Whom Say Ye That I Am?
Notes
Transcript
Scripture
Scripture
When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Text Matthew 16:15
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
I have always been fascinated by history. I do not know which particular era of history is my favorite, however the early days of this country rank high on the list. We have many heroes of our early days and I was privileged to grow up in the days where we were taught of their virtues and their accomplishments were lauded rather than the current focus on whatever faults, or errors modern senses of morality and a complete lack of nuance of understanding now lends many in education to. Our heroes we have made to be villains because their heroics did not go far enough in the opinion of some. Their private letters have been poured over and all opinions that they held have been scrutinized and held in a critical light. The nuances of that culture or the circumstances they lived in have been forgotten and ignored and many who could never be called heroes now criticize the true heroes who founded our wonderful country.
I learned of these great men who did so much to advance the cause of freedom for all in so many aspects of our lives. I learned of their greatness and yet we did not altogether pass over their flaws or faults but they were not the focus. One of my favorite heroes of our founding is Benjamin Franklin. He is the man who may probably did the most for freedom of speech and freedom of the press for he himself was a printer who published what he wanted to regardless of what the English government said. He is the man who moved for prayer to be held at the beginning of each day of the constitutional convention as our founders developed a new form of government based upon an ancient form of government but amended to hopefully be safe from the pitfalls it had encountered. Franklin is famous for his whit, his wisdom and for prayer for divine help. Since one of the things he is most famous for is claiming that God does indeed govern in the affairs of men and I was taught to view him as a Christian hero I was surprised to learn later that many teach and believe that Benjamin Franklin was a deist.
The core tenant of deism is that God created the world like a clock maker and watches it run but does nothing to govern in the affairs of men! How is it then that a deist would make a statement that directly contradict the foundation of his own religion. In college the opportunity presented itself to do a research paper and I chose Franklin as my topic. I decided to study for myself whether this great hero was a Christian or a deist.
My main resource was not the opinions of other on Franklin, but rather direct quotes from his speeches, letters and his autobiography.
It is undeniably clear from the words of the man himself that to call him a deist is abjectly false. His entire life is filled with his belief and confidence that God works with man and that many situations are divinely ordained. The idea that he was a deist does also come from his own words. There was a brief period in his life, I believe it was while he was overseas that he was convinced of deism and thus described himself as such at one point. However that period in his life was brief and he quickly became convinced of the error of his ways. He began to believe again in an active God who not only created the earth, but still cares and acts during its existence.
However, while that did answer my initial question, was Benjamin Franklin a Deist, this still does not answer the further question, was Benjamin Franklin a Christian? Does believing in God as creator and still active divine being make one saved? Certainly not. There lacks yet several parts to the answer.
So while Franklin did believe in God in a mostly Biblical sense how was his life? There is a chapter in his autobiography titled “Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection.” This chapter goes into great detail in Franklin’s self assessments of his own life and character. This chapter must be one the most interesting ones in the book and yet it begins to really let some questions seep in. First of all this chapter is named after man’s ideas of perfection. Franklin sought through careful planning, power of the will, and lifelong persistence to attain perfection in the 13 areas of morality that he found. Of course he was not successful, however he did make great strides. He became careful in his eating and drinking habits, he guarded his tongue well, he kept his word, he worked hard and spent carefully. He strove to, in his words, imitate Jesus and Socrates. This seems to be a good goal, however he found it to be impossible for a few of these particular virtues. One of these virtues that he named was humility and according to himself he never made any progress whatsoever in this regard. He gave the appearance of humility but never did make any inward progress. That began to make questions about the spiritual state of this great man. Also in this section, while he did mention that he sought God’s help in wisdom, it was himself who he relied on to make himself perfect, and not morally perfect as the Bible would have us be where we Love God entirely and others as ourselves, but perfect as man would see it. To be without flaw in every intent and also in every idle thought, word, and deed. He sought to be what was mankind's idea of perfect. If he had a disorganized house he felt that was a failure to be perfect and thus a moral failure. God does not look at things quite the same as Franklin. Yet it must be admitted that while Benjamin Franklin showed he was confused spiritually in this chapter and self reliant and in his self assessment proud, he did live well and he did get better and better throughout much of life. And he was seeking to imitate Christ.
So was he a Christian? He was not a deist, he did believe in God, he strove constantly to imitate Jesus, he prayed. He supported the preaching of George Whitfield financially and in the press and with his influence. Yet all that is not what makes one a Christian. So this morning my sermon is titled “Whom Say Ye that I Am?” That question Jesus asked of Peter. Well in 1790, the year that Benjamin Franklin died He penned a letter the president of Yale, Ezra Stiles who had asked him what he thought about Jesus. His words “You desire to know something of my Religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it: But I do not take your Curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few Words to gratify it. Here is my Creed: I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing Good to his other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever Sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity: tho' it is a Question I do not dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.”
I do feel bad in this as Franklin in the post script of this letter wished it to not be published and here I am broadcasting it’s contents. This is however a widely published letter that is easy to find and so perhaps I am not so much at fault.
So, while I think Franklin was confused or incorrect in various areas of thought and life I find no qualms with accepting him as a Christian (the better know bad behaviors in his life being before he undertook to imitate Jesus) until we read his answer to the all-important question Whom Say Ye That I Am? Franklin’s answer? He believed Jesus to be perhaps the best religious teacher there ever was and probably ever would be, but he did not believe Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Benjamin Franklin, while not a Deist, was sadly not a Christian either.
How About You?
How About You?
I do not like to tear down our heroes. I do not like to broadcast someones private communication. Yet I believe it powerfully illustrates the value of this question. You can believe in God, you can do your best to live right, but when it all comes down to it the main thing that matters is iff I were to ask you the same. Who do you say Jesus is?
Would you say a good teacher or would you say that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God? And if you did say that He is divine what have you done with that fact?
Who is Jesus? What does it mean that Jesus is the Christ? It means that Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah, the fullfiller of the expectation of a deliverer. Peter was speaking of his faith in Jesus. John the Baptist was an anointed one, he was one sent by God as a teacher, yet Peter could see the difference between a divinely inspired prophet and the Messiah. The rest of the answer is just as important. The Son of the Living God. This Messiah, this deliver must be more than a man for this deliverance that Jesus brought was more than physical and it was not just for Israel, It was spiritual deliverance for the whole world. The angel said that Jesus came to save His people from their sin. No man can do this. A man could have freed Israel from Roman rule, but a man cannot say thy sins are forgiven as Jesus did. A man cannot pay the penalty for all the sin of all of time, yet Jesus did. Peter may not have fully known what he said that day and not too long after we find Peter arguing for earthly position in what he thought was the earthly coming of Jesus kingdom, yet Peter got the main thing right. This was no man, no divinely inspired teacher, no brilliant mind, but rather God in the flesh, dwelling with Him to be his Messiah.
So again I ask you the question, Who do you say that Jesus is? Suppose you answer that question right. He is the the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of the Living God. Is that good enough? What have you done with that knowledge?
Benjamin Franklin served Jesus in many ways without believing in him but we all understand that that is not enough, yet we often forget that Jesus asks more that just belief in His Divinity, Death, and Resurrection for Him to apply the blood to our account. It is often preached and it is often taught that we must just believe and receive. That’s all there is to being a Christian. Yet does simply believing cause receiving?
We use words often and we do not really know what we are saying. We call Jesus the Lord Jesus Christ. When we us the word Lord we think it refers to Jesus yet the word lord means ruler, owner, master. Jesus is the name the Angels gave to Mary to name the Son of God, and Christ refers to the anointed one, the one sent to save the world. So when we call Jesus our Lord and Savior and we refer to Him as the Lord Jesus Christ we are saying that we have become under his rule as his possession and slave and we are recognizing that it is this divine Jesus in whom we trust as our savior.
Yet now many claim Jesus as the Savior Jesus Christ. That is an enormous difference from being Lord and Savior. Can they be separated? Can Jesus be our Lord without being our savior? Can Jesus be our savior without being our Lord?
On the one hand I do not think Jesus can be our Lord without being our savior. If we submit to his rule in our lives, if we turn ourselves over to be his possession and His slave out of our Love for Him He will be our savior too. So if we have truly made Him our Lord we can rest assured that he is our savior.
Now can he be our Savior without being our Lord? Will he apply his all redeeming blood to our account if we do not accept his rule and reign in our life? If we simply believe in Him can we receive Him as savior and reject Him as Lord? We cannot. If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness we lie, and do not the truth. All liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. So if we walk in darkness He is not our savior. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.
So no, Lord and Savior cannot be separated. He cannot be one and not the other. The teaching of believe and receive tries to separate the too, tries to allow Him to be Savior, but not Lord. If you but believe that Jesus is the Son of God you will receive Him as your savior. No, the Devils also believe, but are not saved. Many believe but are not Saved. Franklin did his best to live but was not saved for he did not believe. It takes more that believing to be saved. When faced with the question of Whom Do You Say That I Am? You must answer with both your heart and you body. You must believe in your mind that Jesus is the Son of God, He is divine, He died for your sins, but you must also allow Him to become Lord of you life, to obey what He commands, to be filled with His spirit, to Love with His Love, to lose your will in His will, to be no longer the boss of yourself but to be his possession, His slave, to be under his rule.
This ideology is offensive to many because it is not as nice. We have a natural inclination to self preservation, so does our will. It is not welcome, it is not pleasant, it is not nice to willingly become the possession of another, to do as another says, to live as another tells us to, to truly become a slave of God, yet for Him to be our savior this sacrifice is necessary.
In the Old Testament law there were provisions for those who could not pay their debts. In the ancient world if you could not pay your debts you often became the slave of the one that you owed. In good societies like Israel that slavery would last until the debt was paid, but in Israel it was limited to 6 years. No matter the debt in the 7th the slaves were to be set free and sent with enough provision to start again. Their lands were to be restored to them as well. However if one wished to stay on as a slave of a good master he could choose do so. This was called becoming a love slave. Why would one do this? Well because there was mutual love between the slave and master. It would be done if the person realized that this “bondage” was not bondage at all but rather was a better situation than they could ever have on their own. That the care that their master showed for them and the provisions made for them were better that the care that he could show himself and the provision more excellent than what he could provide for himself. That the bondage of slavery allowed greater freedom than the person was likely to achieve on their own. I wonder if this provision was not used very often. Rarely is a human master so good as to surrender your own freedom into, yet I wonder also if this was not put into the law just as a picture of what was to come.
You see God’s care for us is better than our own care for ourselves. God’s wisdom in guiding our actions is superior to our own. God’s planning in our lives is better than our own. God’s provision is better than ours for ourselves. To receive this provision and care we must become love slaves to God. Now there is one distinct difference I believe in the human picture and the divine plan. In the human picture there will ever be two wills involved. Freedom is a most excellent thing and it is lost in the Old Testament practice of becoming a love slave. Yet in the divine plan freedom is the thing that is gained. In our states trying to rule ourselves it becomes clear that that which we would do, we do not do, and that which we would not do, that we do. What we want to do we do not always do, what we wish we did not do we find ourselves doing. The chains of Satan and sin take our freedom. When they are broken and we become a love slave to God He corrects our will and guides it and molds it into what He originally intended it to be and we find that what God now plans for us and what we want to do line up. By becoming His slave we find freedom.
I want to close this morning with two questions. Who do you say that Jesus is and what are you doing with that answer? I guess two more questions. Have you found the freedom from becoming His slave or are you enslaved by searching for your own freedom?