I’m going to admit something - the idea that Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God, born of a virgin, who died on a cross and was physically resurrected to Heaven sounds like a pretty far fetched and extravagant idea. As a non-believer it’s very easy to conclude that the story of Jesus Christ is either a fable, or a story where the legend simply grew beyond the actuality of what occurred. In coming to this conclusion, it’s pretty easy to never really worry too much about the question of who Jesus Christ really was and to leave it aside for people who need some faith system in their lives. Yet what I want to explore with this piece is a more thorough analysis on the question of Christ’s identity, because in doing so I endeavour to show you that it’s an infinitely more important question than you’ve likely ever realised and there can only be one of two answers - either Jesus was indeed the Son of God who came to show us the way, or he was a fraud. Therefore as a non-believer and one who is reading this piece right now having rejected the message of Christ, by default you are betting your eternal life on the conclusion that he is a liar.
Understanding why the question is such an important one to answer is simple - Jesus Christ is undoubtedly the most influential man to have ever walked this earth and the claims He made were explicit. We’re currently living in the year 2023 AD, aka 2,023 years after the death of Jesus Christ - time itself is recorded based on His life. His biography, the Holy Bible, is 10x on its closest competitor as the most published book in history. A third of the worlds population pledges their allegiance to Jesus as the central figure of their faith, whilst the second largest religious affiliation, Islam, quotes Jesus in the Qur’an four times more than their Prophet Muhammad. Original manuscripts of the New Testament (aka Jesus’s biography) outnumber the quantity of original manuscripts for all of the famous ancient writings combined (including the likes of Plato, Aristotle and Homer) by a figure of thousands. Our entire Western legal system and concepts of morality (eg that one should love their neighbour and refrain from cheating, lying, stealing and murdering) is based on the life and teachings of Jesus which despite being profound, were starkly opposed to the lessons we gleam from other ancient heroes who were more famous for murder and conquest.
We can swiftly dispel the idea that Jesus Christ was simply a mythical figure who never actually walked the earth, as it's one that is universally dismissed by all scholars regardless of whether they are a believer or not. There's more eye witness testimonies and original manuscripts that confirm His life than any other person to have lived - if you're to believe that He didn't live then you cannot possibly believe that people like Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Marcus Aurelius did either. So if we know for sure that Jesus did walk the earth and that He is the most influential person to have lived, then what can we start with to answer the question about who He really was?
I will paraphrase parts of the brilliant sermon by James Allen Francis that reflects on what we, believers and non-believers, know of Jesus’ mortal lifetime. He was born in an obscure village to peasant parents and worked until the age of 30 as a carpenter. He then spent 3 years as an itinerant preacher, never going more than 200 miles from the place He was born. He never wrote a book, held an office, owned a home, had any family or stepped foot inside a major city. He had no credentials but Himself. At a young age the public turned against Him, His own friends ran away and one of them turned Him over to His enemies. He went through a mockery of a trial and was tortured, then crucified to death between two thieves. While on the cross, His executioners gambled for the only possession He owned, His coat. He was laid to rest in a borrowed grave that was given to Him through the pity of a friend.
Knowing the aforementioned and agreeing that the itinerant preacher from an obscure village is the most influential man to have lived, we can use the trilemma from the CS Lewis book, Mere Christianity, as the basis for understanding His identity further.
“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 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.”
What Lewis shows here is that the answer most non-believers give, that Jesus is a great moral teacher whose legend has grown over time, cannot be true. Now if you search for the Lewis Trilemma in Google, you'll be flooded with straw-man arguments against his claim and that in fact the ‘great moral teacher' position is the most logic. But by putting your faith in Google or Facebook, you might in fact be putting your faith in the Devil whose objective is to distance you from God and the truth. Therefore I'll start by responding to the arguments that you'll find which broadly claim that the Gospel testimonies could have been manipulated and inflated, meaning that the actual Jesus of Nazareth lived a different life to the Jesus Christ of the Gospels.
The major issue with this position is grounded in the elementary idea that Jesus just happened to appear randomly in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. The name Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, a translation of the Hebrew word Mashiach which means Messiah or the Anointed One. Jesus was not the first to make a claim of being the Messiah and nor was He the last. In reality there have been thousands if not millions who have done so and I’m guessing most people don’t know the names of a single one other than Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth became Jesus Christ, or Jesus the Messiah, because those who followed Him saw that His life was the perfect fulfilment of messianic prophecies. If you’re learning about this element of Jesus’ life for the first time, then I urge you to read just two small sections of Scripture - Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 - then ask yourself who these verses sound like they’re describing! Unfortunately those who rule modern Judaism also rule most other elements of society, particularly media and entertainment, and they have a vested interest in ensuring that Jesus Christ is disassociated with the Messiah of the Hebrew Tenach. However we need to realise that Jesus was a Jew, all of His Apostles were Jews, and all the writers of the New Testament were Jews too. Jesus Christ was, is and always will be the fulfilment of the Ancient Jewish Scriptures prophecies regarding the Anointed One.
A deeper discussion on Judaism is a topic for another time, but for those interested in understanding this element further I highly recommend seeking out content from groups like Love Israel or One For Israel - Messianic Jews, that is ethnic Jews, who accept Jesus as their Messiah. What Messianic Jews are able to do better than anyone else is go through the complexity of the Scriptures in excruciating detail and show how the Messiah who was prophesied simply had to be Jesus. We can see that the Messiah needed to be a descendent of King David, born in Bethlehem, born of a virgin and live as a suffering servant before being crucified and resurrected. Additionally, the Book of Daniel gives us a timeline that provides the exact time period where he would be born. The reason the early Jewish followers of Jesus Christ would subject themselves to torture and death to testify what they learned from Him is because what they witnessed was the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah who was sent by God - not simply a great moral teacher.
The next element to consider in the great moral teacher fallacy is the question of why a ruling class would choose Jesus as their figurehead. Jesus was born at what would be considered the peak of the Roman Empire. In the centuries that followed His death, the Empire spanned from Britain all the way across modern Europe, through the Middle East and all the North of Africa with an ideology that was violent, exalted kings and rooted in Paganism. The Romans could have developed a story of Sol Invictus (their sun god) becoming incarnate, or they could have exalted an Emperor like Marcus Aurelius to god status. You can read Meditations by Aurelius and though it does not hold a candle to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, there’s more than enough wisdom in his words to justify making him a deity should that ruling class wish to do so. The Jews were a mere 2% of the world population, based out of a reasonably unimportant backwater in Israel and totally subservient to the rulers of the Roman Empire. And yet we are to believe that the Romans would choose their figurehead to be Jesus of Nazareth - the peasant carpenter who was rejected and crucified by the Judean leadership? I just don’t see how anyone who settles on this position on the identity of Jesus Christ can possibly justify the claim under any sort of scrutiny.
This leaves us back to the position established by the Lewis trilemma. A great moral teacher is not someone who will tell the world to eat their flesh and drink their blood to gain eternal life (John 6:54) if what they’re saying is not the truth. A better way to describe such a person would be as a fraud or a lunatic. If someone is serious about understanding who Jesus Christ is, then they will spend the relatively small amount of time it takes to read at least one of the four Gospels. Do so and you will find more than enough verses that could only be spoken of by a fraud, or indeed the Son of God. I believe that a lunatic, or one who calls themselves a poached egg, is quickly ruled out as an option once you read through Jesus’s teachings - His wisdom and ability to speak to the very core of your heart cannot possibly come from someone who is a lunatic. Therefore, there is really only two options in play - He is the life, the truth and the only way to God (John 14:6), or he is a man who imitated the life of the Old Testament Messiah in perfect detail and convinced billions of people spanning over 2,000 years of his fraud. To reject the claims of Jesus Christ is to reject God, and to reject God is to commit yourself to eternal damnation. It’s an uncomfortable conclusion because this is the position that you must land at, either consciously or by default, if you do not accept His claims. The good news, or great news rather, is that it is never too late to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.
If you liked reading this piece and would like to read more, you can find an index to all of my content here.
Luke, you’re a true ambassador for God.
An excellent analysis of the Great Almighty I AM! Love reading your articles!