Chirstology

Christology

Introduction

One of biggest religions in the world , Christianity believes in one omniscient , omnipresent , and omnipotent Supreme Being who created the whole world or the universe and all of humanity or all living creatures This God was referred to as Yahweh in the Old Testament by the Jewish religion "the God of Abraham , Isaac and Jacob (Ac 13 :32 ) In the New Testament , God came into the world in human form and revealed himself to humanity through Jesus Christ . Unlike other religions that suggest that salvation is exclusive for their

group , Christianity presents salvation as universal gift offerred to all people (McGrath , 2006 ) At the core of the Christian belief is Jesus Christ who was sent to the world to die and save the people from their sins . Thus to reap the rewards of salvation and eternal life , adhering the Christian doctrines also entail the understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God , the son of God , as the messiah and God himself . All these notions about Jesus were illustrated and described in the historical accounts about his life represented by the four gospels

That Jesus is both God and man is one of the most criticized yet critical beliefs in the Christian tradition because there seems to have an apparent contradiction between the nature of deity and humanity Christology provides how Jesus is consistently both a God and a man The four gospels serve to attest to this truth and knowing and believing this is essential for being a Christian and attaining salvation

Matthew 's Christology

The first Gospel in the New Testament is the Gospel according to Matthew which emphasizes the continuity of God 's promise to his believers since the Old Testament . By providing a genealogy of Jesus at the opening chapter particularly in the lineage of David , Matthew portrays the historical connection of the coming of Jesus as the fulfillment of God 's promise to the Jews which was culminated in terms of the arrival of the Hebraic messiah as prophesied in the Old Testament , the teaching of a new tradition through which salvation can be achieved and the one who will initiate the establishment of the Kingdom of God . His baptism by John in the River of Jordan (Mathew 3 :15 ) showed his compliance to the Jewish tradition . The story of the Magi and non-Jews that are unique to this gospel shows how Matthews stressed to reach out to the people who search for the promised king to worship him (Lichtenberger , 1998 p37 . In terms of his God-like nature , Matthew only provided brief statements about Jesus ' miracles in healing the sick and casting evil spirit (Lichtenberger , 1998 , p38 ) Matthew 's efforts were noble and practical but has not that been successful because many Jews apparently rejected Jesus as the promised messiah

The importance of Matthew 's Christology to the modern world is its establishment of the historical reality of Jesus . It connected Jesus as a person antecedent of Moses and...