If you went out onto the street to survey random people about who Jesus was, you’re bound to get a variety of answers. Some might say God, some might say a religious leader, but chances are many would just call him a great moral teacher and a good man. 

But if we take the New Testament records of Jesus, which are historically reliable documents, they seem to leave us with only 3 options for who Jesus was. 

As someone who claimed to be God, Jesus was either right or he was wrong. If he was wrong, either he knew he was wrong, in which case he was a liar, or he didn’t know, in which case he was a lunatic. But if he wasn’t a liar or lunatic, the only option left is that he actually was who he said he was. 

CS Lewis puts it this way…

“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. . . .” 

So the next time you come across someone who sees Jesus as merely a great teacher or a good man, you can challenge them on whether that is really an option. If they’re not willing to call him a liar or lunatic, it seems the only option left is that Jesus was in fact who he claimed to be. That he really was God. 

I’m Becky Gillespie from Thinking Matters and this has been your Thought for Today. For more reasons to believe visit thinkingmatters.org.nz