The Claims of Christ

Here is C.S. Lewis most quoted paragraph from “Mere Christianity”:

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 t 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 it 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.

In John Chapter 5, Jesus gave his claims. They are unmistakable claims of deity.

• Jesus is equal with God (5:19-20).
• Jesus is the giver of life (5:21, 26).
• Jesus will raise the dead (5:25, 29).
• Jesus is the final Judge and arbiter of our final destiny (5:22-23).
• Jesus is always doing the will of God (5:30).

These claims are what make Jesus dear to the believer and cause him to fall at Jesus’ feet and worship him. However, for the unbeliever, they are what causes her to stumble. The very things that endear Jesus to his followers cause rejection in those who do not embrace him. Jesus’ caused immediate reaction wherever he went—some followed him, and some rejected him. It is no different today.

What name of any deity or founder of religion do you hear used in a profane way? Only that of Jesus, not Buda, not Mohammed or Ali or Confucius but only Jesus. Is that not odd? It is because of Jesus’ claims to be God and the final Judge. His claims provoke anger and rejection. Jesus predicted they would:

Luke 12:51-53

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

We live in an age of political correctness where you can be condemned for how you talk and what you believe. Believing that Jesus is the only savior of humanity and the final Judge of human beings will be criticized, but it is the true message of Scripture. As C.S. Lewis says, we can accept him as God or reject him as an imposture but let there be no middle ground—it would not be rational.