There seems to be a problem for many with the portrayal of Jesus in the source documents. He is born of a Virgin. He makes strange statements about Himself and His mission. After years of obscurity, He appears for a brief time in a flurry of public ministry in a small and insignificant province of the Roman Empire. He loves and heals and serves. He is a master teacher, but all of His teaching points to Himself, to his identity. The following claims which He makes concerning Himself are extraordinary.

1. The Claims of Christ
   1. Able to forgive sins (Mark 2:5-10)
   2. A healer of disease (Mark 5:21)
   3. Allows others to worship Him (Matt. 14:33,28:9; cf also Acts 10:25-26; 14:12-15)
   4. Claims to be "other worldly" in origin and destiny (John 6:38)
   5. Performs miracles over nature (Luke 9:16,17)
   6. Claims He has absolute, moral purity (John 8:46; cf. 2 Cor. 5:21)
   7. Claims to be God, Messiah, and the way to God (Mark 14:61,62; John 10:30; 14:6-9)
   8. Claims to be the fulfillment of all Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament (John 5:46-7; Luke 24:44)
   9. Allows others to call Him God and Messiah (John 20:29; Matt. 16:15-17).

2. Considering the options

   One way to deal with the claims is to remove the historical material which is offensive to us. The other option is to honestly accept the historical accuracy of the documents and come up with a plausible explanation. Our choices are reduced to one of four: He was either a Liar, a Lunatic, a Legend, or our Lord.

   1. Liar.

      Everything that we know about Jesus discourages us from selecting this option. It is incomprehensible that the One who spoke of truth and righteousness was the greatest deceiver of history. He cannot be a great moral teacher and a liar at the same time.

   2. Lunatic

      Paranoid schizophrenics do not behave as Jesus did. Their behavior is often bizarre, out of control. They generally do not like other people and are mostly self-absorbed. Nor do they handle pressure well. Jesus exhibits none of these characteristics. He is kind and others-centered, and He faces pressure situations, including the events leading to and including His death, with composure and control.

   3. Legend

      The greatest difficulty with this option is the issue of time. Legends take time to develop. Yet most of the New Testament, including Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and all of Paul's Epistles were written by A.D. 68. An equivalent amount of time today would be the interval between President Kennedy's assassination in 1963 to the present. For people to start saying Kennedy claimed to be God, forgave people's sins, and was raised from the dead would be a difficult task to make credible. There are still too many people around who knew Jack Kennedy.

   4. Lord.

      In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said,

      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 a 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.{28}

      The miracles Jesus performed both revealed the Father and identified Jesus as the one about whom the prophets spoke. When John the Baptist was being persecuted for his preaching, he apparently began to have doubts about Jesus. When John's disciples asked Jesus if He was the one they were waiting for, Jesus reminded them of the miracles He had done which were those prophesied by Isaiah (Mt. 11.2-6; cf. Is. 35:5,6; 61:1). Without putting on a grand performance to show Himself to the world, by His words and works Jesus identified Himself as the sent one of God. Was there anything else He could do?

	©1998 Probe Ministries
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