Jews that He knew Abraham, who "rejoiced to see My day" (John 8:56), and when they protest that He was far too young, He announces, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM" (verse 58), taking upon Himself the divine name of the Eternal God. Later, He tells His disciples, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), meaning that Jesus is "the express image" of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). In His final prayer with the disciples, He asks, "And now, O Father, glorify Me . . . with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:5).

These few examples only scratch the surface of the Bible's claims to the divinity and pre-existence of Jesus. Our salvation, in fact, depends on it, for if He were merely human, His death would be insufficient to pay for others' sins, even though He never sinned. However, if He were more than human—say, the Creator of all things—His sinless death would be priceless, more than enough to atone for the sins of all humanity for all time. Only the sacrificial death of the blameless Creator God makes redemption possible, and only His resurrection to life makes salvation and eternal life available to the called and chosen (Romans 3:21-26; 5:6-11). For this, we can truly be thankful.

False Christs and the True

One of the fiercer debates among early adherents of Christianity centered on the person of Jesus Christ Himself. Various groups held widely divergent views on just who He was. In ignorance or in stubborn refusal to accept the testimony of the apostles, first-century groups from Alexandria to Antioch began to teach a slew of different Christs. In Galatians 1:6-7, only two decades removed from Jesus' death on Golgotha, Paul warns the church against false gospels, perversions of the message preached by Jesus and His apostles. Many of these false Christianities became apostate in large part because they changed the teaching about Jesus Christ Himself.

These different Jesuses came in various forms. Some denied His pre-existence, teaching that He was simply a righteous man whom God accepted and glorified as the Messiah. Others advocated a Jesus who was the first creation of God. Early Gnostics of the Docetist persuasion conceived of Jesus as a normal man whom a spirit, Christ, inhabited upon His baptism—and who left Him to return to a pure spirit form before His suffering on the cross. Similarly, others thought of Him as only coming in the appearance of a man of flesh and blood, while in actuality He was of pure spirit essence, not even making footprints when He walked! An element among the Jews, eager to dissociate themselves from Him, even spread the rumor that they had it on good authority that He was really the bastard son of a Roman soldier, so how could He be the Messiah, much less divine?

This proliferation of false Christs became so widespread that by the end of the first century, the aged John son of Zebedee was forced to lay down an unambiguous rule to help the church recognize true from false: "By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God" (I John 4:2-3). He then proceeds to say that this perversion of Jesus' true nature "is the spirit of the Antichrist." In other words, changing the revealed truth about Christ changes Christianity, turning it against (anti-) Christ. By teaching falsehood about the Savior, no matter how sincerely, a group becomes His enemy.

Over the centuries since, Christian theologians and scholars have tried to figure out—even in some cases, to quantify—Jesus and His nature, and it has led to little more than continuing confusion about Him. The real cause of the confusion is that these very intelligent and devoted people have not truly accepted the revelation of Jesus in Scripture. Instead, they have trusted more in scholarship and their own abilities to reason out an answer.

During one of His encounters with the Pharisees, Jesus tells them, "Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word" (John 8:43, emphasis ours). These Jews could not understand or believe the truth Jesus taught because they were not spiritually equipped to handle it. Even Jesus' own disciples could not really understand Him until "He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45). As Paul explains in I Corinthians 2:10-11, 14:

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. . . . Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. . . . But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Human conceptions of Christ are not enough; the real Jesus Christ of Nazareth must be revealed by God's Spirit through the Scriptures.

The New Testament, of course, presents Jesus Christ primarily in the four gospels, giving us four slightly different perspectives—eyewitness accounts—of Him and His ministry. Each author presents Him in a different manner, with a different intention, and to a different audience. In aggregate, they display a complete, rounded portrait of His personality, message, and purpose.

Matthew writes to a predominantly Jewish audience with the aim of persuading them that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, the true heir of David and King of Israel. He tends to emphasize Jesus' authority and fulfillment of prophecy.

Mark, a protégé of Peter, produces perhaps the simplest gospel, a fairly straightforward account of Christ's ministry. He highlights Jesus as the Servant of God, working steadily and diligently on behalf of mankind—all the way to His suffering and death and beyond.

Luke, the longtime companion of Paul, addresses a mostly Gentile audience. Downplaying Jesus' Jewish origins, he presents Jesus as the model Man, the greatest Son of Adam—in fact, the Second Adam—who came to save the whole world from its sins and to found a new, better world, the Kingdom of God.

Finally, John, writing last of all during a time of increasing apostasy, pens his gospel directly to the mature Christian, remembering scenes from Jesus' ministry that the other gospel writers left out. His shows Jesus Christ as God in the flesh, a Teacher of deep spiritual truth and the Way to eternal life.

These thumbnail sketches are hardly sufficient to explain God's revelation of His Son in Scripture, but they provide a starting point for understanding the approaches of the four gospels. Only in them, and in the rest of the Bible, with the help of God's Spirit, do we see the true Jesus Christ: Savior-King, Suffering Servant, Ideal Man, and Almighty God.

The Historical Jesus

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In the academic world of biblical history and archeology, scholars of the "minimalist" camp are gaining increasing prominence. Essentially, minimalists give the biblical record little credence; they minimize the importance of the Bible to the historical record, placing more trust in evidence from other sources. They tend, then, to discredit the Bible's claims until an archeologist digs up confirmatory proof or until other manuscript evidence comes to light to corroborate Scripture. It seems that, according to modern critical scholarship, the venerable Bible is the ugly stepchild of history, an embarrassment to today's "scientific" study of the past.

Of course, minimizing the Bible's claims cannot help but bring its main Character, Jesus Christ, into question. Since 1985, the Jesus Seminar, a group of about 200 scholars and authors, has done just that. Its aim is to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus by using modern critical methods, weeding out fact from fiction in the gospel narratives. Out of hand, the members reject all "apocalyptic eschatology," or prophecy concerning the end times. In addition, they say that He "healed" only psychosomatic illness, and so discard His miraculous abilities. They do admit that He was crucified—as a public nuisance—by the Romans, but they reject His resurrection as the visionary experiences of Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene. In the end, stripped of all the "fictions" His early followers spread about Him, Jesus is revealed as merely an itinerant Jewish peasant who mingled with the socially disadvantaged and uttered a few pithy sayings.

Yet, if they are to be believed, how did such a common fellow make such a huge impact on world history—to the point that two billion people presently profess to be His followers?

There is a disconnect somewhere, and it is not in the people of faith.

Granted, no serious historian can claim that Jesus Christ is not a historical figure. There is simply too much evidence from the early Christian era to show that He really did exist. As biblical theologian and historian F.F. Bruce has written, "The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar" (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? 5th ed., 1972, p. 119). Ancient documents from respected writers like Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger—and others—refer unreservedly to Jesus of Nazareth as an actual person.

The Roman historian Tacitus, writing about the great fire of Rome in AD 64 during the reign of Nero (AD 54-68), tells of how the emperor blamed the Christians living in the city for starting the conflagration. Perhaps referring to extant Imperial records, he notes in his Annals, XV.44:

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . .

Josephus, a Jewish general and historian who lived into the early second century, penned a controversial paragraph about Jesus (yet attested as early as about AD 324 in the writings of Eusebius, a Catholic church historian):

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful miracles, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principle men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and then thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct to this day. (Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII.3.3)

Suetonius, an annalist of the Imperial dynasty and a court official in the reign of the emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138), writes in his Life of Claudius, XXV.4: "As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [an alternate spelling of Christus], he expelled them from Rome." This decree of Claudius can perhaps be dated to AD 49. In another work, Life of Nero, XVI.2, Suetonius observes, "Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."

Finally, Plinius Secundus, more commonly known as Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, corresponded with the emperor Trajan in AD 112 (Epistles, X.96) about how to treat Christians who refused to pay homage to the emperor as a god. He admits, "Having never been present at any trials concerning those who profess Christianity, I am unacquainted not only with the nature of their crimes, or the measure of their punishment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examination concerning them." He mentions Christianity, Christians, and the name of Christ ten times in the short letter, even remarking that Christians "addressed a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity."

The Emperor's reply is also preserved, in which he commends Pliny for his actions:

You have adopted the right course, my dearest Secundus, in investigating the charges against the Christians who were brought before you. . . . If indeed they should be brought before you, and the crime is proved, they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that where the party denies he is a Christian. . . .

There are many other, later, secular attestations of Jesus Christ as a historical figure from antiquity, but just these four reveal Christ and Christianity as being known by Roman officials at the highest levels as early as the reign of Claudius (AD 41-54). Certainly, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate knew Jesus Christ and reported His trial and execution in his official records, which unfortunately have not survived.

If nothing else, these early mentions provide unbiased support for many of the biblical claims about Jesus, including His truthful teachings, His miracles, His crucifixion, His resurrection, and even His divinity! The truth is that the critical scholars do not want to believe these things, even from the pens of historians that they usually trust, because they know that believing them would bind them to following Christ's teaching—and they will do anything to avoid that!

Who Is Jesus?

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At the heart of Christianity is a central question, "Just who is Jesus Christ?" It may be astounding to some that such a question is still relevant after nearly two millennia of Christian activity, but as strange as it may seem, even Christians do not agree about the nature of the founder of their religion. This fact says a great deal about those who profess to be "Christian," which at its most basic means "follower of Christ." If Christians display such profound disagreement about Jesus Christ Himself, can they all really be following the same Person?

This subject becomes all the more important since, in its most common form, Christianity is proclaimed as a message about Jesus. What a person believes about Jesus, then, informs his understanding of the religion itself. We can see the result of this process in the thousands of Christian denominations in all parts of the world. While they all proclaim to be Christian, the individual sects emphasize different aspects of Jesus in their teaching. For instance:

• Baptists name themselves after Jesus' practice of baptizing converts, and they traditionally stress conformity to certain behavioral rules: no drinking, no card playing, no dancing. Jesus, to them, is a great moral Teacher.
• Pentecostals, on the other hand, call themselves after Jesus' promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which was fulfilled on the Feast of Pentecost after Jesus' death and resurrection. They are known for their great desire to express the gifts of the Spirit, particularly being able to speak in tongues. In other words, their Jesus is a Miracle Worker.
• Seventh-day Adventists take their name from the seventh-day Sabbath, which Jesus is plainly shown to have kept, as well as from His promise to come again. They promote Jesus as the bringer of the soon-coming rest of God.
• Methodists are so called because John Wesley emphasized a structured, methodical approach to Bible study and Christian living, teaching that believers must exercise their free will to come to Christ (as opposed to being absolutely predestined to salvation). Thus, they highlight Jesus' many commands for the individual to be actively involved in his own salvation and Christian growth.
• The Reformed Churches, descendants of the teaching of John Calvin, underscore the necessity of grace through faith in Christ, a reaction to abuses of the medieval Catholic Church's doctrine of works. In this way, they see Jesus as a gracious Redeemer.

Most denominations can be characterized—some would say caricatured—by identifying their concepts of Jesus Himself. He is Christianity's central figure, so how one views Christ determines what one believes and the religion he follows.

This confusion about Him actually began during His own life—even among those who had known Him all His life:

When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?" So they were offended at Him. (Matthew 13:54-57)

It seems that there was general disagreement in Judea over just who He was:

• When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." (Matthew 16:13-14)
• And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, "Who is this?" So the multitudes said, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee." (Matthew 21:10-11)
• Now some of them from Jerusalem said, "Is this not He whom they seek to kill? But look! He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is truly the Christ? However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from." (John 7:25-27)

Of course, His enemies had questions about Him to

• And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Luke 5:21)
• And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" (Luke 7:49)
• Therefore some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them. (John 9:16)

However, Matthew 16:15-17 provides us with the best starting point, confirmed by Christ Himself, in answering the question, "Who is Jesus?"

He said to [His disciples], "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven."

The God-revealed answer is that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the literal Son of the Supreme Being of all the universe. Of course, He is a great deal more than this, but these two facts are the most foundational to our spiritual understanding of this wonderful Being. They give us the basis of His relationship to us and our future, as well as His relationship to Deity, fixing Him as the bridge between man and God. From this foundation, we can begin a deeper consideration of the biblical Jesus.

The Word of the Hour

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And that word—or buzzword—ladies and gentlemen, is "change."

With the Presidential nomination campaign in full swing prior to "Super-Duper Tuesday," February 5, the candidates are making "change" their mantra. This is only to be expected in an election year following a two-term President like George W. Bush, and especially after a tenure that inspired so much unbridled vitriol and sheer hatred. It began with the 2000 election chad fiasco in Florida—in which Democrats claim Bush supporters all the way up to the Supreme Court "stole" the Presidency for him—and it never let up. Well, it did, but only for those few weeks of revenge and resolve after September 11, 2001.

It is a good thing that our Constitution now limits a President to two terms. Any more time in office would grant the President too much time to garner excessive power to himself. The office is already quite powerful, and Presidents have managed to make it even more authoritative through the Constitutionally vague use of executive orders, an unbalanced and unchecked mechanism designed to get things done quickly and without oversight. There are dark rumors of secret executive orders that would go into immediate effect during a real crisis, making the President a virtual dictator. However, this is nothing new: The revered Abraham Lincoln accrued similar powers to himself during the Civil War.

In times like today, candidates of the opposition party—the Democrats—yammer repetitively for change as if their voices were on the proverbial broken record:

• The slogan of Barack Obama's website reads, "Change We Can Believe In." He is quoted prominently (at the top center of the page) saying, "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I'm asking you to believe in yours."
• John Edwards' site asks one to "Join the Campaign to Change America." His 80-page policy paper, "Plan to Build One America," carries the subtitle, "Solutions for Real Change."
• Hillary Clinton has a harder time stressing change, since her husband's administration was one of those two-term, establishment Presidencies. However, after her defeat in the Iowa Caucus, where Obama's message of change hit home, her first New Hampshire advertisement was titled, "Ready for Change." In it the narrator declaims, "We will change things in this country, because we want it. Because we have one candidate who spent her life fighting for it. Standing up for our families, our children, our veterans."

Republicans have latched on to the hour's buzzword too, doing their level best to distance themselves from Bush's unpopularity:

• Mitt Romney insists he is the candidate who will bring "change to Washington." In one 15-minute news conference on January 4, he used the word "change" 21 times.
• Mike Huckabee's supporters argue that "he is the one for honest change" and that "this is the year of change and Mike Huckabee is the best representative."
• John McCain says that he, too, is an "agent for change," claiming that he has been the force behind the greatest changes in our Iraq strategy, campaign finance laws, and government spending.
• On Fred Thompson's website, a supporter declares, "What I want and what this party and this country needs is a conservative leading the country for a change." Thompson himself, however, vows that he will not be jumping on the "change bandwagon," saying leadership and telling the truth are more important messages.
• Ron Paul's message of change is perhaps the most radical: returning America to its Constitutional roots and the Gold Standard. In fact, his website encourages its visitors to "Join the Revolution."

Concerning change, one verse jumps out as a stern warning: "My son, fear the LORD and the king; do not associate with those given to change; for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin those two [the LORD and the king] can bring?" (Proverbs 24:21). Obviously, this is a caution against revolution, attempting to overthrow the government. Most rebellions are hugely unsuccessful, stamped out by the government with merciless violence. This is shown to great effect in Les Miserables. The hotheaded university students' revolution against the French state suffers brutal annihilation, their hasty barricades overrun, and all their hopes for just and glorious change dashed.

This warning takes on greater significance due to the mention of God's involvement. If we believe Romans 13:1-7 is true, we also believe that God is engaged in the governance of nations, working out His purpose through "the lowest of men" (Daniel 4:17; see verses 25, 32; 5:21). Moreover, in the modern nations of Israel, He is even more intimately involved. As Winston Churchill declared, ". . . he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below." From this vantage point, we can conclude that agitating for change could be fighting against God. He may very well have orchestrated the nation's intolerable conditions to instigate the next phase of His plan.

Among humans, change is inevitable because people are different. No two people can agree completely about anything, it seems, so their solutions to problems will often be diverse. And not all change is bad; things can be changed for the better. Certainly, when people sincerely repent and turn to God, what great changes occur (II Corinthians 7:11)! Yet, change for the sake of change is dangerous, for who can foresee the effects that change will bring?

The surest course we can take is to throw in our lot with God and cling to Him and His way with all our might. He says in Malachi 3:6, "For I am the LORD, I do not change." Why should He change when His way, His government, is perfect?

'By Any Other Name'

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President Barack Obama. Frown. President Mike Huckabee. Grimace.

These names just do not sound Presidential or even quite American. Despite their respective victories in the Democrat and Republican Caucuses in Iowa, putting them in the driver's seat for their parties' nominations for President of the United States, they have a long way to go. Winning Iowa does not make a candidate's nomination certain; in fact, over the past several decades, the Republican nomination went to the Iowa winner about half the time, and the Democrat nomination, about sixty percent of the time. Nothing is a foregone conclusion at this point.

In covering elections, pundits talk about name-recognition all the time. If a candidate's name is well-known—even if he or she has done a shoddy job in office, or has never been in office but is publicly popular—he or she will likely garner a sizable number of votes just because his or her name is immediately recognizable. This is especially true when the well-known person's opponent is not known from Adam. People will pull the lever for someone they have some knowledge of rather than the one they would fail to pick out of a police lineup.

Yet, in this country and probably in many others, the name itself—its origin, its form, its sound—is important. The forebears of a majority of this nation's citizens emigrated from Europe, and European names feel familiar and comfortable to them. Beyond this, most citizens have some English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh blood in them, even if they are of German, Italian, Scandinavian, Polish, or some other European derivation. Frankly, many blacks also have British surnames, given to their ancestors when brought in slavery to these shores or taken after emancipation. Thus, to a large majority of Americans, even though we proclaim our acceptance of "your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," a British name has immediate value.

In this time of multiculturalism, such a statement sounds terribly discriminatory and provincial. No matter how it sounds, it is true nevertheless. Why do agents of talented artists insist that many of them change their names? Sometimes, it is because their real names simply clank when spoken. For instance, "Margaret Hyra" is a bit clumsy in the mouth, but "Meg Ryan" sounds great. At other times, a person's name is changed to project the right image: "Marion Morrison" sounds like a wimp, but one could never back down with a name like "John Wayne." The same is true for why the very normal Mark Vincent became tough guy "Vin Diesel."

However, in many cases, a potential star's name is changed because it just sounds too foreign, not American enough. This is why Jennifer Anastassakis became "Jennifer Anniston," instantly changing her immediate persona from Greek-American to simply American. From a talented Spanish-Irish family, actor Emilio Estévez, part of the 80s "Brat Pack," uses his real Spanish name on screen. Yet, his dad, Mondergard Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez, is best known as "Martin Sheen" (naming himself after Catholic Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen), and his youngest brother, Carlos Irwin Estévez, is of course, "Charlie Sheen." In like manner, Robert Allen Zimmerman could never have become America's premier modern folk singer, but "Bob Dylan" could. And who would want to see a magic show performed by David Kotkin? But people flock to see "David Copperfield's" illusions.

The importance of having the right name is especially true in Presidential politics. A cursory scan of America's forty-three Presidents finds only one obviously non-British name, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a name of German origin (however, Van Buren and Roosevelt are technically Dutch names). Eisenhower's two election wins are the exceptions that prove the rule. As a first-time candidate, he was the war hero who had overseen the defeat of the Third Reich, overshadowing his German name, and the second time he was a proven leader, having had a successful first term in office. Besides, in 1952 and 1956, he was contested by Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, a weak, intellectual candidate, who in each election failed to muster even 90 electoral votes.

Evidently, "Huckabee" is an English name, a variant of Huckaby and perhaps of Huxtable. In Devonshire, England, a place exists by the name of "Huccaby" (from Anglo-Saxon, meaning "crooked river bend"), while in North Yorkshire there is an "Uckerby" (from Old Norse, meaning "farmstead"). Yet, Huckabee is just strange enough not to sound common or normal to the average American. Hearing it, many immediately think of Mark Twain's character, Huck Finn, and relate it to a "hick," a hillbilly, a hayseed, a redneck. In this regard, it does not help Mr. Huckabee that he hails from Arkansas, not the most cosmopolitan of states.

"Obama" is even more foreign-sounding. It is of African origin, most likely Swahili, but what it means is anyone's guess at this point. Its similarity to "Osama," the first name of America's number one enemy, Osama bin Laden, is unsettling to some. Of even more controversy has been his first and middle names, Barack Hussein. "Barack," is an Anglicization of a Swahili name, Baraka, of Arabic origin (from bariki, meaning "blessing"). His middle name, "Hussein," is obviously Arabic, and means "handsome one." It was the name of one of Mohammed's grandsons. It is ironic that, while the fight against Muslim extremism continues, a leading candidate for President has two Arabic names.

However, as mentioned earlier, one caucus does not a nomination win. While these two head their fields at the moment, the situation will probably change over the next few weeks as more primaries are held. We will see if America is ready for a President with an untraditional name. Ancient Israel followed Moses for forty years, and his name was Egyptian (Exodus 2:10).