wk 3 | Liar, Lunatic, or Lord

Mark 3:20-35

Intro and recap of series.

While many have asked and offered to answer the question, “Who is Jesus?”, no one can deny the evidence that He was a real historical person and that His life radically altered human history. As world-renowned historian Jaroslav Pelikan put it: “It is from His birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by His name that millions curse, and in His name that millions pray.”

People of all different religions speak highly of Jesus. One of the main things people say about Jesus who don’t believe in Him as Savior is that He was a good teacher, or a great prophet.

The first message of this series, we looked at who Jesus claimed to be—God. He didn’t just claim to be God, but He acted like it. Based on this reality, C.S. Lewis, in his famous book Mere Christianity proposed a trilemma. Three options of who Jesus could be based on His claims and actions.

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.”

If this doesn’t make sense to you, he even wrote it into The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. After Lucy went into Narnia and told her siblings but they didn’t believe her, listen to what Lewis has the Professor say to them about the situation:

“Logic!” said the Professor half to himself. “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious she is not mad. For the moment then, and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume she is telling the truth.”

Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or Lord.

Was Jesus a liar?

If Jesus knew He was not God and taught and acted like He was, He would be a liar.

If Jesus knew He was not God, then He was lying. But if he was a liar, then He also was a hypocrite, as He told others to be honest, whatever the cost. If that’s the case, then we can say that would make Jesus unspeakably evil, as He deliberately told others to forsake their religious beliefs and trust Him for their eternal destiny. And He even died for his claims and actions.

If Jesus was a liar, He was also a hypocrite and a fool.

Could such a massive deceiver teach unselfish, ethical truths and live the morally upright life that Jesus did? This notion is ridiculous.

In his book Cold-Case Christianity, cold-case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace lists three motives at the heart of any misbehavior: financial greed, sexual or relational desire, or power.

Jesus wasn’t interested in any of them. He actually denounced all of these in His teachings. The New Testament writers tell us that He taught His disciples to give to the needy, and to not store up earthly treasures. And no evidence exists that Jesus was motivated by lust or relationships, but was a single celibate His whole life.

The Gospels stress the respect that Jesus displayed toward women, including tho