Jesus Of Nazareth: Ledgend, Liar, Lunatic or Lord?^*

Many years ago I came across a reference to a sermon preached by Harold Lindsell, editor of Christianity Today magazine, that was titled “Liar, Lunatic, Or Lord?”. I never found a copy of the sermon to read, but the phrase “Liar, Lunatic, Or Lord?” has stuck in my mind and I recall it frequently while reading or studying the NT. I don’t know how the skeptics in the public in the first century would have answered that question but I know some of the ways it is answered in modern times.

Some modern answers to Jesus question “who do you say that I am?”

• He was a good man and religious teacher
  

• He was a great moral teacher

• He is the product of 1st century ledgend and myth
  

• He was a political/religious rebel

• He was crazy and misguided
  

• He was a Jewis prophet

But Jesus made profound claims about himself and who he was:

• He said that God was His Father

• He said that he and the Father were one (equal)

• He claimed to be the unique Son of God

• He said that His death would pay for the sins of the world

• He promised eternal life to those who believed in Him

• He promised eternal judgment to those who don’t believe in him

The claims that Jesus made would be blasphemous at the time and place He made them and He would be labeled insane if they were not true! There is no alternative - Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or as the disciples proclaimed, the Lord - the “Christ, the Son of the living God”.

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis makes this statement, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."

All other religions were founded by humans based on their philosophies, rules and norms for behavior. Take the founders of these religions out and little would change. But take Jesus Christ out of Christianity, and there would be nothing left. Christianity is not just a philosophy. True Christianity is based on a real, personal relationship with a Risen Christ who is our Savior and Lord.

A poem by an unknown author sums up the impact of Jesus life and teachings on the world:

One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village.

He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

He then became an itinerant preacher.

He never held an office.

He never had a family.

He didn’t go to college.

He had no credentials but Himself.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race.

All the armies that have ever marched,

All the navies that ever sailed,

All the parliaments that ever sat,

And all the kings that ever reigned

www.theologue.org