Is Jesus really the son of God?

Jesus is the centerpiece of Christianity. He is the reason for our Hope and the object of our faith. But many people struggle to believe that Jesus was really God. There are many cultural objections to our Christian belief that Jesus was God and that he lived a perfect, sinless life and then died and rose again. A 2020 survey found that 52% of U.S. adults say they believe Jesus Christ is not God. Most people who reject his divinity do not deny the fact that there was a person named Jesus who existed, but they would say that he wasn’t actually God. He was just a good human who tried to do good things for the better of humanity. In the eyes of the world, Jesus was simply a good teacher. Ghandi, an iconic example of human kindness, said “I have not been able to move beyond the belief that Jesus was one of the great teachers of mankind.”

Is this true? Was Jesus really only a good teacher? C.S. Lewis once said “To say Jesus was just a great moral teacher is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher…. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”

Yes Jesus was the greatest teacher to ever live, but think about what he actually said. Here is just one example: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).” I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like your typical advice from a teacher. His sayings were so counter-cultural, so radical, so upside-down, yet they were life-giving. Also, if Jesus was simply only a great moral teacher, then he wouldn’t have misled his followers and claimed to be God if this in fact wasn’t true. Keller points out “If you reject Jesus as God, you would have to conclude logically that He was a deliberate liar. Which would make him a terrible moral teacher.” 

         
 So how do we know that Jesus truly is the son of God? First, there is the fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus fulfilled more than 300 prophecies that had been written in the Old Testament centuries before He was born. Also, in John 2, after Jesus had cleared the temple, the pharisees asked him in vs. 18 “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” This was a perfectly accurate prediction of his death and resurrection. Second, there were his miracles. The supernatural miracles, signs, and wonders he performed demonstrated his authority and proved his identity. No simple wise teacher could supernaturally do what he was able to do. Third, there is the foolishness of the cross. What kind of religion worships a guy who volunteers himself to be killed when he didn’t do anything wrong? It doesn’t make any sense. The only explanation for him doing this is that he was God and by dying for us he would redeem us and reconcile us back to the Father whom he has perfect fellowship with. 

           
Perhaps the most important proof that we can point to for the divinity of Jesus is his resurrection. Everything hinges on the resurrection-the greatest miracle and the most important event in history. Again to quote Keller, “If Jesus rose from the dead, you have to accept everything he said. But if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about anything he said?” There is no proof to show that the resurrection never happened. All that was needed to disprove the resurrection was to produce a dead body, but a body was never found. Plus, there were over 500 eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive. Some might say that they all experienced hallucinations or they were lying, but it’s not possible for 500 people to experience the same hallucination, and many of these people were martyred for their faith, and nobody would give their life for a life. The only logical thing is to believe that Jesus truly did rise from the dead, and if this is so, we must take him at his word and believe everything he said. Remember his answer before the council in Mark 14:61-62 “Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’ And Jesus said, ‘I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.’” Jesus is God. He came down as a man and lived a perfect, sinless life. Then he died, so that you and I can be saved, reconciled to God, and live with him for all eternity. Then he rose from the grave, conquering death and demonstrating his authority over the enemy.