Nov 5

John 8, 9, 10

Jesus is God

Excerpt from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity:
"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 anypatronising 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."

I remember clearly the first time I read John 8:48-59. In verse 58, Jesus says, "Before Abraham was born, I am." This is an incredible statement for different reasons. First, Jesus reveals that He existed long before Abraham, thousands of years before, even though He was a man of about 30 years. Second, He is making a comparison to one of the names of God. In Exodus 3, Moses asks God "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God's response is "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" Jesus is declaring one of the names of God as His own. I AM is not only God the Father, but also God the Son. The Jews who heard Him say this were very familiar with this same passage in Exodus and knew exactly what Jesus was claiming. Unfortunately they had the wrong response. They believed he was a liar that should be stoned to death.

It is impossible to say that Jesus was just a good, moral teacher. It's undeniable that Jesus put Himself equal with God. If someone does not believe that claim, why should they believe anything else Jesus says? That would make Him either a liar or a lunatic. Since we know and believe that He is neither liar or lunatic, the only thing left is to worship and serve Him as God and Creator of the universe and master of our lives.