Deliverance from the Cross — Page 3
Foreword The birth, ministry, death, resuscitation, ascension, and second coming of Jesus are all shrouded in a mystery that has extended over a period of close upon two thousand years. The Jews of his time, with a few exceptions, questioned the legitimacy of his birth and rejected him as an impostor. They believed that they had compassed his death upon the cross and that this made him accursed and set a seal on his falsehood. In consequence, they are still awaiting the advent of the Messiah. The position of the orthodox church, developed over a period, came to be that Jesus was not only the son of God, in the sense of that Biblical idiom, but was God, the Son, that is to say, the second person of the trinity, and that he suffered death upon the cross to atone for the sins of mankind and thus became the only true source of human salvation. They believe that he rose up from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion and went about in his physical body and met some of his disciples and then ascended to heaven in the same physical body. They further believe that he sits on the right hand of God and will descend to earth in the latter days and judge mankind. The Muslims believe, in accordance with the Holy Quran, that Jesus was born without a father and was a prophet in Israel. He was put upon the cross but 3