The resurrection of Jesus is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
The Second Coming is a Christian, Islamic as well as Baha'i belief that Jesus will return after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies.
In Christianity, Sabellianism is the Eastern Church equivalent to Patripassianism in the Western Church, which are both forms of theological modalism. Condemned as heresy, Modalism is the belief that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three different modes of God, as opposed to a Trinitarian view of three distinct persons within the Godhead. However, Von Mosheim, German Lutheran theologian who founded the pragmatic school of church historians, argues that Sabellius "believed the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, described in the Scriptures, to be a real distinction, and not a mere appellative or nominal one."
In Islam, Jesus is believed to be the penultimate prophet and messenger of God and the Messiah sent to guide the Children of Israel with a book called the Injīl.
In the Quran, Jesus is described as the Messiah, miraculously born of a virgin, performing miracles, accompanied by his disciples, rejected by the Jewish religious establishment, but not as crucified or dying on the cross, rather as miraculously saved by God and ascending into heaven. The Quran unequivocally and repeatedly rejects the idea that Jesus was murdered or even crucified by the authorities.
Earl J. Doherty is a Canadian author of The Jesus Puzzle (1999), Challenging the Verdict (2001), and Jesus: Neither God Nor Man (2009). Doherty argues for a version of the Christ myth theory, the thesis that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure. Doherty says that Paul thought of Jesus as a spiritual being executed in a spiritual realm.
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian theology of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence. Certain religious groups that emerged during the Protestant Reformation have historically been known as antitrinitarian.
In Christian theology, divinization, or theopoesis or theosis, is the transforming effect of divine grace, the spirit of God, or the atonement of Christ. Although it literally means to become divine, or to become God, most modern Christian denominations do not interpret the doctrine as implying an overcoming of a fundamental ontological difference between God and humanity; for example, John of the Cross indicated that while "God communicates to it [the individual soul] His supernatural Being, in such wise that it appears to be God Himself, and has all that God Himself has", yet "it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before".
The religious perspectives on Jesus vary among world religions. Jesus' teachings and the retelling of his life story have significantly influenced the course of human history, and have directly or indirectly affected the lives of billions of people, even non-Christians. He is considered by many to be one of the most influential persons to have ever lived, finding a significant place in numerous cultural contexts.
In Christianity, salvation is the "saving [of] human beings from sin and its consequences, which include death and separation from God" by Christ's death and resurrection, and the justification following this salvation.
Christian mysticism is the tradition of mystical practices and mystical theology within Christianity which "concerns the preparation [of the person] for, the consciousness of, and the effect of [...] a direct and transformative presence of God" or Divine love. Until the sixth century the practice of what is now called mysticism was referred to by the term contemplatio, c.q. theoria, from contemplatio, "looking at", "gazing at", "being aware of" God or the Divine. Christianity took up the use of both the Greek (theoria) and Latin terminology to describe various forms of prayer and the process of coming to know God.
Substitutionary atonement, also called vicarious atonement, is a central concept within Western Christian theology which asserts that Jesus died "for us", as propagated by the Western classic and objective paradigms of atonement in Christianity, which regard Jesus as dying as a substitute for others, "instead of" them.
The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that the story of Jesus is a work of mythology with no historical substantiality. Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."
In Christian theology, the doctrine of incarnation teaches that the pre-existent divine person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, and the eternally begotten Logos, took upon human nature and "was made flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the Theotokos. The doctrine of the incarnation then entails that Jesus was at the same time both fully God and fully human—two natures in one person.
Eastern Orthodox theology is the theology particular to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is characterized by monotheistic Trinitarianism, belief in the Incarnation of the essentially divine Logos or only-begotten Son of God, a balancing of cataphatic theology with apophatic theology, a hermeneutic defined by a Sacred Tradition, a catholic ecclesiology, a robust of the person, and a principally recapitulative and therapeutic soteriology.
Mystical theology is the branch of theology in the Christian tradition that explains mystical practices and states, as induced by contemplative practices such as contemplative prayer, called theoria from the Greek for contemplation.
The roles of women in Christianity have varied since its founding. Women have played important roles in Christianity especially in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, and parachurch organizations. In 2016, it has been estimated that the female share of the World's Christian Population is between 52 and 53 percent. The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that Christian women in 53 countries are generally more religious than Christian men. While Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services. In 2020, it has been estimated that the female share of the World's Christian Population is around 51.6%.
The pre-existence of Christ asserts the existence of Christ prior to his incarnation as Jesus. One of the relevant Bible passages is John 1:1–18 where, in the Trinitarian interpretation, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos. There are nontrinitarian views that question the aspect of personal pre-existence, the aspect of divinity, or both.
John's vision of the Son of Man is a vision described in the Book of Revelation in which the author, identified as John, sees a person he describes as one "like the Son of Man". The Son of Man is portrayed in this vision as having a robe with a golden sash, white hair, eyes like blazing fire, feet like bronze and a voice like rushing waters. He holds seven stars in his right hand and has a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. The vision is interpreted by Christians as the only identifiable physical description of Jesus in any form in the Christian biblical canon.
Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake the study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to:
The Nicene Creed, composed in part and adopted at the First Council of Nicaea (325) and revised with additions by the First Council of Constantinople (381), is a creed that summarizes the orthodox faith of the Christian Church and is used in the liturgy of most Christian Churches. This article endeavors to give the text and context of English-language translations.
