You can handle the Truth.
When I kissed my son, Danny, 'good bye' in Boston on Monday, I got into a 'Lyft', driven by Ali. After I inquired how he was doing, I asked about his home country, and then asked, 'So would you be Muslim then, by chance?' 'Yes, oh yes,' he replied.
'In which mosque do you worship, Ali?' I asked brightly.
'Oh, I don't go to the mosque at all; I'm not really religious. I just believe in God, he said, 'and being a good person. I believe all religions really are the same.'
I smiled and asked, 'but what do you do with Jesus? What do you believe about Him?'
'I go to church with my friends when they ask, and I like it...Jesus is okay.'
hmmm... Ali thought Jesus was 'okay'.
And then, he dropped me off at Logan Airport.
The next day I caught part of a YouTube debate between three women--Jewish, Muslim and Christian...and heard the Jewish woman emphatically saying that Jesus never claimed day-i-ty, (meaning deity). The strange thing is that is not the first time I have heard 'Jesus never claimed to be God.' Categorically false.
We just read Jesus' words, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”1 And as a result, "the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.2
Jesus then brilliantly answers the demand of Jewish leaders for proof that ‘he is indeed who he claims to be.’ John captures Jesus' response: “If I were to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be valid. But someone else is also testifying about me, and I assure you that everything he says about me is true. In fact, you sent investigators to listen to John the Baptist, and his testimony about me was true. Of course, I have no need of human witnesses, but I say these things so you might be saved. John was like a burning and shining lamp, and you were excited for a while about his message.
But I have a greater witness than John—my teachings and my miracles. The Father gave me these works to accomplish, and they prove that he sent me. And the Father who sent me has testified about me himself. [remember at Jesus' baptism: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'?] You have never heard his voice or seen him face to face, and you do not have his message in your hearts, because you do not believe me—the one he sent to you.
“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! [Five dozen specific prophecies] Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.
“Your approval means nothing to me, because I know you don’t have God’s love within you. For I have come to you in my Father’s name, and you have rejected me. Yet if others come in their own name, you gladly welcome them. No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God. John 5.31-44, NLT
Yes, Jesus claimed to be God, and the Jewish leaders hated him for it, and plotted how they would destroy him.
Then was Ali, my lift driver correct--that all religions are basically the same? Goodness, no! Besides, religion is humans trying to work their way to God through good works. Christianity is God coming to men and women through Jesus Christ. 3
It was in the beautiful area of Caesarea Philippi that Jesus asked his disciples, Who do you say that I am?' Our answer must be correct, because it is for all the marbles.
In another coffee shop conversation I had with a young woman who inquired what I was writing... she thought she was meeting me halfway by saying ‘Well I do believe Jesus was a good teacher - a really moral guy … but honestly, that’s it.’ Wait, what?!
Jesus would be neither good nor moral if he was a liar, so it is a poor proffer really.
Enter C.S. Lewis who brilliantly stated: “I am trying 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 the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on the level with the 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 with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”4
One of the early evidences for the truth that Jesus was God was the radical change in the people who saw him AFTER the resurrection. Then, as now,
no one who has a true encounter with Jesus Christ is ever the same.
These men were radically transformed. Since I think I'm kinda like Peter--sometimes outspoken, a little impulsive, too quick to speak--let's talk about him. In Jesus' inner circle, yet at the very end when Jesus even warned him he would betray him three times, he did just that! When he saw Jesus after the resurrection, he was reformed; when he was filled with the Holy Spirit 10 days later, he preached such an inspired, passionate sermon, 3000 people believed in Jesus Christ. And perhaps even more significant, when he was punished for preaching Jesus, he would not stop. Ultimately, he died a martyr's death in Rome; tradition telling us he was crucified upside down.
Peter died believing because he saw and experienced Jesus Christ,
Messiah, Son of God, crucified and risen Lord.
No, no, Jesus was more than a good moral teacher - he was the Son of God, equal in all ways with the Father. We must never forget His words:
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.5
The more I read, the more I know of Jesus... why would ever walk away? I can never stop loving Him...I just want more.
Listen: Why Would I? Brandon Lake:
Christine
John, no.18
1 - John 5.17
2 - John 5.19
3 - More than a Carpenter, Josh McDowell
4 - Mere Christianity, CS Lewis, pp.52-53
5 - John 14.6
Comments