Dr. Paul Tudor Jones

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father full of grace and truth.” John 14:1

In the trial scene as depicted by St. Matthew, we see the perplexed Pilate standing before an incensed Jerusalem mob and hear him say, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?”  Pilate’s question has been one that has continually confronted men of each succeeding age.  Having heard the story of Jesus as told by his followers, many a perplexed person has asked himself, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?  What can I believe about him?” And, we cannot get away from the feeling that our decision upon this matter is most important.

            The Church of Christ holds that his life and character are the very center of its faith.  The most superficial reading of the Apostles’ Creed reveals that the major part of it is given to statements about Jesus.  There are 109 words in the Creed; of these, 70 are devoted to statements concerning Jesus and only 39 to the other articles.  It states that Jesus of Nazareth was an historic character, a man who actually lived, experienced certain things during his life; then died a violent death, was supernaturally raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven; that he was the Son of God, the savior of man, and worthy of our worship.  If a man is to believe all of this there are many questions he would like to have answered.

            First, was Jesus a Historical Character?  We say in the creed, “I believe in Jesus”.  That is an affirmation of faith in the historicity of one called Jesus of Nazareth, who in early life followed the carpenter’s trade and later became a teacher, gathering about him a group of disciples.  What ground has one to stand upon to support such a belief?  Is he mentioned in the histories of the century in which he lived?  Josephus, the famous Jewish historian who was born in 38A.D. and died in the early part of the second century writes thus:  “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.  He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named for him are not extinct at this day.”

            Three Roman historians, writers of purely secular history, testify to the fact that Jesus actually lived in the first century, in which they were writing.  They are Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the younger.  A quotation from Tacitus is gilt edged testimonial to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth actually lived.  Writing about the burning of Rome during the reign of Nero he tells how that half-crazed Emperor placed the guilt for the fire upon the Christians and persecuted them.  To quote: “For this purpose he punished with exquisite torture a race of men detested for their evil practices, by vulgar appellation commonly called Christians.  The name was derived from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius, suffered under Pontus Pilate, the procurator of Judea.”

            Among the religious writings of the first century are the four Gospels of our Bible.  They are written in the form of history, telling a fairly complete story of the life of Jesus.  Some have discredited their story, saying that it is a myth.  Such could hardly be the case since secular history substantiates their testimony to the historicity of the Jesus about whom the Gospels are written, and there exists more actual proof of the genuineness of these four gospels than there is for the genuineness of the secular histories of the same date.  Surely there can be no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth actually lived as a man among men in the first century.

            How wisely does the great creed call upon men to believe in Jesus as a man first of all – “I believe in Jesus”.  That is the natural order upon which to proceed.  That is where the disciples who followed him began, with belief in him simply as a man.  Then later, after living with Him, and living the kind of life which he directed, they came to exclaim with Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  The creed today calls on man to begin with a belief in the reality of the historic Jesus.  Then it goes farther.  It calls Him the Christ, saying he is a man, but something more than a man.

            What does the Creed mean when it calls Jesus Christ?  Christos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means the “Anointed One” and was the title of the great Deliverer, Savior, or Redeemer whom the Jews believed would come to save the world from sorrow and from sin.  Can we accept Jesus as this promised one?  The Jewish people as a whole refuse to believe that he is the answer to their age long hopes for a great deliverer.  There are people today who choke up on this part of the Creed.  They can believe in the historicity of Jesus, but do not look on him as the Savior of all mankind.  Christianity is all right but so are other religions.  They show us that not only Judaism, but all ancient religious had a passionate longing for a savior.  Mr. Edward Carpenter’s book, Pagan and Christian Creeds, informs us that the number of pagan deities (mostly virgin born and done to death in some way or other in their efforts to save mankind) is so great as to be difficult to keep account of.  Krishna, the god in India, spilt his blood for the salvation of mankind.  Buddha said, “Let all the sins that were in the world fell on me that the world may be delivered.”  The Chinese god Tien died to save the world.  Even in Mexico, Quetzalcoatl, the savior, was born of a virgin, was tempted, fasted forty days, and was done to death.

            When we come to think of it, this is queer business isn’t it?   Here are people living in utterly severed and disconnected places between which there is no possibility of communication, and yet there grows up among them spontaneously, as it were, a passionate longing for a savior, a deliverer, a Christ.  Such evidence from comparative religions is used to discount a belief in Jesus as the Christ, for it would seem to prove that all hopes for a savior lie in the realm of religious myth.  But on the other hand would not such universal longing for a savior indicate a deep felt need on the part of all peoples for one to save them from sin and sorrow?  If we can believe there is a Great God behind and in this world, could we not believe that He put that desire for a  in the hearts of all men and answered that desire in the person and work of Jesus?

            In its earliest form this desire for a savior expressed itself in the hope for a magical and material salvation.  Later, men came to see that what they needed was a moral and spiritual salvation.  First, they wanted someone to change their surrounding, for in that they saw the root of their sorrows, later, they came to want someone to change them, for they perceived that the root of their sorrows lay in the world within.  Men do not need a  savior who will do something for them, so much as they need a  savior who will do something in them.  The great creed calls Jesus the Christ because those who have followed Him have verified the appropriateness of this title in their own experience.  Others may promise material salvation but that does not satisfy man.  Moral and spiritual salvation is man’s need, and only Jesus, the Christ, can give this.

            If Jesus really lived as a man, and if he has proven to be the Christ, or the Savior for men, can we go the next step with the Creed and say that He is God’s only Son, our Lord?  In other words is Jesus divine, God incarnate in human flesh?  There are many who say that they can not accept the deity of Christ.  They assign him the highest place among all men in history, call him the greatest of the prophets, and attempt to live according to his teachings, but they do not believe that He is the only-begotten of the Father.

            On the other hand there are those who do acclaim Him their God.  Among them are some who knew Him in the days of his flesh.  John the Baptist said, “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”  The disciples of Jesus, together with the women closely associated in their little fellowship, after His resurrection unanimously believed in His Deity.  The Apostle Paul, miraculously converted, believed and wrote to the early Christian churches that Christ Jesus, being one with God from all eternity, emptied himself of his heavenly glory, becoming a man, suffered many things, died on the cross, was raised again and ascended to his former glory.  Many who heard the sayings of Jesus, perceiving the authority with which He taught, were persuaded that his was the wisdom of God.  Others who saw or felt his healing touch called Him Lord.  But all of this testimony is second-hand.  These people saw and believed in his deity.  Does it follow that we should be moved to the same belief?  Let us look at the character of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels and decide for our very selves whether or not He is God’s only begotten Son.

            How did Jesus Himself feel about this matter?  How did He think of himself in relation to God?  The first thing that a study of the mind of Jesus would reveal is his feeling of oneness with the Father.  “I and my Father are one.”  He always spoke of “my Father” and never of “our Father” save in the formula of prayer which he taught to his disciples.  “Jesus was a man who was never weary or ashamed of owning that he stood in direct and profound relationship with the Highest.”  The second thing we notice about Jesus that is strikingly different from other men is His lack of a sense of shame of sin.  The people who have lived the most saintly lives are the ones most convinced of their sinfulness.  This is true of St. Francis, St. Augustine, and all other Christian saints.  For the very nature of a saint is one who has glimpsed an unusual view of the holiness and glory of God.  Having experienced such a revelation he feels keenly his own sinfulness.  Such is not the case with Jesus.  He never betrays in Himself that same haunting consciousness of sin which has always characterized the saint.  There is about Him, and Him alone, a moral serenity which no saint has ever attained.  Never did Jesus have to pray for forgiveness for sin of any form.  But simply to say that Jesus lived a sinless life is to ascribe to him a rather negative virtue.  It does not do justice to His character.  To say that he did not sin and never felt the consciousness of sin is not to say that he was never tempted.  He was tempted, in all points just as we are.  There was conflict in His life, as in ours, but the difference in us and in Jesus is that where we failed, he always triumphed.  Simply to say that Jesus is sinless is not enough.  It must be also said that He lived on that high plane in which all was done in accordance with God’s will.  That is divine living.  Hence we know that we see God in the face of Jesus Christ.

            The third thing testifying to his Deity which a study of the mind of Jesus reveals is His power to forgive.  Forgiveness, Jesus taught, is one of the most significant duties in the holy life.  Yet the most saintly souls find it humanly impossible completely to forgive some things.  There are limits beyond which our capacity for forgiveness cannot go.  Jesus could and did forgive with an authority far beyond human limitations.  He forgave the sins of the Capernaum paralytic and the woman of scarlet who anointed his feet with oil.  For this the Jews accused Him of blasphemy – making himself equal with God.  For a surety he did make himself equal with God by assuming divine prerogatives, but was it blasphemy?  Had He not the right?  Again the mind of Jesus reveals that he felt himself to be on equality with God for He assumed the power of judgment.  He said again and again that the Son of man would come on clouds of judgment.  When he spoke of the last judgment when all men would be drawn into the great assize, it was before Him, the son of man, that they would be judged.  Not only did He claim the power of judgment in the future, but He set Himself up as a Judgment for men’s lives in the present.

            With such testimony from the experience of others as to the deity of Christ, and with our own view of the mind of Christ, are we not persuaded to say in the words of the Creed, “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, Our Lord” and come to worship Him?  The Nicene Creed bursts into poetry over this part of the Christian faith and calls Jesus, “God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made.”