“… Jesus Christ is described in a plethora of images: the Prophet, the King, the Messiah, the High Priest, the Lamb and the Suffering Servant, to name a few. Each of these images, and the many others, contain a vital insight into the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is Himself more than any one of these particular elements…Logos can mean “wisdom,” “reason,” and “action” as well as “word,” all of which are attributes of the Son of God…Jesus Christ, our God, is perfect God and perfect Man. As perfect God He encompasses all with His love, His boundless love. As perfect Man, He is dear to each soul that seeks Him.” (Fr. John Behr, Orthodox Study Bible, John 1:1, Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica)
“If there is a “Christian history,” then it is the telling of events in terms of the story God is speaking. The Christian “story,” is utterly and completely one of divine providence. The Christian story is that the single point of history, indeed, the single point of all things, is found in the death and resurrection of Christ. The death and resurrection of Christ are to the eternal history of all things what the “big bang” is to the visible universe (and even more than that). And though the death and resurrection of Christ occurs at a measurable, definable, moment in history (roughly 33 A.D.), it is also correct to describe it as both the beginning and ending of history.…All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (Col. 1:16-17). Christ is the beginning (“all things are for Him”). Christ is the purpose of all things (“in Him all things consist”). Christ is the end of things. Christ Himself is the providence of all creation. We confess that we live in His story.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“…it is critical that we understand this: Christ’s mission is a mission of love. No pagan god ever loved his worshipers. The gospel announcement was thus profoundly astonishing and revolutionary to the ancient world: that the God of the cosmos, the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the Lord of hosts, would reach out in love to lowly human beings—including women, children, and slaves, whom the ancient world saw as not fully human—and rescue them from demons, sin, and death.” (Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick)
“…the one association that we should cultivate above all is our relationship with Jesus Christ. The Lord said to his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant, does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). He is Wisdom personified (1 Corinthians 1:30), and He makes known the teaching of the Father (John 15:15). But He has called us His friends… we can trust that we become like Him as we closely abide in Him. We will share His likeness if we follow His commandments.” (Fr. Basil)
“When you find Christ, you are satisfied, you desire nothing else, you find peace. You become a different person. You live everywhere, wherever Christ is. You live in the stars, in infinity, in heaven, with the angels, with the saints on earth, with people, with animals, with everyone and everything. When there is love for Christ, loneliness disappears. You are peaceable, joyous, and full. Christ is in all your thoughts, in all your actions. You have grace, and you can endure everything for Christ.” (St. Porphyrios)
“Jesus participated in our nature and in our sufferings on earth…He understands our weaknesses and intercedes for us in the presence of God the Father.” (Foundation Study Bible, Hebrews 2:17)
“Jesus Christ had to experience all of the things that the human being experiences. And in order to do that, He had to become a human being…Because He was made like us, He understands us…He understands what it is like to be one of us…He even understand the temptations and the assaults of the Devil.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)
“But there was a greater reason that Christ came to be with us. Not only did He come to understand us, but He came for us to understand what it is like to be one with Him, to be one with God. He came to save us from our human condition and show us the path to Godliness. “Through His ministry, teachings and miracles, He showed us what it means to have love, compassion and mercy. Through His death, He showed us what it means to have faith and total trust in God. Through His Resurrection, He showed us the path to everlasting life.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)
“Jesus Christ became flesh and blood: God made Himself visible to humanity. He became one of us so we could become one with Him and taste immortality. This is the very essence of Christian hope.” (Jonathan Jackson)
“Christ doesn’t want a place in your life; He wants it all. He doesn’t want you to fit Him into your plans; He wants to fit you into His." (J. Budziszewski)
“The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.” (J.R.R. Tolkien)
“Something new happened in Jesus Christ. A fuller revelation was made, a fuller disclosure of who God is and his life was opened to us. He loved us so much that He sent His Son – to redeem and restore us. Our God became visible.” (Father John Zeyack)
“To behold the glory of Jesus means that we begin to find Christ beautiful for who He is in Himself. It means a kind of prayer in which we are not simply coming to Him to get His forgiveness, His help for our needs, His favor and blessing. Rather, the consideration of His character, words, and work on our behalf becomes inherently satisfying, enjoyable, comforting, and strengthening." (Pastor Timothy Keller)
“Others cannot know they need Christ if they do not see Him in us. They will not know that Christ fills hearts and transforms lives if they do not see transformation in us. If we are fearful, angry, judgmental, arrogant, or aloof, the world will see nothing in our Christian faith worth seeking.” (Abbot Tryphon)
“Christ changes us as we allow Him to change others through us.” (Albert S. Rossi)
“Christ did not come to earth to teach Christianity—Christ is Christianity." (Josh McDowell)
"We were considering the Christian idea of"putting on Christ” . . . What I want to make clear is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do . . . It is the whole of Christianity.” (C.S. Lewis)
“Christ is not the channel merely through which all God’s mercies descend to us, and by which all our prayers ascend to Him—He is the supply itself." (Evan Henry Hopkins)
“The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane." (Dallas Willard)"Our surrender to the Lord must include our whole heart, soul, and mind, if we are to unite our spirits to Christ our God. When we are truly joined to Him, He gives us the grace to obey Him.” (Dynamis 5/20/2014)
“In Jesus we have not simply an awareness, but action and life consistent with this awareness. The awareness that two times two makes four, or that water boils at a specific temperature leaves us neither better nor worse; such an awareness belongs to the righteous and the unrighteous, to the ignorant and to the intelligent, to the genius and the simpleton. But when we experience the holy, the sacred awareness of the Son of God, in terms of beauty, or moral perfection, or a special intuition about the world and about life, this awareness of Jesus makes some demand, effects some change in us, invites us somewhere, captivates us, seduces us. And only to this Jesus do we fully and joyfully surrender our lives in faith.” (Father John Zeyack)
“…we look at God as a Person but not in an anthropomorphic way like a giant human being in the sky. That would be silly. We see Him as a divine Person but a Person because He relates to us personally [through our hearts]. The danger of seeing God as a concept or using scientific terms is that it reduces Him to something impersonal and can confine Him to our human reasoning. We don't move toward God through solely our intellect and reasoning. We don't understand to experience. We experience to understand. Just like we don't experience our parents, spouses, children or anyone else by reading about them; we experience them through them. We also experience God relationally, not intellectually and conceptually.” (Sacramental Living)
“Knowing Christ involves an active relationship, a connection that can be likened to marriage (e.g., Eph 5:22-33) or to the parent-child bond.” (Dynamis 1/31/2015)
"There are many schools around the world that offer courses designed to build knowledge, skill, and discipline. If we attend such classes and listen to the teachers, we will most likely benefit to some degree… If we would learn from the Eternal [Christ], we must likewise come to Him. We seek Him out in our church temples, in prayer, in the pages of Holy Scripture, and from teachers who know Him and honor Him. We are to unite ourselves to Him.” (Dynamis 12/12/2014) "When we are alone, we are never really alone. Jesus is always present, whether we are cognizant of it or not.” (Albert S. Rossi)
“...Christ came as a physician intent on bringing healing to fallen humankind...This condescension of God, who took on our human flesh and joined His divinity to us, cannot be seen in legalistic terms, but must be seen from a medical perspective.” (Abbot Tryphon)
"Christ came first as our savior. He will come again as our judge. For now, we live in between this time of the first and second coming. He Himself said He did not come to judge the world, but to save the world (John 12:47). He announced His ministry as a healer (Luke 4:18). He told the religious establishment who were aghast at His showing mercy over punitive judgment that those who are well don’t need a doctor, only those who are sick (Luk3 5:31-32). By extension, His Church continues, or should be continuing, His healing and redemptive work.” (Sacramental Living DVD/CD Disk 6)
“The Lord Jesus Christ established His Church as a hospital of the soul, and within her walls we are given the medicine to bring about the healing we so need. God does not desire suffering or our blood, but only that we be restored to the image He intended for us. This loving Father is not our prosecutor, but our physician.” (Abbot Tryphon)
“Jesus was teaching, preaching, and healing. These were the three main aspects of His ministry. Teaching shows Jesus’ concern for understanding; preaching shows His concern for commitment; and healing shows His concern for wholeness.” (“Life Application Study Bible, Matthew 4:23)
“Jesus announced his Kingdom by both preaching and healing, and He sent his disciples out to do the same. If He had limited himself to preaching, people might have seen his Kingdom as spiritual only. If He had healed without preaching, people might not have realized the spiritual importance of His mission.” (Life Application Study Bible, Luke 9:2)
“At the heart of false teaching is an incorrect view of Christ. In Timothy’s day many asserted that Christ was divine but not human—God but not man. These days we often hear that Jesus was human but not divine—man but not God. Either view destroys the good news that Jesus Christ has taken our sins on himself and has reconciled us to God.” (Life Application Study Bible, 2 Timothy 2:8)
"…the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the line of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually, Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off the hook. Christ says, No. I am not saying I am a teacher, don’t call me a teacher. I am not saying I am a prophet, don’t call me a prophet. I am saying:"I’m the Messiah.” I am saying"I am God in the flesh.” (Bono)
"Many people today still have difficulty accepting Jesus as the fully human yet fully divine Son of God. People are still trying to find alternate explanations—a great prophet, a radical political leader, a self-deceived rabble-rouser. None of these explanations can account for Jesus’ miracles or especially his glorious resurrection. In the end, the attempts to explain away Jesus are far more difficult to believe than the truth…The truth that Jesus is one person with two united natures has never been easy to understand, but that doesn’t make it untrue.” (Life Application Study Bible, Luke 9:7-8, 2 Timothy 2:9)
“… humanity was gradually prepared for the revelation of the fullness of Truth in Christ This is witnessed in the Old Testament..."Seeds" existed in antiquity but the natural revelation of Truth was incomplete. The fullness of Truth was made manifest in Christ. Jesus Christ, who broke through and"once and for all entered history," is the fulfillment of non-Christian religions that were seeking the Light, the Life, and the Way to the Truth. Christ the eternal entered into time; the absolute entered the world of relativism.” (Rev. Dr. George C. Papademetriou)
"The truth can be reached only by faith, being above and beyond human comprehension.” (Rev. George Mastrantonis)
“He [Christ] is the full revelation of God. You can have no clearer view of God than by looking at Christ. Jesus Christ is the complete expression of God in a human body.” (Life Application Study Bible, Hebrews 1:2)
“God the Word places His wonder and majesty within reach of the human race in the person of Jesus Christ. He can be touched and handled (1 John 1:1) as a man: someone human beings can receive and recognize. Humanity’s concept of knowing God has changed entirely. We no longer know about Him; now we may know Him.” (OCPM 11/15/2015)
“In Jesus we see God. In Jesus we know the Father. In Jesus we come to know God’s love and forgiveness. In Jesus we discover our own calling as sons and daughters of God.” (Father John Zeyack)
“God has appeared personally…The appearance of God has but one purpose: to bring"salvation . . . to all men” (Titus 3:11)…The"appearance” in time of the only-begotten Son is the supreme gift of divine condescension on behalf of all mankind.” (Dynamis 1/6/2015)
“There never was a time when God the Son did not exist.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Hebrews 1:5)
"Look around you. People are searching for something to give their lives a boost. Few people seem content within themselves. A strange and often hard-to-identify inner vacuum gives most people an uneasy sense of incompleteness. Christ fills that vacuum." (Life Application Study Bible, Colossians 2:10)
“St. Augustine spoke from his lived experience. He had a mistress and an illegitimate son. He was a popular teacher and was praised by many. He found that none of the earthly things he sought after fulfilled him for long, however. Only God’s Love can fill the void in our hearts.” (Abouna Justin Rose)
"When life caves in, you do not need reasons, you need comfort. You do not need some answers; you need someone. And Jesus does not come to us with an explanation; He comes to us with his presence." (Bob Benson)
"...in Christ Jesus, we are touching God to Whom all things are known and Who ever protects us, past, present, and forever....Our Good Shepherd is ever with us, and through Him we have access to God the Father. He sees and understands our condition far better than we do ourselves..." (Dynamis 1/25/2014)
“...that’s what Christian life is all about – thinking and doing everything with the mind and heart of Jesus – being filled with His Spirit.” (Father John Zeyack)
"The verb"to know,” when used in the context of Scripture, expresses a relationship, as in knowing a person rather than simply acquiring information about him. Because the Lord calls Himself"the Truth”, to know the Truth means to know Christ Jesus through our relationship with Him." (Dynamis 5/17/2014)
"The more we know Christ, the more we are changed into His likeness. Ultimately, to know Christ our God is to think, feel, desire, reason, and will as He does. By submitting to His will, we become like Him and thus enjoy true freedom. This freedom is neither political, economic, nor social in its essence, but an inner freedom of the heart, soul, and mind." (Dynamis 5/17/2014)
"As we grow in the Lord, our vision gradually conforms to the Lord’s mind, until we find ourselves thinking with Him. We develop what Father George Florovsky calls a"scriptural mind” – one which is wholly attuned to God." (Dynamis 5/17/2014)
“Being a Christian means looking at the world through"the eyes of Christ.” (Abouna Justin Rose)
“Christian maturity means making Christ the beginning and end of our faith. To grow in maturity, we must center our lives on Him...” (Life Application Study Bible, Hebrews 13:24-25)"Christ offers light to every person, but the world and even many of His own refuse to receive Him; thus, they can neither know nor recognize Him. Those who accept Him have His light.” (Orthodox Study Bible, John 1:9-11)
"Using an analogy from chemistry, we can liken the impact of His words and deeds on men’s lives to a spiritual"reagent.” A reagent evokes a specific response when it is introduced into the presence of other elements. The very presence of Christ precipitates a spiritual reaction in us. The eyes of our hearts may be opened, or they may turn dark in resistance to Him. Our spiritual state determines what our reaction to Christ will be.” (Dynamis 5/22/2014)
“The bottom line is that Christ comes to save – to give sight, to illumine us. If we persistently prefer our own insights, we will remain blind.” (Dynamis 5/22/2014)
“To those who remained open and recognized how sin had truly blinded them from knowing the truth, He [Christ] gave spiritual understanding and insight. But He rejected those who had become complacent, self-satisfied, and blind.” (Life Application Study Bible, John 9:40-41)
"We must look closely at Christ in order to find the whole truth about ourselves, discerning the state of our heart and soul." (Dynamis 2/2/2014)
“…because Christ took on every aspect of humanity, we have firm ground for our hope that He will restore our nature in its entirety: body, soul, and spirit.” (Dynamis 1/16/14)
"Everything is for man to love Christ and all other problems are taken care of.” (St. Potphyrios)
“If you’ve invited Christ into your life, you have been reborn and the Holy Spirit is working to help you become all that God wants you to be.” (Jim Conway)
“Christ thrills me with who I am in him, and reminds me gently who I am not. When I suffer, I know I’m still loved. When I’m on top of the world, I remember that my accomplishments mean nothing in light of eternity. The biggest surprise to me was to discover that Christ is real. He’s not some nebulous concept, some idea or system or approach or philosophy. He’s a Person, someone I can know.” (Orel Hershiser)
"The Word became flesh clarifies the manner in which the Son and Word of God came to His people (vv. 9–11), pointing specifically to His Incarnation. The Word became fully human without ceasing to be fully God. He assumed complete human nature: body, soul, will, emotion, and even mortality—everything that pertains to humanity except sin. As God and Man in one Person, Christ pours divinity into all of human nature, for anything not assumed by Christ would not have been healed.” (Orthodox Study Bible, John 1:14)
“Not only is Jesus the exact representation of God, but He is God Himself—the very God who spoke in Old Testament times....He is the full revelation of God. You can have no clearer view of God than by looking at Christ. Jesus Christ is the complete expression of God in a human body.” (Life Application Study Bible, Hebrews 1:3)
“Christ is God’s full disclosure, God’s forthright revelation. He is God’s ultimate exposition of the wondrous new possibility of repentance, forgiveness, and eternal life.” (Dynamis 11/1/2014)
“Because Jesus is the most complete revelation of God, we cannot fully know God apart from Christ..." (Life Application Study Bible, Romans 10:1)
“…while Jesus is human in every respect, He is also God. As a sinless man, He discloses the fullness of human potential… He is truly man – although unique, unprecedented, unimaginable, unrepeatable – and thus He reveals the potential inherent in our human nature.” (Dynamis 7/2/2014)
“Pilate said to Him [Christ],"What is truth?” (John 18:37-38). The answer to this question is what separates Christianity from every other religion. For Christians, truth is not an ideology, set of doctrines, scriptures, canon, rules, or commandments. These are all expressions or reflections of truth. For Christians, truth is a Person – Jesus Christ.” Christ said,"I am the Truth"; He did not say"I am the custom." (Sacramental Living II, St. Toribio)
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