19.10.06
Why I am a Christian (3): The Life of Jesus
Read: John 14:1-14
One of my favourite sayings is ‘the best of men are men at best’. It is true that those we idolise, those in positions of power and respect whether in sport, government or the church, whilst they may be great men and women, are all too fallible. Ben, contestant in TV’s X-Factor admitted this week his addiction to cocaine. John Prescott was exposed as an adulterer. The best of men are men at best – even in us, we know that there are flaws, things we do well to hide, but if they came out into the open it would cause a scandal. Over and above the best of men stands one who is unique – one whose words combined so perfectly with his works that He was a one-of-a-kind – the best of all men but without the flaws which mark us off as human beings. Someone whose dignity, nobility and glory; someone whose love, compassion and mercy were so pure as to make Him the centre-piece of all human history – someone whose personality and character has so enraptured millions of people as to draw them to Him in a way we aren’t to anyone else. Of course, I speak of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is He, and His life, which constitutes the third reason why I am a Christian today.
The first reason I am a Christian was because I live in God’s World; the second because I am a reader of God’s Word. And this third reason is that I am an admirer of Christ’s life. Now before we go on to itemise those features of His life which draw forth our admiration, I want to notice that the primary information for all we know about Jesus is to be found in 4 biographies – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These men all knew Jesus intimately, or in the case of Luke, wrote his biography of Jesus based on the information provided to him by eyewitnesses and friends. We can, of course, accuse these 4 men of being biased and making up these stories about Jesus, but then we have to remember that there is no such thing as unbiased history and that furthermore the life of Jesus as set forth in the Bible is eminently logical, accounting as it does for the extra-Biblical evidence we possess regarding His miracles and speeches, and accounting for the growth of the Christian Church. In fact, most Bible commentators have given up trying to disprove the truth of the 4 Gospels and now spend their time trying to piece together the Jesus these 4 fascinating biographies present to us.
Well, having said those things, I want to suggest to you that the Jesus we find in the Gospels is absolutely unique, and if true, and as I have said the burden of proof lies upon those who don’t believe the Gospels to prove their case, He is worthy of the worship of every man and woman who has ever lived. I want to propose to you today that there are 5 elements of the life of Jesus which are utterly unique and show that He, whilst the best of the best of men, is more than just a man, and that furthermore He is worthy of the worship of your lives:
[A] Jesus as the Messiah of God
Just as Aldous Huxley predicted, through fertility and eugenic science, we now live in a world where you can choose to have the kind of baby you want, when you want. But what if you said, “in 3,000 years a baby will be born in this place, in these particular circumstances; will grow up to do amazingly specified things and will die in this particular circumstance on a particular hill“. That will never be possible through any human science. But, one thing which amazes me about Jesus is that His birth, His life, His death and His resurrection, are all described in the Old Testament in detail hundreds of years before He ever came to be. The descriptions of Jesus in the Old Testament are spooky in their accuracy - it is almost like they have been written by someone standing next to Jesus.
One example amongst many is the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the Birth of Jesus. In Isaiah 7:14 the prophet writes, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel“. And then, in Matthew 1:18 we read that “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” The virgin birth of Jesus was prophecied over 700 years before it happened. Again, in Micah 5:2 we read, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come one for me, one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” And then in Matthew 2:1 we read, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea.” These are only two of the hundreds of prophecies regarding the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus recorded in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the 4 Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Clearly, there is something very special about this man that every feature of His life could have been so perfectly predicted 700 years before He came.
But it’s what the Old Testament predicted Him to be that is the important thing - He was called the Messiah in the Old Testament - literally the anointed One; or to pull it into the New Testament, the Christ. Scholars have debated what this word ‘Christ’ or ‘Messiah’ actually mean, but the best explanation I have found proposes that these are just other words for ‘King’. To call Jesus, Jesus Christ, is to call Him King Jesus. To call Jesus the Messiah is simply to call Him the King whom God has sent. What I am saying in this point is that when you draw together all the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the coming of the Messiah, a coming which had been predicted from at least 4,000 BC, you find them all fulfilled in the man we read about in the 4 Gospels. Jesus was not the product of a moment’s decision; but the fulfilment of thousands of years of planning. Go back three thousand years and you are back in the years of Tutankhamen - the pyramids had just been built and the wolf roamed Scotland - just imagine that back then, detailed prophecies were made about you - such a thing is unimaginable - but it was true of Jesus. Of no other person who has ever lived can these things be said other than Jesus - in this respect you must agree that He is absolutely unique.
[B] Jesus as the Son of God
The point I want to make here is similar to my last point. It really refers to two incidences in the life of Jesus - one at His baptism and the other at His transfiguration. On both occasions, Jesus, and others hear a voice coming from heaven - they hear the voice of God. In the first, in Matthew 2:17 we hear God saying to Jesus, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” The second, in Matthew 17:5 God says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” Now I know that many people claim to have heard God speaking to them - psychos sometimes use the ‘God told me to do it’ argument. But I don’t know of anyone over whom God speaks - that is to say, whilst Jesus heard the voice which spoke about Himself, others did too - John the Baptist, Peter, James and John heard God speaking to them about Jesus. They heard the voice of God Himself telling them about Jesus - telling them that Jesus is His Son, the One He loves, the One in whom He takes pleasure. Of no one else, and of nothing else, does God ever say such words.
The greatest footballers let their feet do the talking for them; the greatest speakers let their tongues do the talking for them - but who is the only man of whom it can be said that God did the talking for Him? That God proved who He was and told of His greatness and glory? Not Wayne Rooney, not Tony Blair, not Brad Pitt, not Julius Caesar - only Jesus - Him and Him alone. In this respect also, you must agree with me that there has never been anyone and there never will be anyone like Him - He is spoken of and glorified by God - shouldn’t you then, if you would be wise, speak of Him in the same way?
[C] Jesus as the Word of God
We now move on to describe not the way other people spoke about Jesus, but the way Jesus Himself spoke. And indeed, isn’t it true that we can say of Jesus, just as was said of him by others, “surely no man ever spoke like this”. Now what we don’t have in the Bible are physical descriptions of Jesus – and therefore we don’t know how He spoke – with what accent, with what body language or physical gestures – but we are given the most important element of His speaking – what He said. Now we could go on and fill all the books in the world with what Jesus said, but to try and summarise it, the primary thing that you can say about Jesus is that He had amazing insight and understanding; and this in two directions:
First, He had amazing insight into God Himself. Bear in mind that Jesus lived in a society which thought they knew God – they had the Old Testament Scriptures and the gathered wisdom of the Rabbis; they had the stories of the Patriarchs and the tombs of the great Kings – and yet, when it came to their understanding and insight into who God is, they were deeply mistaken. But Jesus was altogether different – there was something about His understanding of God and His Word which was of a completely different order from that of the Pharisees – their understanding was robotic and human, His understanding and teaching was insightful and divine. I’ll give you a couple of examples:
First, consider the understanding He had about the Law of God – those things which were reflections of the will and nature of God. Jesus, more than any other man, understood and taught what these laws truly were – in the Sermon on the Mount, He continually says, ‘you have heard it was said’ – a reference to the plain words of the Old Testament and their interpretation by the Rabbis; however Jesus would then go on to say, ‘but I tell you’ – and that not to say that Jesus was arguing with what the Old Testament was saying, rather Jesus was interpreting the Law in the way God meant it to be understood – not merely as a matter of external formalities, but a matter of heart obedience to God.
Second, consider the understanding Jesus had about His own relationship with God. Remember, this is God’s Son –the man who did not turn away the worship of His disciples even though according to the first commandment it was wrong for a man to worship anyone other than God. Remember the things Jesus said about Himself – ‘I and the Father are One’; ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ where here He uses the very name of God, ‘I am’ to talk about Himself. The Pharisees and religious teachers of His day knew fine what Jesus was claiming to be – ‘who can forgive sins but God alone’ they asked. No Jew, no Gentile has ever made such serious and sober claims about His own relationship to God – and at base, what Jesus was saying was that He, in fact, is God Himself.
So, Jesus had a unique insight into God and into His relationship with Him. But secondly, Jesus had a unique insight into humanity and our needs. His words speak into the pain and frustration of day to day living; His words echo the big questions we all ask – ‘who is God?’, ‘how do I find God?’, ‘what is the meaning of my life?’ Jesus also peeled away the layers of hypocrisy and revealed the rotten underbelly of human life – He talked about sin and guilt, rebellion and shame – the man who alone was able to see beyond the skin and into the human soul. And furthermore, Jesus taught not only about human life, but also about human death. He personally knew the pain of death and loss, but taught that beyond death lay an eternity – an eternity which could be spent either in paradise or in hell. Do you know that Jesus speaks more of hell than any other person in the whole Bible – and He does so because He wants to alert us to its existence so that we may avoid going there; He talks about a place of consuming fire and of gnashing teeth – a place of eternal pain and punishment; but He talks of heaven as a place of eternal comfort and peace. Never did a man teach the way He taught, with the passion He taught and the tears of a man pleading with His fellow men to make every effort to avoid Hell and to eagerly desire Heaven. And He taught that the way to heaven lay not through good works, which is what the Pharisees and the Rabbis taught, but through believing and trusting in Him. What a preposterous thing to say – that ‘he who believes in me shall never die’! Did ever a man teach these things – have you ever heard anyone say to you that your eternal destiny depends upon whether you trust in him or not? No – but Jesus did. And so you would have to say, on the basis of all Jesus said, and I’m just skimming the very surface, that there has never been anyone who spoke like this man – in this sense He is utterly unique.
[D] Jesus as the Work of God
The question here is was Jesus all talk? Many’s a preacher will say, do as I say, but not as I do – but what about Jesus – did His life back up His words? As you look at the evidence of the New Testament you have to conclude that they do. In particular, I refer to His miracles. The Gospels are packed full of the miraculous works of Jesus. These can be classified into 4 distinct types:
a. Healings – think of how many people Jesus healed – from the deaf to the mute, from the lame to the blind. No NHS, just God’s power healing needy people. Here was a man with power over every human illness and disease.
b. Nature Miracles – these are examples of Jesus’ power of the natural world – miracles like the feeding of the five thousand when Jesus, with just two fish and five loaves of bread fed five thousand people; or like Jesus walking on the water; or like Jesus calming the storm. No illusion, no magic, just God’s power working through this man to control the natural world.
c. New Life – three times in the Gospels Jesus brings someone back to life – a little girl of 12, the son of a widow, and one of Jesus’ friends, a man called Lazarus. In Jesus, we have a man who has power over humanity’s greatest enemy – death itself. When was the last time you spoke to someone who had been dead for 3 days and was brought back to life by the power of the voice of God?
d. Exorcisms – 6 times in the Gospels Jesus exorcises demons from demon-possessed individuals. People like Legion – a man who had been turned into a monster was freed from the devil’s possession. In Jesus we have a man who has power over the devil.
I know that I’m flying through His life and perhaps you are struggling to keep up – but that’s fine, because I’m not so interested that you catch everything I say; rather that you realise that in Jesus Christ you have a completely unique life – someone who is altogether different – someone whose life makes you sit up and take notice because here you have someone whose words are divine and whose works are divine. You may distrust someone’s words – they mean so little nowadays, but listen to what Jesus says in John 14:11 – “believe me when I say … or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” Are you willing to believe that Jesus is special – that He’s different – that whilst He is the best of men, He’s not just a mere man with the same flaws we have? All the evidence and logic point in that direction – so what will your response be?
[E] Jesus as the Perfection of God
It may be possible for a man to be a brilliant speaker – it may even, by some freak of imagination, be possible for a man to be a miracle worker – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that He’s a good man. He could be the world’s greatest ever deceiver and hypocrite – and so we must ask the question, does His life square up to His Words and His miraculous deeds? And I think that by any measure you would have to say it does. Whereas you read of His disciples wart’s and all, denying Him, saying stupid things – you never read of Jesus falling short. There was nothing He did which He should not have done; there was nothing He didn’t do which He should have done – the way He felt toward people and the way He acted towards them were characterised by love and peace. Can that be said of the heroes of the other religions – that their life was marked by love and peace? But it can be said of Jesus. This is a genuine account of a genuinely perfect man. No skeletons in His cupboard – completely pure and loving – and in this case, too good not to be true. He’s everything we’re not – He’s generous and we’re selfish; He’s merciful and we’re judgmental; He’s loving and we’re suspicious – and as try as I might in my pre-Christian days, I could never really be like Jesus because I always got in the way. But, and I know that even now I’m stealing a bit of next weeks thunder, this perfect man Jesus died upon a cruel cross – He died a death He didn’t deserve; He died the death I deserved and because of what He did there, because of His offering of His pure and unspotted life to God as a righteous sacrifice on my behalf, my sins have been forgiven and I can, albeit imperfectly still, strive to be like Him. But you know I don’t do it alone – for He is with me – yes Jesus Himself raised from the dead – this best of men raised and exalted beyond the heavens is with all His people still speaking and working and giving us the ability to speak and work for Him too.
I want to close by repeating one of the most famous quotes in Christian literature – it was written by the great C.S. Lewis himself and is often called the MBG argument – the Jesus, Mad, Bad or God argument. Listen to it and bow down before the Jesus Lewis is talking about. “I am trying 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 heis 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 patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to….We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.” And that’s why I am a Christian and you should become one too. AMEN