Knowing more about the Lord Jesus Christ

THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS.
Image from ewtn.com

Our previous entry on Availability was about the opportunity to study or learn about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus himself said that eternal life is knowing God and the One whom He sent [see John 17: 2-3]. Knowledge about the Lord Jesus Christ is very important indeed for how can we believe unless we know? How can we develop an intimate relationship with Him if we do not know about Him?

So we shall endeavor to get to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ in the next entries under this Pillar: Availability. There are many and various identities and titles which have been used to identify and describe the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has many titles which has been used to identify Him in accordance with His mission and as to how He was expected, understood and known to His followers, contemporaries and others. You can see these titles at Fr Felix Just's Christological Titles in the New Testament here and the Catholic Answers' The Original Catholic Encyclopedia here. You may also want to visit the online Catholic Encyclopedia and Wikipedia's series on the Lord Jesus Christ.

But of course, the fundamental material which we ought to use more is the Holy Bible itself, which contains the Jewish Scriptures, which we Christians call the Old Testament, and the Christian writings, which we call the New Testament, for quoting St Jerome once again, "Ignorance of the Scripture is ignorance of Christ." The Old Testament prepared us for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ while the New Testament fulfilled that expectation of His coming. With so much to learn about the Lord Jesus Christ, we really have to provide available time in order to know Him more so that we may develop a deeper, closer and more intimate relationship with Him. But all of these are of course summed up in the basic tenet which the Apostle Peter confessed: 

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" 

[see Matthew 16:16]

In other translations, instead of Christ, which is of Greek origin, we have the Jewish term, Messiah. This confession of faith is the basic knowledge that we ought to know hence the first thing that we shall discuss in our next entry is about Jesus as the Christ or the Messiah and how the two are one and the same but somehow distinct in a way. 

But before we proceed, one question that many might ask is: Is it necessary to know these things? Isn't it enough to believe in Jesus and be baptized? The answer could be both "Yes" and "No". Yes, because it is the only basic requirement being asked of those who wish to become His disciples, become members of the Body of Christ and be saved. But "No" because as the Lord himself said, many will come and say that "I am the Christ" to mislead others hence it is important that we know the Jesus whom Peter acknowledged and the Apostles have proclaimed as the Lord, Savior and Son of the living God.

The early years of the Church has been filled with challenges due to questions about the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ which became the bases for the formulation of dogmas, doctrines and proclamations about Him. After the persecutions, when the Church was already acknowledged and especially regarded as the Roman Empire's religion, the next problem that the Church faced was the rise of various ideas, identification and interpretations of who Jesus was and what Jesus is. The first Ecumenical Councils were particularly focused on answering these problems and the results of these Councils produced not only dogmas and doctrines which are directly about the Lord Jesus Christ but also related issues and concerns.

Such issues and problems continue to hound us today because of the lack of true knowledge about the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why it is very necessary that we provide enough time to learn these things about the Lord so that when we are called to make an account of our faith, we may be able to give it properly and faithfully [see 2 Timothy 2:25; 1 Peter 3:15]. Or else we might be easily snatched up by ravenous wolves from the Lord's flock [see 2 Corinthians 2:11; 1 Peter 5:8; 1 John 2: 18, 22; 4:3; Matthew 24: 5, 24; Luke 21:8].

As the Lord Jesus Christ provided time for us that we may not perish, we too must also give enough time to learn more about Him that we may follow Him better and lead others to the right Savior.