David L.
Ben Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt, they have more need of masters.”
-----Original Message-----Was Jesus married?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Charles
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 7:19 AM
To: 'The Sandbox Discussion List'
Subject: [Sndbox] Was Jesus married?--Good article
Posted: November 6, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
I was stunned by the audacity of the ABC News special, "Jesus, Mary and DaVinci," which sought to build a case that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. They even went so far as to give credence to a completely unfounded myth that he had a child by her.
Using unfounded and speculative sources, they sought to build a case on assumptions to prove their suppositions. The amazing thing to me is why a major network would give prime time to such baseless speculation that is in extreme conflict with the well-established history of the Bible.
Simon Greenleaf, who was head of the Harvard Law School for nearly 30 years, is recognized as the world's greatest authority on legal evidence. His volumes, called "The Laws of Legal Evidence," are still the standard work on how to evaluate evidence in the courtrooms.
In response to a challenge, he wrote a book called "The Testimony of the Four Evangelists." He evaluated the New Testament and ancient extra-biblical history using his "Laws of Legal Evidence." He concluded that the veracity of the Four Gospels is supported by fuller and better evidence than any other documents from antiquity.
One of the arguments he presented was based on the principle that the best evidence to support a case is the witness of the opposition. In the case of Jesus Christ, that pertained to the witness and actions of the Jewish religious leaders who had every motive to disprove any statement about Jesus that was not true. They were at such enmity with Jesus that they engineered his crucifixion.
So if they could have disproved or discredited any statement the Apostles first preached and then wrote about Jesus, they had every motive to do so. Within 50 days after the Crucifixion, the disciples of Jesus proclaimed all of the things in the streets of Jerusalem, later written down in the Gospels. If they could have disproved any point, they would have destroyed the movement at its beginning. Christianity would have been destroyed before it began.
But instead, we find they had no answers. So they put them to death to silence them, which was a moot admission that they had no case against what the disciples were proclaiming from the rooftops.
The real problem this ABC program brought out is how impossible it is for a person who is not born spiritually to understand spiritual things. The Bible declares: "The man without spiritual life does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Corinthians 2:13).
This is why Jesus told a great religious leader of his time, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot perceive the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). He basically told the teacher that he couldn't talk to him about the things of God's kingdom until he was born spiritually. It is like trying to teach a man born blind what a rainbow looks like.
The natural man can only look at a man-woman relationship from a sexually based orientation. I am not saying that sex is in itself bad. In God's will, it is a wonderful gift. But there is a spiritual kind of love that God gives that is not sexual. It is a love that seeks the greatest good for the opposite sex. Jesus saw women in terms of their greater need for deliverance from sin and a relationship with God.
It is impossible for a person without God-given spiritual life to comprehend the true nature of the person of Jesus Christ and His all consuming reason for coming to Earth.
Jesus was driven by the mission for which his Father sent Him into the world. He said, "Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). And on another occasion, He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work" (John 4:34) and "For I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise Him up on the last day" (John 6:38-39).
This is the part that is so difficult for a person without spiritual life to understand. Jesus stated seven times in the Gospel of John that he came down from Heaven (John 6:33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, and 58). Jesus knew that He was both man and God in one person. He was truly man, but He was also the eternal second person of the Godhead who came down and took upon Himself a true human nature.
This is beautifully illustrated by His testimony to a hostile interrogation from the religious leaders. He made the statement that Abraham had foreseen His coming and rejoiced. The religious leaders challenged, "You are not yet 50 years old, and have You seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM" (John 8:57-58). Since Abraham had lived 2,000 years before this, what He was claiming is clear.
Jesus loved women, but with a kind of love that the unregenerate carnal mind cannot understand. If you would like to understand, then accept the gift of pardon for your sins that He died in your place to give you as a gift.
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