Introduction:
A. The story is told of a boy who came home from Sunday School and was asked by his father what he had learned that day in Sunday School.
1. “Well, dad, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge, and all the Jewish people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters and call in an air strike. They sent in bombers to blow up the bridge to destroy the Egyptian army and keep them away from the Israelites.”
2. His father asked, “Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?”
3. The little boy answered, “Well, no, dad, but if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it.”
4. That’s how it is sometimes for people – they have a hard time believing what the Bible really says about many things, and especially what it says about Jesus.
B. According to a commonly circulated account of their meeting, when Napoleon met the German scholar Wieland in 1808, Napoleon asked not about political or military matters, but whether Wieland believed in the historical reality of Jesus.
1. The question of who Jesus really was is a question that haunts every heart and every mind.
2. No one can escape the necessity of reacting to Jesus in some way – each person must decide who they believe he was.
3. To worship him, if he is not divine, is nothing less than idolatry.
4. To fail to worship him, if he is divine, is sacrilege of the highest order.
C. But who was and who is Jesus?
1. Was he just a good man and a good teacher?
2. Or was he and is he God Himself?
3. How can we go about answering that question?
4. Today I would like us to spend some time looking at the evidence that would lead us to the conclusion that Jesus was and is God.
D. The claims of the New Testament evangelists about Jesus are both extraordinary and unequaled.
1. The apostle Peter declared, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16).
2. The apostle Peter preached, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
4. The apostle Paul wrote:
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11)
E. We need to realize that these claims about Jesus were not made by fanatically devoted disciples against his will.
1. The claims made by them were an outgrowth of the claims he had previously made for himself.
2. Jesus identified himself with the Lord of the Old Testament patriarchs (Jn. 8:31-59).
3. Jesus claimed the authority to forgive sins, an authority that God alone could have (Mk. 2:5-7).
4. Jesus dared to say, “I and the Father are one” and he was immediately accused of blasphemy for such a statement asserting his deity (Jn. 10:30-33).
5. When Jesus stood face to face with the high priest of the Jewish nation, Caiaphas said, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” To this direct challenge, Jesus replied, “Yes, it is as you say” (Mt. 26:63-64).
F. Claims of such magnitude cannot be ignored.
1. They are either true or false.
2. They must be believed or rejected.
3. Any attempt to be neutral toward Jesus is tantamount to rejecting him.
G. What I would like to do with the rest of our time today, is to explore the historicity of Jesus and then examine the evidence that would lead us to believe that Jesus was and is God.
I. The Historicity of Jesus – Did Jesus Live?
A. Unlike the Greek mythologies or the irrational tales of Eastern religions, the religion of Jesus Christ alleges that its central events occurred in the arena of history and are subject to the same sort of investigation that all other historical events invite.
1. For example, when the apostle Paul made his case for the resurrection of Jesus, he wrote about the various people who had seen Jesus alive after his resurrection.
2. Among those eyewitnesses, Paul wrote that Jesus “appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living…” (1 Cor. 15:6).
3. There is no mistaking Paul’s point in this statement – if someone wants to know what happened, then they could interview the witnesses.
B. Although we live 20 centuries too late to accept Paul’s challenge, we are not too late to make our own meaningful investigations about Jesus.
1. Keep in mind that we cannot have first-hand information about any other historical person, whether they be Alexander the Great, or George Washington.
2. What we do have are generally accepted and well-tested means of making inquiries about both of these figures, and we are able to speak of them and the events from their lives without apprehension.
3. The same methods of historical investigation can be, and ought to be, applied to Jesus.
C. Challenges to the historicity of Jesus are rare today, although sometimes otherwise intelligent people will doubt that Jesus ever lived and suggest that he was just a myth.
1. People who have never studied the many proofs of Jesus’ historical authenticity are usually surprised by the wealth of evidence about him when it is brought to their attention.
2. Although our primary documents for information about Jesus are the four Gospels, we could construct a rather complete outline of his life and career from non-believing, Roman and Jewish historians.
D. But let’s begin with the evidence of the Bible.
1. The 27 books of the New Testament and a great deal of Old Testament prophesy speak powerfully and with one voice about Jesus.
a. Nowhere does the Bible say or suggest that Jesus was a myth.
2. Some, of course, would argue that the Bible is not objective in its presentation of Jesus – that it is slanted by the writers, who were all believers.
3. We need to keep in mind that writers of the New Testament books are uniquely trustworthy.
a. They have, in a sense, been cross-examined like no other historians in history.
b. They have been cross-examined with the sword, whip and cross.
c. They have been tortured as no other historian has ever been tortured before or since.
d. Their testimony has stood the test.
4. Far from presenting Jesus as a mythical figure, the New Testament writers emphasized Jesus’ flesh-and-blood existence.
a. Frequently, they made mention that they were eyewitnesses of Christ.
b. They listened to him talk, they touched him, and they ate meals with him.
c. They knew him well, and he was by no means a myth to them.
E. But as I said earlier, the Bible is not the only testimony to Jesus having lived.
1. There are, very clearly, at least 19 early pagan, Roman writers who refer to Jesus Christ as an actual, real-life, historical figure: including, Tacitus, a great Roman historian; Suetonius, also a historian; Pliny the Younger, one of the leaders of the Roman Empire; and Celsus, the first great antagonist, who wrote a whole book attacking Christianity.
2. But even the pagan, Roman writers weren’t the only ones outside the Christian faith to acknowledge Jesus’ historical reality, several Jewish writings also tell of Jesus’ flesh-and-blood existence.
3. Both of the Gemaras of the Talmud refer to Jesus.
4. Flavius Josephus, a most highly reputed Jewish historian, born in A.D.37 wrote about the life of Jesus in his history of the Jews.
F. We can find no evidence that anyone in the first few centuries after Christ even once questioned whether Jesus was an actual, historical person.
1. The late Will Durant, a respected historian, who was an unbeliever wrote: “The denial of that existence seems never to have occurred even to the bitterest gentile or Jewish opponents of nascent Christianity.”
2. Of the alternative possibility that Jesus is a mythical creation of human imagination, Durant said: “That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.”
G. So it appears that the evidence is all on Christianity’s side.
1. Let’s take a tally: 27 books of the New Testament, 19 pagan, Roman writers, and three Jewish writers testify to Jesus Christ’s historical reality.
2. So, Christians, indeed, did not follow a cunningly devised fable, but a real person.
3. They were, as the Bible proclaims, eyewitnesses to His majesty.
II. The Evidence of Jesus’ Divinity – Was Jesus God?
A. One piece of evidence for the divinity of Jesus was his impact on history.
1. In the most general of terms, one begins to take notice of Jesus because of the impact he has had on the course of human history.
2. It is not an exaggeration to say that the greatest miracle associated with the Christian religion is the person of Jesus Christ and the impact he has had on the human race.
3. The writer and historian H.G. Wells, who was himself an unbeliever, expressed an opinion of him that few historians would oppose: “When I was asked which single individual has left the most permanent impression on the world, the manner of the questioner almost carried the implication that it was Jesus of Nazareth. I agreed.”
4. There is an anonymous tribute to the magnetism of Jesus over the centuries that captivates the essence of this point about Jesus’ impact on history that deserves to be quoted, and it goes like this:
Born in an obscure village, he was the child of a peasant woman. Growing up in another out-of-the-way and disdained village, he worked in a carpenter shop until he was about 30. Then for three years, he was an itinerant preacher who both talked and listened. He helped people whenever he could.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never went to college. He never had a family of his own or owned a home. He never traveled over 200 miles from the place where he was born.
He never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness and had no credentials but himself.
While he was still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial, after which he was executed on a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. Only because a generous friend offered his own cemetery plot was there a place for him to be buried.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race and leader of the column of spiritual progress. The ultimate example of love.
It is no exaggeration to say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.
5. There has been only one Jesus of Nazareth, and his influence is best explained in terms of the biblical claim that he is divine.
B. A second piece of evidence for the divinity of Jesus was his personal sinlessness.
1. The mark Jesus left on history rests largely on the character he exhibited.
2. His personal perfection lets us know that he was no ordinary mortal with a high IQ and a sense of civic responsibility.
3. If God were to take human form and come among us, what sort of character would you expect to see?
a. He would surely demonstrate the type of character Jesus of Nazareth displayed.
b. He would be without sin himself and would be made indignant by sin around him, but he would be compassionate toward the victims of sin.
c. Jesus hated sin, but he loved the people who were captive to it.
4. God, walking among his human creatures, would have dealt with sin exactly as Jesus of Nazareth dealt with it.
5. The apostles Peter (1 Pet. 1:19; 2:22) and John (1 Jn. 3:5) both attested to Jesus’ sinlessness.
6. His character was fully consistent with his claims.
C. A third piece of evidence for the divinity of Jesus was that he claimed and exhibited the attributes of deity.
1. On a number of occasions, Jesus spoke of his eternal existence.
2. Jesus spoke of his authority over all creation.
3. Jesus spoke of his ability to be everywhere, to know everything, and to have all power.
4. Jesus claimed that he was the ultimate judge of mankind.
5. Jesus accepted the worship of others.
6. Jesus claimed the power to forgive sins.
7. All of these powers and attributes point to his divine identity.
D. A fourth piece of evidence for the divinity of Jesus is the fulfillment of prophesy in his life.
1. The argument for the deity of Jesus based on prophesy prediction in Scripture was not invented recently by Christians, rather it rests on the ancient expectations of the Jews.
2. Before Jesus was born, students of Hebrew Scripture had built up a mass of literature containing the predictions that Christians believe were fulfilled in Jesus.
3. There are over 400 prophecies in the Old Testament which point to the coming Messiah and to His life and death.
4. Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled every single one of them.
5. The odds of someone doing that who was not the Messiah are too great to even figure.
E. A fifth piece of evidence for the divinity of Jesus is the existence of the church and the changed lives of believers.
1. The church, which is made up of Christ’s followers, has been persecuted for centuries and yet it still proclaims the simple message that Jesus is God.
2. If Jesus had been just a man, the church would not have been able to withstand all that it has gone through.
3. If Jesus had been just a man, then we would not continue to see lives changed because of faith in Jesus.
4. One of the most dramatic conversions was that of Saul of Tarsus, who actively and viciously persecuted the church until Jesus miraculously appeared to him and Saul was transformed into the apostle Paul.
F. A final piece of evidence for the divinity of Jesus is his miracles.
1. The Gospels record at least 35 episodes involving miracles.
a. The Gospels record Jesus’ healing of people afflicted with fevers, leprosy, and paralysis.
b. He restored sight to the blind.
c. He could stop storms, multiply food supplies, and otherwise control nature.
d. He even raised people from the dead.
2. These miracles were not performed with ceremony and theatrics, but naturally and with ease.
a. They were executed from high motives and never for selfish gain.
b. They were done publicly so as to invite people to check what had happened.
3. The miracles of Jesus were demonstrations of his love for frightened and hurting people, and were designed to point to his divinity.
4. The most critical miracles associated with the life of Jesus are the ones that began and ended his life on planet Earth – the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection from the dead, and the ascension of Jesus to heaven.
5. If we had the time, we could devote a sermon to each of those amazing and critical miracles.
6. But Jesus’ resurrection and ascension serve as the exclamation point of his claim to divinity.
Conclusion:
A. Let me ask you: what have you concluded or what will you conclude about Jesus?
1. Do you find the evidence for his divinity overwhelming and convincing?
B. Actually, we are not left with many options.
1. We must decide if Jesus was crazy, or was a deceiver, or was telling the truth.
2. He can only be one of the three: liar, lunatic, or Lord.
3. C.S. Lewis, the great scholar and Christian writer, put it so 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 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 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.”
C. A preacher was once preaching a meeting in Philadelphia, when a man approached him after the service.
1. The man said, “I don’t like the way you focus on the crucifixion of Jesus and the fact that he is the Savior. I think that instead of emphasizing the death of Christ, it would be far better to preach about Jesus the teacher and example.”
2. The preacher replied, “If I presented Christ in that way, would you be willing to follow him?”
3. “I certainly would,” the man said without hesitation.
4. “All right, then,” the preacher said, “Let’s consider step one: Jesus had no sin. Can you claim that for yourself?”
5. “Why, no,” the man said. “I acknowledge that I do sin.”
6. The preacher replied, “Then your first and greatest need is a Savior, not a teacher or an example.”
D. Oh, how we need a perfect, divine, Savior! Praise God that Jesus is just that!
E. Have you decided that Jesus is God and that you want to follow him? I hope so!
1. If you are ready to believe and be baptized, then we would be thrilled to help you do that.
Resources:
Skeptics Answered, by D. James Kennedy, Multnomah Books, 1997
Questions People Ask Ministers Most, by Harold Hazelip, Baker Book House, 1986
Was Jesus God or Just a Good Teacher, Sermon by Brian La Croix, SermonCentral.com
