Liar, lunatic, or Lord. Those are the only options to consider when it comes to determining the truth about Christ.
Theme and Purpose
Many people will tell you that Jesus Christ was a simply good teacher—a noble moral leader, but nothing more. They’ll heap flattering laurels and accolades on Him, calling Him a religious revolutionary who changed the world with a philosophy of self-sacrifice and unconditional love. In fact, it seems almost any description of Christ is acceptable, if it’s not shaped by or based in the actual words of Scripture.
But this idea of Jesus as merely a good teacher is an incomplete story, one born out of a desire to undercut or discredit the truth of His life and ministry. It’s a concoction of platitudes meant to placate Christians so that they will direct their evangelistic efforts elsewhere. In simplest terms, it’s a lie.
C.S. Lewis described the inherent foolishness of claiming Christ as nothing more than a good teacher in his book Mere Christianity. He wrote:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone 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 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.”
Liar, lunatic, or Lord. Those are the only options to consider when it comes to determining the truth about Christ.
If the options listed are indeed the only options, then it begs a few questions:
1. Who was Jesus?
2. What did He claim?
3. Does history support His claims?
4. Which option do you choose?
With that in mind, we’re going to spend the next few months looking intently at the life and death of Christ.