|
WHO IS JESUS?
No matter what you believe about Jesus Christ, you must agree that He
is the most controversial person who ever lived. Did you know that Jesus has appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine at least16
times?
Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Jesus is the most perfect of all men that have yet appeared."
Historian
H.G. Wells commented "Jesus stands first as the person who has made the most permanent impression on history."
Or consider
the words of Napoleon Bonaparte "I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person
in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded empires. But on what
did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions
of men would die for Him." 1
Then there is this famous essay written by an unknown author:
"Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant
woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years He was an
itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family.
He
never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He
was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.
While
still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned
over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves.
While
He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth- His coat. When He was dead, He was
taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and
today He is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say
that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the
kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary
life."
Where would a person begin in his search to learn about this remarkable
man? There are many places that we could go for information about Jesus. We could go to the ancient history books.
For
example we could read Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian and a contemporary of Jesus.
Josephus wrote Antiquities of the
Jews, a history of the Jewish people from the beginning of history up to the Roman Empire. It's a very interesting book. You
read about kings and kingdoms, armies and wars then in the middle of book 18, chapter 3, you run into this paragraph:
“Now, there was about this time, Jesus a wise man, if it be lawful
to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works - a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew
over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the
principle men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared
to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning
him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day”2
No defense, no explanation just historical fact.
Or we could read
men like Phlegon and Thallus who are writing in the first century trying to figure out why it was dark at noon on the day
that Christ was crucified.3 They mention Jesus Christ by name, they speak of his crucifixion and they are trying
to figure out how there could have been a solar eclipse on the same day that there was a full moon because it is scientifically
impossible.
Or we could read the numerous Jewish writers who say, "We know His mother was Mary, but we still aren't
sure who His father was." Or, we could even go to the Encyclopedia Britannica. They give 20,000 words to this person, Jesus
Christ. More than they give to Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Buddha, Confucius or Mohammed. After they have cited all of these
independent sources about the life of Jesus OUTSIDE THE BIBLE, the Encyclopedia draws this conclusion: “These independent
accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus.”4
So
it is possible without ever opening a Bible to establish that Jesus Christ was born of an unusual birth, lived a miraculous
life, died a miraculous death and even, according to Josephus, that he rose from the dead. All that without ever opening a
Bible! But, doesn't it make sense to go to the eyewitnesses, the men who wrote with the express purpose of explaining who
Jesus was?
People throughout history have been divided by this question. It makes you wonder why Jesus is so controversial.
Why has there not been this same fervor over other religious leaders? How is He different? Why is it that one can have a conversation
about Buddha, Mohammed, or Confucius but if you mention Jesus Christ, people say "whoa, I don’t want to go there?"
It
is because these other leaders never claimed to be God. Jesus did.
It didn't take long for the people who knew Jesus
to realize that He was making some astounding claims about himself. It became clear that His own claims were identifying Him
as more than just a prophet or a teacher. He was obviously making claims to deity. He was presenting himself as the only way
to God, the only source of forgiveness of sins and the only way to salvation. That's pretty controversial!
Luke, in
his Gospel (3:15), says that "everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon and they were eager to know if John (the Baptist)
might be the Messiah.5" God had prepared his people for the coming of Jesus. They misunderstood who he would be
and what he would do, but they were expecting him to come soon. So when John the Baptist came walking out of the desert dressed
in camel skin, wearing a prophet's belt around his waist and eating bugs, they said, "Wait a minute! That looks familiar.
That looks a lot like one of the prophets we have read about in the OT."
When John started preaching that they needed
to repent of their sins and turn back to God, the people flocked to him in the hopes that the long-awaited messiah had finally
come. But when they asked him about it, he said, "No, I am not the Messiah." They said, "Well maybe your are Elijah, because
the Bible says that Elijah will come back to usher in the end of history."
John says, "No, I am not Elijah either."
"Oh,
ummm… Maybe you are the great prophet that Moses talked about?"
"Nope."
"Well, then who in the world are you?"
(John 1:19-23)
In response John quotes Isaiah 40. "I am a voice shouting in the wilderness, 'Prepare a straight pathway
for the Lord's coming!'" If you were to flip back in your Bible to Isaiah 40:3 you would see that the word "Lord" is printed
in all capital letters. That means it is the Hebrew name of God YHWH or Jehovah.6 God is coming.
So again,
at the beginning of his Gospel, John wants to make sure that we understand exactly who it is that was born on that first Christmas.
This person will be none other than God in the flesh. The Bible clearly presents Jesus Christ as God. First the Bible ascribes
to Jesus every major name and title of God. Second, the Bible describes Jesus as having the attributes of God.
Third,
the Bible says that Jesus has the authority of God.
Jesus took for himself the Old Testament names for God and He allowed
others to call Him by those names.7 The Jewish rulers got so upset that they tried to kill him for blasphemy. They
had no doubt. This guy was claiming to be Almighty God in the flesh!
One of the best known names for God is YHWH- Jehovah
or "I Am." It speaks of God's unchangeable character. In chapter 8 John records a confrontation between Jesus and the religious
leaders of His day.
Jesus says, "Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my
coming. He saw it and was glad." The people said, "You aren't even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?"
Jesus answered, "The truth is, I existed before Abraham was even born!" At that point they picked up stones to kill him. But
Jesus hid himself from them and left the Temple.
The Greek words that Jesus uses are ego eimi, I am he. "Before Abraham
was, I am he." Look again at verse 59. "At that point they picked up stones to kill him." They knew exactly what He was saying.
Jesus
isn't the only one who calls himself Jehovah. Over and over, the NT writers use OT passages about Jehovah to refer to Jesus.
We just looked at a quote from Is 40:3 "A voice calling in the wilderness, 'prepare the way for Jehovah.'" John says, "This
is about Jesus"!
Paul applies a verse from the OT book of Joel (Joel 2:32) to Jesus in Romans 10: "Whoever will call
upon the Name of Jehovah will be saved." Paul says, "this is about Jesus!" Peter uses the same verse in Acts 2:21. Then later
in Acts 4:21 he says that there is no other name by which men can be saved except one, JESUS!
Jesus claimed to be Jehovah,
his friends called him Jehovah and even his enemies had no doubt about who He was claiming to be. So the main accusations
of His enemies centered not on what He did, but on who He claimed to be.
The NT uses many other OT names of God to
refer to Jesus including Yaweh, God, Alpha and Omega, Lord, Savior, King, Judge, Light, Rock, Redeemer, The Lord Our Righteousness,
Husband, Shepherd, Creator, The Lord Our Healer, Giver of Life, and the Forgiver of Sins.
Not only does the Bible give Jesus the names of God; it also gives Him
the attributes of God. Consider these passages:
"Wherever 2 or 3 have
gathered in my name, there I am in their midst." (Mt 18:20)
"Do you not recognize this... that Jesus Christ is in you?"
(I Cor 13:5)
Jesus "knew all men." John 2:24
"Now we know that you know all things." John 16:30
The Bible says that Jesus Christ has the attributes of God including Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence,
Pre-existence, Eternalness, and Unchangeableness. He is everywhere, he knows everything, he is all powerful, he has always
existed, he always will exist and he will never change. He knew the future. He even knew what people were thinking.
Jesus
Christ possesses the Names of God and the Attributes of God. He also has the Authority of God. The most obvious example of
this is seen in Jesus taking upon himself the right to receive worship. Few subjects in the Bible are treated more clearly
than the subject of worship. The whole Bible teaches that no one but God is to be worshiped. Jesus himself said, "You shall
worship the Lord your God and serve Him only." No man or angel was ever to receive worship. God would share His glory with
no one. This is the first of the Ten Commandments.
But Jesus Christ is worshiped repeatedly in the New Testament. He
healed a man who said, "'Lord, I believe' and worshiped Him" (John 9:38). The disciples worshiped Him after He walked on the
water (Matthew 14:33). Another time, the disciples saw Him after the resurrection and came up and "worshiped Him" (Matthew
28:17). Jesus never rebukes anyone for worshiping Him. He receives it as His due.
Further in this area of authority,
Jesus says that He has the authority to resurrect Himself, the authority to forgive sin and the authority to speak the words
of God.
So, we've said:
Jesus Christ without a doubt lived the most influential life in the history of planet
earth. If you go back into history without the Bible, you will find that Jesus was born in a miraculous way, lived
a miraculous life, died a miraculous death and yes, even that he rose from the dead.
The Bible says:
Jesus claimed
to be God
Jesus has the names of God
Jesus has the attributes of God
Jesus has the authority of God
With all
that information, We find ourselves asking with the disciples, "Who is this man? (Mark 4:41)?" Into what category do we put
this person? C.S. Lewis was a professor at Cambridge University. He said this:
"I am trying to prevent anyone from 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 the one thing we must not
say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either
be a lunatic, on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your
choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut Him up for a fool,
you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up
with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.8
We still have one more question to answer. Why would God become a man? We could speculate,
but we don't need to. The Bible is clear. You see man is in a predicament that he cannot deliver himself from. God has told
us that we are separated from him by our sin. No matter how hard we try or how good we are, we always find ourselves falling
short. We can't even meet our own standards, much less God's. So we are hopelessly, helplessly separated from God.
If
Jesus had been only a man or a created being he could have done nothing to close the huge gulf between God and man, infinite
and finite, creator and creation, holy and unholy. Jesus was very clear about it. He had come to pay the price for the sin
of mankind. He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me (John 14:6)." No one else
could ever be sufficient to pay for the sin of the world. Jesus is God come in the flesh to die on the cross to pay the penalty
for our sin.
Endnotes:
1. These quotes are taken from various sources
and quoted along with many others by Josh McDowell in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Volume I, Here’s Life Publishers,
San Bernardino, CA 1986.
2. Josephus, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter III.3. (Complete Works of
Josephus, Kregel Publications, Inc., 1981).
3. McDowell, pg. 84.
4. Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition, 1974.
5.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ã 1996.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinios, 60189. All rights reserved.
6. It is the
convention in most English translations to translate the Hebrew name of God (YHWH) with the English word LORD. The use of
capital letters distinguishes this Hebrew word from other words and names as the personal name of God.
7. I have included
a few examples in this paper. For a detailed list for further study, visit this space again soon.
8. Lewis, C.S., Mere
Christianity, MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, NY, 1952. Pages 55-56.
For more information, please contact Christ Community Church (804)
515-5990 or www.cccefc.org.
© 2001 Friend L. Wells. This paper may be reproduced in its entirety mechanically or electronically.
It may not be sold.
All Scripture references are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, © 1996. Tyndale House
Publishers. |
|
|
|
