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The name "Jesus" means "savior." "Christ" means "anointed." These names suggest that this noble person was "anointed" of God (Acts 10:38) to be prophet, priest, and king, and indeed, the Savior of the world (Matthew 1:21). The following facts about Jesus are paramount: • He existed eternally as t...
A priest is one who offers sacrifice and ministers in services pertaining thereto (cf. Heb. 5:1). This term implies recognition of sin and the need for atonement, in some fashion or another. (a) The term is used of pagan priests who sacrificed to false gods (Acts 14:13). (b) In the earliest age o...
The term "grace" occurs about 155 times in the New Testament. The word relates to the Greek term chairo, meaning "to rejoice," and grace itself comes to mean favor, gratification, or gratitude -- depending on the context. The New Testament emphasizes that salvation is the result of God's grace (E...
The Greek expression for "lord" is kurios. One must look at the context to observe the sense conveyed in a particular setting. "Lord" may be used as a mere title of respect, or it can suggest one who is deity. (a) Kurios is sometimes used in the sense of one who is owner or master of a thing, i.e...
The gods of the biblical era were profuse. They were the inventions of the human mind in a world that had rejected the true God and his sovereignty over humanity. The Old Testament prophets denied the existence of pagan gods (cf. Jer. 2:28), as did the New Testament writers (1 Cor. 8:4). Neverthe...
The act of "laying on of hands" served several functions in the N.T. (a) Some parents brought their children that Jesus might lay his hands upon them (Mt. 19:13). This involved no magical ritual; rather, it was a symbolic act designed to invoke Jehovah's blessings upon these children. (b) Laying ...
Justification may be defined as the divine process by which God acquits the sinner and reckons him as righteous. The noun dikaiosis ("justification") is used but twice in the N.T. (Rom. 4:25; 5:18). The verb dikaioo is employed thirty-nine times in the N.T., and it describes the result of the pro...
This is the title of a sovereign who exercises regal authority over a certain territory. The term is used in the following senses in Scripture. (a) Jehovah God is king over the entire earth (1 Sam. 12:12; Mt. 22:7; 1 Tim. 6:16). (b) The title is sometimes used of the political rule of certain ear...
The term "works" is a perfectly noble word; yet, in the minds of some, there is a distorted view of this biblical term. Especially has the Protestant world reacted negatively to Catholicism's "works system" -- an ideology contrary to the divine plan of redemption. This reaction, however, is itsel...
Literally, this term has to do with the implantation of seed by which a child is conceived. The word is used in Scripture figuratively to illustrate the spiritual agency, namely the word of God, by which one becomes a believer in Christ. When Paul preached the gospel to the people of Corinth (Act...
"Holy" comes from the Greek hagios, which conveys the idea of something being set apart from other things. The Bible applies the word to various persons and objects. • God stands utterly apart from sinful man; thus, he is absolutely holy (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), as is Christ (Hebrews 7:26) a...
Praise, in the highest sense of the term, is a feeling toward, and/or outward expression of, devotion to deity. It acknowledges thanksgiving for Heaven's glorious creation, beneficent providence, and redemptive mercy (cf. Ex. 15:1-19; Rev. 4:8, 11; 5:9, 12-13). Deity, because of his very nature, ...
Paul's second preserved letter to the Corinthian brethren was designed to be corrective. It urged the saints to be forgiving to the brother who had been disciplined because of his fornication (2:1ff; cf. 1 Cor. 5:1ff). It also pressed for a correct perspective regarding the law of Moses (3:1ff), ...
The Hebrew term yom, with its Greek equivalent, hemera, typically signifies a unit of time determined by the full rotation of the Earth upon its axis. That is its meaning in Genesis 1, concerning the "days" of the creation week. Exodus 20:11 makes this clear, as its meaning is the same as the Sab...
Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman, whereby they pledge to belong to one another in a life-long union. There are several elements relative to this institution that are important to understand. (a) The origin of marriage is divine, commencing from the sixth day of the creation week (Ge...
References to "worship" are common in both the O.T. and the N.T. The Hebrew term shachah (about 100 times) refers to "bowing" before an object of religious devotion. Similarly, proskuneo (59 times) in the N.T. means to prostrate oneself, do obeisance. Worship can be offered to the true God (Gen. ...
Woman was fashioned from flesh and bone taken from the side of man (Gen. 2:21-24). Male and female qualities were designed by God (Mt. 19:4); these characteristics are not accidental developments of an imagined "evolutionary" process. The Hebrew term for "woman" is ishsha, thought to derive from ...