JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to
you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through Him,
as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set
purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him
to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised Him from the dead,
freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to
keep its hold on Him"(Ac 2:22-24).
Later we witness Peter before the Jewish Sanhedrin (the body which condemned Jesus to
death--the equivalent to our Supreme Court) proclaiming,
"Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than
God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard" (4:19-20).
Shortly thereafter Peter along with the other apostles were warned about their continued
preaching mission. Peter spoke on behalf of all of them:
"We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from
the dead--whom you had killed by hanging Him on a tree. But God exalted
Him to His own right hand as Prince and Savior that He might give repentance
and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the
Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him" (5:29-32).
Only the risen Christ accounted for such a transformation of character!
The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus
The experience of Saul of Tarsus with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Ac 9:1-
9; 22:4-16; 26:9-18; 1 Co 15:8-9; Gal 1:11-24) testifies to the fact that Christianity is, as
British theologian Alister E. McGrath put it, "grounded in experience and that the Christian
experience of Jesus is consistent with the idea of His resurrection."27 No one provides a better
paradigm for radical conversion than Saul of Tarsus (which he himself claims—1 Ti 1:16) in
that he was a fierce enemy of "The Way" (the fledgling Christian movement). Paul gave the
following as credentials to show that if anyone had reason to have confidence in one's religious
heritage, he did:
● "circumcised on the eighth day"
● "of the people of Israel"
● "of the tribe of Benjamin"
● "a Hebrew of Hebrews"
● "in regard to the law, a Pharisee"
● "as for zeal, persecuting the church"
● "as for legalistic righteousness, faultless" (Php 3:5-6).