“Who is Jesus?” It’s the most important answer a person will ever give to a question.
Most of us are familiar with former atheist/Narnia author, C.S. Lewis’, famous “trilemma” recorded in his classic apologetic, Mere Christianity:
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.
It may surprise some who are not familiar with the gospel accounts that the question of “Who is Jesus?” is nothing new. In 1st century Palestine people were asking the same question people are asking today: “Who IS this guy??”
In his gospel, John records, “While some said, ‘He is a good man,’ others said, ‘No, he is leading people astray.” (7:12) Later, in 8:25, the Jews ask Jesus incredulously, “Who ARE you??” Again, in 8:48-53: “The Jews answered [Jesus and said], “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?…Who do you think you are??”
In their book, Putting Jesus in His Place, Robert Bowman & J. Ed. Komoszewski write, “Interpretations of Jesus are fraught with bias. He’s a powerful figure people want on their sides – and they’re willing to re-create him in their image to enlist his support….Frankly, it’s hard to escape the feeling that our culture has taken Jesus’ question, ‘Who do you say that I am?’, and changed it to ‘Who do you want me to be?”
Not sure who Jesus is? For one, he is a gentleman; he will not impose himself on you, but allows every human being to decide for themselves who he is.
Read Mark’s & John’s biographies (gospels) of Jesus in an easy-to-read translation. Try either the New Living Translation or the New English Translation. Both are solid. Then, check out Philip Yancey’s award-winning, The Jesus I Never Knew, Lee Strobel’s, The Case for the Real Jesus, or Josh & Sean McDowell’s short classic, More than a Carpenter. What you will find is a man so real, yet so fascinating, only God could have thought him up.
Set aside others’ opinions. Honestly investigate Christ’s claims, and see if you don’t begin to hear the Lion of Judah roar.
For Narnia, Nick