Statements from the Bible
Testimonies
A Study on Christian
Apologetics
The Importance of the Issue
Beginning a
Relationship with Jesus
1. Statements from the Bible:
"Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with
him, he asked them,
‘Who do the crowds say I am?’
They replied ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still
others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.’
‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter answered,
‘The Christ of God.’"
Luke 9:18-19 NIV
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my
Father as well. From now on, you do know Him, and have seen Him."
John 14:6-7 NIV"
“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for
us.’ Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after
I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has
seen the Father.’”
John 14:8-9 NIV
"Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
Mark 4:41 NIV
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all
creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and
on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or
authorities; all things were created by him and for him."
Colossians 1:15-16 NIV
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among
us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:1, 14
“No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who
is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”
John 1:18
“Hear O Israel: ‘The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’” (not two)
Deuteronomy 6:4
“’I tell you the truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I
am!’”
John 8:58
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to
say to the Israelites:
I AM has sent me to you.’”
Deuteronomy 3: 14
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2. Testimonies:
"I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man.
Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible
term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded
empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon
force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour
millions of people would die for Him." -Napoleon Bonaparte, French
emperor (1769-1821)
"When I was abandoned by everybody, in my greatest weakness,
trembling and afraid of death, when I was persecuted by this wicked
world, then I often felt most surely the divine power in this name,
Jesus Christ... So, by God's grace, I will live and die for that name."
-Martin Luther (1483-1546)
"No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world
which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no
other man has been so devoutly loved." -John Knox, Scottish reformer
(1514-72)
"Socrates dies with honor, surrounded by his disciples listening
to the most tender words -the easiest death that one could wish to die.
Jesus dies in pain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal cursing –
the most horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup
of poison, Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him without
tears; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for His most
bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus
lived and died like a god." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher
(1712-78)
"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a
historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the
very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure
in all history." -H.G. Wells, British author (1866-1946)
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the
Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the
Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual
presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is
filled with such life." -Albert Einstein, physicist and professor
(1879-1955)
"Jesus Christ is to me the outstanding personality of all time,
all history, both as Son of God and as Son of Man. Everything he ever
said or did has value for us today and that is something you can say of
no other man, dead or alive. There is no easy middle ground to stroll
upon. You either accept Jesus or reject him." -Sholem Asch, Jewish
author (1880-1957)
"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 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. -C.S. Lewis,
British author (1898-1963)
“What Jesus Christ always has been He is today, the transformer
of the world's life, the reconstructor of human society, the animator of
human progress, the one Master moulder of the world's civilization. And
by this I know that He is Divine.” -W. E. Biedersolf
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3. A Study on Christian Apologetics: (Taken from:
Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft & Ronald K. Tacelli,
InterVarsity Press, 1994 pp.150-152.)
“Huston Smith notes, in The World’s
Religions, that only two people ever astounded their contemporaries so
much that the question they evoked was not “Who is he?” but “What is
he?” They were Jesus and Buddha. The answers these two gave were
exactly opposite. Buddha said unequivocally that he was a mere man, not
a god – almost as if he foresaw later attempts to worship him. Jesus,
on the other hand, claimed in many ways to be divine.
The problem of Jesus’ identity emerges
from the data. The data are the four Gospels, which inform us about the
claims he made about himself and the claims others made about him. In
all our Gospels the claim is shockingly strong (see pp 173-74)
Jesus called himself the “Son of God” –
that is, of the same nature as God. A son is of the same nature, the
same species, the same essence, as his father. Jesus called God his
Father: “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30) and “Whoever has seen me
has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).
He also claimed to be sinless: “Which of
you can convict me of sin?” He claimed to forgive sins – all sins,
against everyone. The Jews protested: “Who can forgive sins but God
alone?” They were much more clear-thinking theologians than the
modernists, who ‘nuance’ this claim. The only one who has the right to
forgive all sins is the only One who is offended in all sins, namely,
God. I have a right to forgive you for your sins against me, but not
for your sins against others.
Jesus claimed to save us from sin and
death. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in
me will never die.” He said he had come from heaven, not just earth,
and that he would return again from heaven at the end of the world to
judge everyone. Meanwhile, he gave us his flesh to eat, and said that
this would give us eternal life.
Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter. For
a Jew, changing names was something only God could do, for your name was
not just a human, arbitrary label, but your real identity, which was
given to you by God alone. In the Old Testament, only God changed
names, and destinies – Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob
became Israel. An orthodox Jew who got his name legally changed was
excommunicated.
Jesus kept pointing people to himself,
saying “Come unto me.” Buddha said, “Look not to me; look to my dharma
(doctrine).” Buddha also said, “Be ye lamps unto yourselves.” Jesus
said, “I am the light of the world.”
Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad and other
religious founders performed no miracles and did not rise from the
dead. Jesus offered his many miracles and his resurrection as evidence
for his divinity.
Most clearly and shockingly of all, he
invited crucifixion (or stoning) by saying: “Very truly, I tell you
[i.e., I am not exaggerating or speaking symbolically here; take this in
all its force], before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58). He spoke and
claimed the sacred name that God revealed to Moses, the name God used to
name himself (Ex 3:14). If he was not God, no one in history ever said
anything more blasphemous than this; by Jewish law, no one ever deserved
to be crucified more than Jesus.
Who then was Jesus, really?
You cannot even ask the question without
implicitly choosing among answers. The very wording of the question, in
the past tense (“Who was Jesus?”) or the present (“Who is Jesus?”),
presupposes its own answer. For those who believe his claim do not say
that he was divine, but is divine. Divinity does not change or die or
disappear into the past. Furthermore, if he really rose from the dead,
he still is, and is very much alive today.
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4. The Importance of the Issue:
The issue is crucially important for at
least six reasons.
The divinity of Christ is the most
distinctively Christian doctrine of all. A Christian is most
essentially defined as one who believes this. And no other religion has
a doctrine that is even similar. Buddhists do not believe that Buddha
was God. Muslims do not believe that Muhammad was God: “There is no God
but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.”
The essential difference between
orthodox, traditional, biblical, apostolic, historic, creedal
Christianity and revisionist, modernist, liberal Christianity is right
here. The essential modernist revision is to see Christ simply as the
ideal man, or “the man for others”; as a prophet, rabbi, philosopher,
teacher, social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, reformer, sage or
magician – but not God in the flesh.
The doctrine works like a skeleton key,
unlocking all the other doctrinal doors of Christianity. Christians
believe each of their many doctrines not because they have reasoned
their own way to them as conclusions from a theological inquiry or as
results of some mystical experiences, but on the divine authority of the
One who taught them, as recorded in the Bible and transmitted by the
church. If Christ was only human, he could have made mistakes, Thus,
anyone who wants to dissent from any of Christ’s unpopular teachings
will want to deny his divinity. And there are bound to be things in his
teachings that each of us finds offensive – if we look at the totality
of those teachings rather than confining ourselves to comfortable and
familiar ones.
If Christ is divine, then the
incarnation, or “enfleshing” of God, is the most important event in
history. It is the hinge of history. It changes everything. If Christ
is God, then when he died on the cross, heaven’s gate, closed by sin,
opened up to us for the first time since Eden. No event in history
could be more important to every person on earth than that.
There is an unparalleled present
existential bite to the doctrine. For if Christ is God, then, since he
is omnipotent and present right now, he can transform you and your life
right now as nothing and no one else possibly can. He alone can fulfill
the psalmist’s desperate plea to “create in me a clean heart, O God” (Ps
51:10). Only God can create; there is even a special word in Hebrew for
it (bara’).
And if Christ is divine, he has a right
to our entire lives, including our inner life and our thoughts. If
Christ is divine, our absolute obligation is to believe everything he
says and obey everything he commands. If Christ is divine, the meaning
of freedom becomes conformity to him.”
So, again, we hear Jesus ask:
“’But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter answered,
‘The Christ of God.’"
So, who do YOU
say he is?
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5. Beginning a Relationship with Jesus:
If you would like to start a relationship with Jesus and invite Him into
your life to be your Lord, Savior, Leader and Forgiver…If you would like
to now become a follower of Jesus Christ, pray something like this:
“Lord, God, I recognize now that I am a sinner. I have broken your
law and deserve the punishment of death that you have decreed for all
law-breakers. I realize that now. Please forgive me? I know that I
don’t deserve your forgiveness. There is nothing that I can do, myself,
or that anyone else could do for me to gain forgiveness of my sins, but,
your Word says that Jesus died on the cross for me so that my sins could
be forgiven. I claim that now for myself, God. I want to live for you
now. Not for myself. I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work. I offer
myself to you. To follow you. To love you. To allow you into my life
to be my Leader, Lord, and Lover of my soul. I am Yours.
Lord, thank you so much for this free gift. Thank you for the pain
you endured on the cross and for rising from the dead, so that I can now
live with you forever. Thank you for loving me and wanting me to be
your child, your heir, and your friend. Through the power of Jesus
Christ, I pray. Amen!”
Now…Tell someone! If you would like to tell one of the pastors,
please call or email us right away. If you have a friend or family
member that has been praying for you, call them right now and tell
them! And then, let us help you in this new incredible journey that you
are on. Your new life is only just beginning.
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