Why Jesus? Which Jesus?

The little book Why Jesus? is part of the materials for the Alpha Course. In it, Nicky Gumbel writes:

Jesus is the only man who has ever chosen to be born, and he is one of the few who has chosen to die. He said that the entire reason for his coming was to die for us. He came ‘to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45).

To say that Jesus is “the only man who has ever chosen to be born” is faintly ridiculous even on high christological terms. The only possible New Testament support for it is the idea expressed in Philippians 2:6 that he did not grasp at a certain type of being equal to God or a god, my views on which can be found here.

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Heaven
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Roger Olson and the definition of postconservative evangelicalism
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A New Translation: The Earliest Christian Documents: AD 49-100
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What must I do to inherit eternal life?
Scot McKnight has been running a good series of posts working through Rob Bell’s Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. In the fourth post he considers what Bell has to say about the question put to Jesus by the rich young man (Matt. 19:16… ( | 25 comments)
The historical justification of the people of God by faithfulness
Aaron Darrisaw has asked about Stephen Westerholm’s critique of the New Perspective on Paul. I don’t have access to Westerholm’s book at the moment (I’m sitting in Damascus airport), so I can’t comment directly on his analysis. However, I could have a bit of a… ( | 5 comments)