Who Was Jesus

 

 

Short prayer: Father I ask that your Holy Spirit be upon all those that read this. You have shown me 'who Jesus was' and is. I ask that You show every reader of this the same. Bring Your wisdom down to those who seek, let them find my very best friend, Amen

 

I have recently read a book by the Christian author C.S. Lewis, in which he asks the question, "what are we to make of Jesus Christ", and gives his answer. Part of his answer lies around the following statement which I have shortened for this particular use.
"Jesus was either a conman, a madman, or who He said He was".

I do not for one possible moment think that what I am about to write will come up to the standards of Mr Lewis, however, I have a mind to write down some of my own thoughts on the matter, and here they are.

If Christ were the first of the three explanations or should I say characters, that of conman, then He Himself did not begin this deception.
For, before Him came John the Baptist, who by all accounts was very close to being the second, a madman (more later on this subject).
To Herod, the Ruler of all Galilee and Perea he said, "It is not lawful for you to have her", (he was talking of the women the Ruler had married), and for his troubles he got his head chopped off. Not a very good outcome for the man, who if we return to the first scenario of conman, began the whole thing.

For if Jesus where in fact a conman, then how better to begin this deception than by getting a relative of yours to start people thinking. Certainly John did this by literally preparing the way, he could not have know that all would end the way it did. No one who would willingly take part in such a deception, would do so expecting to have their labours rewarded by being thrown in Jail and then having their head chopped off.
I feel as though any more time spent on the subject of John would be time ill spent, however if one is to take the assumption that Jesus Christ was indeed a conman, then further discussions on these particular events will be a must.

Further more what are we to make of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the three Kings, for they seem now to be anything but wise, what of their involvement in it all, the discussions would be endless.

If Christ were a conman, then he was, and still is, 2,000 years after His death the greatest mankind has ever seen. At present there are some 60 MILLION born again believers of Jesus Christ. There are also Millions of other 'Christians' (by which I mean nominal believers), added to which we get millions of other believers attached to what I will tactlessly describe as cults, quite some con. We also have to take into account the number of followers He has some how managed to gain over the last two thousand years, God knows how many that is???

A con, a trick, a delusion of such magnitude, that the most eminent, the greatest scholars, and billions of just ordinary people in two thousand years of creation have not been able to spot one flaw, one mistake, in a plan that began with Him picking just twelve good men.
Oh, of course it took some time to get them engrossed fully into His way of thinking, but eventually all of them laid down their lives for what he had given them. Even the one who may of spotted a flaw ended up killing himself.
More followed the same way, and incredibly people are still prepared, if need be, to die for this Man's teachings and actions.

To discuss what exactly He had given these twelve would be another topic, but one cannot exactly say that they where all millionaires, or the like, by the time He died. They where all worse off financially, many were flogged, beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, stoned, and many other wonderful things that He actually promised them would happen if they followed Him.
Added to this they where commanded to give everything that did come their way to the thing this Christ called the 'Church'.

What an excellent way of keeping the con going? But doesn't this defeat the object.

The beauty, (and I use the word for lack of knowledge of a better one), as far as I see it, of a con, is when the person or persons being conned finds out he or she is being conned, after you have put a great distance between you and them. Now if you had conned someone out of something, weather it be wealth, home, title, or freedom, or anything else you can think of, it would, would it not, be of little use to yourself if the persons being conned found out after you where dead, with you having gained, by the evidence we have, nothing out of the con.

As yet I know, of no human being that has been able to, as they say 'suss' this con out. The real beauty of the con, if it is one, is that no one ever will.
To ever 'suss' this guy out you almost definitely have to be one thing and one thing only, dead.

For all of the promises this Christ made only ever come into fruition if you are in fact, this one thing, dead.
How many of us therefore are prepared to die in order to find out?

For, this Christ did indeed put a great distance between Himself and those He may, or may not have conned. The distance between life and death, oh what a great distance it is.

Take what He left us, the Church.

A disorganised, uncontrollable, disunified, hypocritical bunch of no hopers.

How has it lasted so long? Although if it where a con, what better people to con than no hopers, losers, the lowest in society, but how then do we account for the learned.
How do we account for the way these people come together in this conman's name and, heaven forbid the whole world should learn their secret, love each other. Actually getting on with each other, day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, continuing, with all their faults and it's faults, to build this thing called 'the church'?

One such way might be to get the people you first conned to write down what you said, and what you supposedly did. Question being how long would you expect people to carry on rewriting these observations ? Could you guarantee that it would be passed down from generation to generation, almost should we say religiously?

Would anyone believe it. wouldn't they just list it under fiction? A book that told of the exploits of a man turning water into wine and healing people of the worst of diseases. Then passing on His supposed miraculous gifts to these twelve who followed him. A book that even goes so far as to promise these gifts to anyone who follows this Jesus, no matter how bad they are.
No of course not, and yet this conman has not only done this, but has done it again, better than any other human being in the history of mankind.
His autobiography has been, since the dawn of the printing press the best seller in almost every one of the civilised countries of the western world. Not only a conman but a best selling author.

But why bother, you are dead, and your ancestry can no longer be traced? Or can it? Are there sons waiting for the inheritance?

Who gets the rights? Anyway You didn’t write it, your followers did.

All rather confusing to me why this man ever bothered in the first place, and if he did why not retire to some desert island somewhere and watch, until you are old and grey, all the world following your deception.

Why put no fight up when things go slightly wrong. But they didn't even go slightly wrong, for this conman even predicted his own death. Which brings me on to the second character Lewis suggests - namely a madman.

For surely only a madman would come out of nowhere, stay around only three and a half years, then allow himself to be killed when, he could have called the whole thing off and admitted his game all along.

They wouldn't have killed him for that, probably, or maybe they would. This man Himself was mad enough to die the most horrendous death for either his con, or His self delusion.
His con however, or His madness, went further because this lunatic even said those words we will never forget, "I'll be back".
Fanciful, imagine telling everyone that they don't have to worry if they see you get killed because you'll be back in three days.
The crazy dozen even believed Him, well almost. Must have been quite a shock to the system when He turned up for dinner with holes all over His body.
Or did He, could they have made it up? If they did, they got five hundred others to make up the same story. The reward for their story telling, torture and death. Maybe they should have come up with a different story.

I believe it possible to put both of these characters together, starting with conman and ending with madman.
It is possible that he started off trying to trick everyone into believing he was who he claimed to be and then quite simply started to believe it Himself. If one lies habitually it is a known fact that one starts to believe ones own lies. A possibility.
Wait a minute though, if he where mad, what then are we to make of the billions of people already spoken off who have since followed this madman. Are they too as mad as he? The world often says they are, for it can not see what or who it is they are following. Would so many people really follow a ghost, a legend, a myth, a man claiming so much.

Can one madman create from all different walks of life, over all this time, billions of other lunatics?

What proof do any of them have, that this man ever actually existed, apart from an old book. None, so it seems, but they follow non the less, even to the cross, the executioners blade, the electric chair in modern times, the gas chambers, and I dare say a few other ways of dieing that I dare not mention.

They follow blindly the claims of this madman, who is, to directly quote Mr Lewis is, "a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humblest of men".

The comparison is of little use to us though, as Hitlers followers we not all following him, but the beliefs he set forth. The Nazi's never claimed they wanted to become the image of their leader, they wanted what Hitler stood for, how ever crazy it seemed. These Christians believe they will be transformed into His likeness, they will all become either tricksters or lunatic's or both.

Maybe Hitler would have been as popular as this Christ had he been publicly executed. Mind you, as we have already discussed he would of had to come back from the dead to make a real impression.

After dieing, this Jesus has directly been responsible for more people giving up their lives for a cause than any other man or women in history, including Hitler.

So why do they do it? Why die for a man already dead Himself.

Forgotten, (or at least they try to forget) by vast numbers of the worlds population. If not forgotten then ignored. If not these then ridiculed, spat upon and themselves called tricksters, or mad. The really crazy thing is that they, these followers of this conman or lunatic are on the increase, there is more of them now then ever before. In countries where, before recently the people had never even heard of this Jesus, His popularity has never been more strong.

So

Why?

Why?

Why?

I believe with all that I am, and all that I know, which counts for very little, if anything at all, that quite simply Jesus Christ was the third of the characters in Mr Lewis's statement.

He was who He said He was. Namely, God.

When all said and done I can not prove any of it by words, for it is the Spirit that testifies, and not words.

Indeed Mr Lewis's question about this Man is a far better one than mine, "what are we to make of this Jesus Christ" and not 'who was Jesus Christ?

 

Why is it better?

Who Jesus was, and consequently is, does not depend on you, or me or anything else in the whole universe, for HE IS.
Your belief, my belief, our neighbours belief will not alter one iota the startling fact that God came down to earth in the form of a man, took mankind's sin with Him, and redeemed us all to a loving Father.

What are we to make of Him, is a good question but as C.S. Lewis points out, it is again not the right one.

"What is Jesus Christ to make of us", is the question you the reader (or the listener) must ask yourself.

For the reason these billions of people follow this man is I believe in the end, change'. Change from life to death, and then mysteriously, spiritually, back again, but this time to a life never before imagined.

He is changing the world, the whole world, not one will go without the offer this man brings.

The offer of being a king, a saint, a priest, and a hundred other things.

Two attributes I have not listed will be my finish.

Firstly, to be a Son of the living God is what I am, and will be for all eternity.

Secondly and finally, my wish, my hope, my prayer, my faith, is that this Man, this Jesus Christ who came for me, (and for you by the way), and who has left me a Helper, continues to give me the grace.

The grace to be something that Adam and Eve were before the fall.

A something that this Man Jesus definitely was, simply, a friend of God.
I will be called a conman, a madman, a lunatic, and if need be, I will cross that huge distance, in a way I already have, all to be a friend of God.

 

God bless all that read this.