Since it is Easter weekend I thought I might bring up an uncomfortable question for those who are not followers of Jesus Christ: what if it is true after all? I’ve been struck reading and writing my way through the gospels, and now in John, that Jesus confronts people with unequivocally exclusive claims. There is zero beating around the bush with Jesus. When you carefully examine the claims he makes, they are stark, and mutually exclusive. With Jesus it’s pretty much either/or, my way or the highway. Yet every religion, even those who espouse no religion at all, wants a piece of Jesus. You will notice that those who do this, Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, secularists, all pick and choose what Jesus says or does to server their own ends. None of them takes the texts of the gospels in their entirety because if they did, that Jesus would blow their cover! Why does what Jesus says or does have historical authenticity or authority when it fits their purposes, and not when it doesn’t? Good rhetorical question!
I will take one claim of Jesus, and then the claim of his earliest followers derived from it, and we will see what’s on the line. Jesus says in John 14:6:
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
And Peter puts this even more starkly in Acts 4:
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
And Peter says this is true because God raised Jesus from the dead. The credibility of the claim to Jesus’ closest followers was what we celebrate this weekend, the resurrection. Nothing else but an actual, physical victory over death could have convinced monotheistic Jews of Jesus’ exclusive claims to salvation, that he, Jesus of Nazareth, was the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament.
It’s psychologically interesting that people often get mad when you bring up Jesus’ exclusive claims. As if you made it up! Read the gospels and Acts very carefully, and all the rest of the New Testament. We didn’t make it up! What puzzles me (it really doesn’t, and that’s a theological issue I’ll mention in a moment) is that you would think in the face of such a claim that people would at the very least examine if it is true, or not. That they would realize what’s on the line, eternal existence in heaven or hell, and have some kind of curiosity about the issue. Two thousand years on with Christmas and Easter celebrated all over the world every year, everyone is confronted with the exclusive claims of Christ. And especially in the age of the Internet, there is no avoiding it.
Do you ever wonder why people don’t take his claims more seriously? Psychologically and culturally there are many possible reasons. Maybe they’re afraid it’s true, and they don’t want to know because of the implications it will have for their lives. Maybe it just doesn’t seem like it could be true because of the secularization of our culture, so why bother. Maybe they’ve bought into atheist talking points that there is no evidence to back up the claims. Or maybe some people have so imbued relativist postmodern assumptions that they think Christianity can be true for one person, and not for another. Whatever the ostensible reasons, the actual reasons are deeply theological.
As a Christian of Reformed theological convictions, I believe that the answer to the question is ultimately God. Fallen, rebellious sinners do not seek God. They want nothing to do with him, by nature. They don’t care about claims or evidence; they just know they want nothing to do with this God. That is because they are dead in their sin, and his enemies. When God comes calling they, like Adam and Eve after they disobeyed, run the other way. Jesus says his sheep hear his voice and follow him; those who aren’t, don’t. This is why we should never be surprised or distressed when someone, anyone, doesn’t accept our arguments or testimony about Jesus. He came to save his people from their sin; they will take his claims seriously and confess him as Lord and Savior, as billions around the world are doing this very day. He is risen, he is risen indeed!
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