Explore God Week 5 - Why Believe Jesus is God?
October 22, 2023
- What percentage of Americans believe in a historical Jesus according to a Barna study?
Evidence for Historical Jesus
The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius both wrote about Jesus.
Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise
man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he
was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of
such men as receive the truth with pleasure.
He drew over to him both many of the Jews,
and many of the Gentiles. —The Jewish Historian Josephus, born in 37AD
The evidence in the New Testament is rock solid.
But have you, or someone you know ever had this question?
‘The New Testament was written a long time ago. How do we know that what they wrote down has not been changed over the years?’
Through the science of textual criticism we do know that the New Testament is indeed accurate.
Recommended Reading
The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
Have you ever heard this theory, That Jesus wasn’t God but just a great moral teacher?
What did Jesus say about himself?
1) The Teachings of Jesus centered on himself
Most religious leaders point away from themselves and to God. Jesus, in pointing people to God, pointed to himself.
People are hungry for significance, for meaning for purpose ’ Jesus said,
I am the bread of life —John 6:35
In other words, ‘If you want your hunger satisfied, come to me.’
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. —John 14:6
It is through a relationship with Jesus that we encounter God.
Addiction is a major problem in our society. Speaking about himself, Jesus said,
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed —John 8:36
Many people are burdened by worry, anxiety, fear and guilt. Jesus said,
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest —Matthew 11:28
2) Jesus forgives sins
Son, your sins are forgiven —Mark 2:5
3) Jesus said he would judge the world
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. —Matthew 25:31-32
4) When people called Jesus “My Lord and my God” he didn’t correct them
My Lord and my God —John 20:28
5) When asked diretly if he was the Christ, he ansered “I Am”
Are you the Christ, the Son of
the Blessed One?’, he replied ‘I am’ —Mark 14:61-64‘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 insane or else he would be ‘the devil of Hell’. ‘You must make your choice,’ he writes. Either Jesus was, and is, the Son of God or else he was insane or evil but, C. S. Lewis goes on, ‘let us not come up 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
What evidence is there to support what he said?
1) His Teachings
. The Sermon on the Mount contains some supremely challenging and radical teaching: ‘love your enemies’ (Matthew 5:44)
2) His works
Jesus said that the miracles he performed were in themselves evidence that ‘the Father is in me, and I in the Father’ (John 10:38).
3) His Character
Time magazine said this: ‘Jesus, the most persistent symbol of purity, selflessness and love in the history of Western humanity
4) His Fufillment of Old Testament Prophecy
Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies (spoken by different voices over 500 years
5) His resurrection
The physical resurrection from the dead of Jesus
Christ is the cornerstone of Christianity.
6) The Church
Beginning from a handful of uneducated fishermen and tax gatherers, swept across the whole known world in the next three hundred years. It is a perfectly amazing story of peaceful revolution that has no parallel in the history of the world.
7) Christian experience