In this column we have been exploring various topics or fields of discussion where an unbeliever might challenge your faith. You might, in conversation with a neighbour or a colleague or a fellow student, want to introduce your friend to the Good News of Jesus Christ. You then will have to explain why the Lord Jesus Christ has an important place in your faith. In fact you will have to tell your friend that Christianity stands or falls with the person of Jesus Christ. You will have to explain who the Lord Jesus is and who He claims to be.

Christianity is different from other religions because of who the Lord Jesus is. Judaism would survive without Moses. Buddhism can survive without Buddha, Islam without Mohammed. It is not crucial for these religions for their founders to have been historic persons. These religions, though they recognize that their prophets are important, do not place their faith in their prophets. Christianity, on the other hand, stands and falls by who the Lord Jesus Christ is.

At the very center of the defense of the Christian faith stands the person of Jesus Christ. The Christian Faith is faith in a person, an actual historical person. He is a genuine person whom the church teaches as not only human but also divine, the Son of God. Your friend might ask, “Did Jesus really claim to be God? I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I do not accept His claim to be God.”

We need, therefore, to answer this question for your friend, “Who did Jesus of Nazareth claim to be?” The Bible clearly shows that the Lord Jesus claimed to be God. Much of modern scholarship, however, denies that the Lord Jesus ever claimed this for himself. They argue that the claims to the Lord Jesus are only the product of the early church. They say that the words of the Lord, as we find them in the Gospels, are only part of a great myth and tradition about this man from Nazareth in Galilee. Those who deny, however, that this man ever made these extraordinary claims about himself face the very serious problem of explaining how it is that the early church worshipped Jesus as Lord and God. It is not very helpful to say that the Gospels are simply products of the faith of the early church and that the church wrote what they believed about Jesus of Nazareth back into the Gospels. The skeptics need to answer this question: “From where did those beliefs come?” It is clear from history that the church believed that Christ was both Lord and God. The oldest Christian sermon, the oldest report to a Christian martyrdom, the oldest report about the church from a pagan source all refer to Jesus as Lord and God. It certainly can be proven that the church very early on believed and confessed this about Jesus of Nazareth.

But how can we explain that monotheistic Jews should suddenly believe that one of their countrymen, born and raised among them, is God incarnate? How can we explain that, except from the Lord Jesus Christ's claims about himself? It can only be that the church believed the words of the Lord Jesus that he was God's unique Son. They believed the words of the Lord Jesus as we find them in Matthew 11:27,

All things have been handed over to Me by my Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Here in these verses the Lord Jesus claimed to be the Son of God in an absolute and exclusive sense. His relationship to the Father is unique. He is the only one who can reveal the Father to men and women, boys and girls. He claimed to be the absolute revelation of God himself. People can only come to know God through Him. He claims to be one with the Father.

The Church Confesses⤒🔗

The Belgic Confession also helps us here in Article 10 where it presents a concise defense both, that Jesus Christ claimed to be God, and that the Bible reveals Him as such.

We believe that Jesus Christ … is the Son of God … as these testimonies, when compared with each other, teach us: Moses says that God created the world (Genesis 1:1); the apostle John says that all things were made by the Word which he calls God (John 1:1-3). The letter to the Hebrews says that God made the world through His Son (Hebrews 1:2); likewise the apostle Paul says that God created all things through Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:16). Therefore it must necessarily follow that He who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ, did exist at that time when all things were created by Him. Therefore He could say, “Truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am (John 8:58),” and He prayed, “glorify Thou Me in Thy own presence with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was made (John 17:5).” And so He is true, eternal God, the Almighty, whom we invoke, worship, and serve.

The Lord's Claims←⤒🔗

We can also show that Jesus claimed that he acted and spoke with divine authority. When the Rabbis and teachers of the Lord Jesus' day taught they would call on the authority of learned and famous teachers who came before them. They would quote extensively to provide the basis of their own teachings. The Lord, however, taught differently. This is exceptionally clear from the Sermon on the Mount. He quoted the old teaching: “You have heard that it was said to the men of old …” and he gave some interpretation of the Law of Moses. Then he said, “But I say to you…” Matthew reports in 7:28-29, “… the multitudes were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” The Lord also claimed this authority for His teaching when He began speaking with the words, “Truly, truly (verily, verily) I say to you…” This word, “truly” or “verily” is the word “amen.” “Amen, amen, I say to you…” The Lord Jesus used these words to accent his authority.

The Lord Jesus also claimed authority over demons and announced that he had the power to heal the sick and dying. This certainly was a sign of His divine authority. He said, “If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20).” In the person of the Lord Jesus the Kingdom of. God had come upon the people. In Matthew 11:4-5 the Lord Jesus claims to heal the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf and to raise the dead as he preached Good News. The Lord Jesus claimed that His preaching about the Kingdom of God is punctuated and highlighted by His ability to heal the sick and to cast out demons and to raise the dead.

The Lord Jesus claimed more. He claimed that men and women's eternal destinies are integrally tied to their attitude to Himself. In Matthew 10:32-33 the Lord says,

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

The Lord Jesus is saying that men's salvation depends on their confession about Jesus himself.

Clearly, the Lord Jesus claimed that he was the Son of God in a unique sense, who claimed to speak, teach and act with divine authority. He presented himself as a worker of miracles, who could raise the dead and cast out demons. He claimed that men and women's eternal destiny depended on whether they believed in Him or not. He said that their salvation depended on what they confessed about Him.

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Liar?←⤒🔗

But what of our friend who says, “I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I do not accept His claim to be God.” C.S. Lewis wrote about this kind of comment. He argued that this was the one thing that we must not say because a man who was simply a great moral teacher could not have made the claims that Jesus of Nazareth made about himself. For if He were not what He claimed to be He would be a liar. He would be the greatest liar ever. All His authority would be a sham. Everything He taught would be suspect. He would a charlatan and a deceiver. Why believe that He raised the dead or healed the sick or cast out demons? No one could nor should accept such a knave as a great moral teacher. Anyone who falsely claimed to speak for God and lied to men and women that their eternal condition depended on Him would not be a great moral teacher. He would be a hypocrite, for He taught others to be honest whatever the cost, while He lived and taught a colossal lie. And if He could not back up His claims then He has been leading men and women to destruction. If He could not back up His claims He was not a great moral teacher. He would have been unspeakably evil. Besides all that He would have been a fool because He died, sentenced for the apparent blasphemy of His claims (John 19:7; Mark 14:61).

Lunatic?←⤒🔗

But we might also ask, “Was Jesus insane? Was He a lunatic? Was He mistaken? Could it be that He thought He was God and was not?” If so, He was mad! For anyone who seriously claimed to be God and was not would be certifiably insane. The Gospel accounts, however, present the Lord as a sound and balanced teacher, not as a madman. His life and teaching are evidence that He was completely sound in mind. In His calm authority we do not read the teaching of a raving lunatic. His character is distinguished not by madness but by calmness and self-possession. He went to His death not as a victim of delusion, not as a fool, but because of the truth of His claims.

A theologian has written that the Lord Jesus' unparalleled claim to authority reveals a unity with the Father that can only be a unity of essence. We can only explain from the side of deity. Only God can claim the authority that Jesus of Nazareth claimed for himself. The only two possible responses are either to believe that Lord Jesus is true God and true man and repent and believe in him; or to nail him to the cross as a blasphemer. Tertium non datur. There is no third way.