Who Is Jesus? Session 7: The God Claim (Part 1)

Here are the notes for Session 7 of Focus on the Family’s Who Is Jesus? study.

• Who Is Jesus? Session 6: The Resurrection

Q1: If Jesus is God, then everything begins to make sense.

Q2: If Jesus is really God, then the consequences are huge.

Twenty years later, when you ask someone on the street “Who is David Koresh?” most people didn’t know. Yet, 2,000 years later, billions of people not only know His name, they still believe His claims. Why?

 

Arguments Against the Divinity of Jesus

• The disciples were mistaken
• The disciples were delusional
• The disciples were selfish. They wanted to build a divine Jesus to give their movement more power
• “Jesus was an unfortunate guy who got caught up in things way over his head.”
• “He was a religious leader who got too involved in politics, and that always ends badly.”
• “He was a prophet, and would probably roll over in his grave at all this ‘Jesus is God’ talk.”

Did Jesus actually claim to be God? Seven key pieces of evidence

Q3: He acted as if He could actually forgive the sins of people (Luke 7:44-49)

1. He led a sinless life (John 8:46;  1 Peter 2:22; 1 Peter 1:19; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb 4:15;

Q4: “I can’t think of another human being whose reputation was actually enhanced the closer you peered into their life.” –Lee Strobel

Q5: Jesus accepted the worship of men (Matt. 14:33; Mt. 28:9). Others in the Bible flatly refused to be worshiped: The angel in Rev. 19:10; Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10:26)

Q6: If He was either delusional, or a deceiver, or even a nice deceiver, you couldn’t call Him a good teacher.

Q7:  Jesus spoke with divine authority (Mt. 7:28-29; Mt. 28:19; John 5:39-40)

Q8: Jesus is either Almighty God or He is arrogant beyond belief.

Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was 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 Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would he nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that. you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

Next Week: The God Claim, Part 2