Jesus was just a good person?

The question is was and is Jesus God, or was He just a good person.

This is a pretty big question.

For all of church history the answer has been a hearty, “Yes, Jesus is God.”

The Nicene Creed was a statement of orthodox Christianity, of basic Christianity.

All Christians should subscribe to this statement.

It was Christianity 101 for ancient Christians, and still holds today.

The Nicene Creed begins by saying, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all the worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God;”

That was part of the basic belief of a Christian.

Christians believed that Jesus was “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.”

Pretty clear.

Which brings us to today.

This confidence has wained within Christianity.

About 2 years ago, a pretty big survey was taken of evangelicals, those who think they are Christians.

One of the questions asked was, “Do you agree with this statement: Jesus was a great teacher, but He was not God.”

Out of those asked:

53% agreed with the question.

Another 11% weren’t sure.

That means 64% of those who identify as Christians don’t agree with basic Christianity.

This is not some optional statement.

We aren’t making some random statement about Christianity that really has no meaning.

We aren’t talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

We are talking about what a Christian believes.

So tonight we will look at the consequences of what it means to say Jesus was only a moral teacher.

If you are one of that 53% who says Jesus is not God.

Or if you are part of that 11% who says you aren’t sure.

Tonight I want to work through the consequences of lowering Christ to creation status, to being only a man and denying His divinity.

We will look at 10 consequences of saying Jesus was only a moral teacher, but not God.

1. It would contradict the doctrine of the Trinity.

Jesus being divine is essential to the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Trinity is 1 God with 3 persons.

Each of the members of the Trinity have the same essence.

They are each fully God.

They each have all the attributes of God.

They each are eternal.

They each have the same will.

So to be a part of the Trinity, Jesus had to be God.

But if Jesus were only a good teacher, a man, then He is no longer any of these things.

It would make Him created.

He would no longer be eternal.

He would not have all the attributes of God.

This means He would not be a part of the Trinity.

This means we now have God wrong.

You get God wrong, you have committed blasphemy.

2. It would remove the hypostatic union.

This follows the previous point.

The hypostatic union may be a little complicated, and some might think it’s too much for us tonight.

But I have high expectations of you.

Don’t be afraid of the hypostatic union.

The hypostatic union has to do with Who Jesus is.

It says that the 2nd member of the Trinity is eternal.

The Son has always existed.

He’s always been God.

There was never a time when Jesus was not God.

But at the incarnation, Christmas time, when we celebrate Jesus entering the world, we are celebrating the hypostatic union.

This means the second member of the Trinity, fully God, God the Son, put on flesh.

He became man.

When that happened He had 2 natures.

You have 1 nature.

Human.

He had two.

He had a divine nature.

Then at the incarnation, he added a human nature.

The divine nature is:

Fully God.

Has all the attributes of God.

Eternal.

Perfect.

Unending.

Sovereign.

God.

But He also received a human nature.

The human nature is:

Limited

Weak

Fragile

Does not know all things

It can get hurt.

It can die.

When Jesus became man, He did not lose His divine attributes, but He added human attributes.

I can’t stress how important it is to get this.

It will eliminate many questions you probably have about Jesus.

In fact, if anything from tonight, it’s learn about the hypostatic union.

And these attributes act accordingly.

So for example:

If Jesus knows the thoughts of a person, which nature is on display?

The divine nature.

If Jesus shows weakness or a limit, which nature is on display?

The human nature.

Examples of the human nature would be:

Entering the world as a baby.

That is probably one of the greatest examples of the fragility of the human nature.

His life was dependent on His earthly parents,

How about dying on the cross?

The human nature.

The divine nature cannot be killed.

But the human nature definitely can.

The hypostatic union describes the very person of Jesus Christ.

Get Jesus wrong and you have God wrong.

It is not an optional doctrine.

But if Jesus were only a good teacher, then there is no hypostatic union.

He is not God.

3. It would undermine His authority

Was Jesus a teacher?

Yes.

But Jesus is not just a teacher.

Teachers typically are not THE authority.

They are limited.

They explain, teach and explain something established by someone else.

A brilliant scientist, who teaches.

He does not create science.

He does not create new Laws.

He may discover natural laws.

He may become experts on God’s creation and discover how atoms and electrons work.

But He is not the authority over them.

He is not sovereign over them.

Jesus is a teacher.

He’s an excellent teacher.

But He is not only a teacher.

He is not passing on information or making discoveries.

Jesus is the very source of truth.

John 14:6 says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

This means He is not simply passing on someone else’s info.

He isn’t discovering how atoms work, or how electrons circle a nucleus.

He is the maker of the electrons.

And He holds them together.

All that there is exists by His will.

Colossians 1:15–16“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.”

You get what I’m saying?

He is the message itself.

In fact, when we talk about The Word, we are talking not just about a book, we are talking about Jesus Himself.

The Bible is all about Him.

He is its message.

To call Jesus a moral teacher, means He is not the main message.

To call him a moral teacher means that His message is primarily about morality.

It’s a lifestyle.

It’s do this.

It’s be good.

Let me tell you something.

The message of Christianity is not be good.

The message is that Jesus Himself was good and He did what you could not.

He lived the perfect life.

He died for us.

Salvation is only through Him.

Do not ever reduce the message, or the Gospel to a morality or a lifestyle.

It’s not be better or try harder.

It’s Jesus was what you could not be.

4. Jesus would not be able to give eternal life.

Only God can give life.

Deuteronomy 32:39 “‘See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.”

Jesus said that He gives eternal life.

John 4:14 “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.””

If Jesus is not God, then He cannot give eternal life.

And if Jesus cannot give eternal life, then you are hopeless.

This would mean you do not have eternal life.

This means that when you die, no matter your devotion, emotions, and amount of hard work, you do not have eternal life.

You would die and go to Hell.

5. It would invalidate Scripture.

Here’s what I mean by that.

The OT anticipated Jesus as the Christ.

The NT knew that He was the Christ revealed.

If Jesus was only a moral teacher, but not the Christ then:

The world is still waiting for the Christ to come.

And it is probably obvious, but the NT would be false and a lie.

Matthew 1:21 ““She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.””

But if Jesus were just a moral teacher, then that verse is false and you have not been saved.

It would invalidate Jesus’ own words concerning Who He is, thus making Him a liar.

John 4:25–26 “The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.””

Mark 14:61–62 “But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.””

And not only would Scripture be false, but now Jesus’ own words can’t be trusted.

If someone goes down the path of saying they believe in Jesus, but they don’t think that He is God, or they think He is just a moral teacher, at the heart of it they are rejecting the Bible.

And questioning the nature of Jesus is a sad consequence of the path of rejecting Scripture.

They are rejecting its main message, and in the process rejecting Jesus as He has revealed Himself.

6. It would actually make Jesus immoral.

While the main question is someone says they believe Jesus is a moral teacher, realize if He is not Who He claimed to be it makes Him a liar.

He would be telling lies about Himself.

He claimed to be God.

John 4:25–26“The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.””

Mark 14:61–62 “But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.””

He even claimed that the Old Testament is all about Him.

John 5:39 ““You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;”

What kind of a person would say those things about Himself if they weren’t true?

CS Lewis famously said Jesus had to be a liar, lunatic or Lord.

If He really wasn’t divine, then He was saying lies deliberately to mislead people.

7. It would make Jesus blasphemous.

Not just the idea of what if Jesus wasn’t God, which is blasphemous.

But I mean that if Jesus was only a moral teacher, then He was blasphemous.

Think about it.

He also accepted worship.

What kind of moral person would accept worship, and call for worship if it weren’t true.

A moral person who was not worthy of worship would have stopped it early on.

Think of the angel in Revelation 19:10 “Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.””

This would make Jesus not just immoral, but evil.

He would be something of an antichrist.

He’d actually be provoking people to worship something false.

He would be leading people into sin.

8. Jesus would not be sinless.

If Jesus were just a man, He would still have original sin.

Original sin has to do with Creation.

God placed Adam in the Garden.

God gave Adam a standard - perfection.

It was be perfect.

Do this and live.

As long as Adam was perfect, and obeyed God, then he could stay in the Garden.

But when he sinned, Adam was kicked out of the Garden.

There’s another element to Adam in the Garden, he represented you in the Garden.

He was not just there for his sake.

He represented all of humanity in the Garden.

Romans 5:12–18 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.”

The result of Adam’s sin is every person who enters the world has broken that covenant that God gave to Adam of perfection.

Every single person is lacking righteousness.

Every person is a sinner and guilty because of Adam.

And so, in order for us to be saved we need:

A man.

We need someone like us.

We also need someone who is not a child of Adam.

Hence the virgin birth.

Conceived by the Spirit.

Do you see the problem though?

If he were only a moral teacher, and not divine then:

He had original sin, and He could not represent you before the Father.

Instead of being the last Adam, He would have been a child of Adam, with Adam’s guilt on His own account.

This means, you did not have a representative to live for you.

And you did not have a representative to die for you.

This means you are still in your sins.

9. Jesus would be a sinner.

Not only would He have original sin which would make Him guilty, but He would have His own sin as well.

Remember, all have sinned.

Romans 3:10–12 - “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

This means if Jesus were only a moral teacher, He could not be a representative for us, because He would need one for Himself.

You need someone absolutely perfect.

You need someone sinless.

You need someone righteous.

And if Jesus were a moral teacher only, this would make Him none of those things, but a sinner Himself.

The consequences of all these start to pile up.

10. Ultimately, you would still be in your sins.

If Jesus was only a moral person, and not God, then He could not have paid for your sins.

This would make you hopeless.

1 Corinthians 15:13–15“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.”

Why?

If Jesus wasn’t a Savior, then:

He did not pay for sins.

He did not represent you.

There would be no resurrection.

Your faith is in vain, useless.

Our religion is a lie.

Thankfully, Jesus was not just a good teacher.

He was the God man.

He died for us.

He is your hope.

He is your assurance.

Any questions?