I have met a lot of skeptics and cultists who assert that Jesus never claimed to be God. Rather, they say he referred to himself as the son of man. It is not just skeptics and cultists who are troubled by this issue. I have met just as many Christians who ask, “If Jesus is the Son of God, why did he so consistently refer to himself as the son of man?” The common follow-up question is how can I be certain that Jesus is really God and that the Trinity is a correct doctrine?

Whole books have been written answering these questions. My goal here is to provide three brief yet adequate answers that you can quickly share with people expressing these kinds of challenges, concerns, and doubts.

First, while Jesus in the gospels almost always referred to himself as the “son of man,” there is at least one occasion where he explicitly claims to be God. The gospel text is John 8:58, where Jesus declares to the Jewish religious leaders, “Before Abraham was born, I AM!” Here, Jesus assumes the name God had assigned to himself in Exodus 3:14, “I AM who I AM. This what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” The Jewish religious leaders clearly understood that Jesus was claiming to be God, and it is evidenced by the fact that they attempted to stone him to death for his act of “blasphemy.”

Second, the Old Testament in Jeremiah 23:6 assigns the name YHWH (I AM) to the righteous Branch, the King, who will come from the lineage of David. Jesus in several places in the gospel claims to be this righteous Branch and King.

Third, Jesus is making a special theological point about his deity in calling himself the son of man in the gospels. This point becomes clear in examining the New Testament. For every New Testament passage referring to Jesus Christ that happened chronologically after the first day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–41), Jesus is always referred to as the Son of God and never as the son of man. Conversely, in the gospels, Jesus consistently calls himself the son of man and never the Son of God.

The New Testament makes the same kind of demarcation for the human followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ followers before the first day of Pentecost are always called sons of men or children of men and never as sons of God. Jesus’s followers after the first day of Pentecost are always called sons of God and never as sons of men (for biblical references, see appendix c in Navigating Genesis).

The theological point here is this: it is not until Jesus of Nazareth dies on the cross to atone for the sins of all humanity, is raised bodily from the dead, and sends the Holy Spirit to permanently indwell and spiritually baptize his followers, does he complete his role as the Son of God, the second person of the triune God. Likewise, not until Jesus’ followers receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit do they become sons of God.

This theological point is affirmed by the observation that nowhere in the Old Testament is a human follower of God referred to as a son of God. Even Daniel, as “highly esteemed” (Daniel 10:11, 19) as he was for his righteousness before God was called “son of man” (Daniel 8:17). The one Old Testament exception is Hosea 1:10 where God promises that a time will come in the future when some of the Israelites will become “children of the living God.” This prophecy was fulfilled on the first day of Pentecost described in Acts 2.

Anyone desiring a more in-depth and thoroughly documented answer will find it in my book Navigating Genesis. It is in chapter 14 and appendix c.

Subjects: Apologetics, Jesus Christ

Naturalists, atheists, and skeptics are taking a not-so-new approach to dismissing the scientific evidence for God. Recently, they have been asserting that any claim to God creating the universe is out of bounds since such a claim is an appeal to magic. An example is this question that appeared on my Facebook page.

Q: How would you respond to naturalists and atheists who continually say that the universe cannot be created because that would be magic?

A: I would respond first by pointing out to the naturalists and atheists that they are engaging in circular reasoning. They begin with the presuppositions that miracles and magic are impossible and, therefore, conclude that a God who performs miracles or magic cannot exist. Often it helps to illustrate their appeal to circular reasoning with a neutral example, one that has nothing to do with God. Consider the following:

“I am always right.”
“Because I said it, it must be right.”
“Therefore, I am always right.”

Second, I would explain that if the universe has a beginning then the cause of that beginning must lie outside of the universe. If the cause is outside the universe, then by definition the cause is some kind of miracle or “magic.”

Third, I would show the voluminous observational, experimental, and theoretical evidence that establishes beyond all reasonable doubt that the universe has a beginning. Astronomers have measurements showing that the universe is expanding and has been expanding at all look back times (because of the finite and constant velocity of light, the farther away an astronomer looks, the farther back in time he is observing). As astronomers look back in time they note that the galaxies get progressively closer together and the temperature of the universe measures progressively hotter in a manner that can be explained only if the universe arose from an infinitesimally small volume and an infinitely high temperature. The relative abundances of the elements making up the periodic table, again, can be explained only if the universe had a beginning about 13.8 billion years ago. The most conclusive proof that the universe has a beginning comes from the space-time theorems. Based on two unassailable assumptions, namely that the universe contains mass and the equations of general relativity reliably describe the movements of massive bodies in the universe, the space-time theorems prove that the universe has a beginning, a beginning that even includes the origin of space and time itself.

The foregoing paragraph outlines just some of the evidence that eliminates all reasonable doubt that the universe has a beginning. Those desiring a more complete account will find it in two of my books.¹

The space-time theorems a decade ago were generalized to apply to all possible inflationary hot big bang models that conceivably could support some kind of physical life. As Alexander Vilenkin, one of the authors of the most powerful of the space-time theorems, wrote,

With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.²

The “problem” is that the space-time theorems imply that a God beyond space and time must have performed a miracle in bringing about the existence of the universe. Evidence establishing the beginning of the universe that includes the beginning of space and time establishes that scientists have proven the greatest possible miracle that science could ever hope to uncover. The discovery of such a miracle means that science can no longer operate as if miracles never happen. That God performed such an outstanding miracle 13.8 billion years ago opens up the possibility that He may have performed other miracles. Thus, scientists must be open-minded to the possibility that the causes they are investigating in their scientific research could be natural or supernatural.

Endnotes

1. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Latest Scientific Discoveries Reveal God, 3rd ed. (Glendora, CA: Reasons to Believe, 2001); Hugh Ross, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).
2. Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes (New York: Hill & Wang, 2006): 176.

Subjects: Apologetics, Cosmology, Uncategorized, Origin of the Universe

Many Christians, and for that matter many non-Christians, are uneasy about an alliance between science and the Bible. Non-Christians worry that the Bible will be allowed to trump or discount science. Christians worry that science will be permitted to trump or discount the Bible. An example of these worries is the following question that was posted on my Facebook wall. In my answer I attempt to alleviate the unease and worries about integrating science and the Bible.

Q: If the Bible needs to be constantly corrected by science, does that not make science god along with everyone who works in science?

A: There is no doubt that many people in the twenty-first century consider science to be god and the practitioners of science as the high priests of that god. This worship of science explains much of the unease that Christians express about integrating science and the Bible.

The Bible clearly and repeatedly exhorts us, however, to study the book of nature (science) to gain truth and revelation from God. A few such texts are Job 12:7–10, Psalm 8, Psalm 19:1–4, Psalm 97:6, Psalm 104, and Romans 1:18–20. These texts are the basis of the two-books doctrine codified in article 2 of the Belgic Confession of Faith:

“We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God. . . . Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.”

The Bible assures that both the book of nature and the book of Scripture are utterly trustworthy, reliable, and inerrant. Neither one, therefore, can correct or falsify the other. What they can do is clarify our human interpretation of one or the other. What they can correct is our faulty interpretation of one or both books.

Another way to look at the interface between the book of nature and the book of Scripture is to recognize that both books are perfect. That which is perfect cannot be more perfect than something else that is perfect. A useful analogy would be the 66 books of the Bible. Each one is the perfect, inerrant revelation from God. Each book has different content and addresses different subject matter. Each one, though perfect in what it reveals, is incomplete by itself. Likewise, both the book of nature and the book of Scripture is perfect and inerrant in what it reveals but each is incomplete by itself and even together they are incomplete.

In giving us Scripture, God gave us 66 different books. The multiplicity of books, as we integrate their content, assists us in correctly interpreting each one. In the same manner, as we integrate the different disciplines of science, that integration helps us to correctly interpret each discipline. Similarly, as we integrate the book of nature with the book of Scripture, that integration helps us to correctly interpret each.

In my opinion, the best guidelines for constructively integrating science and the Bible was codified by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) in their Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics. Their affirmations and denials relevant to science-faith integration (articles 19–22) are as follows:

• We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it.
• We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself; such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.
• We affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else. We further affirm that in some cases extrabiblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.
• We deny that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it.
• We affirm the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore of biblical teaching with the facts of nature.
• We deny that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the true meaning of any passage of Scripture.
• We affirm that Genesis 1–11 is factual, as is the rest of the book.
• We deny that the teachings of Genesis 1–11 are mythical and that scientific hypotheses about earth history or the origin of humanity may be invoked to overthrow what Scripture teaches about creation.

We at Reasons to Believe are so impressed with the outstanding achievement of the ICBI in carefully defining what biblical inerrancy is and what it is not that we have every member of our staff scholar team commit to its articles of affirmations and denials. In summary, neither the book of Scripture nor the book of nature is subject to correction, however, our interpretations of both will continue to be corrected as we learn more from both books, as we constructively integrate what we learn from both books and as we repent of our sinful biases. Furthermore, the constructive integration of the two books will reassure us that we are on the pathway to a more complete understanding of God’s truth if we see the adjustments in our interpretations of the two books getting smaller and smaller as we continue to learn more from Scripture and the record of nature.

Subjects: Apologetics, Bible, Interpretation, Science & Faith

It might be fair to say that most Americans tend to take our freedom for granted. We forget that our freedom was hard-won and is not guaranteed. In fact, the liberties we cherish are privileges not many societies enjoy. Tyranny, in its many guises, is the historical norm. In truth, we do have an extraordinary amount of freedom in the United States, and there are profound reasons for that stemming directly from our Christian heritage.

As the founding fathers set up a new government, they started from what scholars consider a Reformed Christian worldview. Of the 54 signers of the Declaration, 29 were ordained ministers, and most of the others were deeply religious men. The idea that the majority of the founders were deist is an exaggeration passed on over time, as only a handful might be claimed as such, and even this is difficult to verify by our understanding of the term.

The founding fathers’ Christian worldview was “the single greatest influence on the content and interpretation of America’s foremost founding documents: The Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), and the Bill of Rights (1789).”¹

The biblical worldview can be summed up in three words: creation, fall, redemption. These three words birthed the equality of all humanity before God (creation), human nature as evil (fall), and the inherent value of the individual (redemption). These ideas lay at the root of the formation of modern democracy everywhere, most especially in America.

1. Equality of All Humanity before God

The Christian notion of equality says that people are equal because (1) God made humanity in His image; and (2) He loved us enough to have sacrificed His Son for each of us. Rather than being based on abilities, appearance (race, ethnicity, sex), achievements, or social position, a person’s worth is inherent. We are equal simply because God values us equally. Human worth is God dependent and God ordained; human assessment is irrelevant. The founding fathers recognized this view of humanity in the Declaration of Independence’s famous opening statements:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

The Christian view of equality runs counter to common human impulses and is unique to the Christian West. In most of the world’s cultures, social hierarchy is more or less rigidly prescribed and the rules of social engagement are correspondingly tight.

2. Human Nature as Evil

People often falsely equate being kind and considerate with being good. In the Christian worldview, however, God holds His creation to a far higher standard of goodness based on His law. Because of our fallen nature, humans fail to reach this standard.

This idea is also unique to the Christian worldview. Most worldviews see human nature as good, or at least not evil. The Confucian worldview, for example, and most modern secular humanistic worldviews, see humanity as inherently good.²

The founders’ Christian worldview, buttressed by their experiences, left them with a profound distrust of human nature.³ They believed that man could not be trusted with absolute power over their fellow men. By creating a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances—both of which were written into the Constitution⁴—the founders made it difficult for any individual or branch of government to gain too much control over human affairs.

3. The Inherent Value of the Individual

Despite our fallen state, God was still willing to sacrifice His Son, giving each of us an opportunity for salvation. Jesus’ redemptive act alone shows the incredible value God has accorded to each individual. In most societies throughout history, the individual is not the locus of identity. For most of the world, a person’s identity is subsumed in the group(s) they are a part of. The collective is the locus of identification, and is of far greater significance than the individual. Christians, however, hold a high estimation of individual worth and this biblical view was not lost on the founders.

So committed were they to the idea that any system not governed by the people would ultimately lead to tyranny that the founders enshrined this idea in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They believed the individual should have the right to partake in electing his representatives. This belief, in itself, was a radical notion for a government, brought on by the founders’ belief in the inherent value of the individual.

In creating the Bill of Rights, the founders sought to further protect the rights of the individual; Only a high valuation of the individual could possibly result in a society granting all people, regardless of race, gender, or social position, inalienable rights that no one, not even the king, could infringe upon.

Such ideas are unique in themselves, but even more so in combination. Their overarching influence in the formation of American democracy has been so strong that it is difficult to imagine our system of governance forming under any other ideological circumstances. These ideologies were central to producing the right of the people to choose their leaders, the separation of powers, the system of checks and balances, and the notion of the inviolable rights of the individual.

By Andrew Stebbins

Andrew Stebbins received his PhD in sociology from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia in 2009 and currently teaches at the Central Ohio Technical College in Newark, Ohio.

Endnotes

1. William Watkins, The New Absolutes (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996), 56.
2. Betty Kelen, Confucius: In Life and Legend (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971), 98.
3. Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 257.
4. Richard Morris, The Framing of the Constitution (Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior, 1986), 25.

Subjects: Historical Theology, Image of God, Worldviews

Some of the most frequent questions I get asked on Twitter are about human origins. Here is an example of a question and my answer in slightly more than 140 characters.

Q: I was taught humans and Neanderthals evolved from a common ancestor. You say humans were created. What evidence shows my teachers are wrong?

A: Where your teachers and professors are correct is that humans, Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and several other bipedal primate species share a lot in common. They are all primates and they all walk on two legs. Like chimpanzees today, they all used tools and formed social groups. These common features, plus the similarity of Neanderthal DNA to human DNA (the DNA portions that geneticists have compared so far are about 99 percent identical), explains why the vast majority of anthropologists believe that the human race is the product of evolution from a common ancestor with Neanderthals. Keep in mind, however, that within the anthropological research community there is tremendous pressure to conform to naturalistic interpretations of life’s history.

A few of the many scientific reasons why we at Reasons to Believe are persuaded that humans are the result of special creation by God (as opposed to common descent with Neanderthals from a hominid ancestor through some evolutionary process) are as follows:

1. Only humans of all animals, both living and extinct, possess capabilities for symbolic thought and symbolic communication. In a fairly recent paper, three brain science researchers wrote, “There is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system.”¹ For example, only humans have developed and used letters and numbers to produce books and algebraic expressions that potentially can be read by all members of its species. Only humans can understand and respond to stop, yield, and railway crossing signs. The three researchers concluded in their paper that “this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition.”²
2. Only humans of all animals manifest spiritual capabilities. While some nonhuman animals, like elephants, will bury their dead and mourn for days on end the loss of their social group member, only humans engage in philosophy, only humans worship a higher Being, only humans are concerned about establishing and living up to a moral standard, and only humans seek redemption.
3. The intellectual capability and brain structure of ravens, crows, and jays is much more similar to humans than they are for chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas.³
4. The 1 percent observed difference between human and Neanderthal DNA is large enough as to leave no doubt that humans and Neanderthals are distinct species.
5. A human can tame a member of any nonhuman bird or mammal species to do his or her bidding. It never happens the other way around.
6. Only humans of all animals demonstrate technological capability and the capacity for technological advancement. The earliest humans used tools far more sophisticated than those developed by the hominids that preceded them. Simple spears and rocks were superseded by axes, sewing needles, serving bowls, and flour grinding implements. The development of tool and implement technology for humans is not static. It advances from generation to generation.
7. Only humans of all animals possess language complexity that includes grammar, verb tenses, and vocabulary sizes reaching into the tens and hundreds of thousands of words.

From a biblical perspective there is a reason why we humans share so many features with the higher animals. Genesis and Job describe how God created nephesh (soulish) animals to relate to, serve, and please human beings. For relationships between these animals and humans to be possible and for these animals to serve and please humans they must share many features in common with humans. The Bible not only teaches that humans are exceptional compared to all other nephesh life, it also teaches that all nephesh life is exceptional compared to all non-nephesh life.

These 700 words are barely the tip of the iceberg of scientific evidence establishing that humans arise from special creation rather than evolutionary common descent. I kept this short so that it would be easy to share. For those needing or desiring the full story, I recommend the latest edition of our book Who Was Adam?⁴

Endnotes

1. Derek C. Penn, Keith J. Holyoak, and Daniel J. Povinelli, “Darwin’s Mistake: Explaining the Discontinuity between Human and Nonhuman Minds,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (April 2008): 109–30, doi: 10.1017/S0140525X08003543.
2. Ibid.
3. Johan J. Bolhuis and Clive D. L. Wynne, “Can Evolution Explain How Minds Work?” Nature 458 (April 2009): 832–33, doi:10.1038/458832a.
4. Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross, Who Was Adam? (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2015).

Subjects: Anthropology, Common Design vs. Common Descent, Evolution, Hominids, Human Origins

Most Christians want their light to shine among other people, to serve as a signpost to the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. But just how does a believer go about being a good witness? Sometimes the virtuous qualities and characteristics we strive hard to live out in life earn us a unique opportunity to reach others—for as the old adage reveals, “Actions speak louder than words.”

In my experience, people are much more attentive and receptive to my words about the truth of Christ and Christianity when they are the ones who have initiated the subject. That’s not to say that I will never bring up the gospel of my own volition—there certainly have been various times when I sensed that I needed to share the gospel of Christ with a person who had not first asked me about it. But generally, when it comes to sharing one’s faith with people with whom we have a long-term relationship, such as a non-Christian family member, coworker, or friend, I have found that the gospel discussion is so much more fruitful when the other person brings up the topic first.

But what sorts of things can serve to draw another person’s attention to our deeper beliefs about spiritual realities? Here I offer three qualities that I think serve to draw people to ask about our faith.

1. Strive to Have a Robust Work Ethic

How an individual approaches work or their job reveals a great deal about the person. People are used to encountering others who cut corners, are lazy, and have numerous excuses as to why they can’t work hard. But a person with a strong work ethic stands out. Why? Because you can’t fake genuine hard work. Our workplace is where we, in practical terms, either “put up or shut up.” When we earn a reputation for being a hard worker, people want to know where the fire in the belly comes from. They genuinely wonder why you give it your all. Scripture reveals that believers are to work diligently in order to honor God (Colossians 3:23).

2. Strive to Prize and Handle Truth as If It Is Sacred

People know when you’re playing fast and loose with the truth. In fact, lying is so common that we expect it even from people who have taken a pledge to be truthful. But an honest person who handles all truth, big and small, with care and precision, stands out. Truth tellers are rare, and when people encounter them in life they are more willing to consider what they have to say. The triune God is Truth with a capital T. In fact, Jesus Christ specifically called himself the Truth (John 14:6). Thus, Christians should strive to treat all truth as if it is sacred because it is.

3. Strive to Treat All People with Respect

How you treat other people, especially difficult people, reveals a great deal about your character. It is easy to be kind to people who are in return kind to you, but earning a reputation for treating even ill-tempered people fairly and respectfully makes you stand out. You can treat a person with respect even if you don’t particularly like the individual. Doing so means that you treat each person as if they have inherent dignity and moral worth. When you treat people respectfully, no matter the situation, others will want to know why. The Christian answer is that all people are worthy of respectful treatment because they are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26–27).

Striving to be a hard worker, a truth teller, and respectful of others isn’t easy, and none of us can do it perfectly. We must remember that we are all forgiven sinners with an inner human nature that is broken and in need of divine transformation. Thankfully, salvation comes solely by God’s grace. But even with our constant imperfections, non-Christians will take notice when you strive to take work, truth, and human respect seriously.

Reflections: Your Turn

What traits do you consider to be spiritually attention-getting? What did God use to draw you to salvation in Christ? Visit Reflections on WordPress to comment with your response.

Resources

For more on evangelism, apologetics, and salvation in Jesus Christ, see my book 7 Truths That Changed the World.

Subjects: Christian Life