"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. 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. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to”. - C.S.Lewis
Who is Jesus?
It is often thought Scientists always think logically and that believing in Jesus Christ is illogical. Being a Scientist and working alongside them has shown me that both these ideas are untrue. Scientists are, at times, as irrational as the rest of us and will reject ideas that they are uncomfortable with even if there is logic and evidence behind it.
I have always liked to be able to think things through to a logical conclusion. I suppose that is why I ended up doing science. So when someone started talking about Jesus being killed and rising from the dead it didn’t seem very logical. It hasn’t happened too many times in history so it seemed unlikely. But then I looked more closely at the person Jesus was and who he claimed to be. It appears he claimed to be God’s son and even said he would come back to life.
There are only three explanations of this. He was mad, he was a deceiver, or it actually happened and he is who he claims to be. Looking closely at all that Jesus said and did confirms that he was not mad. If he was a deceiver then he would have been found out by now, so the only logical conclusion left is that he is who he claims to be and he did what he said he would.
So – Who is Jesus?
He is God.
He said of himself “I am the way and the truth and the life” Everyone wants to know the meaning of life. To have a purpose to live for. Jesus gives us that meaning, that purpose.
He is human.
He was born and grew up. He experienced the happiness and sadness of life in the same way that we do. He isn’t a God who observes us from a long way off. He is a human who stands alongside us in our lives.
He is alive.
His promise while he was on earth was “I am with you always even to the end of the age” When we talk of Jesus rising from the dead we believe that this was not only for forty days until he went back to heaven but that he stays with us for all time. He lives in us by His Spirit and so is closer to us than anyone else we know.
The real test of his truth is by experience. Having accepted him we need to take him at his word and get to know him. Christians know that Jesus is alive because they experience him every day.