Saturday 2 May 2020

Lunatic, Devil, or Son of God?

Lunatic, Devil, or Son of God?
John’s gospel records this incident between the Jews gathered in Solomon's Colonnade on the Feast of Dedication and Jesus. Jesus states,
“I and the Father are one.” 
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” 
  “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” John 10:30-33.
What would you say if someone told you they were God? I think that most people today would think the person to be at the very least mentally ill. Yet the apostle John who knew Jesus personally and was there in Solomon’s Colonnade makes it clear Jesus said he and God the Father were one.
Not only that Jesus said this knowing that he probably would be stoned for making such a statement.
C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity gives an explanation as to why Jesus did what he did stating,
"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." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
Thus the choice is yours. Is Jesus a lunatic, the Devil of Hell, or the Son of God?
Please read the New Testament for yourself before you make your decision.
Please think about it.

No comments: