On the CNN Larry King Weekend program (aired September 29, 2001), Larry King interviewed five leading religious leaders in the United States, asking, “Where was God?” on 9/11.

 

 

One of the panelists, Deepak Chopra, non-Christian author of How to Know God and founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, made this statement: “I don’t think Christ was a Christian, I don’t think Buddha was a Buddhist, and I don’t think that Mohammed was a Mohammedan. . . . We have sacrificed a universal being and created a tribal chief with our gods, and that’s the problem.”^[1]

 

 

Chopra’s statement reflects the pluralism of our culture. Pluralism claims that there are many paths to God. Christianity claims that Jesus’ way is the only way. While pluralism is inclusive, Christianity is exclusive. Chopra put Jesus Christ on the same level as Buddha and Mohammed and subverted both the uniqueness of the Christian faith and the deity of Christ by saying, “Christ was not a Christian.”

 

 

Of course, Chopra gave no historical or documented basis for his opinion. But the question of Jesus’ identity cannot be settled by opinion polls. One must go to the only reliable record of Christ’s life and teachings that we have: the four historical narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

 

 

In settling this question, it isn’t even necessary for one to accept the Gospels as the inspired Word of God. (Though, of course, I whole-heartedly accept and would conscientiously defend the divine origin of the Gospels.) It is only necessary to look at the Gospels as a substantially accurate account of Jesus’ life and teaching.

 

 

So, what does the historical record reveal? Did Jesus consider Himself God or simply a moral teacher with a message from God? Consider the following:

 

1. Jesus claimed the titles of deity. One need only look at the several “I am” statements (reminiscent of God’s Self-revelation to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM” in Exodus 3:14) recorded in John’s Gospel to see that Jesus considered Himself divine.

 

• “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

• “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
• “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
•  “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9).
• “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
• “I am the Son of God” (John 10:36).
• “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).
• “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am” (John 13:13).
• “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
• “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1).

 

And lest one think theologians read more into these “I am” statements than Jesus originally intended, we need only to examine the reaction of the religious leaders to Jesus’ claims. After Jesus simply said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” the religious leaders were outraged and “they picked up stones to throw at him” (John 8:58-59).

 

 

When He claimed equality with God in John 10:30, saying, “I and my Father are one,” their response was exactly the same: “The Jews picked up stones again to stone him” (v. 31).

 

 

And when Jesus asked why they were about to stone Him, they answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33). Clearly, Jesus considered Himself deity—and the religious leaders reacted in hostility precisely because they understood Him to make such a claim!

 

 

John R. W. Stott, commenting on the startling and revealing claims of Christ, says,

 

This immediately sets Him apart from the other religious teachers of the world. They are self-effacing; He is self-advancing. They point away from themselves and say, “That is the truth, so far as I perceive it; follow that.” Jesus says, “I am the truth; follow Me.” The founder of none of the ethnic religions dared to say such a thing. . . .

 

So close was His association with God that He equated a man’s attitude to Himself with his attitude to God. Thus, to know Him was to know God (Jn. 8:19; 14:7); to see Him was to see God (Jn. 12:45; 14:9); to believe in Him was to believe in God (Jn. 12:44; 14:1); to receive Him was to receive God (Mk. 9:37); to hate Him was to hate God (Jn. 15:23); and to honor Him was to honor God (Jn. 5:23).^[2]

 

2. Jesus also assumed the prerogatives of deity. For example, He assumed the right to forgive people of their sins (Matt. 9:6; Mk. 2:1-12; Lk. 7:36-50), bestow eternal life (Mk. 10:17, 21; Jn. 5:21), give moral commands (Matt. 5-7), and accept worship (Matt. 8:2; 14:33; Mk. 5:6). And Jesus said that He would someday judge the world (Matt. 7:21-23; 25:31-46).

 

He also claimed to possess divine attributes, such as self-existence (Jn. 5:26), eternity (Jn. 8:58), glory (Jn. 17:1-5), power (Matt. 28:18), and sovereignty (Jn. 5:21). And He repeatedly demonstrated His omniscience in knowing the thoughts of those around Him (Matt. 12:25; Lk. 5:22; Lk. 6:8).

 

Add to this growing weight of evidence the many miracles which Christ performed (Jn. 2:11; 2:23; 3:2; 6:2; 7:31; 9:16; 11:47; 12:37), the multitude of Old Testament prophecies which were fulfilled in His life and death (Matt. 1:22; 2:15; 2:17; 2:23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 26:56; 27:9; 27:35), and the indisputable evidence of his physical resurrection from the dead (including an empty tomb, a missing body, over five hundred eye witnesses, and the intense suffering and persecution endured by those who had seen Him). The case for Christ grows strong indeed.

 

C. S. Lewis, in his classic apologetic book Mere Christianity, makes the point well:

 

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.” That is the one thing we must not say. 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. 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 up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.^[3]

 

What is the point? Simply this: Christianity cannot be just one of many religious alternatives offered to the masses in the marketplace of ideas. The Founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ Himself, did not leave us that option. He claimed to be God. He demanded the total allegiance of His followers.

 

We are morally obligated to claim His name only on His terms. Therefore we cannot and must not be involved in “a worldwide congregation of all faiths [trying] to seek common ground among the faiths and ways to propose peace among all the different religions,” as a caller on Larry King’s show suggested.^[4]

 

Christianity makes unique and exclusive claims because Jesus Christ Himself made such incredible claims. To quote Josh McDowell, Christ “is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord.”^[5] We must either reject Him entirely or accept Him on the terms He Himself gave, affirming both His unique deity and His exclusive right to be worshipped as Lord and God.

 

“What do you think about the Christ?” (Matt. 22:42)

 Brian G. Hedges Making It Personal 

• Do you regularly emphasize the unique and exclusive claims of Jesus?
• Do your presentations of the Gospel prevent people from claiming that Jesus was a good moral teacher?

End Notes: