Who was Jesus?

      Who Are You Hearing?                  

    A big time celebrity was doing a benefit show at a senior citizens’ home.

He went to an elderly lady, sat down beside her, and asked, “Do you know who I am?” She said, “No, but if you’ll go to the front desk, they’ll tell you.”

Let’s think for a moment about whether we really know who Jesus is, and where we can go to find out. As to the true identity of Jesus Christ, people remain all over the map in their opinions and answers. The apostle John records in John 7:12 that even while Christ was here in the flesh, “There was much murmuring among the people concerning Him. Some said, ‘He is good’; others said, ‘No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.’” Just like today, some were saying He was from God while others were saying He was a fraud. A few verses later in John 7:20 some accused Jesus to His face, “You have a demon.” Again in John 7:43, “So there was a division among the people because of Him.” And yet again in John 10:19-20, "There was a division again among the Jews” because of Jesus sayings, “And many of them said, ‘He has a demon and is mad [insane]. Why do you listen to Him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’” To adapt C. S. Lewis’ famous  and provocative words, people say Jesus was anything from liar to lunatic to Lord! Some say He was holy and historical and some say He was more mythological, a person whose image was adorned with super-natural characteristics by adoring admirers and devotees after He was crucified and failed to rise from the dead. Some say He was indeed the Christ or Anointed One of God, and some say the whole crucified, buried, raised from the dead thing was a conspiracy, especially that part about being raised from the dead.

    So, who was Jesus? Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses all have differing ideas. Liberal theologians like the Jesus Seminar deny that He was divine and airbrush most of the things Jesus taught out of the gospels. The third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, tipped his hat but not his heart to Jesus Christ. Jefferson cobbled together a “cut and paste” New Testament that included the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus but excised references to Jesus’ miraculous powers and claims to Deity. Jefferson’s Christ-quoting but Christ-demoting New Testament is in the Smithsonian Museum in our nation’s capital. And today people continue to tip their hats to Jesus as a great religious leader who deserves a place in the pantheon of great human religious leaders – along with leaders like Buddha, Confucius, Moses and Mohammed. Occasionally (usually around Easter), TIME and NEWSWEEK and other media outlets do stories and articles with titles like, “Jesus – Who Was He?” and “Searching For Jesus” and “Visions of Jesus”, etc., etc., etc. The earth continues to be rife with opinions about Jesus.

    Enough human opinion about Jesus. Matthew 17:5 records God’s own pronouncement concerning Christ. To the saucer-eyed apostles Peter, James and John, atop a mountain in the middle of an awesome and mysterious event people call “the Transfiguration,” God’s voice declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” Millions of people are betting their souls God didn’t really say that or if He did He didn’t really mean it. But we have no reason, except unbelief and unfounded skepticism, to deny He did. Everybody listens to somebody. Are you listening to Jesus? If not Him, then who?

by Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN