I was listening to this short video of Khaldoun Sweis on the philosophical issues of truth, a great primer on some introductory epistemological issues well worth Christians thinking about. He makes the statement all Christians are familiar with, that Jesus claimed to be “The Truth.” The full statement in John 14:6 was Jesus’ reply to Thomas (that one given to doubt) when he told the disciples that they knew the way to the place where he was going. Thomas said they had no idea where Jesus was going, so how could they know the way. Jesus replied, ” “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Given that I’m sort of obsessed with defending the truth of Christianity, the first thought that struck me was, What kind of person says something like that! No one in all of recorded history has said anything like that, or many other things Jesus was recorded as saying. Unless they were stark raving mad. Jesus of Nazareth most certainly was not.
This compels us to wrestle with the classical, and I would contend unassailable, argument for Jesus’ divinity: he was either the Lord, a lunatic, or a liar. This argument was made famous by C.S. Lewis, but it’s been around for a long time. If you go through the gospels carefully and look at what Jesus claimed to have said you realize this man was a man unlike any who ever lived, before or since. You will also realize that what critics have insisted for hundreds of years, that Jesus was pretty much a made-up Jesus, would have been impossible. What Jesus said was so outlandish, so bizarre, so strange, so unexpected, so contrary to everything the Jews of his day believed, that it takes far more faith, might we say a very large leap of faith, to believe they just made it all up. He was a man who spoke and lived contrary to every expectation of what the Jewish Messiah was supposed to be. How exactly would the gospel writers make up what they could not conceive? Yet critics claim, of course they could and would, no big deal! Not so fast.
Whenever we are confronted with any truth claim of Christianity, if it is in fact not true, then some alternative has to be. That’s why Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am,” is so critical. Since the so-called Enlightenment, skeptics, critics, and liberals have rejected Jesus the divine Messiah, Savior of the world, but have claimed Jesus was still some kind of prophet or wise man, or a great moral teacher. The problem is that Jesus hasn’t left us that option. Great moral teachers or prophets or wise men don’t say they are truth. So if Jesus is not exactly who he claimed to be, then because of the nature of those claims he must be a total wack job, or a wicked, evil liar. Why accept the moral teaching of Jesus if he in fact wasn’t moral, nor were his followers who if he didn’t say the things he’s claimed to have said, they made it up. They too then are liars. The only honest choice we have is to accept it all, or reject it all. Cherry picking isn’t an option. I would argue it is far easier to believe that Jesus is exactly who he said he was, in Thomas’ words, Lord and God, than the alternatives, lunatic or liar.
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