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Monday, 9 March 2015

John 1:45 - We have found the Messiah

Philip was convinced that he had found the Prophet. The prophet is the one Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 18:15,18. Islam claims that Muhammad is the prophet that Moses was speaking of.
Philip refers to Jesus as coming from Nazareth and being the son of Joseph. Nazareth was the town where Jesus was brought up. In Luke 3:23 it says that Jesus was thought to be the son of Joseph. Clearly the virgin birth was not made a big issue of. Now why is that? I firmly believe that it is true, but it is also true that apart from the accounts in Matthew and Luke nothing much is made of it. Let me make a suggestion. First, the people of the time knew full well that virgin births were not the norm, nor was there any way of proving that it was a virgin birth (would be interesting to see what a DNA test showed!). So there was no point making a big issue of it. Conversely, the resurrection could be proved, or at least shown to be perfectly reasonable. Many people had witnessed the risen Christ, and no one could produce the body. So the claim of the resurrection, while at least as monumental as the virgin birth, could be supported by evidence. So we do not believe Jesus is the Christ because of the virgin birth, whereas the resurrection does show that He is the Christ. We believe the virgin birth because it is recorded in Scripture, and because it is perfectly consistent with Jesus being the Son of God.

Notice also that Philip believed quickly. Evangelism is not all about us, not all about presentation skills etc. It is about us bearing witness and the Holy Spirit working in people’s lives. So something that might seem innocuous to us can have a monumental effect because of the work of the Spirit.

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