More Than a Carpenter 2,000 years ago Jesus entered the human race.
He cleared the way to God "by being the first to rise from the dead" (Acts 26:23) Have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior? If you haven\'t, why no.
Three days after his crucifixion, Jesus rose from the grave, proving victory over sin\'s ultimate consequence--death.
Thankfully, the Bible says that whoever believes in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as their Savior from sin "is not condemned." But it warns that "whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:18).
Who do you say that Jesus is? Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" It is a question that every one of us must answer now...or when we face God at the final judgment: "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
It\'s something that must be given serious consideration.
His claim must be either true or false .
He didn\'t leave another option .
He did not intend to." Make no mistake about it: Jesus claimed to be God.
He has not left that open to us.
But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.
Then Lewis adds this about Jesus: "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.
Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse" (from Mere Christianity ).
You must make your choice.
He would either be a lunatic--on the level with the man who says he\'s a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
Afterwards 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.
Then he came to understood the logical conclusion of the claims Jesus made, and experienced a complete change of heart.
Lewis once believed that Jesus was just a good, moral teacher.
These are hardly claims an ordinary person would make How should we respond to Jesus\' claims? Author C.
S.
No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
He claimed to be the only way to God.
When the religious leaders prepared to stone him to death, Jesus asked, "I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?" They answered, "It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God" (John 10:30-33). "I and the Father are one, " Jesus said.
He claimed equality with God. "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, \'Son, your sins are forgiven.\' Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, \' ....
Who can forgive sins but God alone?\'" (Mark 2:5-10).
He forgave sins--something only God can do.
For example...
To say the things Jesus said about himself and to claim the things he claimed, there\'s no way we can conclude that he was just a good moral man or a religious prophet.
Who people believed Jesus to be was fundamentally important to him.
The trouble is that many people agree, never seeing the error of such reasoning.
Often such conclusions are passed off as the only ones acceptable to scholars.
Who did Jesus claim to be? The distinct claims of Jesus to be God eliminate the popular idea that he was just a good moral man or a prophet who said lots of profound things.
I agree, but I believe He was much more.
Ask a group of people "Who is Jesus Christ?" and they will usually respond that he was a great religious leader.
His last three years were spent in public ministry.
Most of his 33 years on earth he was a carpenter, following in the profession of his step-father.
He was a member of a poor family, part of a small Jewish community, and a resident of one of the smallest countries in the world.
More Than a Carpenter 2,000 years ago Jesus entered the human race
