Who is This Jesus?

With the recent excitement over the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” many people, from atheist to Buddhist, Jew to Catholic and every culture around the world have been made to face the most important question any person will ever answer. Who is this Jesus?

We may be rich or poor, educated or not, sophisticated or crude, powerful or helpless, basically happy or unhappy, healthy or ill, live in a mansion with a mud room or simply in a mud hut and what ever our situation or where ever we may be in the world still the most important personal need any human has is some understanding of the truth concerning his or her own life, present and eternal. Jesus claimed to not only have the answers to truth and life but actually to be truth and life and at the same time be the only way (John 14:6).

C.S. Lewis once said this question of Jesus is really unavoidable. By ignoring Him, we have actually answered the question of His offer of salvation. Lewis brings the unavoidable question into focus when he says that this man Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or He is Lord. These are really the only alternatives and every human being on earth needs to investigate to the best of their abilities, and with all available resources the truth of history. Check out the forensic evidence, the testimonies of the eye witnesses which were given in many cases with their lives threatened should they declare their trust in Him as Lord. To paraphrase Josh McDowell, the evidence demands a personal verdict from each of us. Literally, each of our lives depends on what our answer is.

As we approach Good Friday and the time of the historical passion of the Christ, we each need to ask ourselves; was this man a lunatic that suffered willingly the most painful and excruciating death any man could face, and do it all for no cause and to no effect? Certainly a mere liar would not do this.

Considering then that Jesus was either a lunatic or Lord is their a way to determine which is true? Can Jesus’ true identity be determined from the evidence from both Biblical and secular history? Dr. Phillip Johnson, Dr. Josh McDowell, Dr. Michael Behe, and a host of other brilliant men throughout history have set out to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Jesus was not and is not the Son of God and that there is no Creator, only to come to the “inescapable conclusion” that the laws of nature and science (cause and effect) demand that the Creation (an effect) have a Creator (a cause) and that Jesus (lunatic or Lord) exhibited none of the traits of a crazy man and indeed showed masterful control of nature and science in healing the un-healable and in concurring death in His well documented, highly witnessed, and humanly impossible resurrection.

The miracle of the creation and the miracle of the resurrection seem to exhibit common traits attributable to a unique power and a unique personality exhibited in this world throughout all of recorded history in only one man, the man that claimed to be the son of God, that claimed to forgive the sin that separates man and God, that said, “I Am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.” That is the man Jesus.

His ways are declared and shown to not be our ways. His ways are shown higher (more God like) than our ways. His ways are never lower (more lunatic like) than our ways.

So if this man Jesus is not a liar and is not a lunatic, who is He?

Good Friday brings the cross and the passion of the Christ for us clearly into focus. Easter Sunday morning reveals an empty grave and shouts of Jesus victory over death. His resurrection promise is that we need not live our lives fearing death and that He is with us always. (Matt. 28: 18-19).

Lord?