While Jesus walked this earth, no one could deny that he existed.  But who was this man who drew large crowds, healed the sick, and raised the dead? Some thought He was the Messiah (John 1:41). They believed him to be the Son of God (Mat. 14:32).   Some Pharisees said he was the son of David (Mat. 22:42). Other Pharisees, however, associated Him with Beelzebub – the devil. (Matt. 12:24).  At first, Jesus own brothers did not believe in Him (John 7:5) and at one time thought He was out of His mind (Mark 3:12).  Others thought Jesus must be John the Baptist or one of the prophets (Mat.16:16). But when the question was put to Simon Peter, he boldly proclaimed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mat. 16:16).

      While some cults and great world religions acknowledge Jesus in some manner, they do not believe in His Deity.  The prophet Isaiah said that the Christ would be called “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6). “The virgin will be with child…..and they will call him Immanuel” – which means, “God with us” (Mat. 1:23).  Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). But about the Son, he says, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever…..(Hebrews 1:8. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” Phil. 2:6). Paul called Jesus “….our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:14).  Revelation 1:8 says, “I am the Alpha and Omega, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty”.

      During Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the Bible says the Lord led them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22). In the New Testament, we learn that it was Christ who accompanied them (I Cor. 10:1-4). In Isaiah 42:8 we read, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give glory to another….”.  But Jesus prayed in John 17:5 “And now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

      Jesus is more, much more than a man. He is God.  C. S. Lewis said, “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…. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

 

        Evelyn Knowles is co-founder, with her husband, Victor, of Peace on Earth Ministries.