Here at the Glasgow Church of Christ, we believe that Jesus is the historical fact who proves the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, Yahweh, or Jehovah. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who lived among us as a man before being killed unjustly. He was raised to life by God the Father to allow everyone who has faith in Him to be reconciled to God for eternity.
Who Is Jesus? Let’s Get To Know Jesus Christ…
Let’s think about this. If God wants to show his people that he exists, how could he do it?
An easy way would be to create a person who will tell the world about Him. God sent a variety of prophets to tell the world how much He loved them and that he was heart-broken about the self-destructive practices they were getting involved in. As we know all too well, people are resistant to change and this approach was not too successful (Acts 7:52), so God sent Jesus, his own Son. More on this later.
Alternatively, write a book telling the world all about Him and include guidance for a successful life in it. There’s a lot to tell and the detail may get a bit boring, but he did it anyway. Try reading the likes of Leviticus and Deuteronomy – informative but quite dry. Actually, if you read these carefully and meditatively you can see the love of God to Israel shine through but it does take work. Other books of the Bible are more interesting; most have stories about people, describing how they either walked with God or walked in selfishness. We are left for ourselves to judge what went well and what didn’t. However, other passages fill in some context and help us see God’s view on how we live. Not all the people in the Bible are examples of how to live good lives, you will see traits that you may recognise. Some people in the Bible are downright evil, others are a mixed bag so please read widely and discuss with mature, godly, people before following their example!
Other ways might include doing miracles throughout the creation and show humanity that there is a God who can do ANYTHING – even break the laws of physics. This probably wouldn’t be a good idea because people get accustomed to the laws of physics being stable and predictable. How would you feel if you were flying in a jet-plane and suddenly the laws of physics changed because the creator of the universe wanted to prove a point? Not too good, eh? Many of the greatest scientists (like Newton, Einstein, James Clark Maxwell, William Mitchell Ramsay, etc) were moved to study science because they saw that the world was predictable and displayed evidence of good design. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). God has broken the laws of physics throughout history, but in reality, it’s not something that he does often. When this happens it usually indicates a significant change or new teaching that He wants people to know. Now that Jesus has finished his task (John 19:30) and the Bible is widely available, there is less reason to see miracles these days. However, there have been instances: for example, when God told Moses to ask Pharaoh to “let my people go”; or when he gave Jesus’ disciples the power to speak in tongues, or foreign languages, in order to spread the new message of the resurrection. But most of the time, God keeps the law of physics constant to keep a stable environment for us all to enjoy (and to study the good creation).
But what about sending someone to live a “perfect” life, and getting him to teach the deep truths of God, and then raising him from the dead when he was killed by the mob? This is exactly what God did, with the person sent being his own son. So this answers our question “Who is Jesus”. Moreover, before his death, Jesus took on the sins of the world (1 John 2:2) and forgave the sins of those who had the faith to accept forgiveness.
This is why Christians are so excited about Jesus, our church included.
So this is the simple way to explain who Jesus is.
Did Jesus Really Exist?
So, did he really exist? This is important if we are to understand that he is the Son of God.
No credible historians dispute the fact that Jesus existed and he is attested to by many non-believing writers of his time such as Tacitus, Pliny, Thallus and Josephus.
The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (born around 53 AD), writing with regard to Nero and the fire of Rome (which Nero blames on the Christians) said, “Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the time of Tiberius” [Annals XV. 44].
Pliny Secundus, the Roman governor of Bithynia, in 112 AD, described Christians as, “in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day … sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god”
Julius Africanus, writing in 221 AD, and quoting a non-extant document written in 52 AD, says “Thallus … explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun – unreasonably, as it seems to me”. [this ‘darkness’ is the one mentioned in Matthew 27:45 and is “unreasonable” because, in the Jewish calendar, Passover (when Jesus was crucified) always happened on a full moon, and solar eclipses cannot happen during a full-moon].
In a somewhat more contentious document, Flavius Josephus (born 37 AD) says, “there lived Jesus … wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly … He was the Christ … On the third day, he appeared to them restored to life”. This is contentious because although Josephus was a Jew here he is seen aligning himself with Christian doctrine. However, Josephus wrote widely on many topics and it is generally considered that the passage as a whole is authentic.
These writings are over and above the manifold evidence for Jesus provided by the Christian and Jewish scriptures themselves. Interestingly one early copy of John 15:25-16:2, from the 3rd century AD, is kept locally to us in the Glasgow University Library.
There are, in fact, considerably more manuscripts of the Bible in existence, than there are of the works of Julius Caesar. You might say, then, that there is more evidence for Jesus than there is for Julius Caesar!
This can all get quite technical, but all it is really saying is that plenty of people who didn’t think he was the Son of God have verified that he actually was a real person who lived in Palestine in the 1st Century.
How Did He Live And What Does The Bible Say About Him
Here are some other interesting things about Jesus …
Jesus Lived A Life Of “Righteousness”
God attested that Jesus’ life was the “right” one by raising him from the dead into a new transformed body (see the gospels and Galatians 1:1). This is something that no-one else has ever done. Jesus and the prophets raised people from the dead back to a normal body, but outside the Judeo-Christian world, this has never been documented properly or fully attested to.
The Bible Says That Jesus Is God
This is interesting because, if you read the above, you might think that God “printed the banknotes” to pay his ransom. But the Bible teaches that “Jesus is the Word” (John 1:14), that “the Word was God” (John 1:1) and that the Word was “with God in the beginning” (John 1:2). This is mind-blowing because it means that God loves us enough to PERSONALLY die on a cross to save us! Would the God of any other religion do this?
The Christian God Is The Only God Of love!
If Jesus is God and God is love (1 John 4:16) then *Jesus is love*. This is a message that is unique to Christianity. Many say something like, “I don’t believe in the Christian God — I believe in a God of love”. To this you may ask, “where did you get the notion that there is a God of love?” The Graeco-Roman Gods looked down from their hills and zapped their poor subjects with thunder. The more modern god of Islam is a god that has strict requirements that his followers must follow to get better rewards. Hindu gods are distant and uninterested in humanity. Buddhism advises us to neutralise our minds and think about as little as possible (which understandably would numb the pain of life). Only the Christian God loves us and cares enough, to get us to admit we really have a problem, and then to pay the price for our shortcomings.
The Christian God Is the only God of love!
Jesus Died For The Forgiveness Of Our Sins
Jesus underwent all of the difficulties of human life. We mostly understand this from the gospels written about his life.
- He was born of parents who were not married. This was much more of a stigma in his time and culture than it is here and now.
- He was born into great poverty
- He was born into a society that was oppressed by the Roman empire
- He was not attractive to look at (Isaiah 53:2)
- He had to walk long distances even as a child
- He never married
- He was disowned by his best friends
- He was betrayed (sold out) for 30 pieces of silver
- He was spat on, beaten, mocked and flogged, even though he committed no crime in the eyes of God or the Roman law
- He was further humiliated and put to death in one of the most gruesome methods ever devised by man.
So, if we ever say that God doesn’t understand what we are going through, this is plainly not true. Hebrews 4:15 shows us that Jesus experienced it all.
It should be remembered that God cannot MAKE anybody love him. This is perhaps why the evidence for his existence is not more obvious or irrefutable. The evidence is strong though.
First of all, the early part of Psalm 19 shows us that the voice of creation declares his glory. For many this is enough to make us believe. Others will require the evidence from written history documenting Christ’s resurrection, and the effect it had on the early church (and the effect that the early church, in turn, had on the world).
Others will require a more scientific study: for instance, Michael Behe’s excellent treatise on the irreducible complexity in the biological world is very faith-building. In some sense that is just a more academic angle on the truth of Psalm 19. Regardless, there will always be some “way out”, for the unbeliever to placate his unbelief. It is interesting to note that many ardent atheists are not placated at all, and feel they must continue to proselytise to believers encouraging them to adopt atheism.
If the unbeliever could not be at peace with his atheism, then we would live in a world full of people who paid lip-service to the Bible, without any love for the God who created this wonderful world at all. All in all an unsatisfying and awful state. This concept is often referred to in Christian circles as “legalism”, and describes people following the laws without any love for God. Moreover, this sort of person often goads others into following the laws.
Much better to fall in love with God oneself and “discover” him with his unbounded love; even if that means we might take some wrong-turns in our lives prior to finding the right way. The parable of the lost son in Luke 15 shows God’s heart in this rather well.
So Now You Know Who He Is – What Next..?
Who is Jesus? One who wants to be loved!
And one who wants to give us salvation and eternal life.
We would love to have you join us for our next meeting of the Glasgow Church of Christ or arrange to join one of our small bible study groups.
Get in touch today to find out more…
