Jesus: Who Was He?

What follows are a few of my personal comments in regard to this week's lesson, Lesson 1: Who Was Jesus?

One of the first thoughts that popped into my head after reading the title for this week's study was, "Huh, that's an interesting question." I know the answers I'm expected to give, but have I really paused to ask myself this question? How many Christians have really taken the time to figure out a response of their own? Don't we generally assume and take for granted whatever we were taught about the person of Jesus? And don't we read the New Testament through those filters?

What difference does it make who Jesus was? Does it really matter whether or not Jesus was God? I think it makes a difference and it matters, but why? I don't know about you, but I stumble and hesitate in coming up with reasoned responses of my own (rather than just stock answers), primarily because I don't think I've really ever thought about it that much. I've just always assumed it was important and so hadn't given it much thought. Perhaps the studies this quarter will help bring some clarity and focus so that I can provide my responses to the questions.

The Jews had and knew their scriptures. The disciples spent 3-1/2 years with Jesus. Yet they all got the answer to, "Who Was Jesus?" wrong. Even Peter who replied, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," had wrong ideas about the Messiah. Even after the resurrection and at Jesus' ascension, the disciples had misconceptions about Jesus. After the apostles, the church became more and more confused until the Reformation. And even after all of that and into the present, I doubt anyone has even a remotely close conception of Jesus Christ. Rather, I think that the images of Jesus are spread out through all those who truly desire to follow him.

So how can we say and be confident that we have the right picture and ideas about Jesus? Maybe the better thing to do is to admit that even after nearly 2,000 years, we still have a pretty fuzzy picture of Jesus and what his life and mission were really about. Maybe it is better to admit that none of us have "the truth" but rather all of us are slowly growing towards it -- sometimes taking steps back so that we can find better steps forward.

This week's study also touches on the tension between faith and reason. Faith without any reason is blind. It tends towards rigidity and dogmatism, and ultimately a fragile faith. Reason without faith leads towards a different kind of rigidity and dogmatism, and ultimately rejection of anything that cannot be seen or touched.

If God left no room for doubt, there would be no room for faith. And without room for faith, there ultimately would be no room for individual freedom to choose. Without freedom, there is no love. Without love, there is no God -- at least not the kind of God I believe was made man in Jesus.

I believe that while Christians are right to reject the conclusions of the skeptics when it comes to who Jesus was (c.f., Jesusanity vs. Christanity) we need to work through the questions and issues that they have raised, and come to a new understanding of what it means to interpret and understand scripture and to believe in Jesus Christ. To simply dismiss the skeptics is to head towards blind faith -- a ditch just as bad as faithless reason.

I believe this week's lesson describes the world today: people are still confused about who Jesus was. Many simply cannot reconcile the God that the Old Testament seems to describe with the God that Jesus says he showed. And so for many their reason demands that they reject Jesus' divine claims as something made up by later Christianity. After all, that is what the evidence appears to show.

Scholar and author Bart Ehrman, an evangelical turned agnostic, probably speaks for many such people.

Mr. Ehrman, 52 years old, writes that he could "quote entire books of the New Testament, verse by verse, from memory." But he then had a crisis of faith. How was it possible that a loving, all-knowing God could allow so many to suffer? In the Bible, he writes, the prophets attributed suffering to the consequences of God's wrath. He also explores the idea that "salvation could emerge from suffering," and uses the story of Job to explain the apparent randomness of suffering. He also rejects the apocalyptic view that suffering is part of a larger plan that will end when God eliminates the wicked and embraces his true followers...

[Mr. Ehrman] "Suffering is random and chaotic and capricious, and the difficulty in the Christian tradition is that God is supposed to be sovereign over the world. So in theory there shouldn't be capricious suffering. If God is actively involved and loves his people and can resolve their problems, why doesn't he? People think God answers prayer, but that seems strange to me... What God would create massive suffering so that we'll turn to him?"

-- from Wall Street Journal, "On God's Problem," March 7, 2008

Rather than simply telling people represented by views such as these to "just believe" and ignore evidence, we need to guide them through a better understanding of God. And that will likely mean taking certain elements of biblical criticism and putting it to our use as we explain how God's love never changes, but how he works with people and how people saw and understood God has changed through biblical history. It means that we must first come to realize that the Bible was written over a long period by fallible people: people (like us) who saw God in incomplete and inadequate ways, people (like us) who were influenced by the culture and religions around them, and people (like us) who were trying to make sense out of a confused world around them. In other words, it means rejecting an inerrant and infallible, verbal dictation view of inspiration of the Bible.

When we take the Bible seriously and apply appropriate methods of interpretation and understanding, I believe we can find that Jesus does show what the true God is really like, because Jesus himself was God.