Jesus in Christianity

thumb|Christ on the Cross, 1870, by [[Carl Heinrich Bloch, depicting Jesus's crucifixion]]

In Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God as chronicled in the Bible's New Testament, and is held to be God the Son, a prosopon (person) of the Trinity of God. Christians believe him to be the Jewish messiah (giving him the title Christ), who was prophesied in the Bible's Old Testament. Through Jesus's crucifixion and his raising from the dead, Christians believe that God offers humans salvation and eternal life, with Jesus's death atoning for all sin.

These teachings emphasize that, as the Lamb of God, Jesus voluntarily endured being nailed to the cross at Calvary as a sign of his obedience to the will of God, serving as an "agent and servant of God". According to the New Testament, after God raised him from the dead, Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father, with his followers awaiting his return to Earth and God's subsequent Last Judgement.

According to the gospel accounts, Jesus was born of a virgin, and he taught other Jews how to follow God (sometimes using parables), performed miracles and gathered disciples. Christians generally believe that this narrative is historically true.

While there has been theological debate over the nature of Jesus, Trinitarian Christians believe that Jesus is the , God incarnate (God in human form), God the Son, and "true God and true man"—fully divine and fully human. Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, yet he did not sin.

Key ideas

thumb|upright|The [[Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a holy site in Jerusalem believed by most Christians to encompass the tomb of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and resurrection.]]

Although Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to summarise the key elements of the beliefs shared by major Christian denominations by analysing their catechetical or confessional texts. Christian views of Jesus are derived from various biblical sources, particularly from the canonical gospels and New Testament letters such as the Pauline epistles. Christians predominantly hold that these works are historically true.

Those Christian groups or denominations which are committed to what are considered biblically orthodox Christianity nearly all agree that Jesus:

• was born of a virgin;
• is a human being who is also fully God;
• has never sinned during his existence;
• was crucified, died, and was buried in a tomb;
• rose from the dead on the third day;
• ascended back to God the Father 40 days after his resurrection;
• will return to Earth.

Some groups considered to be Christian hold beliefs that are considered to be heterodox. For example, believers in monophysitism reject the idea that Jesus has two natures, one human and one divine.

The five major milestones in the gospel narrative of the life of Jesus are his baptism, transfiguration, death by crucifixion, resurrection and ascension to Heaven. The gospel accounts of the teachings of Jesus are often presented in terms of specific categories involving his "works and words", e.g., his ministry, parables and miracles.

Christians not only attach theological significance to the works of Jesus, but also to his name; devotions to the name of Jesus go back to the earliest days of Christianity. These exist today both in Eastern and Western Christianity. which had entered human history through the sin of Adam.

Christ, Logos and Son of God

thumb|upright|First page of [[Gospel of Mark|Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God".]]

Most Christians generally consider Jesus to be the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, as well as the one and only Son of God. The opening words in the Gospel of Mark (1:1), "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God", provide Jesus with the two distinct attributions as Christ and as the Son of God. His divinity is again re-affirmed in Mark 1:11. Matthew 1:1 which begins by calling Jesus the Christ and in verse 16 explains it again with the affirmation: "Jesus, who is called Christ".

In the Pauline epistles, the word Christ is so closely associated with Jesus that apparently for the early Christians there was no need to claim that Jesus was Christ, for that was considered widely accepted among them. Hence Paul could use the term Christos with no confusion about who it referred to, and as in 1 Corinthians 4:15 and Romans 12:5 he could use expressions such as "in Christ" to refer to the followers of Jesus.

In the New Testament, the title "Son of God" is applied to Jesus on many occasions, from the Annunciation up to the Crucifixion. The declaration that Jesus is the Son of God is made by many individuals in the New Testament, and on two occasions by God the Father as a voice from Heaven, and is asserted by Jesus himself.

In Christology, the concept that Christ is the Logos (i.e., "The Word") has been important in establishing the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and his position as God the Son in the Trinity as set forth in the Chalcedonian Creed. This derives from the opening of the Gospel of John, commonly translated into English as: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." λόγος in the original Koine Greek is translated as Word and in theological discourse, this is often left in its English transliterated form, .

The pre-existence of Christ refers to the existence of Christ before his incarnation as Jesus. One of the relevant New Testament passages is John 1:1-18 where, in the Trinitarian view, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos or Word. This doctrine is reiterated in John 17:5 when Jesus refers to the glory which he had with the Father "before the world was" during the Farewell Discourse. also refers to the Father loving Jesus "before the foundation of the world". Eventually in 451, the concept of a hypostatic union was stated at the Council of Chalcedon, namely that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. However, differences among Christian denominations continued thereafter, with some rejecting the hypostatic union in favour of monophysitism.

Incarnation, Nativity and Second Adam

thumb|upright|[[Nativity at Night, by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, ]]

The above verse from Colossians regards the birth of Jesus as the model for all creation.

Paul the Apostle viewed the birth of Jesus as an event of cosmic significance which brought forth a "new man" who undid the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. Just as the Johannine view of Jesus as the incarnate Logos proclaims the universal relevance of his birth, the Pauline perspective emphasizes the birth of a new man and a new world in the birth of Jesus.

In the 2nd century Church Father Irenaeus writes:

<blockquote>

"When He became incarnate and was made man, He commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam—namely to be according to the image and likeness of God- that we might recover in Christ Jesus."

</blockquote>

In patristic theology, Paul's contrasting of Jesus as the new man versus Adam provided a framework for discussing the uniqueness of the birth of Jesus and the ensuing events of his life. The nativity of Jesus thus began to serve as the starting point for "cosmic Christology" in which the birth, life and resurrection of Jesus have universal implications. The concept of Jesus as the "new man" repeats in the cycle of birth and rebirth of Jesus from his nativity to his resurrection: following his birth, through his morality and obedience to the Father, Jesus began a "new harmony" in the relationship between God the Father and man. The nativity and resurrection of Jesus thus created the author and exemplar of a new humanity. In this view, the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus brought about salvation, undoing the damage of Adam.

Christians believe Jesus was from the Davidic line; as the biological son of David, he would be of the Jewish race, ethnicity, nation, and culture. One argument against this would be a contradiction in Jesus' genealogies: Matthew saying he is the son of Solomon and Luke saying he is the son of Nathan—Solomon and Nathan being brothers. John of Damascus taught that there is no contradiction, for Nathan wed Solomon's wife after Solomon died in accordance with scripture, namely, yibbum (the mitzvah that a man must marry his brother's childless widow).

Jesus grew up in Galilee and much of his ministry took place there. The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the 1st century AD include Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, with Aramaic being predominant. There is substantial consensus that Jesus gave most of his teachings in Aramaic in the Galilean dialect.

The canonical gospels describe Jesus wearing tzitzit – the tassels on a tallit – in and . Besides this, the New Testament includes no descriptions of Jesus' appearance before his death and the gospel narratives are generally indifferent to people's racial appearance or features.

Ministry

thumb|upright|The Communion of the Apostles, by [[Luca Signorelli, 1512]]