Christmas 2020 Musings

In Defense of Christ

Christ was either crazy, or God.

Many New Agers claim to admire Christ’s teachings but deny his divine authority. However, a simple reading of two lines in the Gospel reveals the problems with that logic. In John 4:25–26 Jesus encounters a woman who says to him:

“I know that Messiah, he who is called Christ, is coming. When he comes, he will explain us all things.”

John 4:25

Jesus’s response? “I who speaks to you am he.”

Jesus Christ was, therefore, off his rocker crazy, with a messiah complex, or really was the Messiah, complete with that capital “M”.

The name “Christ” actually means “anointed one” and “messiah”[i].

Allowing himself to be referred this way during the entirety of his three-year ministry reflects upon either hopeless mental illness or the profound truth of his being the Son of God, just as he said he was.

Photo Credit:
Maja Ruszpel (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dzwoneczek/)
“Jesus”; https://flic.kr/p/izCYbf: Creative Commons copyright license (public domain)
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

C.S. Lewis referred to this superbly in his book Mere Christianity[ii]. He points out that we are either all in or all out on Christ as our savior. There is no in-between.

If you encounter someone in Times Square standing on a box preaching words that have strong appeal to your moral sensibilities, you…