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Who
is Jesus?
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 Christianity?
In
Depth Who is Jesus?
Matthew
16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14:They replied,
"Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others,
Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15:"But what about you?" he asked.
"Who do you say I am?" 16:Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God." 17:Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon
son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father
in heaven." (NIV)
No one has influenced
the human race as much as Jesus. Indeed, every newspaper in the globe
testifies that Jesus' life was the most influential ever lived. The
Western world takes its entire dating system from this man's life, so
he must be quite remarkable to achieve such a high profile. (NB
Christ's birth has been more accurately dated around 6BC but this in no
way affects the truth or reality of his coming into our
world).
Someone once said: "Jesus entered the world
2000 years ago as a member of a poor family, in a small Jewish
community, in one of the smallest countries in the world. He never
wrote a book, but more books have been written about him than anyone
else in history. He never raised an army, yet it is estimated that some
330,000 of his followers are martyred for their faith in him each
year." That's quite some achievement for someone who had such small
beginnings.
He is the hub of the wheel of Christianity
and without Christ Christianity does not exist. Most other religions
are based on philosophical propositions. If one were to remove the
founding prophet or guru, the religion would remain essentially intact.
This is not the case with Christianity, if you remove Christ but left
his teaching then you would still not have Christianity, indeed
Christianity would cease to exist. The whole faith rests entirely on
the person of Jesus Christ and who he is rather than what he said. But
did he even exist?
Jesus was a real historical man
Secular writings outside of the Bible affirm
that Jesus actually existed. The historian Josephus (born AD 37) tells
of the execution in AD 62 of James 'the brother of Jesus, the so-called
Messiah.' In another part of his writings he describes Jesus as 'a wise
man, who was a doer of wonderful works' (Antiquites of the
Jews, XVIII.33).
Pliny the Younger (AD 112) wrote about
Christians saying that, 'they were in the habit of meeting on a certain
fixed day before it was light, when, they sang in alternate verse a
hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not
to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery,
never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be
called upon to deliver it up.' (Henry Bettenson, Documents
of the Christian church (Oxford University Press, 1988) p. 3,4).
Even in the recent Easter
documentary Son of God shown by
the BBC, Jeremy Bowen the presenter concluded; 'There is no
doubt that Jesus actually existed.' Jesus was a real man of history and
no serious historian would doubt this. Some people may well concede
that Jesus was a real person and a good man, but they would be
reluctant to credit him with more than that. Yet the evidence within
the New Testament does not permit us to simply acknowledge that he was
just a nice man, for the claims of Jesus and the evidence from his life
go far beyond that.
I doubt that there is anyone who would
question the fact that Jesus was a most remarkable man in both his
teachings, his purity and in his actions. But there have been others in
this world that have lived extraordinary lives, take for instance
Mahatma Gandhi the former president of India. He was a kind and
gentle-natured man who lived for peace and tolerance among those of
different cultures and religions. He rejected the use of force or
aggression and not only taught, but lived what he believed. In most
people's eyes, he was a fine upstanding man. Yet we may be surprised to
find that his own candid view of himself was quite different from our
perception of him. In his autobiography entitled 'My
experiments with truth' he writes the following words:
'I hope to acquaint the reader fully with
all my faults and errors. In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh
as truth, as I want others also to be. Measuring myself by that
standard I must exclaim:
'Where is there a wretch so miserable and
loathsome as I, I have forsaken my maker, so faithless have I been'.
For it is an unbroken torture to me that I
am so far from Him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my
life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions
within that keep me so far from him, and yet I cannot get away from
them.'
(Richard Cunningham, Discovering
Christianity (version 2, UCCF 1994) p. 59).
It may come as no surprise to us that Gandhi
had faults, failings and fear just like you and I. However, when we
come to Jesus the gospel writers make an extraordinary claim, which is
this:
'He committed no sin, and no
deceit was found in his mouth.' (1 Peter 2:22).(NIV)
Imagine someone who lived such a perfect
life that even his closest companions could say that he never committed
any sin! Could that be said of us, or anyone else that you know? I
think not. Therefore there must have been something extraordinary about
Jesus that statements of sinless perfection could be claimed about him.
The answer to this lies in who Jesus claimed to be. He claimed to be
God!
The claims of Jesus
The fundamental difference between Jesus and
any other person that has existed is this: Jesus was no mere man. He
claimed to be the Son of God, in other words God in flesh! Astonishing
(and even incredible) as that might seem, that is exactly what the
Bible teaches about Jesus' true identity. Indeed, this is what Jesus
claimed about Himself, both indirectly by His actions, as well as
verbally from His own mouth.
Jesus' direct claims to be God
Lets consider some of the passages from
scripture where Jesus claims to be God:
'Jesus said, "My Father
is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working." For
this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him, not only was He
breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making
Himself equal with God' (John
5:17-18, (NIV) italics mine).
This claim provoked accusations of blasphemy
by His enemies because Jesus was claiming that God was His Father! That
statement to a monotheistic (one God) culture of Judaism meant only one
thing, that Jesus was claiming equality with God.
On another occasion; 'The Pharisees said to
Jesus, "You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham!" "I
tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was
born, I am!" At this they picked up stones to stone Him'
(John 8:57-59, (NIV) italics mine). Here we see Jesus showing His
eternal existence. This again was a claim that could only be true of
the eternal God.
On another occasion Jesus said, '"I and the
Father are one". Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but
Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the
Father. For which of these do you stone me?" "We are not stoning you
for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because
you, a mere man, claim to be God" (John 10:30-33, (NIV)
italics mine). This incident again shows that the Pharisees understood
that Jesus was claiming to be God.
In addition to these direct
claims from Jesus there are other indirect claims that support his
deity.
The indirect claims to support
Jesus' deity
After the resurrection of Jesus there was an
incident where one of Jesus' disciples called Thomas was not present in
the upper room when Jesus appeared the first time to his disciples. But
Thomas was present on the second occasion of Jesus' resurrection
appearance. This convinced Thomas that Jesus was God in flesh, hence
his declaration, 'My Lord and my God!' (John
20:26-31) (NIV).
Then there is the account of some men
bringing a paralysed man for Jesus to heal and we are told; 'When
Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are
forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there,
thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's
blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"'
(Mark 2:5-7(NIV)). Indeed who can forgive sins except God! That is
precisely why Jesus could forgive sins because he was God.
Just before the ascension of Jesus, we are
told; 'the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where
Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they
worshipped him' (Matthew 28:16). Worship was something that
was only reserved for God alone, indeed not even angels allowed people
to worship them (e.g. Revelation 22:8-9) (NIV). The fact that Jesus did
not prevent or dissuade his disciples from worshipping him was again an
indirect claim to deity.
It is clear from scripture that Jesus
claimed to be God. Now, I appreciate that anyone can claim to be God,
and most of them are considered insane, so what is the evidence that
Jesus' claims are based on reality? There are a number of pieces of
evidence to substantiate Jesus' claims, some of which we will now
consider.
The miracles He performed
There are countless reports in the New
Testament where Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead (see Matthew
4:23-24; 8:14-17; 8:28-34; 9:1-8; 9:18-34 to name but a few). The
Apostle Peter appealed to the miracles of Jesus on the day of Pentecost
as proof of Jesus' identity (Acts 2:22).
The resurrection of Jesus
Jesus both predicted his resurrection from
the dead and proved beyond reasonable doubt to his disciples that he
had been raised back to life. See the extensive evidence for this under
The resurrection: myth or miracle?
The teaching of Jesus
Lunatics can usually be exposed by the way
they talk and act, take for instance David Coresh from the Branch
Davidian cult at Waco, Texas, whose teaching and life were extremely
odd. The Hitlers and Sadam Hussein's of this world are also people who
have influenced others with their teaching, perhaps even mesmerised
them, but when one examines what they say, alongside the example of
their lives, it is not hard to distinguish a mad man from a sane man.
However, the teaching of Jesus has been used as a solid moral code for
many nations and as a commendable way of living for individuals. At
every point Jesus' teaching has not been bettered. Perhaps this was why
people were as amazed with Jesus' teaching as they were with his
miracles (Matt 7:28-29).
The character of Jesus
The apostle Peter writing about Jesus said
this: 'He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth' (1
Peter 2:22). Would your friends be able to say the same about you? Even
after being with Jesus for three years his disciples could find no
deceit on his lips. Even the enemies of Jesus could not find any fault
with him (Matthew 26:59-60). He was utterly trustworthy in everything
that He said or did. He was truly perfect and his life cannot be
bettered!
The disciples of Jesus
The disciples of Jesus were convinced about
who He was, and were willing to die for their faith in Him. I doubt
very much whether they would have been willing to make such a sacrifice
if they had found inconsistencies in his life or teaching.
The Old
Testament prophecies concerning Jesus
There are sixty-one major prophecies about
the coming Messiah, specifying His lineage, place of birth, healing and
miracles etc. Twenty nine of these prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus
in the 24 hours leading to his death (e.g. forsaken, crucified, none of
his bones were broken, buried in a rich man's grave (Psalm 22; Isaiah
9:6-7; Isaiah 53; Isaiah 61:1-3). It has been calculated that the
probability of all these prophecies being fulfilled by any one man is
180 to the power of 10, to one chance. To put that into perspective the
chances of winning the lottery are only 140 to the power of 5 to one
(in other words a one in 14,000,000 chance).
Jesus died for His claims
In Marks Gospel there is an account of the
trial of Jesus which comes to a climax when the High Priest questions
Jesus, 'Again the High Priest asked him, "Are you the Christ,
the Son of the Blessed One?" "I am," said Jesus... They all
condemned him as worthy of death' (Mark 14: 61-64) (NIV). When Jesus
was placed on trial for His life He had the opportunity to be set free
if He denounced His claim to be God's Son. He didn't, why? Because He
was telling the truth! Based on the evidence, there can only be three
possible conclusions that you can reach regarding Jesus: he was either mad,
bad or God!
- Was he a madman
who was severely deluded about who he was and that is why he was
willing to die? I don't think so. As we have seen earlier a lunatic has
flaws in his personality (which would have been spotted by his
disciples). In addition, a lunatic would never have come out with the
kind of wise teaching that Jesus did. So, this option in itself is
rather mad.
- Was he a liar
who was the greatest of deceivers because he lived a lie in all that he
did and said for his entire life? I don't think this is plausible
either. Would a liar be willing to die for their lies? Most people lie
in order to get themselves out of trouble - not into trouble! Besides,
can you really believe that a man who expected the highest moral
standards from his followers would himself be the biggest phoney of
all?
- Was he the Lord of all
creation? All the evidence points to this as the only
logical conclusion that fits the evidence. That's who the Bible says He
is, but what about you? Who do you say he is?
C.S. Lewis the famous writer and Oxford Don
who was converted from atheism to Christianity said,
'I
am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that
people often say about Him, "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral
teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God!". That is one thing we
must not say. For a man who was merely man and said the sort of things
that Jesus said would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice.
Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a mad man or
something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him as
a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let
us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human
teacher. He has not left that option open to us, He didn't intend to.'
(C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity publish by Fount pg 43).
Each of us
must face up to the question Jesus put to His own disciples, 'Who
do you say that I am?' (Mark 8:29) (NIV). Your life, indeed
your soul, hangs on who Jesus really is! (John 3:36;
20:30-31)
Further reading
- C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity publish by
Fount (1997)
- Josh McDowell, Evidence that demand a
verdict (Alpha 1998).
- Josh McDowell, More than a carpenter
(Kingsway 1995).
- Bill Bright, A man without equal
(Scripture Union 1988).
- Michael Green, The day death died (IVP
1988).
- Stephen Gaukroger, It makes sense
(Scripture Union 1988)
- John Blanchard Does God believe in
atheists? Evangelical Press 2000
To purchase these books online try www.wesleyowen.com
or www.amazon.co.uk
See also Beyond Blind Faith on Leadership
University
by Colin Webster of
Cornerstone Evangelical Church
(Reproduced with the kind
permission of Cornerstone Evangelical Church)
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