Are Christians the same as Jews?

That is an interesting question because Jesus was born a Jew, wasn’t he? So, if Jesus was Jewish and was even called “King of the Jews,” then it stands to reason that Christians are the same as Jews, right? Well, that’s not true, of course.

While many of the original Christians were probably Jewish, when Christ was crucified and then He was resurrected, they realized that he was the long-awaited Messiah and the early Christians started their own church based on the teachings of Jesus. This is all described in the first two chapters of the Book of Acts. While they still believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from the Old Testament, they knew that Jesus was the Son of God and that they didn’t need a Rabbi or any religious leader to perform religious rituals for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus offered them salvation and a personal relationship with God through his sacrifice on the cross.

Peter, one of Jesus’ original disciples, became the first Christian priest. The rest of the disciples followed suit and spread the good news of Jesus throughout the land. Many people during this time converted to this new belief but there were still many who did not convert. Many of the people in Jerusalem refused to convert and sided with the Pharisee’s and continued to practice their Jewish faith.

That’s why, even today, there are Jews in Israel and they don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Why did God leave the earth?

God’s realm is Heaven and that is where He sits and reigns. Jesus, as we know, was God in flesh. Jesus came to this world for one reason, to save us from sin. Part of the salvation plan required Jesus to live, then be crucified and killed, and then to rise again on the third day to show the world that He conquered death. Jesus then ascended to heaven where He sits until His second coming. We don’t know exactly when that will be…no one does. BUT, we must prepare for His return because that’s part of God’s unstoppable plan.

God left the earth but that doesn’t mean His presence isn’t here. Look at this beautiful planet we live on and all of the different people, plants, animals, lakes, mountains, rivers, deserts…all of the majesty of God’s creation. How could we possibly say that God’s not here with us? God is also present when you need Him. God has the power to be everywhere and to know everything…pretty amazing, huh? My brain doesn’t understand how He can do that but I know, through faith, that He can do that.

God may have physically left the earth but His presence and His glory is all around us. Jesus left, temporarily, because it was all part of God’s salvation plan to bring us closer to Him, through faith.

Why did only certain people go on the cross?

Wow, awesome question! First of all, let me be clear about crucifixion…it was basically a death sentence. Crucifixion wasn’t intended to be a punishment with set time. It wasn’t like the Roman judges said, “You will be crucified for a period of three hours.” The act of crucifying someone was meant to kill them. Not only that, but it was meant to kill them in a very slow, painful and tortuous way. Roman crucifixion was also meant to humiliate and dishonor a person.

Now, having said that, crucifixion was reserved only for the worst criminals, basically your murderers and thieves. In the Bible, we only have two instances of crucifixion mentioned. The first involves Jesus and two thieves, the second is when the Apostle Peter is told he will be crucified as a martyr (John 21:18-19).

Since the second instance is vague and has been debated by many Biblical scholars, let’s go to the first instance, which we know to be true. Here we have two thieves and Jesus who are being crucified. Do you remember what Jesus did to warrant death by crucifixion? According to the Jewish leaders, He blasphemed by claiming to be God. Even Pontius Pilate couldn’t find a reason to crucify Jesus so he handed Jesus to the Jews who had Him crucified by the Roman soldiers. So, Jesus, who was perfect and without sin and who had committed no crime, was crucified along with two thieves.

As unfair and unjust as that seems, it fulfills Old Testament prophesy about the Messiah. Jesus had to die on that cross. But, here’s the glorious and wonderful part about his death on the cross: when Jesus died He took the sins of world past, present and future with him and redeemed us. And because Christ died for us, we can have eternal life with God, the Father, in Heaven.

So, even though the cross was reserved for certain criminals, Jesus’ crucifixion was necessary to fulfill God’s unstoppable plan.

How old was Jesus when he died?

We have a pretty good idea of the year Jesus was born and the year he died, so we can have a pretty good idea of how old he was when he died. The deal, though, is that people back then weren’t concerned with EXACTLY what time it was, the way we are today. They didn’t have wrist watches; they didn’t have clocks in every room of their homes; they didn’t have paper calendars and computers to keep them accurate. They simply weren’t as concerned with writing down the EXACT times and dates like we would.

But the Bible does give us some information about the date of Jesus’ birth. Read Matthew 2:1.

Also, ancient records exist that show that King Herod died in April of 4 BC. There was certainly some amount of time between Herod’s command to have all the baby boys killed and his death. So how old would that make the infant Jesus in 4 BC? Well, Jesus was probably born within the last three years of Herod’s rule - making his birth somewhere around 6 BC.

Now let’s look at Jesus’ death. Again, while the Bible does not clearly and exactly tell us, evidence does exist in the records of the kings and governors of that period, and this information strongly supports the Bible. From those records, we know that Pontius Pilate was removed from office late in the year 36. Since it was Pilate who order Jesus’ crucifixion, 36 is the latest year we can use to figure our how long he lived.

So if Jesus was born no later than 6 B.C., and was crucified no later than 36 A.D., then the oldest he could have been was about 42 years old.

Now because the dates are not exact, he could have been younger. Many people will argue that he was about 10 years younger than that. Well, maybe. Again, ancient people (and the writers of the Bible) weren’t as concerned about time as we are, and the Bible doesn’t exactly say. It is safe to say that Jesus was between 33 and 42 years old when he was crucified.