PART I - How Jesus Was Viewed By Those Who Knew Him HERE Introduction Perhaps the most common disagreement about Christianity is not whether a person called Jesus ever lived, but who exactly He was. Even people who are not Christians will usually agree that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was a unique personality. However, opinions as to who He was are sharply divided. If Jesus was not who he claimed to be and was not who the Bible says He is, then we can at best safely ignore His teachings as the product of the devious mind of an out and out charlatan, or the ranting of one who was vastly deluded or even insane. However, if He really is God, then we need to sit up and pay very close attention to what He had to say PART II - What Jesus Said About Himself HERE Claims, Titles, and Acceptance of Worship Jesus not only made some outrageous claims that few ordinary people would make, but gave Himself four titles - the significance of which was not lost on His opponents who correctly understood them to be declarations of equality with God. Also, in spite of the fact that the Scriptures teach that YHWH alone is to be worshipped, Jesus never rebuked anyone for worshipping Him. Considering the claims Jesus made, the titles he gave Himself, the worship He accepted (and even encouraged) the only possible conclusion one can come to is that He suffered from grandiose delusions or He was the Son of God as He said. PART III - Jesus' Claims - Authenticated By Some Very Impressive Evidence HERE Jesus' fulfilled numerous Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah and performed some awe-inspiring miracles. Additionally many statements and prophecies made by Yahweh about Himself in the Old Testament were exactly fulfilled by Jesus in the New. Besides which God the Father and Jesus shared common attributes and titles - including the First and The Last, the Alpha and The Omega, and the Beginning and The End In fact, the parallels are so close that there can be no doubt that the same Person was being referred to in both sections of the Bible. PART IV - Rebuttal Arguments HERE Five passages are often used as proof that Christ was not Deity. None stand up to close scrutiny .
PART V - Explaining The Unexplainable and Conclusion HERE Â In light of Jesus' statement that He "came forth" from the Father (John 16:27-30), second century apologist, Justin Martyr's analogy goes a long way towards understanding this difficult concept. Last, but far from least, one has to come to a decision about Jesus. Of course you can ignore the whole question and turn on the television instead, but, what you cannot do is come up with some patronizing nonsense about Him being a great human teacher/philosopher/good man. The door to that option has long been slammed shut. Decide Wisely, Your Destiny Depends On It Also See Section Choose Life That You Might Live Much of the problem lies in the fact that many people are unwilling to accept things that not explainable by modern science. Even those that believe that God exists, seem not to realize how far His abilities lie beyond our present knowledge and understanding, however advanced we may think that is. While there is no question that faith does play a major role, God has never asked us to accept anything on 'blind faith', but has provided evidence by the truckload. It is we who refuse to fairly examine this evidence, but come to it with pre-conceived ideas and/or (all too often) misinformation from others who either had an axe to grind, or were themselves deluded. And why is this important? Simply because far from being outdated, out of touch, and largely irrelevant to modern society, the Kingdom of God Jesus was sent to earth to proclaim (No, His main message wasn't about love) is exactly the utopian world most men and women can only dream of. However, there is also a warning. |