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When
I was in Divinity school some student had written graffiti on the bathroom
wall. And I’ve never forgotten the humor of it. It went something like
this: “And Jesus spake unto Peter saying ‘Who do men say that I am?’ And
Peter answered, ‘Thou art, according to Paul Tillich, the very ground of
our being. Thou art Emmanuel Kant’s deontological categorical
imperative. Thou art the man of the Eschaton, the ultimately
determinative one! And Jesus looked at Peter and saith, “What?”
Seriously, in the text, Jesus did look at His disciples and ask, “Who do
you think I am?” And that question has been asked of every generation
down through twenty centuries of human history. And today I ask it of
you. “Who is this Jesus Christ?”
“Myth”
The
mildest conclusion one may draw is that Jesus Christ is a myth.
You
will recall the heroes of your youth--Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Puff
the Magic Dragon and Superman. When you grew up you found out they
weren’t real. And there are those who assign Jesus Christ a place among
such mythological creatures. To them, Jesus is no more than a Hercules or
a Sinbad. He never really existed. His life is but a cleverly written
myth told to inspire, to entertain.
Yet
under serious investigation such a conclusion cannot stand. As F. F.
Bruce, Professor of Biblical criticism at the University of Manchester
points out, “Some writers may toy with the fancy of a ‘Christ-myth,’ but
they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity
of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of
Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the ‘Christ-myth’
theories.” The fact is, no serious scholar has ever yet ventured to say
that Jesus Christ never lived.
Actual evidence that Christ was a real man is found in 27 different New
Testament documents. And non-biblical proof of His existence is to be
found in the writings of Polycarp, Justin, Origin, Tacitus, Lucian,
Josephus, Pliny, and the Jewish Talmud.
All
of this evidence, and more, has led scholars like Harvard University
Professor Clifford Moore to say that Christianity “...was founded on
positive, historical and acceptable facts.”
“Man”
So,
what do you think of Jesus Christ? If one cannot say He is but a myth of
antiquity, what then can be said of Him? Just this: Jesus Christ was a
man, an actual human being like you or me.
In
the 1970's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar this is the conclusion
Mary of Magdala comes to as she sings, “I don’t know how to love Him.”
The lyrics, “He’s just a man” are repeated over and over again. And many
of us may want to rest our convictions here. Jesus Christ was a real man,
nothing more, nothing less. He was born, He lived, He died. That’s all.
Yet
upon a closer investigation of the evidence surrounding the life of
Christ, one is most uncomfortable in settling here. British scholar W. H. Griffith Thomas
wrote, “The testimony to the present
work of Jesus Christ is no less real today than it has been in the past.
In the case of all other great names of world history, the inevitable and
invariable experience has been that the particular man is first a power,
then only a name, and last of all a mere memory. Of Jesus Christ the
exact opposite is true. He died on a cross of shame, His name gradually
became more and more powerful, and He is the greatest influence in he
world today.” Who is this man who won’t fade into history?
Encyclopedia Britannica has devoted more words, approximately 20,000
in all, to Christ than to any other person.
Christ never owned a home. He never put His feet inside a big city. He
never wrote a book or held a political office, He never married or had a
family or traveled more than 200 miles from the place of His birth. Yet
His fame grows instead of diminishing with the years.
Of
Him Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Jesus is the most perfect of all men that
have yet appeared.”
Islam’s Koran concludes that Jesus is “...the greatest above all in
this world and in the world to come.”
Jewish writer Shalom Ash says, “Jesus Christ is the outstanding
personality of all time.”
Historian William Lecky
concedes, “The simple record of (Jesus Christ’s) ...three short years of
active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the
disquisitions of philosophers and moralists.”
But
perhaps it was Napoleon Bonaparte who summed it up best. “Gentlemen,” he
said, “I know men, and I can tell you, Jesus Christ was more than a man.”
“A Great Teacher”
More
than a myth. More than a man. Who is this Jesus Christ? What can we
conclude about Him? Well, the next possible conclusion, and perhaps the
most widely held, is that Jesus Christ is a great teacher.
This
opinion places Jesus in the company of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Buddha,
Confucius and Mohammed. He was a real man whose teachings have won Him a
prominent place in civilization.
This
conclusion would certainly be upheld by the findings of a recent Gallop
Poll which found 87% of Americans affirming the influence of Christ in
their lives.
Yet,
look but further and you’ll discover the great trilemma of this position.
And that is that Jesus as a great teacher was either a liar, a lunatic, or
God!
Consider: Other great religious leaders said, “I have taught you the
truth.” But Jesus said, “I am the truth.” (John 14:6)
Of
all the great religious teachers of history it is Christ alone who
actually claimed to be God. (John 20:26-29, John 4:19-26, John 14:8-11) He
asked His followers to believe in Him (John 14:1), He said that to see
Him was to see God (John 14:9), He said all earth would pass away, but
never His words (Mark 13:31), He accepted worship from people as if He
were God (Matthew 8:2, Matthew 14:33, John 20:27-29), He claimed to
forgive sins (Mark 2:7, Matthew 9:5-6), He claimed to be the only way to
God (John 14:6), He claimed He would rise from the dead (Luke 18:31-33),
and He claimed He would come again to judge all men and reign eternally
(John 5:27, Matthew 28:18-20, Matthew 24:30-31).
Now,
obviously, a person who said these things about himself is either a liar,
a lunatic or who he says he is. Was
Jesus a liar? Did He know the things He was teaching to be absolute
falsehood and yet go on intentionally misleading His followers trying to
build His Kingdom in order to serve His own ends? Was Jesus little more
than an egotistical and self-serving liar trying to get rich, famous, and
powerful? That is one option. Yet His gentle acts of healing, His role
as a suffering servant, His refusal to be made a king, His poverty, and
His willingness to die for His claims seriously erode such a view.
This
leaves us with Jesus the lunatic.
This
conclusion states that Christ was suffering from delusions. His
imagination had run away with Him to the point that He actually believed
the lies He was telling about Himself. We call this type of personality
today a megalomaniac. Yet, a renowned psychiatrist from Duke University,
Dr. Bill Wilson, said he applied all the different mental illnesses to
Jesus and found that none fit. In fact, he concluded, “Jesus Christ is
the most whole person who ever lived.”
The
only other option here is to say that Jesus Christ is who He says He is--God!
C.
S. Lewis, a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities ably
summed up the situation for us here:
“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 a 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 up with any patronizing
nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open
to us.”
“Son of God”
Who
is this man Jesus Christ? What can we finally conclude about Him? He’s
not a myth. Indeed, He is a real man. But beyond that one cannot
conclude that He is a great moral teacher. For, indeed, He is either a
liar, a lunatic, or who He said He is, the Son of God.
The
story is told and I believe it is a true one. The year was 1928 and a
would-be mechanic was working on his Ford automobile. He could not get it
to run. About then a new Ford pulled up, out stepped a well-dressed
gentleman in a Derby hat with a cane, he looked at the engine and
confidently suggested, “If you’ll adjust this screw here your car will
run.” Well, the would-be mechanic stared at the stranger and thought, “He
doesn’t look like a mechanic!” But then he’d already tried everything he
knew to do. So he adjusted that screw, kicked the starter and, lo and
behold! His car sprang to life. In amazement the man turned to the
helpful stranger and said, “Just who are you anyway?” And the man stuck
out his hand and said, “The name’s Ford, my boy. Henry Ford! I made that
car! I ought to know what makes it run.” And the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is that He is the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, alive some
thirty-three years in Israel teaching, healing, demonstrating God’s love,
dying for our sins, rising from the dead, and ascending into Heaven. He
is God come into this world to tap you on the shoulder and say, “If it’s
not working, listen to me! I made you! I know what makes life work!”
This
is whom Jesus Christ claimed to be, the Son of God!
A
number of years ago, a famous American general named Lew Wallace and his
friend, Robert Ingersoll, an agnostic, agreed that together they would
write a book that would convincingly destroy the myth of Christianity and
thus deliver multitudes of people from religious superstition. So, for
two years Wallace studied in the great libraries of America and Europe
trying to uncover evidence which would enable him to write his book. But,
while writing the second chapter, Lew Wallace found himself on his knees
praying to the Christ he had been seeking to expose as a fraud. The
evidence for the claims of Christ was simply so convincing on all levels
that he could no longer deny Jesus was who He said He was. And Lew
Wallace set his book aside to begin another one, Ben Hur, a novel
about the life-changing impact of Christ, the Son of God.
“Savior”
No,
Jesus is not a myth. Yes, He is more than a man. And certainly He is
more than a great teacher. He is who He says He is, the Son of God! But
don’t stop there! That would be like acknowledging the law of gravity and
yet jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. For agreeing that
Jesus is the Son of God without accepting Him as your personal Savior is
suicide! Yet that is what many of us do. We affirm Jesus is God, but we
ignore Him. We agree His teachings are true. But we refuse to live by
them.
A
missionary was called to talk to a small boy who was dying in an African
hospital. The man asked the boy if he believed in God. “Yes,” came the
timid reply. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” he inquired. Again came
the reply, “yes.” “Well, then, have you ever asked Him into your life as
your personal Savior?” he inquired. “No,” replied the child. The
missionary was grieved and he struggled with how he might explain the
Gospel to the little child so near unto death. Finally he took the boy’s
hand and said, “‘Jesus Christ is the Savior.’ That’s five words. One for
each finger on your hand. And do you know which word is the most
important? The word, ‘the’ for, you see, the statement, ‘Jesus Christ is
the Savior’ is but history. It’s true. But it does you no good. But
change the word ‘the’ to ‘my’ and that becomes salvation. ‘Jesus Christ
is my Savior.’ Will you confess that?” The little boy said he
would and the missionary had a prayer for him and left wondering if he’d
gotten through to the lad.
The
next day there was news of the boy’s death. And his parents called for
the missionary. “It is strange,” they said. “When our son died he was
holding tightly to his pointer finger with his hand. We don’t understand
why but it seemed to give him comfort.” And suddenly it came to the
missionary that the Gospel had gotten through to the little boy after
all. The pointer finger was the “my” in the statement, “Jesus Christ is
my Savior.” For the lad, the Christ of history had become a
personal Savior.
Has
Jesus become your personal Savior? He is no myth. He’s more than a mere
man or a great moral teacher. He is the Son of God! That is fact. It’s
history! But, it’s not salvation until you invite Him into your own life
by a prayer of faith. Have you done this? Will you do so now?
I
tell you, one does not have to commit intellectual suicide to do so! The
credentials of Christ are impeccable. As George Bancroft states,
“Christianity has attracted to itself the profoundest thinkers of the
human race, and is in no way hindered by the ever-advancing tide of human
knowledge.” Novelists Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Defoe became Christians.
So did Poets T. S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson. Musical composers like
George Friedrick Handel and J. S. Bach along with artists like Rembrandt
knelt at Christ’s feet calling Him Savior. But don’t receive Jesus as
your Savior just because Charlemagne, Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did.
Accept Him because Jesus is who He says He is and you believe in Him
personally.
“Lord”
But have we
gone far enough when we accept Jesus as Savior? Have we accepted Christ
for all He is when we believe Him as Savior? No. For He is more. He is
Lord of all the universe, King forever!
Many
Christians treat this last credential of Jesus as entirely optional.
According to their line of reasoning, one may receive Jesus as Savior from
sin, from death and eternal punishment, but leave off with the Lord of
life and master part. This is sort of like buying into Christ for the
“fire insurance” He offers, but rejecting Him as boss of our earthly
lives.
Yet,
if Jesus is who He says He is, then nothing of His claims is optional for
you and for me! The book of Colossians is interesting to study here. In
a brief three page letter Paul uses the word “all” thirty-three times.
And what does “all” mean in the Greek? “All” means “all”! It means
everything! Completely! And that’s how Paul describes Jesus Christ. He
is all! “The First-born of all creation” (1:15). “In Him all things were
created” (1:16). “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold
together” (1:17). “For in Him all the fulness of God was pleased to
dwell” (1:19). “...though Him to reconcile to Himself all things”
(1:20). “...Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge” (2:3). “...Him, who is the head of all rule and authority”
(2:10). “...But Christ is all and in all” (3:11). Very impressive
credentials, eh? And answer me this! If Jesus Christ is all He says He
is, do you think He’ll be satisfied with less than all of your life? Do
you think you can really get away with giving Him second place in your
life?
If
you read through the Gospels you will quickly see that the credentials of
Jesus Christ do not stop with Savior. He went beyond the cross and the
empty tomb to the throne. He ascended into heaven and was given dominion
to reign as King forever. And until we make Jesus in our lives right now
what He is in the universe forever, and that is Lord and Ruler of all,
then we have not gone as far as we can.
I
like the way a Christian quarterback once explained Jesus as Lord of his
life. He said, “Christ calls the plays. I run them.” Are you willing to
trust God to call the plays in your life starting right now? Are you
willing to obey His Word as regards finances, marriage, worship, child
rearing, leisure, giving, prayer and forgiveness? Are you willing to let
Jesus rule your life?
Notice how Paul introduces himself to the church in Romans 1:1. Most of
us preachers like to be introduced in our press releases as “Doctor”,
Dynamic”, “In constant demand”, or “World traveler.” But Paul simply
introduces himself saying, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ...” Isn’t
that refreshing? Paul had gone all the way with Jesus Christ. God was
his boss. Paul was Christ’s servant. Think of it! A servant is a
worker. He follows orders. He might be assigned any task here or there.
And the Bible says that this Lordship of Christ over our lives is not
optional! We must be His servant!
Do
you acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus in your life? Is He your King? Are
you His servant?
Living under the Lordship of Jesus means all your belongings are entrusted
to Him. It means you allow Him to place you in the home, the job, the
church of His choice. It means He can use you to serve in a successful
spot or a position where He needs a noble failure or a humble, plodding
mediocrity. It means you place all your attitudes, hopes, and
expectations upon Him.
Have
you done this? Is He your all? Is He in your life right now who He
already is in the universe, King and Lord forever?
“Getting Started Where You Are”
The first
question in the Bible is found in Genesis, Chapter 3. God asks Adam and
Eve, “Where are you?” And I’d like to ask that question of you right
now. “Where are you in your thinking about Jesus Christ?” Who do you say
He is?
Maybe you cannot go all the way in affirming Him as Savior and Lord
today. Perhaps you can only affirm that He was a real man. What you need
to do is approach the next step with study and prayer and reflection.
Then when you can honestly and by faith affirm Him as the Savior, you can
go on to consider Him as your personal Savior and then finally, your Lord.
This
is what Doubting Thomas did. “I won’t believe,” he said, “unless I see!”
And, beginning there, he made his investigation which led to the highest
affirmation of Christ ever uttered by human lips in Scripture, “My Lord
and my God!” (John 20:28)
“Conclusion”
He
walked here only thirty-three years...
Yet
we measure time from the year of His birth.
Who is He? A good man? A teacher? God? A Savior?
He never owned a home.
He never put His feet inside a big city.
And He rode on a borrowed donkey.
His followers were common folks like you and me.
The only thing He ever wrote was in the sand,
yet libraries the world over have
volumes written about Him.
Who is He?
Who is this man who made such strange claims?
“I am the door.”
“I am the light of the world.”
“I am the bread of life.”
He lived in an obscure mid-eastern country.
He was born in a stable.
His parents were peasants.
Yet who can ever estimate His influence on the human race?
His name? Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth.
Ever wonder who He really is?
Isn’t it about time you found out?
Suggested Prayer
Draw me nearer, O God. Draw me to you as Savior and Lord. For Christ’s sake.
Amen. |
