CHRISTIANITY 101

Jesus is the most important historical figure in history. No one has had a bigger impact on the world than Jesus of Nazareth. But who was He, really?

 

Jesus once asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus praised Peter for this answer because it was a revelation from God. (Matthew 16:13-20) But what did Peter actually say?

 

The Christ

 

The word Christ is not Jesus’s last name but is a title taken from a Greek word, “Christos” which means “Messiah.” In English, this literally means, “Anointed One.” It was a term that referenced being chosen by God for a specific purpose.

 

The Messiah was a figure prophesied about throughout the Old Testament. The Messiah was expected to be a king who would come through the family line of King David and would rule Israel and bring peace to the world.

 

There are many prophecies about the Messiah that point straight to Jesus.

 

700 years before Jesus was ever born, a Jewish prophet named Isaiah wrote,

 

He was despised and rejected by mankind,


   a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.


Like one from whom people hide their faces


   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain


   and bore our suffering,


yet we considered him punished by God,


   stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,


    he was crushed for our iniquities;


the punishment that brought us peace was on him,


    and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,


    each of us has turned to our own way;


and the Lord has laid on him


    the iniquity of us all.

 

This is exactly what Jesus experienced on the cross, but this was written almost a millennium before Jesus was ever born. 

 

The prophets in the Old Testament discussed the Messiah in great detail, predicting where He would be born, that He would be born of a virgin, that He would grow up in Galilee, that He would flee to Egypt for a time, that people would gamble for His clothes during his death, that His hands and feet would be pierced, and much, much more. In fact, there are at least 300 prophecies given in the Old Testament about the Messiah that the life of Jesus of Nazareth fulfills.

 

When Peter said, “You are the Christ,” he was indicating that Jesus is the one all of Israel had been waiting for. He was the one who would fulfill all the prophecies.

 

Jesus is God in the Flesh

 

Many people regard Jesus as merely a good moral teacher because of His teachings to love your enemies, do unto others what you would have them do unto you, or to treat the lowly of society with dignity and respect. Now, certainly these are great moral standards that Jesus did in fact teach, but Jesus also claimed to be God.

 

Jesus, in an argument with the Jewish leaders, said “Before Abraham was, I AM.” The phrase, “I AM” was a term that God used of Himself in the Old Testament. In fact, the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’s day picked up stones and tried to kill him for that very statement. 

 

When Jesus was on trial before His crucifixion, the high priest asked Him point blank, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” And Jesus answered, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of Heaven.” If you don’t know the Old Testament well, this sounds like a merely grandiose statement; but it was actually a direct reference to a biblical prophecy written by Daniel:

 

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14)

 

In the Scriptures, we see Jesus receiving worship when one of His disciples called Him “my Lord and my God.” (John 20:28) We see Jesus constantly identifying Himself as the Son of God and the Jewish leaders of His day trying to kill Him for claiming equality with God. (John 5:18) The Bible itself teaches that Jesus is God in John 1:1, which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is a pretty lofty claim for a carpenter from Nazareth.

 

Here’s the question: Would a mere moral teacher make claims like these? He would either be deluded, a charlatan, or telling the truth. There’s no option where Jesus is merely a good, moral teacher (and nothing more) because good, moral teachers don’t claim to be God unless they are telling the truth.

 

So what evidence do we have that the claims Jesus made about Himself are true?

 

Jesus Rose From the Dead

 

If someone were to tell me they were the Son of God, I would instantly write them off as a crazy person. But what if they started performing miracles like healing blind eyes, deaf ears, leprosy, making cripples walk, and even raising the dead? I’d pay attention. What if this man predicted His own death and resurrection? Well, that’s exactly what Jesus did.

 

Jesus was crucified by the Romans and the Jewish religious establishment on the weekend of the Jewish festival Passover. This was no accident, as the Passover celebrates the day when the Israelites, who were once in captivity in Egypt, were set free from slavery. At the time of the very first passover, God told each family to slaughter a lamb and put the blood of the lamb over the doorposts of their homes. Wherever the spirit of death saw blood on the doorposts, it would "pass over" that house. But wherever the blood was not present, the firstborn sons in all of Egypt would die. So Jesus—who was prophetically called "the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"—died at a time when all Israel was keenly aware of the power found in the sacrificial blood God provides.

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Jews still celebrate the Passover to this day. Jesus became the fulfillment of this prophecy and was killed as our Passover Lamb so that everyone who had the blood of Jesus figuratively sprinkled on their hearts would be saved from the power of death. 

 

Three days later, Jesus’s disciples came to His tomb to mourn and discovered the tomb was empty. Later, over 500 of His disciples had encounters with the risen Jesus and eventually witnessed Him taken up into heaven. We have historical evidence, both inside and outside of the Bible, that all but two of Jesus’s disciples died horrific deaths and endured torture for their claims that Jesus was the Son of God and that God raised Him from the dead. 

 

We also have the Apostle Paul, who once persecuted Christians but had such a dramatic encounter with the resurrected Jesus that he became the most prominent Christian in history and endured prison and death for the very faith he once persecuted. You don’t endure torture and death for a lie you made up.

 

We also have the Apostle James, who was Jesus’s brother. According to the New Testament, James made fun of Jesus during the time of Jesus’s ministry and thought that He was insane. However, James eventually became a leader in the church and was eventually stoned and beaten to death because he would not renounce his claims about Jesus, his brother whom he once thought was insane. What kind of evidence would you need to face death for the belief that your own brother is the Son of God?

 

These eyewitnesses are the very same people who gave us the New Testament. 

 

Discuss the following questions together. When you see a Scripture reference, look it up and read the verse or verses together.

 

Read the following verses:

• John 1:1-5

• John 10:7-18

• John 10:22-30

 

Who did Jesus claim to be?

 

What did Jesus say His mission was?

 

What kind of relationship did Jesus have with His Father?

 

What is the significance of Jesus’ crucifixion at Passover?

 

What evidence do we have that Jesus actually rose from the dead?

 

If Jesus truly rose from the dead, what does that mean for the claims He made about Himself?