Introduction
- Colossians 2:18
- Acts 23:8
- Angels are different than humans.
Jesus was God on Earth (Luke 1:26-38)
Jesus accepted worship (without sinning)
- Matthew 14:33
- Acts 10:25-26 – Peter refused to accept worship.
- Acts 12:21-23 – Herod accepted worship and was struck dead.
Jesus forgave sins while He was on earth.
- Mark 2:5-12 – Jesus could heal physical problems and forgive sins.
Jesus worked miracles by His own power.
- Acts 2:22-24
- Hebrews 1:1-2 – Jesus had full power at the time of creation. This phrasing just shows how Jesus and God the Father worked together.
- John 1:1
- Luke 10:1, 17
- John 2:11 – Jesus showed His own glory.
- Acts 3:6, 16
- John 20:30-31
Jesus is the Savior (Luke 2:8-14)
- Mark 16:15-16
- John 3:5
- Acts 5:18; 8:26, 35; 10:22, 48
- Angels said Jesus was the Savior and helped that message to spread.
Jesus rose from the dead (Matthew 28:1-8)
- Matthew 28:11-5 – The soldiers participated in a cover-up.
Justin Martyr (c. 165 AD):
“A godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven.”
Tertullian (c. 160-225 AD):
“The grave was found empty of all but the clothes of the buried one. But, nevertheless, the leaders of the Jews, whom it nearly concerned both to spread abroad a lie, and keep back a people tributary and submissive to them from the faith, gave it out that the body of Christ had been stolen by his followers.”
The historian Josephus (c. 37-100 AD):
“And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, upon his impeachment by the principal man among us, those who had loved him from the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive on the third day, the divine prophets having spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things about him.”