Quotes About Jesus

example, in Romans 6 and 8, Paul presents Jesus' death as able to have mortifying effects on the sinful tendencies of believers and Jesus' resurrection as able to provide powerful new moral resources to live changed lives that please "God.

pattern of devotion in which "God" and Jesus feature as distinguishable and yet uniquely linked subjects and recipients of reverence in the setting of corporate worship.

NT texts discourse about the divine Spirit is shaped by this link with Jesus.

It is remarkable that the intense Jesus-devotion reflected in Paul's letters, which constitute our earliest extant Christian writings, is more presupposed than expounded

In sum, it appears that the sort of Jesus-devotion reflected in Paul's letters was shared among Jewish believers in Roman Judea as well as among Paul's churches.

Indeed, in Revelation there is also a particularly notable emphasis that proper worship of and allegiance to "God" includes Jesus ("the Lamb") as well, the divinely

In Philippians 2:9-11

where Paul first refers to "the Spirit of holiness" as involved in Jesus' resurrection (v. 4), and then to serving God "with my spirit [in] the gospel of his Son" (v. 9 NRSV).

I have proposed that the devotional pattern reflected already in Paul's letters amounts to a distinctive "mutation" in Jewish monotheistic practice, in which Jesus features in an unprecedented way in worship directed to "God.

how important it is that these convictions about Jesus and "God" found expression in devotional practices,

But this central significance of Jesus is also retrojected through time, especially to the origins of the world, with Jesus (the "Logos" and "Son") depicted as the agent through whom God created all things (1 Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2; John 1:1-3). So, practically all of God's previous actions and self-disclosures can be retroactively understood in light of Jesus.

NT, "God" is so closely linked with Jesus and Jesus so closely linked with "God" that one cannot adequately identify the one without reference to the other. Jesus is the one through whom "God's" eschatological redemption is now bestowed and is to be consummated.

To cite one particularly striking example of this, note how in John 12:37-41, Isaiah's vision of "the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up" is taken to be a vision of Jesus.28

in Philippians 2:9-11, Jesus' exaltation by "God" even involves him being given "the name that is above every name" (NRSV) and being designated as the one whom all of creation is to acclaim as "Lord.

that the Spirit is now freely bestowed on those who embrace Jesus as the divinely designated "Lord and Messiah" (Acts 2:36),

The obvious adaptation of Isaiah 45:23 (one of the most emphatically monotheistic passages in the Bible) to describe this universal acclamation of Jesus is a remarkable indication of the belief that this acclamation is now the required way in which "God" is to be glorified by the creation.

Yet it also remains the case that typically NT authors can distinguish "God" and Jesus. Jesus never displaces "God" in the NT, and the two are never pictured as in tension or competition with each other.

Moreover, although Jesus is ascribed or is integrally involved in a number of "God's" attributes and actions, from creation through eschatological redemption and judgment, this never means that "God" fades or is diminished

contend that the major factor was the inclusion of Jesus as a distinguishable figure along with "God" in early Christian devotion, producing the question of how to combine this with an exclusivist "monotheistic" stance.

briefly earlier, two things stand out: on the one hand the unprecedented and programmatic place of Jesus and on the other hand his clear functional subordination to "God the Father.

but a new kind of monotheistic devotional practice in which "God" is worshiped typically with reference to Jesus, and Jesus is reverenced in obedience to "God" and to the glory of this God.

NT writings the Spirit is linked specifically with Jesus in a remarkable and unparalleled closeness.31

noteworthy feature of the NT references to the Spirit is the strong connection with Jesus.

and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3 NRSV). The basic thrust of the statement is that the divine Spirit