By Elizabeth Prata
We are at the end of our look at the life of Jesus through scripture. The first section of His life was seen through verses focused on prophecy, arrival, and early life.
The next section of verses looked at Him as the Son, second person of the Trinity.
Continue reading “Advent- Thirty Days of Jesus: Day 30, He sat down”By Elizabeth Prata
We are coming toward the end of our look at the life of Jesus through scripture. The first section of His life was seen through verses focused on prophecy, arrival, and early life.
The next section of verses looked at Him as the Son, second person of the Trinity. In that section, we proceeded into looking at Jesus as the Son’s preeminence, His works, and His ministry. Under ministry & works, I chose verses showing His attributes and aspects of being servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and compassionate healer; and His attributes of omniscience, having all authority and power, and sinlessness.
Continue reading “Advent: Thirty Days of Jesus- Day 29, Ascension”By Elizabeth Prata
We are coming toward the end of our look at the life of Jesus through scripture. The first section of His life was seen through verses focused on prophecy, arrival, and early life.
The next section of verses looked at Him as the Son, second person of the Trinity.
Continue reading “Thirty Days of Jesus: Day 28, Resurrection of central importance”By Elizabeth Prata
This section of verses that show Jesus’ life are focused on His attributes. In His earthly ministry we’ve seen Him as servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and healer. We then looked at His attributes of omniscience, His authority, and now His sinlessness.
He came from glory where righteousness reigns. He descended to an earth that’s cursed where every single human is depraved, thoroughly drenched with a sin nature. He lived among us, sinlessly and perfectly fulfilling the Father’s commands for righteous living. He did this at every moment in every way. Not one blot, not one thought, not one act of anything less than perfection.
For this, He was reviled, mocked, hated, and killed.
He did it for us.
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Further Reading:
The Cripplegate/Nate Busenitz: In what way was Jesus ‘made sin’ on the cross? Excerpt:
In what sense did Jesus become “sin on our behalf”? Does that phrase mean that Jesus literally became a sinner on the cross? …
Based on the above passages, we can safely determine what 2 Corinthians 5:21 does not mean. It cannot mean that Jesus became unrighteous, or that He became a sinner, or that He took on a sin nature, or that He literally embodied sin. … So, then what does it mean? This brings us to our third point. … 3. The best way to understand Paul’s statement (that Jesus became sin on our behalf) is in terms of imputation. Our sin was imputed to Christ, such that He became a substitutionary sacrifice or sin offering for all who would believe in Him.
GotQuestions: Why does Christ’s righteousness need to be imputed to us?
On the cross, Jesus took our sin upon Himself and purchased our salvation. We have “been justified by his blood” (Romans 5:9), and part of that justification is an imputation of His own righteousness. Paul puts it this way: “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus is righteous by virtue of His very nature—He is the Son of God. By God’s grace, “through faith in Jesus Christ,” that righteousness is given “to all who believe” (Romans 3:22). That’s imputation: the giving of Christ’s righteousness to sinners.
Ligonier: Jesus’ Sinless Life
Jesus lived a representative life. Jesus lived a sinless life, and it was, therefore, a life of representative sinlessness. Our Lord’s obedience stands in the place of His people’s sin. His law-keeping is counted as the law-keeping of those who have faith in Him.
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Thirty Days of Jesus Series-
Introduction/Background
Prophecies:
Day 1: The Virgin shall conceive
Day 2: A shoot from Jesse
Day 3: God sent His Son in the fullness of time
Day 4: Marry her, she will bear a Son
Birth & Early Life-
Day 5: The Babe has arrived!
Day 6: The Glory of Jesus
Day 7: Magi seek the Child
Day 8: The Magi Offer gifts & worship
Day 9: The Child Grew
Day 10- the Boy Jesus at the Temple
Day 11: He was Obedient
The Second Person of the Trinity-
Day 12: The Son!
Day 13: God is pleased with His Son
Day 14: Propitiation
Day 15: The Gift of Eternal Life
Day 16: Kingdom of Darkness to Light
Day 17: Jesus’ Preeminence
Day 18: The Highest King
Day 19: He emptied Himself
Day 20: Jesus as The Teacher
Day 21: The Good Shepherd
Day 22: The Intercessor
Day 23: The Compassionate Healer
Attributes
Day 24: Jesus’ Omniscience
Day 25: Jesus’ Authority
By Elizabeth Prata
We have been through a section of verses that show Jesus’ life in His earthly ministry. We’ve seen Him as servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and healer.
Now we look at His attributes. Today- Omniscience.
CARM.org: The sovereignty of God: His omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence
Omniscience is an attribute of God alone. It is the quality of having all knowledge (Isaiah 40:14). God knows all things possible as well as actual because He has ordained whatsoever will come to pass according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). He does not need to experience something to know about it completely.
Ligonier: Scripture and the Two Natures of Christ
The historic Christian understanding of the person of Christ is that He is one person who possesses two natures: a divine nature and a human nature. Each nature retains its unique properties, and the two natures remain distinct, though inseparably united in Christ’s person. Thus, according to His divine nature, as the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God is omniscient, omnipotent, and so forth. According to His human nature, the incarnate Christ needs to eat food to survive, grows in knowledge, and so forth.
GotQuestions: What does it mean that Jesus is omniscient?
Despite the condescension of the Son of God to empty Himself and make Himself nothing (Philippians 2:7), His omniscience is clearly seen in the New Testament writings. The first prayer of the apostles in Acts 1:24, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart,” implies Jesus’ omniscience, which is necessary if He is to be able to receive petitions and intercede at God’s right hand.
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Thirty Days of Jesus Series-
Introduction/Background
Prophecies:
Day 1: The Virgin shall conceive
Day 2: A shoot from Jesse
Day 3: God sent His Son in the fullness of time
Day 4: Marry her, she will bear a Son
Birth & Early Life-
Day 5: The Babe has arrived!
Day 6: The Glory of Jesus
Day 7: Magi seek the Child
Day 8: The Magi Offer gifts & worship
Day 9: The Child Grew
Day 10- the Boy Jesus at the Temple
Day 11: He was Obedient
Day 12: The Son!
Day 13: God is pleased with His Son
The Second Person of the Trinity-
Day 14: Propitiation
Day 15: The Gift of Eternal Life
Day 16: Kingdom of Darkness to Light
Day 17: Jesus’ Preeminence
Day 18: The Highest King
Day 19: He emptied Himself
Day 20: Jesus as The Teacher
Day 21: The Good Shepherd
Day 22: The Intercessor
Day 23: The Compassionate Healer
His attributes
Omniscience
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
The essay explores whether Nativity depictions violate the Second Commandment, emphasizing idolatry as the true prohibition. Drawing on Scripture and RC Sproul, ultimately deciding that conscience and worship—not nativity images themselves—determine faithfulness, urging grace toward differing convictions among believers.
By Elizabeth Prata
It is not possible to deny the virgin birth yet accept Christ as a holy, sinless deity. In 2022 at Christmas no less, Andy Stanley made his statement that there is no need to be concerned with how Jesus got into the world. Here is Pastor Gabe Hughes in a WWUTT 90 second explanation rebutting Stanley’s notion, saying it is actually critical and foundational to the faith. We must believe it.
However, Stanley is not the first pastor claiming to be conservative who denies the virgin birth as necessary to the faith. Billy Graham also denied the necessity of belief in the virgin birth. Yet there was no hullabaloo over Graham’s denial but only excuses made for his ‘misstatements.’
In my thorough study of Graham, which encompassed listening to sermons from 1949 through to the 1980s, reading several of his books, reading books about him, listening to interviews, and reading two dissertations looking at the evolution of his theology over Graham’s 50 active years, the conclusion is clear to me. In 1993 Graham said to Time Magazine (as codified in Ken Garfield’s book Billy Graham, a Life in Pictures, of the virgin birth specifically,
“Graham has said that the virgin birth of Christ is NOT an essential part of the Christian faith. In an interview with a United Church of Canada publication in 1966 (“Billy Graham Answers 26 Provocative Questions,” United Church Observer, July 1, 1966), Graham gave the following reply to a question about the virgin birth of Christ: “
Q. Do you think a literal belief in the Virgin birth — not just as a symbol of the incarnation or of Christ’s divinity — as an historic event is necessary for personal salvation?
A. While I most certainly believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, I do not find anywhere in the New Testament that this particular belief is necessary for personal salvation.
Graham denied the necessity of the virgin birth not just once but several times in different decades. Graham’s response was a classic example of his penchant for doubletalk. Is there any other kind of salvation, besides the personal? Is there global salvation? Impersonal salvation?
And if we use his contradictory statement as the basis, “I don’t find anywhere in the New Testament” …we can also say “I don’t find anywhere in the New Testament any specific reference to the Trinity” so therefore “belief in the Trinity is not necessary to personal salvation”.
If Christ be not the virgin-born Son of God, He could not be our Savior. To reject the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is to reject the only Sinless Savior that God has provided for sinners.
Graham’s public denial of Jesus as the exclusive way to God, as seen in his adoption of the wider mercy approach, was articulated clearly and affirmed with follow-up questioning, at Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral interview in 1997, displays Graham’s saddest denial of all.
Though there are discussions about which fundamental of the faith is necessary for belief, there are at least five fundamentals of the faith below which are essential for Christianity and must be believed-
1. The Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:1; John 20:28; Hebrews 1:8-9).
2. The Virgin Birth (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:27).
3. The Blood Atonement (Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25, 5:9; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12-14).
4. The Bodily Resurrection (Luke 24:36-46; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 15:14-15).
5. The inerrancy of the scriptures themselves (Psalms 12:6-7; Romans 15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20).
Essentials of the faith listed by CARM.org
Why is the virgin birth so important? (CARM.org)
GotQuestions: Why is the Virgin Birth so Important?
Jesus was not born in sin; that is, He had no sin nature (Hebrews 7:26). It would seem that the sin nature is passed down from generation to generation through the father (Romans 5:12, 17, 19). The Virgin Birth circumvented the transmission of the sin nature and allowed the eternal God to become a perfect man.
Ligonier: Must Christians believe in the Virgin Birth?
Christians must face the fact that a denial of the virgin birth is a denial of Jesus as the Christ.
Grace To You: Why the Virgin Birth is Essential
The virgin birth is an underlying assumption in everything the Bible says about Jesus. To throw out the virgin birth is to reject Christ’s deity, the accuracy and authority of Scripture, and a host of other related doctrines central to the Christian faith. No issue is more important than the virgin birth to our understanding of who Jesus is.
Praise God for His unique, stunning, and most compassionate Gospel, with all its details, including that “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14).
By Elizabeth Prata
Barnes’ Notes explains the ’emptying’
The word does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, except in the passage before us. The essential idea is that of bringing to emptiness, vanity, or nothingness; and, hence, it is applied to a case where one lays aside his rank and dignity, and becomes in respect to that as nothing; that is, he assumes a more humble rank and station.
In regard to its meaning here, we may remark:
(1) that it cannot mean that he literally divested himself of his divine nature and perfections, for that was impossible. He could not cease to be omnipotent, and omnipresent, and most holy, and true, and good.
(2) it is conceivable that he might have laid aside, for a time, the symbols or the manifestation of his glory, or that the outward expressions of his majesty in heaven might have been withdrawn. It is conceivable for a divine being to intermit the exercise of his almighty power, since it cannot be supposed that God is always exerting his power to the utmost. And in like manner there might be for a time a laying aside or intermitting of these manifestations or symbols, which were expressive of the divine glory and perfections. Yet,
(3) this supposes no change in the divine nature, or in the essential glory of the divine perfections. When the sun is obscured by a cloud, or in an eclipse, there is no real change of its glory, nor are his beams extinguished, nor is the sun himself in any measure changed. His luster is only for a time obscured.
Further Reading
GTY Sermon series: Christ humbled, Christ exalted
The Greek verb translated “emptied” (keno[ma]o) is where we get the theological term kenosis: the doctrine of Christ’s self-emptying as a part of His incarnation. The verb expresses Christ’s self-renunciation, His refusal to cling to His advantages and privileges as God. The God who has a right to everything and who is fully satisfied within Himself emptied Himself.
GotQuestions: What is the Kenosis?
Notice that Philippians 2:7 does not specify what the Son of God “emptied” Himself of. And here we must be careful not to go beyond what Scripture says. Jesus did not empty Himself of His divine attributes—no such attributes are mentioned in the verse, and it is obvious in the gospels that Jesus possessed the power and wisdom of God. Calming the storm is just one display of Jesus’ divine power (Mark 4:39). In coming to earth, the Son of God did not cease to be God, and He did not become a “lesser god.” Whatever the “emptying” entailed, Jesus remained fully God: “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).
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Thirty Days of Jesus Series, Overview-
Introduction/Background
Prophecies:
Day 1: The Virgin shall conceive
Day 2: A shoot from Jesse
Day 3: God sent His Son in the fullness of time
Day 4: Marry her, she will bear a Son
Birth & Early Life-
Day 5: The Babe has arrived!
Day 6: The Glory of Jesus
Day 7: Magi seek the Child
Day 8: The Magi Offer gifts & worship
Day 9: The Child Grew
Day 10- the Boy Jesus at the Temple
Day 11: He was Obedient
Day 12: The Son!
Day 13: God is pleased with His Son
The Second Person of the Trinity-
Day 14: Propitiation
Day 15: The Gift of Eternal Life
Day 16: Kingdom of Darkness to Light
Day 17: Jesus’ Preeminence
Day 18: The Highest King
By Elizabeth Prata
PREEMINENCE OF THE SON, HIS WORKS & MINISTRY
This section of the Advent flow of verses I’ve selected focus Him as the Second Person of the Trinity. Christ is preeminent. Always and forever.
Let us exult in verses which proclaim a truth that should enlarge our heart and shake our soul with wonder.
Further Reading
Grace To You sermon: The preeminence of Christ
He put on humanity that we might put on divinity. He became Son of Man that we might become sons of God. He was born contrary to the laws of nature, lived in poverty, was reared in obscurity, and only once crossed the boundary of the land in which He was born, and that in His childhood. He had no wealth or influence, and had neither training nor education in the world schools.
His relatives were inconspicuous and uninfluential. In infancy, He startled a king. In boyhood, He puzzled the learned doctors. In manhood, He ruled the course of nature. He walked upon the billows, and hushed the seas asleep. He healed the multitudes without medicine, and made no charge for His services. He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the country could not hold all of the books about Him. He never wrote a song, yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all songwriters together.
Desiring God: The preeminence of Jesus for Life
We should talk about Jesus often and be clear about his identity, resisting every temptation to make him peripheral, secondary, or assumed. And we may find that talking about Jesus often brings his preeminence to have a deeper bearing on our lives. It helps to remind us of his role in two things we deeply care about — the gospel and the glory of God.
Institute for Creation Research devotional: Preeminence of Christ
Christ is also preeminent in our reconciliation, “having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself” (1:20), so that He can “make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27).
CROWN HIM LORD OF ALL! Below, Chapter 4 excerpts from Warren Wiersbe’s “BE” series
Colossians 1:13–20
The false teachers in Colossae, like the false teachers of our own day, would not deny the importance of Jesus Christ. They would simply dethrone Him, giving Him prominence but not preeminence. In their philosophy, Jesus Christ was but one of many “emanations” that proceeded from God and through which men could reach God. It was this claim that Paul refuted in this section.
Probably no paragraph in the New Testament contains more concentrated doctrine about Jesus Christ than this one. We can keep ourselves from going on a detour if we remember that Paul wrote to prove the preeminence of Christ, and he did so by using four unanswerable arguments.
He holds all things together (v. 17). “In Him all things hold together” (NIV).
[T]he Christian has an answer: Jesus Christ! Because “He is before all things,” He can hold all things together. Again, this is another affirmation that Jesus Christ is God. Only God exists before all of Creation, and only God can make Creation cohere. To make Jesus Christ less than God is to dethrone Him.
Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, pp. 114–116). Victor Books.
By Elizabeth Prata
People who are unsaved have no idea that they live in the kingdom of darkness. They believe all is well and go on with their lives, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Once a person is given the grace of becoming aware of their sin, and the spirit of repentance is bestowed upon them, their eyes are opened to the reality of their pitiful state. Without Jesus, there is no hope. All is dark, because HE is the Light.
Further Reading
Grace Gems: Deliverance from the power of darkness
What is the power of darkness, and how God delivers us from it. The Apostle speaks of “the power of darkness.” I shall, therefore, with God’s blessing, explain first what “darkness” is, and then enter into the meaning of the expression “the power of darkness.”
the-end-time.org 