In Mark 8:29 Jesus asks “Who do you say that I am?” This is the most important question of your life. Not only will your answer affect your entire life now, but it will affect your eternal destiny as well. The New Testament makes it clear, over and over again, that everything depends on believing in Jesus.
Mark 6:16 — Whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved.
John 20:31 — But this is written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Acts 16:31 — Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.
I Thess. 4:4– We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
I John 5:5 — Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
John 11:25– Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live.”
John 3:16– “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
I John 5:13 — I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
There are many more. If you believe at all in the truth of the Bible, you cannot miss this message: believe in Jesus and you will be saved.
I Peter 3:15 says, “In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. And always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” In the next four meditations I want to give you an overview of the reasons I believe in the reliability of the New Testament and in Jesus as the way and the truth and the giver of eternal life.
The Bible, and religion in general, can lead us down a rabbit hole into question after question, one thing leading to another, setting us on an endless quest which never ends, making it impossible to ever make a decision. There are just too many questions and not enough answers.
However, all of the many Biblical, philosophical, and religious questions swirling around this issue can actually be set aside for a while. At the center of it all there is one primary question, and if that one main question is answered, then many other things will fall into place, and many other answers will become clear. The main question is that question of Jesus in Mark 8:29: “Who do you say that I am?” If Jesus was who he said he was, the Son of God and Savior of the world, then all the other questions will find their answer in him. We may not know yet what the answers are to all those other questions, but if Jesus was who he said he was, there is an answer somewhere.
Let us focus, then, on that main question: Was Jesus God himself, visiting his creation? Jesus said he was God. He said he was stronger even than death. The Bible says he was there at the creation of the world. If that is who he was, then that settles it, even if we can’t figure out yet how the dinosaurs fit into the first two chapters of Genesis.
No serious historian questions whether or not there was, at least at one time, a real, live, Jesus of Nazareth. The key to knowing if Jesus was more than a mere man is the resurrection. If Jesus did rise from the dead and still lives, that would confirm that he is who he said he is. That would be unique in human history. No one else has ever managed to do that. Can you think of anyone else who has come back from the dead?
Romans 10:9 says, “If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, and confess with your lips that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” But if there is no resurrection from the dead, then, as Paul himself said in I Corinthians 15:19, we Christians are to be pitied more than anyone else. Did Jesus rise from the dead, or is that an invented story?
Who was, or, who is Jesus? Even how you ask the question begins to say a bit about what you believe. Do you ask ‘Who WAS Jesus, that man who lived so long ago and is now dead?’ Or, do you ask ‘Who IS Jesus, risen from the dead, alive and seated at the right hand of the God the Father Almighty?’ If he WAS just a man, then he is not worth bothering with unless you have a historical interest in ancient Near East religious figures. If Jesus IS still alive, then we all better pay close attention to everything he says.
Who is Jesus? There are four possibilities, each beginning with the letter ‘L’. The four L’s is a helpful tool that was described in a book by C. S. Lewis; but the facts behind this line of reasoning have been known from the beginning. Let’s look at one ‘L’ at a time.
Let’s first imagine what it would have been like to be around Jesus when he was here on earth. Putting it in today’s context, let’s say you are at the Minnesota State Fair. You are walking down one of the busy streets and a man comes up to you and says, “I am the Son of God, Savior of the world; follow me and I can help you.” What would you do? Would you say, “That is wonderful God; I have always wondered if you really existed,” drop everything, and follow him? Probably not. Would you even want to engage him in a conversation, or, would you want to try and get away from him? You would want to get away. Why? Because who talks like that? Only a crazy person, and you would not want to have anything to do with him.
Do you know people said the same about Jesus when they first saw him? John 10:20 describes this reaction to Jesus: “Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”
If someone says they are God, they are considered a LUNATIC; our first ‘L’ word. (continued…)
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