Who Is Jesus?
Sinead O'Connor has an album called Theology. In an interview, O'Connor was asked about her faith in Jesus Christ. Her reply:
"I think everybody has an individual relationship with Jesus. I kinda really do believe in this Trinity thing, that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one thing. I understand Jesus as being an interceder, someone you ask when you really need a big favor from God. I also feel that Jesus is inside everybody. It's almost like an energy or a thing that lives inside of us."
No doubt, O'Connor's words resonate with many people. But doesn't it seem like O'Connor has merely done what is so common in our culture, and that is recreate Jesus in her own image? As someone has written, "Frankly, it's hard to escape the feeling that our culture has taken Jesus' question 'Who do you say that I am?' and changed it to 'Who do you want me to be?'" (J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus, p. 262).
Which brings up the question: Who is Jesus?
One of the fundamental answers to that question is this: Jesus is God.
Why do Christians say that Jesus is God? Ed Komoszewski has developed an acronym to explain the deity of Jesus Christ. It's based on the word HANDS:
Honors: Jesus shares the honors due to God.
Attributes: Jesus shares the attributes of God.
Names: Jesus shares the names of God.
Deeds: Jesus shares in the deeds that God does.
Seat: Jesus shares the seat of God's throne.
The writer C. S. Lewis once said about Jesus:
"Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He were God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among pantheists, like the Hindus of India, anyone might say that he is part of god or one with god. There would be nothing very odd about that. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God in their language meant the Being outside of the world who had made it and was infinitely different than anything else. And when you have grasped that concept you will see that what this man said was quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips."
If you are shocked by the claims of Jesus, as Lewis says, and would like to read an eyewitness account of his life, check out any of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) in the New Testament. They are the oldest records of his life. Here's a link to John's account of the story of Jesus.
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