Who Do You Say I Am?

This past Sunday we continued our Questions GOD Asks Us message series. If you missed it, you can watch the message online by clicking here. This week we pondered the question Jesus asked the disciples at Caesarea Philippi: “Who do you say I am?” This question and Peter’s answer is the turning point of the gospel narrative. Leading up to the question, there is a palpable momentum building in Jesus’ ministry. But right after Peter’s answer to the question, Jesus tells the disciples about his pending death and then he turns his face to Jerusalem. You can read about the account in Mark 8.27-38.

The question Jesus asked – Who do you say I am? – forces us to make a decision about him. This is where we find a dilemma. Do we believe what Jesus said about his identity, namely that he is the Son of GOD? That is something that really causes people to struggle. There is no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth is the most famous person who has ever lived. There is no doubt that the stories he told and the teaching about relationships with GOD and others are some of the most pivotal in all of human history. There is also no doubt that Jesus died by execution on a Roman cross. Virtually anyone can accept that Jesus lived and was a great moral teacher, but some just cannot go as far as to call Jesus the Son of God. The only problem is Jesus did not give us the wiggle room to accept some of the things he said without accepting them all.

Christian writer, CS Lewis said that this scenario actually creates not just a dilemma for us, but a trilemma. When Jesus told the disciples who he was – the Son of GOD who came to be the atonement for sin – he was removing the flexibility that we might want to be able to say that he is anything less, namely a prophet or a good moral teacher. It is his declaration that he is the Son of GOD that must be our decision point…is he or is isn’t he? So in seeking to answer that question, we must decide if he is (A) Lord and exactly who he said he was; (B) a liar who was intentionally trying to deceive people; or (C) a lunatic who thought he was GOD and did not know any better.

Let’s quickly consider those three in light of an episode that took place in Mark 3.20-26:  ^"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, 'He is out of his mind.' And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, 'He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.' So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: 'How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.'”

Jesus’ own family thought he was nuts. The religious elite thought he was an agent of the devil. Yet Jesus goes on to talk about the one thing that only GOD can do – forgive sin. Lord, liar, or lunatic?

  

In his book, Mere Christianity, CS Lewis wrote these words about his trilemma as it pertains to Jesus’ identity: "I am trying to prevent anyone saying 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.... 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.”

So who is Jesus? Is he a madman along the lines of someone who considers himself a poached egg? Is he a liar using the tools of Satan to pull people away from GOD? Or is he the Son of GOD who came to save us from our sin?

Lord, liar, or lunatic…who do YOU say Jesus is?