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Jesus Christ
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Jesus
made amazing claims .... it's difficult to read the Bible without being
struck by the scope of how Jesus describes himself ... including ...
Its hard to avoid the conclusion that Jesus could only be wrong or right in these astounding claims.
As C.S. Lewis pointed out, I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: Im ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I dont accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who 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. 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. - Mere Christianity
- "I am the way, the truth and the life" - John 14:6
- "I am the door" (to eternal life) - John 10:9
- "I am the good shepherd"- John 10:11
- "I am the light of the world" - John 8:12
- "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven. - Mark 14:58
- "the Father ... has entrusted all judgement to the Son" - John 5:22
Jesus claimed actions which are God's alone...including...
- "as the Father raises the dead...even so the Son gives life" - John 5:21
- "I am the resurrection and the life." - John 11:25 (cf. John 8:51)
- "Before Abraham was, I am." - John 8:58
- Sinlessness - John 8:46
- Eternity - Matthew 28:20
- forgiving sin - Mark 2:5-7
- raising the dead - John 11:43
- directing final judgement - John 5:27-30
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Its hard to avoid the conclusion that Jesus could only be wrong or right in these astounding claims.
As C.S. Lewis pointed out, I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: Im ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I dont accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who 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. 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. - Mere Christianity
