“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 patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity”
Who is Jesus?
There is no way to intelligently argue against the fact that a man named Jesus famously lived and died about 2000 years ago. You don’t even need to believe anything else recorded in the collection of texts referred to as the Holy Bible to come to that conclusion.
No figure in history has impacted the world in the same way that Jesus of Nazareth did. It’s fair to say that for 2000 years there has been no other name, when brought up in conversation, with the power to unite a room or divide a room so quickly.
What is it about Jesus that makes his name so powerful?
What Jesus Did
During his life, Jesus traveled throughout ancient Israel teaching, healing and performing miracles. While his miracles were what seemed to attract many people to him, it was the core of his teaching that created the greatest controversy. Jesus claimed that the long-awaited fulfillment of promises made to Abraham and the “Kingdom of God” had arrived. He brought this message to the poor and the outcast while accusing the religious leaders of being corrupt and having hearts against God.
What others said about Jesus
Just like today, the people who encountered Jesus all had an opinion about him. Some called him a prophet. Some said he was a sinner or from the devil. Others believed that he was the Son of God and the Messiah who had come to save the world.
No matter what they believed about him, it was not neutral. He was either someone to be embraced or someone to be completely avoided.
What Jesus claimed about Himself
Although many people had many ideas about who Jesus was, nothing was more important that what he claimed about himself. Here a few things that he claimed to be:
The Son of God (Matthew 26:63)
Giver of eternal life (John 10:28)
One who forgives sin (Mark 2:10)
The great “I Am” (John 8:58)
The future Judge (John 5:22–23)
The Messiah (John 4:26)
Why it matters
It is true that there are a lot of people throughout history who have claimed a lot of different things about themselves. You may wonder why Jesus is any different.
Let’s start with the fact that the claims Jesus made about himself ultimately led the religious rulers of the day to have him executed. It’s obvious that Jesus was disruptive to their way of thinking and beliefs about God.
More importantly is that after his execution by crucifixion, Jesus did not stay dead. The miracle of his resurrection should be enough to give all his claims about himself some level of credibility.
Why Jesus had to die
Although is seems like a morbid story that God, the Creator of the Universe would send His Son to die on the cross, it is actually a great act of love that gives us this narrative. Our nature as humans is sinful - we do stuff we shouldn’t do, think things we shouldn’t think and say things we shouldn’t say. Our sinful nature separates us from God.
Yet God wants us to be reconciled to Himself. He doesn’t want us to stay separated.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
- Romans 3:23-24
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
- John 3:16-17
God deemed from the beginning that a sacrificial death would be required to pay the penalty of mankind’s sin in order to have that relationship restored. And that sacrifice had to be made by a man who knew no sin. The only way to accomplish that was for God to come to man - The Son in the form of Jesus - to lay down his life, paying the penalty for our sin. Then to take his life back after three days in the grave, defeating death for every person who places their faith, their trust in Him.
The Apostle John wrote in his Gospel that those who believe in Jesus, those who receive him, are given the right to be called children of God - heirs who are adopted into God’s family.
What do you believe about Jesus?
There’s no more important question that you’ll ever have to answer in your life. Do you believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be? And if you do, have you placed your faith in Him as the leader of your life? Have you received Him as your Savior?
If you still need to study this in more detail or if you have questions, we would love to study the Bible with you and help you form your own conclusions.