Jesus Christ: Liar, Lunatic, or God?

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Jesus Christ: Liar, Lunatic, or God?

4 July 2009 No Comment

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Who do you say Jesus is? Is He a liar, a lunatic, or was He God? This is a question that has eternal significance. In Matthew 16 Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

Jesus asked again, “But what about you?” “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Many people say that Jesus was a good moral teacher, but nothing more. The problem with this theory is that Jesus made some very strong claims as to He was.

1) He said that He is the only way to the Father
John 14:6, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

2) He said that He is the entrance to salvation
John 10:9, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

3) He said that He gives life
John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.”

4) He said that He existed before the world was created
John 17:5, “And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”

5) He said that He and the Father are one
John 10:30, 31 “’I and the Father are one’. The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”

The great theologian C.S. Lewis came to the conclusion that Jesus could not just be a great moral teacher. Either he was lying, he was crazy, or he was telling the truth.

Jesus Christ, the trilemma
C.S. Lewis states, “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 patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The MacMillan Company, 1960, pp. 40-41.)