1. He’s a liar.
2. He’s a lunatic.
3. He’s who He said He is.

Right away, I’m pretty sure C. S. Lewis fans will recognize this as a well-known argument he made in defiance to both the lukewarm Christian and the aloof bystander who says, “Well, Jesus was a nice/ wise/ kind guy, but he wasn’t God.”

Basically, if you’ve ever actually taken a look at the ministry of Jesus, at the things He did and the things He claimed, there is absolutely no way you can conclude, somehow, that He was “just a nice guy”.

To prove the point, here’s a small collection of some of  Jesus’ most incisive claims (taking just a small sample from Luke and John, from the ESV, emphasis mine):

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:24-26)

“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:32-36)

But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:45-47)

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8:58-59)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Now, imagine some random guy on the street corner saying those things with conviction. Just some random guy. Would you say that that guy is a nice guy? Wise? Respectable? Not a loony? No, you’d probably conclude that either he was delusional, or he was a con-artist. In either case, we would probably say that his outlook seems pretty “narrow-minded” compared with the Western notion that “everyone’s a winner!”

Now, if that guy also lived a morally perfect life, performed otherwise-impossible miracles, healing the sick, and caring for the unseemly, comforting the rejected, you’d probably begin to doubt your first impressions, but still, you could probably still argue that he’s some sort of magician and/ or a really excellent method actor.

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” (Matt. 20:18-19)

Now, if that same guy, at the hands of society’s powerful leaders, was sentenced to death (as predicted by himself and others centuries before), factually died, and undeniably came back from the dead (again, as he said he would), what would you conclude? What would the only logical conclusion be?

My point is this: unless you are completely innocent of any exposure to what Jesus actually said, taught, and claimed, it’s intellectually untenable and inconsistent to claim that Jesus can somehow be esteemed as a pretty decent or wise guy while rejecting His deity. If He’s God, everything He said makes sense and is worthy of trusting. If he is not, then he was a raving lunatic and/or Christianity is the biggest fraud in the world. You can’t have it both ways.

If you’ve actually met Jesus (and not what MTV wants you to think of Jesus), you will think He/he is either God and good, or not and not. It’s really that simple, and that cleanly cut.

• Biblical slavery was not based on race or kidnapping
• Biblical slavery was not enforced by violence or coercion
• Biblical slavery was not permanent, except when the servant volunteered for it
• Biblical slavery only gave masters ownership of the slave’s productivity, not their entire person
• Biblical slavery served as a final alternative/safety net for the poor in the society

It’s a sort of deplorable scholarship when someone reads the commandment “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling” (Eph. 6:5) and conclude that the Bible is socially regressive and is surely “evil”. Of course, there are a whole bunch of foolish assumptions that go into drawing this conclusion, but we tend to deemphasize the importance and value of sound reasoning so much in Western society that it basically flies over most of our heads, most of the time.

The basic assumptions are two-fold. First, that there is only one meaning of a given word, which is arguably true of some words, but not necessarily all words—just look at the words “lame” or “wicked” and what they mean today versus 100 years ago). The second assumption is, basically, that nothing has changed in the millennia between the time when the Bible was authored and now. This leads to the faulty conclusion that, since words mean only one thing, and things have never changed, what “slavery” means to me now, in a modern, post-”Old South” context, must be exactly the same thing that the Bible refers to when it uses the words “slavery” or “slaves”. It doesn’t, and only scholarship that is entirely innocent of rigor can possibly seek to maintain that it does.

As Tim Keller put it, “please consider the possibility that [the Bible] doesn’t teach what you think it teaches” (paraphrased from “Literalism: Isn’t the Bible historically unreliable and regressive?“).

• CO 351 Network Flow Theory (80%)
• CO 342 Introduction to Graph Theory (75%)
• EC 250 Intermediate Macroeconomics (70%)
• BU 473 Investment Management (50%)
• CS 330 Management Information Systems (50%)
• BU 481 Corporate Policy 1 (-9000%)

** With 0% being equivalent to jamming a pencil in your eye, and 100% being equivalent with popping bubble wrap while flying a kite from a laser-powered motorboat.

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)

I came back to this passage today and found that I had highlighted this with a note to myself. Excitedly, I tapped on the note in my Kindle. It read “Amen.”

What It Isn’t

When Christianity is mentioned to non-Christians, often the assumption is that what we are talking about is a moral code, a laundry list of things to do, and things to not do. If one is successful in living according to such a code, then “God” will reward them with blessings, eternal life, success, etc…. That is to say, a common assumption is that (true) Christians believe in what is, primarily, a form of Moralism.

Moralism is a categorical label that is attached to any belief system that is (unduly) focused on adherence to moral maxims and conformity to doing “the right thing”. In a religious context, moralistic worldviews would assert that, to be right with the god of their choosing (or some semantic equivalent), you basically have to perform, to meet the requirements set out by that god. Does this sound familiar? I don’t claim to be an expert but from my brief encounters with other major world religions, this is generally the common thread that links them all together. You can look at any brand of organized religion out there (besides Biblical, historical Christianity, which I will get to), and you will usually find plenty of liturgy, moral and ethical guidelines, traditions, and rituals.

Basically all faiths and cultures (Christianity included) has a set of assertions about what constitutes as moral behaviour, and (necessarily) what constitutes as amoral behaviour. This is what ethics and morality are all about. In some faiths, love and peace are of highest value, while in others honor and pride are ultimate. Obviously, not all faiths say that the same things are good or bad, but that they all say something is my point. Moralism basically makes doing what is good and shunning what is not good (as prescribed by the faith) the “point” of the believer. This isn’t Gospel-centered Christianity.

What It Is

These actions (or “human works”) are usually what people think of when they think of formal, organized religion, and are usually the focal point of any moralistic religion. Now, while I cannot speak on behalf of all self-proclaimed Christians, I would dare to go as far as saying that historic and Gospel-centered Christianity is definitely not primarily concerned with moralizing. That is to say, while the Bible does prescribe to us a set of moral maxims (see: the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20), these instructions (formally known as the Law) are provided not first and foremost as a means to get God on your side. Instead, I think the Law was given primarily to

1. showcase God’s moral and holy character to humans as the very definition of what is good
   “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. (Leviticus 19:2)
2. drive humans to despair by bringing them awareness of their sinfulness and marked lack of goodness
   Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” (Romans 7:7b)

The Gospel

Now, the Bible does exhort believers to live a life worthy of their calling (see Ephesians 4), but any Gospel-believing Christian will be careful to clarify the common misunderstanding that, therefore, the Christian’s right standing before God is based on living this worthy life. This is wrong and only a right understanding of the Gospel will set you free from this misconception. As I understand it, the Gospel can be broken down into four main points:

1. God designed mankind for fellowship with Himself. In love, God also gave humans a choice in how they would choose to respond to Him. This was achieved by the giving of instructions to mankind that could either be obeyed or disobeyed.
2. We, as an entire race, chose and still choose to reject God, since we want to be the masters of our own lives. Basically, we are at odds with God and His Law because we refuse to submit to anyone else’s prescribed way of doing things.
3. The consequence of failure to submit to God’s law is that God essentially gives you what you asked for, and that is separation from Him and the goodness (indeed, all goodness) found therein (aka: Hell). Since no one can fully and perfectly submit to God’s law, everyone falls short of the standard.
4. The Gospel (aka: the “Good News”) says that, in light of this, God took it upon Himself to make it possible for humans to regain a right standing before Him. He did this by incarnating Himself as Jesus, living a perfect life, and then switching places with us. Thus, the separation from God that our messed up record of failures dooms us to is applied to Jesus, while Jesus’ perfect record of obedience to the Law is counted as our record, affording us entrance into God’s fellowship once again.

Why It Is Unique

That last point is key to this discussion. At the crux of Christianity is the Cross (pardon the pun). You can’t understand anything of the Christian Gospel without it. On the cross Jesus died so that, in our complete and utter failure to live according to the Law AND in His perfect obedience and adherence to the Law, both God and the sinner can be satisfied through Jesus’ death on the cross. God is satisfied in that now, there is a way of grace and forgiveness that does not make Him unjust (His righteous wrath is satisfied). At the same time, the sinner is satisfied in that now, there is a way for him to enter back into fellowship with God, which is what he/she was designed for.

Takeaway

The key takeaway from this is that it is Jesus’ righteousness and obedience that affords the Christian his right standing before God, not his own morality or ability to perform. This is the stickiest point for basically anyone who does not believe in the Gospel, probably because it is so completely foreign and contrary to what basically all other religions would say. Not only is the God of Christianity a God who humbles himself even to the point dying a common criminal’s death by execution, but it argues that humans are so utterly bankrupt in moral character that God alone must act and perform on his behalf to do what he himself is unwilling and unable to do.