WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?

LUKE 9:18–21

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God”

(Luke 9:20).

Luke tells us that one day Jesus asked His disciples what the crowds were saying about Him. “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life,” they replied (v. 19). Then Jesus asked them what they thought. Speaking for them all, Peter replied that they believed He was the Messiah, the Son of God (compare Matthew 16:16).

Questions about Jesus’ identity have been raised repeatedly in the church. The great councils of the early church met to discuss this issue and to reassert biblical truth, but the problem is still with us. We have been looking briefly at the school of thought called “liberalism.” Liberalism denies all miracles, and also denies that Jesus was God Incarnate. The liberals try to hold on to Jesus as a “great ethical teacher,” and the church as the social institution through which His teachings are put into practice.

Then, in the twentieth century arose the philosophy of existentialism. The existentialists also deny that Jesus was God, and they present Jesus as the great model of “existential man,” the man who rejects all pressures of society. In the 1960s and 70s, Marxist revolution was in the air, and Jesus was recast in book after book as the “great revolutionary hero.”

There is a vast difference between the Jesus of fact and the Jesus of human opinion. We need to be careful not to let our human biases tell us who Jesus is. All around us are people who want to be known as Christians, but reject the biblical testimony of Jesus of Nazareth. If they were honest they would say, “I just don’t believe this, so I’m not a Christian.” Instead they say, “I don’t believe it, and I want to remake the Christian faith to fit my own ideas.”

It does not matter what the crowd says. The real question is: What do the disciples say? They must say: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Only such men will hear Jesus say, “Blessed are you” (Matthew 16:17).

CORAM DEO

2 Kings 20–22

John 6:52–71

WEEKEND

2 Kings 23–1 Chronicles 2

John 7

Ideas do have consequences; false ideas have become doctrines preached from pulpits, and entire denominations have abandoned the biblical faith. Encourage your pastor this week. Tell him in a supportive way that you want to hear Christ’s blessing pronounced upon his preaching.

For further study: 1 John 2:18–27; 4:1–6

WEEKEND