No In-Between with Jesus

For it is impossible to be in the presence of Jesus and not be changed. ~ Joanna Weaver

I love apologetics - defending the Christian faith through reasoning and by comparison with other faiths and theories. I'll never forget reading Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ," a wonderful compilation of evidence and logic authored by a journalist who actually set out to disprove Jesus as Messiah. Instead, he was persuaded to faith in Christ by the tremendous amount of evidence he found supporting Jesus' claims. Lee Strobel has written other similar books about God in general, and other aspects of Christian faith.

When one considers the life and ministry of Jesus, there is irrefutable evidence that He did in fact live as a flesh-and-bone man on earth. Aside from what He did while on earth, there is plenty of anthropological and historical evidence of His existence here. Given that, most arguments against Jesus center not on His existence, but on His divinity. "Jesus was a prophet, a powerful teacher, but he was not the Messiah." In other words, He was a heck of a good guy, just not God's Son. That's the argument I hear most often. How about you?

There's one big, but simple problem with this argument. Jesus never tried to hide His divinity. Not only did He perform miracles, but He continually claimed to be God's Son, the Messiah, the long sought-after savior. His teachings flew in the face of conventional wisdom and tradition. If we ignore other facts, such as His resurrection, the claims that Jesus made were a big part of His ministry. If Jesus is not the Messiah, then He was nothing more than a lunatic or a pathalogical liar who died for good on the cross. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't consider someone who lies about being God to be a "good guy."

What it boils down to is that Jesus is either Messiah, the Christ that we know as our savior and redeemer, or He is a fraud. There is no in-between. Which side of the line one stands on means everything. I am forever grateful to be standing on the side of truth.