I AM: Discovering the Nature of Jesus!
Friday, March 5, 2004
My Prayer Today
Heavenly Father, Thank You for a week of studying another of Jesus’ “I Am” statements. Thank You for giving John the incentive to sit down and produce a faithful record of Jesus’ life and teachings! I pray that as I read Your word each day, meditate on it and seek to know and understand it’s meaning, that You will fill me with the Holy Spirit so that I may also live out its mandates! I pray that as I go about this day, that my life will be a blessing to others, and that it will also serve as a “living Bible” to folks who don’t yet read one on a daily basis.
God's Word Today
John 8:12
12Jesus said to the people, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
Thoughts... The Truth of Jesus' Claims
Yesterday, I closed my thoughts by saying that we can be confident of Jesus’ claims to be “I Am,” and to be the Light of the World. How can we be confident? The recently released Passion of the Christ, produced by Mel Gibson has raised many questions about the credibility of the Bible’s claims about Jesus, mainly centering around the question of WHO actually bears the responsibility for killing Jesus, since the movie makes it appear that the Jews are responsible, and that Pontius Pilate is a “compassionate” dupe, who would have released Jesus if not for the Jews. Having seen the movie, I have to say that the real questions being raised by the movie are much deeper: the key question is not who killed Jesus (especially since the answer to that question is—God killed Jesus AND we ALL killed Jesus through our sins, and the necessity for God’s justice to be satisfied). The key question is: Are the claims Jesus made about Himself true? When Jesus stood before Caiaphus, the high priest on the night before His crucifixion and Caiaphus asked Jesus whether He was the Messiah, Jesus answered, “Yes.” We come back to our three questions, which have been part of our “I Am” series from the beginning: Was Jesus a liar, a lunatic or Lord. (There is a fourth option: Jesus could have been a legend, but whether Jesus actually lived is no longer seriously doubted by any responsible scholar.) As we’ve seen through the texts that surround Jesus’ claims to be the bread of life and the light of the world, the people would not accept that Jesus was who He said He was. They called Him a liar. They called Him a lunatic. They called Him demon-possessed. Why? What facts did they have to back up their claims? The “facts” they used were that Jesus claimed to be God, and He claimed that they were evil, and they didn’t like either claim! Let’s look at Jesus’ claim that the people were evil, that they were “Children of the Devil.” Let’s look at the anecdotal evidence. In our world today, are we moving toward greater morality and truth, or towards moral decay and falsehood? This is not a matter of personal taste, my friends. The reality is that television, radio and other forms of communication have become increasingly prone to air pornography, “reality” shows that show the basest of human behaviors, “drama” series that show humans killing one another in repulsive ways for greed, jealousy and so on. No reasonable person could claim that humanity is getting better, more caring, more loving, more civilized. Jesus claims that humanity is evil at its core are born out by the facts. The teaching of the Old and New Testaments also bear out the reality that we are getting farther away from God’s intended order rather than closer to it.
Unless we deny the existence of God, which many in our day have done, we cannot deny the increase of evil and its inherent nature in our lives. The reason I say that unless we deny the existence of God we cannot deny the increase of evil and its inherit nature in our lives, is because if we deny the existence of God then there is no good and evil, behavior is just an outgrowth of what is expedient of what will get us what we want. If we assume the existence of a God, then the Scriptures and circumstances of our day certainly look like a fulfillment of Jesus’ words, don’t they? Just because God exists, though, and just because evil seems inherent in our nature, doesn’t mean that Jesus is Lord, does it? What is the evidence for that? Obviously space in this reading and even tomorrow’s isn’t sufficient for covering that topic, but let’s start with three important questions surrounding Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ongoing impact to those who had followed him, because if Jesus claimed to be God, and He did, then one of the most vital pieces of evidence to substantiate His claim is the resurrection! First, did Jesus really die, or did He simply “swoon,” a theory that has been postulated for the past couple hundred years? Was the tomb really empty on Easter day? (And was Jesus really there to start with?) Finally, how did Jesus have such a powerful ongoing impact on His followers if He was still dead?
For those who have watched the Passion of the Christ, there can be little doubt that Jesus died from the beating He experienced as well as the crucifixion. The reality is as gruesome as Gibson’s portrayal of the beating and crucifixion of Jesus was, in all likelihood what Jesus actually experienced was worse! The beating in particular, would probably have left Jesus’ spine, lungs and bowels exposed. He would have suffered from hypovolemic shock, which is associated with extreme blood loss (which Gibson’s movie showed quite graphically), and would not have survived long simply from the beating. Most people would have died just from the beating. Then they crucified Him! Jesus was most certainly dead when they took Him off the cross!
Next question: Was the tomb really empty on Easter morning, and did it really contain Jesus in the first place?
(Conclusion in Tomorrow’s Study!)
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