"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” Matthew 15-17 (NIV)
There is not much argument that a man named Jesus Christ lived on this earth over 2000 years ago. Some claim he was a “good man”, a loving man, a “good teacher” but not the only begotten son of God. And some claim he was the Messiah, the Deliverer, the one that had been promised so long ago.
Clearly, Jesus can not be a "good man” or a “good teacher”. He did and said things that would blasphemous and insane coming from a mere man. He accepted worship. He forgave sins. He claimed to be equal with the Lord of Hosts. Mary’s son also claimed to be the only way to the Father. This ordinary man from Nazareth claimed to sit at the right hand of the Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He claimed to be the eternal High Priest that replaced forever all earthly High Priests. Christ repeatedly claimed privileges that only belong to Jehovah.
Mary’s son was either the Lamb slain to save the world or a lunatic with delusions of grandeur in urgent need of the first century equivalent of a locked psychiatric ward. This son of Joseph the carpenter was either a psychotic man in dire need of psychotropic drugs or he was whom he claimed to be, the Messiah that fulfilled 300 specific prophecies written over almost 1500 years.
What then, will you do with Jesus? You have only two choices. Laugh at the insanity of history’s biggest fraud, or fall to your knees and ask him into your life. C. S. Lewis put it this way: “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’s 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."
Copyright 2007 Timothy E. Davis