Please read and answer the question at the end:
"Here's the real shock: Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. What this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips."
One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money?
Update:Christ says that He is "humble and meek" and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.
I am trying here to prevent anyone from 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 a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
Update 3: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." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
So what do you think? Was Jesus Lord, Liar or Lunatic?
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
Your essay with it's arguements is wonderful.
Here, you logically explained and provoked the reader to T H I N K, yet....
You still get those of whom the message just sweeps over their heads - what can you do? Nothing. Because God's Holy Spirit handles things from here. You plant the "seed" and God takes it from there. We all have free will to accept or reject God's Truth and Message. The penalty of rejection is known by all who follow Christ; it is a bad choice, but there are those who truly do not value even their own soul. (of which I can not imagine; the human soul being the most precious gift from God!).
Keep plugging away - sending out God's message! Some of the words you offer will adhere on a person's soul; some will slip off and fade away. Do not hold yourself responsible for another's choice. We pray for all to come to know Christ; and if we not be the vessel to pass this Truth, then we pray that God sends someone else to witness to the lost soul. Prayer is a powerful tool. God listens; God cares; God is love.
"Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have confessed so well before many witnesses"
Many great people were seen as Lunatics, Liars and many really heinous people have been revered as divine or at least close to divine.
If you want my honest opinion, I don't think it's so much important as to who he was as it is what he did. In short he was a great leader who taught peaceful opposition against dogmatics and bureaucrats and encouraged unity/coexistence between people. I am a spiritualist without any religious affiliations and theorize that Jesus may have had a "spiritual awareness" of some sort that guided and or inspired him.
IF JESUS WAS A FABLE PROPPED UP BY APOSTLES WOULD THEY HAVE LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR THAT FRAUD.
Is it possible that for nearly 40 years the disciples consistently told the same lie and error. It is nearly impossible for a single individual to tell a lie consistently for 40 years! Leave alone 12-500 people consistently for 40 years!
Ask Chuck Colson, implicated in the Watergate scandal, he will tell how it is impossible for 12 most powerful people of USA to stick on to a lie for even 3 weeks.
Even Bibvle says there is no mystery that will not be revealed.
FORGIVENESS OF SIN
Bible says Jesus was God "manifested" in flesh. I think that settles your issue with Jesus forgiving sins.
(You commit a sin, take a goat/sheep to a priest, he kill it and sacrifice it, how your sins will be gone? In fact, by your logic, you become party to another killing!)
JESUS IS REMEMBERED 1900+ YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.
All those who make funny remarks about Him, will they be remembered 100 years after they are gone?
Jesus Loves You, So do I
tomsan
what makes you think he even existed? maybe jesus was just something made up by the "Apostles" to explain their crazy twist on religion. maybe the bible is completely fictional, that would mean anything done because of it would be completly bull, thus rendering all the different justifications man has used in the past as bull as well, meaning man is just a vicious creature.
"yet how approximately this: ought to Jesus be a smart ethical instructor who believed interior the philosophy of utilitarianism?" properly, could you think approximately a individual working around claiming to be God a "sensible" individual? except they even have been God, i could call them loopy or deluded. And Jesus does no longer have been a utilitarian with reference to sin like mendacity. in case you look on the Gospels, he became particularly strict and absolute on the undertaking of sin. ------------------------------------- "yet He became no longer a deontologist, became He?" specific! Like I reported, He became very absolute with reference to sin. Judaism is amazingly strict with reference to the commandments being from God and being observed to each jot and tittle. there is not any part of Consequentalism interior the moral teachings of Christ. ----------------------------------- "He could enable us to lie so as shop an harmless toddler's existence?" What? No. A Deontologist could say mendacity is incorrect regardless. A CONSEQUENTALIST could enable you to misinform shop a toddler's existence, no longer a Deontologist.
shame on you...do not speak of others in bad way if you really know nothing about them...if the bible says wrong things about him, then go and search about him in correct sources...
My beloved Jesus is a prophet peace be upon him who was calling people to worship Allah,the Creator of the whole creation and universe, and he has never been crucified..
he never claimed that he is son of God or lord, he never asked people to worship him...
May Allah guide you all...
LORD. And the past tense does not apply here. The present tense does.
YESHUA was, is, and will always be. one either believes or doesn't. i don't call Buddha a lunatic, nor Mohammed. so
why do you call my SAVIOR that? don't degrade others
HOLY ones. it is very rude. and one Never knows who
maybe right. that Is Why i worship HIM everybody hates
the truth.
None of the above. What was written about him was incorrect. Jesus was a great moral teacher; but the son of God, he was not.
Lord!