Spring Training Chapel #4

Who is Jesus?

Mark 8:27–30 ESV

And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

This is the most important question you will ever ask

There are the big 3, where did we come from, why are we here, what happens when we die

In answering this question about Jesus will help answer the other 3

So, who is Jesus?

There is an argument by a famous Christian theologian named C.S. Lewis in regard to this question, Lord, Liar, Lunatic and it goes something like this.

Liar, if Jesus went around making the claims that He made, Son of Man, Son of God, receiving praise as God, and yet He wasn’t then He was a liar. But He willing went to His death because of these claims.

John 10:24-

John 10:24–33 ESV

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

John 19:6-7

John 19:6–7 ESV

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”

So, clearly, Jesus made claims that He was God, and those claims were heard loud and clear by the people.

So if He’s not a liar, intentionally misleading the people, then He must be crazy, He must be a lunatic. But upon further review of His teachings and interactions with the people, they are not the teachings of a lunatic.

Examine the Sermon on the Mount, clearly not the teaching of a lunatic.

Matthew 7:28 ESV

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,

Matthew 7:28

Or when the religious leaders sent officers to arrest Him because people were believing in Him, the officers came back empty handed.

John 7:45–46 ESV

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

John 7:45-

His behavior was not the behavior of a lunatic. He cared for people and the people were amazed at His teachings.

So, according to C.S. Lewis, if He’s not a liar, and He’s not a lunatic, your only other viable option is that He must be Lord, He must be who He said He was.

After Jesus fed 5k people, He gave one of His most challenging teachings, calling the people to a deep and total commitment to Him. The people said this is too difficult, too hard to commit their lives to being a follower of Jesus.

Jesus turned to His 12 disciples after “crowds” left and asked them if they were going to desert Him too.

John 6:60–69 ESV

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

John 6:60-

The logical conclusion to any open minded truth seeker, Jesus is the Holy One of God, He is God and He came for you and me.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. 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 the 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 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