Core Beliefs 1: Who Is Jesus?
I’ve been thinking recently about unity amongst Christians. What unites us are not the ways we do things, or even some of the things we believe. If we had to be the same in everything, that would be uniformity, not unity. And if we spent our time insisting that everyone else become like us and think like us and act like us, there would never be unity, only conflict. Christian Churches are very different in style, and we do disagree on many things. But that doesn’t mean that there is no unity. Our unity is actually found in a person, one who binds us together despite our differences. Reflecting on the nature of the Church, the bible says, “…in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:26-28).
Christianity, at its heart, is all about a person called Jesus or, to give him his full title, Jesus Christ. I’ve met some people who claim there was no such person. Unfortunately, no reputable historian agrees with that. The historical evidence is overwhelming. I’ve met others who believe that Jesus was a great moral teacher who introduced us to concepts like “do to others as you would have them do to you.” But I’ve met still others who argue that he was a liar. After all, he made the extraordinary claim to be the Son of God and that can’t be true. And some say that if he wasn’t a liar, but genuinely believed what he said, then he must have been insane. They used to say that lunatic asylums were full of people who believed that they were God. These are all attempts to put Jesus into a box, to reduce him to someone we can manage, someone we can explain, and someone that we can feel justified in ignoring.
C. S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia stories and a professor of English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, challenged this way of thinking.
“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.’ 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… or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”
What if Jesus wasn’t just a great man? What if he wasn’t a liar? What if he wasn’t insane? What are we left with? We are left with the very disturbing possibility that what he said about himself, everything he claimed to be, was true, and that is something we can’t afford to ignore. If you want to know more, please get it touch and discuss it with me.
Neil Percival
Christianity, at its heart, is all about a person called Jesus or, to give him his full title, Jesus Christ. I’ve met some people who claim there was no such person. Unfortunately, no reputable historian agrees with that. The historical evidence is overwhelming. I’ve met others who believe that Jesus was a great moral teacher who introduced us to concepts like “do to others as you would have them do to you.” But I’ve met still others who argue that he was a liar. After all, he made the extraordinary claim to be the Son of God and that can’t be true. And some say that if he wasn’t a liar, but genuinely believed what he said, then he must have been insane. They used to say that lunatic asylums were full of people who believed that they were God. These are all attempts to put Jesus into a box, to reduce him to someone we can manage, someone we can explain, and someone that we can feel justified in ignoring.
C. S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia stories and a professor of English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, challenged this way of thinking.
“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.’ 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… or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”
What if Jesus wasn’t just a great man? What if he wasn’t a liar? What if he wasn’t insane? What are we left with? We are left with the very disturbing possibility that what he said about himself, everything he claimed to be, was true, and that is something we can’t afford to ignore. If you want to know more, please get it touch and discuss it with me.
Neil Percival