The Divinity of Christ

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The Divinity of Christ

• He claims to be sinless
• He claimed to forgive sins--all sins, against
  everyone
• Jesus claimed to save us from sin and death
• He came from heaven
• He will return and judge everyone
• He gave us his flesh to eat and said it would
  give us eternal life
• He changed peoples names
• He performed miracles and rose from the dead
• He claimed the name YHWH and invited crucifixion

• Jesus calls himself the Son of God
• That is, of the same nature, species and essence
  as his Father God
• Jn 1030, Jn 149

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• Jesus divinity is proclaimed within the first
  generation of his death with no evidence of
  opposition.
• The claim of Jesus to be God makes sense of his
  trial and crucifixion.
• The Jewish sensitivity to blasphemy was unique
  historically no other culture would insist on
  death for claiming divinity.

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The Divinity of ChristThe Importance of the Issue

• The Divinity of Christ is the most distinctive
  Christian doctrine
• The essential difference between orthodox
  Christianity and modernist Christianity is God in
  the flesh
• The doctrine is a skeleton key to the rest of
  Christian Doctrine

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• If Christ is divine the incarnation becomes the
  most important event in human history
• If God becomes human in Christ and is at the same
  time omnipotent then he can truly be present
  right now,
• can transform us now
• If Christ is divine he has a right to our entire
  lives, including our thoughts and inner lives.
• We are obligated to believe the creator.

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The Divinity of ChristThe Difficulty of the
DoctrineThe immediate, instinctive, intuitive
shockNo one understandsOn the reflective
rational level the claim seems absurd

• Humans by essence are temporal, finite, fallible
  and mortal

• God by essence is eternal, infinite, infallible
  and immortal

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The Divinity of ChristOur Argument for the Truth

• FIRST
• Six clues to the possibility of God becoming man
• SECOND
• Demonstrate that this actually occurred in Jesus

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The Divinity of ChristClue to the possibility

• Incarnation
• myth become fact.
• C. S. Lewis
• The more witnesses tell a similar story,
• the more likely it is that it is true.
• The more foreshadowing
• the more likely the event will occur

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The Divinity of ChristClue to the possibility

• The Cameo Appearance
• As with an author
• inserting himself into his own play
• can not God
• place himself within creation.

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The Divinity of ChristClue to the possibility

• A universally negative proposition is the most
  difficult to disprove
• Who says God can not do it?

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The Divinity of ChristClue to the possibility

• Omnipotence implies the possibility of the
  incarnation
• If evolution is possible and
• metamorphosis is possible
• it is then possible for a human being to be
  transformed,
• that is taken up into God.
• God then can transform himself into a lesser form

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The Divinity of ChristClue to the possibility

• We ourselves have two opposite natures, matter
  and spirit,
• this exemplifies the possibility
• but is not an analogy
• God is not like us!
• We are in the image and likeness of God

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Arguments for Christs DivinityChrists
Trustworthiness

• Points of agreement concerning Christ
• a good and wise man
• a great and profound teacher
• historys greatest moral teacher
• highly respected
• eminently trustworthy
• To be worthy of trust a man must know himself
• Christ claims to be God
• If Christ is not God he is not trustworthy
• Yet we unanimously trust Christ

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Arguments for Christs Divinity Christs
Trustworthiness

• If we know the humanity and trustworthiness of
  Jesus
• better than we know what is possible for God to
  do,
• it is reasonable for us to believe Jesus
• and change our theological expectations based on
  that knowledge.

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The Impossibility of the AlternativeJesus
claimed to be GodMyth, fairy tale, fantasy or lie

• Who invented the lie and for what reason because
  a liar always has selfish motives?
• Why did the lies originators suffer torture and
  death for the lie?
• How can a lie have so transformed the world with
  moral fortitude, peace and joy?
• Who were the naïve fools who first believed this
  hallucination or myth since the idea would be
  absurd to a Jew?
• Why would Jews believe gentiles since 25 of the
  27 books in New Testament were written by Jews?
• How could a myth come into existence within the
  lifetime of eye witnesses who could refute the
  facts?
• Why does the myth continue to attract the
  brightest minds in history?

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• Aquinas
• If the incarnation did not happen,
• then an even more unbelievable miracle happened
• the conversion of the world by the biggest lie in
  history and
• the moral transformation of lives into unselfish,
  detachment from worldly pleasures and radically
  new heights of holiness by mere myth.

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The Main ArgumentWhat Jesus was not

• Jesus was either
• Lord,
• liar, lunatic, guru or myth
• He could not possibly be
• a liar, lunatic, guru or myth
• Therefore
• Jesus is Lord

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Jesus was either God (if he tells the truth) or
a bad man (if he lies)

• But Jesus was not a bad man
• Therefore Jesus is God
• Everyone agrees with little or no controversy
  with the second premise.
• Someone who claims to be God and is not can not
  also be a good man.
• By claiming that he is God Jesus eliminates the
  possibility of him being considered merely a good
  man
• If we agree that he is good he must by nature be
  truthful.

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If Jesus is neither God nor a liarthen he must
be a lunatic

• He believed he was,
• what in fact,
• he was not
• Not morally bad
• not a deliberate deceiver
• rather mentally bad by falling into
  self-deception
• In this case he is still no more trustworthy than
  a liar

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Jesus CharacterWise and Good

• Jesus Possesses
• The essential human virtues both needed and
  desired by all
• Wisdom Love Creativity
• He wisely and cannily saw into peoples hearts
• He solved unsolvable problems
• He gave totally to others including his very life
• Most creative, interesting, unpredictable man who
  ever lived
• The most common verb used by those who met Jesus
  was thaumazo to wonder.
• If this is lunacy it is more desirable than sanity

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Why not a liar?

• Wrong psychological profile
• Unselfish, loving, caring,
• compassionate and passionate about teaching the
  truth
• No conceivable motive for the lie
• hatred, rejection, misunderstanding,
• persecution, torture and death
• No hope for success
• Jews are the least likely people to believe that
• God became a man

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Why not a lunatic?

• Psychological profiles are opposite
• practical wisdom, tough love, unpredictable
  creativity
• We feel superior to a lunatic
• Jesus enemies were uncomfortable because
• they felt inferior
• Jesus made others feel personally challenged, and
  embarrassed
• Lunacy could not have changed so many lives for
  the better for so many centuries
• What accounts for the deception of those who were
  first deceived

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Suppose the New Testament is myth?There are four
Gospels not just one, written by different
writers for different audiences and somewhat
different purposes and emphasis.

• Who invented the myth and what could their motive
  be?
• Christians were subject to persecution, torture,
  martyrdom and hatred for their belief.

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Suppose the New Testament is myth?

• First century Jews and Christians were not prone
  to believe myths.
• They were adamantly opposed to polytheistic
  myths.
• When read with an open mind and heart most have
  come to see the story could not possibly be
  invention.

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Suppose the New Testament is myth?

• If the same neutral, objective, scientific
  approach is used on New Testament texts as is
  used on all other ancient documents, then the
  texts prove remarkably reliable.

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Suppose the New Testament is myth?

• No book in history has been as critically
  analyzed as the New Testament.
• The preserved state of the manuscripts is very
  good.
• We have ten times the number of ancient documents
  as any other ancient text
• Absolutely no evidence of a later addition of a
  mythical layer exists.
• The style of the Gospel is not the style of myth
  but rather that of real unscientific, eyewitness
  description.
• It compares to no other mythical literature of
  those times.

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Jesus was an enlightened guru?

• Gurus and mystics of all cultures teach an
  esoteric (private), individual inner experience
  not communicated in words
• Eastern gurus believe in pantheistic immanence
  that is we and everything else are ultimately God.

• Judaism is an exoteric (public) religion of
  collective observance of a public law (Torah) and
  belief in a public book (the Scriptures.
• Judaism and Christianity embrace God, the
  doctrine that God is distinct from the world.
  There is an infinite gap between creator and
  creature.

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Jesus was an enlightened guru?

• For Jews God is a person the ultimate reality.
  YHWH I AM .
• Judaism is firmly based in salvation history.
• Jews believe God made himself known publicly in
  words and deeds.
• For Jews, God is the active initiator (He
  searches for us),

• For gurus I is the term of ultimate illusion.
  Individuality and personhood are the ultimate
  illusion.
• For mystics, time and history, are unreal and
  illusions.
• Mystics believe God is unknowable except
  wordlessly in mystical experience.
• for mystics God is passive (We search for him).

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Jesus was an enlightened guru?

• The pantheistic God has no law, no preferences.
  He is totally non-discriminating, like modern
  amoralistic.
• Eastern religions have no hell. You get to keep
  trying until you get it right.

• The Jewish God is a moralist. God is all good
  and hates evil. He gives commandments.
• Judaism embraces the idea of an eternal, ultimate
  justice and judgement.

JESUS WAS A JEW NOT A GURU
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JESUS IS LORD!

• It is the only rational, honest alternative to
  the Christ dilemma.
• It is intrinsically possible
• with no internal or external inconsistencies.
• It is probable.
• God could well have done this.
• It works.
• It has enlightened and transformed lives
• It gives the greatest hope, meaning and purpose
  ever proposed to human life.

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Then Why?

• Irrational reasons or theyve never heard the
  arguments.
• Often the thing rejected is not Christ but
  Christians
• Fear of the Church and its teachings. The Church
  makes demands.
• The reluctance is usually moral. We are all
  addicts to something
• Fear of the supernatural because it is mysterious
• Simple pride we want to be in control of our
  lives
• It is not intellectually fashionable

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Then Why?

• Equality!
• The notion that all religions are not equal
  offends our real religion of equality which
  makes no demands on us to choose or justify our
  choice