Ohio Yearly Meeting's Podcast

Fundamental Beliefs of Conservative Friends #23 Early Friends’ Beliefs of Jesus

Henry Jason

Using the Journal of George Fox, Volume II, 1891 edition (as it is excerpted in “A Brief Synopsis”) and the Holy Scriptures, the podcast discusses early Friends’ beliefs of Jesus. 

[Quoting George Fox from his Journal] “We [Friends] desire also to affirm our belief in the virtue of His atoning sacrifice on Calvary for the sins of all mankind, as through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts we are led to repent of and forsake our sins. So it is clear that the eternal, invisible and incomprehensible God was not, nor cannot be crucified. But Christ, the Son of God suffered according to the flesh, not in His godhead. So Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, and that Christ, by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”

Jesus, while on earth, was both fully human and fully divine. 

                The name, Jesus Christ” is not like a first and last name. Rather, it is much more like a title: Jesus (from the Hebrew, “Joshua” which means deliverer) and then Christ, which from the Greek means messiah, or holy, anointed one. 

“Lord” in the Greek (kurios) means owner/master. Thus, Jesus is our Lord, or Owner.

Philippians 2:5-11, is meant to be a parallel to the fall of Adam and Eve (in Genesis 3), where the man, Adam (and Eve) sought to become equal with God, and be totally in control. (In the Hebrew, the word for “Adam” means “man”.) Instead, Jesus, as a man on earth, had no desire to grasp His right to be equal to God. Instead, Jesus humbled Himself by emptying Himself of His ego, renouncing Himself, taking on the form of a slave, to become a man. The ultimate of this humility was Jesus’ death on a cross. This humility meant that God raised Jesus so that Jesus became Lord (kurios)/Owner.  These understandings of Jesus were found repeatedly in the writings or early Friends writings. 

When one puts them all together, it becomes: Lord Jesus, the Christ . . . our owner (Lord), who is our deliverer (Jesus), and the only holy, anointed one (Christ). 

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