Lesson 8- Who Was Jesus?

Today we will again shift our focus as we now move from the basic assertion that God exists to the more specific assertions of the Christians faith especially those concerning Jesus Christ.

Matthew 16:13-17- Jesus asks His disciples an all-important question that is still of vital significance today.

The resurrection must be considered in its historical context along with all of the other miraculous claims which are made concerning Jesus of Nazareth.

According to the New Testament, Jesus made numerous incredible claims and performed many marvelous miracles during His time upon earth and the climax of all of this was His bodily resurrection from the dead.

The Primacy of the New Testament Documents

Jesus did not leave behind any writings of from His own hand. So what we learn of Jesus is primarily from the writings of His followers.

The question that must then be asked is “Are the writings of these early followers of Jesus historically accurate and reliable?”

There are various sources which reference Jesus of Nazareth, both inside and outside the New Testament account, including Christian, Roman, and Jewish sources. There is more information in the historical record about Jesus than there is for most major figures of antiquity.

The New Testament is the most exhaustive resource that we have concerning Jesus’ life and ministry and the outside sources tend to confirm what we read in the gospels but generally do not add anything new. This means the New Testament is going to be the primary focus of any investigation of the life of Jesus.

The New Testament documents must be examined not as a holy, inspired, book (which we believe it is) but as any other collection of ancient documents to determine their historical reliability.

The collection of documents we know as the New Testament are the earliest primary sources of information regarding Jesus. We must exclude later documents which bear the clear evidence of forgery and fraud such as those often referenced today (The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip , Gospel of Judas, etc…) These all are from no earlier than the second half of the second century after Christ and lack historical credibility.

The Burden of Proof

When we approach the writings that have been compiled to form the New Testament, should we assume that they are reliable unless proven to be unreliable or should we take the opposite view and assume them to be unreliable unless they can be proven to be reliable?

Many skeptical scholars work from the assumption that these writings are unreliable but there is good reason to believe that they should be considered reliable.

There was insufficient time for legendary influences to erase the core historical facts.

Our primary sources for Jesus’ life all come from the first century AD, and most of them within 60 years of Jesus crucifixion.

The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary “urban legends” as some claim

You can read in various historical records of many of the characters spoken of in the gospels (Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, etc..)

The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable.

The Jewish people had faithfully and carefully transmitted oral traditions for hundreds of years and the disciples would have implemented these same practices to now transmit the teaching of Jesus.

There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision.

Because many who had actually witnessed the events described in the gospels were still living when the accounts were written, any skeptic could have simply asked those who were there to determine the validity of the claims made in them.

The gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

When what is described in the gospels can be factually checked the gospels have been proven reliable over and over again.

Luke is considered to be among the preeminent historians of the ancient world and when the details of his writings are checked against the historical record, he is proven completely trustworthy.

These facts prove at the very least that we should adopt a position of neutrality regarding the reliability of the New Testament writings.

Criteria of Authenticity

Scholars have developed a number of “criteria of authenticity” to enable us to determine the historical credibility of a document.

Historical Fit: The incident fits in with known historical facts of the time and place.

Independent, early sources: The incident is related in multiple sources, which are near to the time when the incident is said to have occured and which don’t rely on each other or on a common source.

Embarrassment: The incident is awkward or counterproductive for the early Christian church

Dissimilarity: The incident is unlike earlier Jewish ideas and/or unlike later Christian ideas.

Semitisms: Traces of Hebrew or Aramaic language (spoken by Jesus’ countrymen) appear in the story.

Coherence: The incident fits in with the facts already established about Jesus.

A story in the gospels exhibiting one or more of these signs is determined to be more likely to be historical.

Claims of Divinity

Some have suggested that Jesus never made the claim that He was God incarnate but there is strong evidence that Jesus was being worshipped as God as Paul records in Philippians 2:5-7 around 20 years after His death.

If Jesus did not claim to be God there is no explanation for why many monotheistic Jews would have worshipped Him as though He were God.

In the gospel records, we do in fact find numerous explicit and implicit personal claims from Jesus that imply His divinity.

Explicit Claims

Jesus claimed to be:

The Promised Messiah

Matthew 16:13-17- Jesus did not refute Peter’s assertion that He was the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, but actually confirmed it.

This is seen again in Luke 7:19-23- as Jesus answers the disciples of John the Baptist who have come to investigate these claims.

The criteria of embarrassment (John’s doubts and asking the question of Jesus), historical fit, coherence with other authentic material, and its presence in a very early source give good grounds for seeing this incident as historical.

The triumphal entry recorded in Mark 11:1-11 and in John 12:12-19- is another sign that Jesus saw Himself as the Messiah fulfilling prophecy.

Zechariah 9:9 KJV 1900

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; Lowly, and riding upon an ass, And upon a colt the foal of an ass.

It also becomes apparent that Jesus was on trial for making exactly these types of claims.

Mark 14:61–62 KJV 1900

But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Based on the evidence we must draw the conclusion that Jesus did claim to be the Messiah which was promised to the people of Israel.

The Son of God

First consider Mark 12:1-9- the parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard. This parable closes with the owner sending His own son who is then killed by the tenants.

This parable employs typical images and themes found in Jewish parables: Israel as a vineyard, God as the owner, the figure of a son, etc...

The uniqueness of the son in the parable is not only explicitly stated but is inherently implied by the tenants’ plan to murder the heir in order to claim possession of the vineyard.

Jesus explicitly claims to be God’s son in Matthew 11:27 (also recorded in Luke 10:22). This statement shows that Jesus thought of Himself as the exclusive Son of God and the only revelation of God the Father to mankind.

The Son of Man

This is the title that Jesus most often used of Himself and is the title found most frequently in the gospels.

This title hearkens back to OT prophecy in the book of Daniel 7:13-14

In Mark 14:60-64 all three of these titles are in view and Jesus gives affirmation to them all.

Implicit Claims

Most believe that Jesus, in what He taught and by the way He acted, made claims that imply the same things as these three titles.

The titles only served to express explicitly what Jesus in His teaching and behavior had already expressed implicitly.

Jesus’ Preaching of the Kingdom

One of the undisputed facts about Jesus is that the central theme of His preaching was the coming Kingdom of God.

Jesus performed miracles and cast out demons as signs to the people that what He spoke regarding the coming kingdom was true.

Matthew 19:28- The position of the disciples and the “Son of Man” in the kingdom (also found in Luke 22:28-30)

Obviously Jesus saw Himself as the Messianic King that would one day rule over Israel.

Jesus’ Authority

On many occasions Jesus appears to speak with divine authority as He teaches and preaches during His earthly ministry.

The content and style of His teaching was distinct from other Jewish masters and teachers.

This is especially apparent in the “Sermon on the Mount” where Jesus spoke of what His disciples had been told by other teachers and then gave his own instruction thus equating His own authority with that of the divinely given law. Note the people’s response in Matthew 7:28-29.

Jesus also often used the phrase “Truly, I Say Unto You” which is much different than those who came before Him who would speak saying “Thus saith the Lord.” (Imagine a present day teacher saying something like “The Bible says… but I say unto you...”)

This unique authority is also seen in the exorcisms that He performed on multiple occasions. It is apparent that Jesus claimed to have power over the demonic forces. Luke 11:20- Jesus speaks of the implications of this authority.

One of the most striking expressions of this authority is seen in Jesus’ sense of divine authority to forgive sins.

Notice the interaction between Jesus and the scribes in Mark 2:5-12- clearly Jesus in this interaction implies that He is God.

Jesus’ Miracles

The miracles which Jesus performed are widely represented in each of the gospels and were performed in His own name not in answer to prayer as elsewhere in scripture.

Jesus’ ability to miraculously heal lepers, make the lame to walk, give sight to blinded eyes, restore hearing to deaf ears, and raise the dead are intended to validate the claims that He makes of Himself. Matthew 11:4-6

Jesus’ Role as Judge

Jesus held that people’s attitudes toward Himself would be the determining factor in a future judgment by God. Luke 12:8-9 (Also Mark 8:38 & Matthew 10:32-33)

These verse imply that the eternal destiny of individuals is determined by their treatment of Jesus in receiving or rejecting Him.

Again imagine such a claim today as that your eternal destiny is directly connected to your response to some man.

Conclusion

The more we examine the New Testament documents the more clearly we can see that Jesus had a radical self-concept perceiving Himself to be God.

Here is a man who thought Himself as the promised Messiah, God’s only Son, Daniel’s Son of Man to whom all authority would be given, who claimed to act and speak with divine authority, who held Himself to be a worker of miracles, and who believed that people’s eternal destiny hinged upon their belief in Him.

Jesus’ radical personal claims and activities, culminating in His trial and crucifixion, constitute the proper historical context for the next step in our apologetic argument, evaluating the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.