Who Do You Think You Are?
Now in its 10th series to air on the BBC, the genealogy
documentary series ‘Who Do You Think You
Are?’ regularly attracts an audience of more than 6 million viewers.
While we dig into the ancestry of famous celebrities, there is a lot of
controversy about the origin of the most famous person in history – Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Jesus is God’s Son. In the New Testament, Jesus frequently referred
to God as his “Father” (see John 5:17). Significantly
we read in the next verse that the Jews sought to kill him, because they
understood that he was claiming to be “equal with God”. In John 10:30, Jesus describes himself and
his Father as being one in essence, that is, divine, and as a result we read in
verse 33 that the Jews once again try to stone him.
However, many do not believe that the Bible is authored by God, but just
another piece of ancient literature and it has become fashionable for
sceptics to hold that these supposed quotations of Jesus were simply made up by
the early church and added to the gospels.
So our question is: ‘Who did
Jesus think he was?’ Let’s look at two
more occasions where Jesus claimed to be divine; two quotations that are
accepted by mainstream critical scholars as historically authentic as actually
said by Jesus. The early church is an
unlikely source for them!
1. During Jesus’ trial by the Sanhedrin as recorded in Mark 14, the high priest
asks him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" Jesus replies
(v62), "I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand
of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." The high priest tore his garment, and the verdict
of blasphemy with the death sentence was delivered by the Sanhedrin. They knew that Jesus was identifying himself as
the Old Testament ‘Son of Man’ figure who appeared to Daniel in a
vision (Daniel 7:13-14). Daniel’s ‘Son
of Man’ is described as eternal, glorious and sovereign ruler of
an everlasting kingdom. The
Sanhedrin’s verdict of blasphemy demonstrates that they knew that Jesus was
claiming to be God. Now, while ‘Son of
Man’ was often used by Jesus to refer to himself in the gospels, it is very
unlikely that this title was inserted as an invention of the Church, because
the title only occurs three other times in the New Testament (Acts
7:56; Revelation 1:13; 14:14) and only three times in all other Christian
literature during the Church's first 120 years.
Since neither Jesus' opponents nor his supporters are likely sources for
this title, Jesus himself is its most probable.
2. In Mark 13:32, talking about the end of the world, Jesus says, "no
one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the
Father." This text suggests that
there is something that he, the Son of God, does not know. If the disciples were forming a fictional
account, these are words they would never put in Jesus’ mouth. Again, Jesus himself is the most likely source
of this statement.
The Bible says that our forgiveness from sin and eternal wellbeing in
Heaven depends on the worth of his person as the unique Son of God. It is his divine nature that gives value to
his death as a sacrifice for us. Each of
us needs to personally answer Jesus’ own question: ‘Who do you say that I am?’
(Mark 8:29).
Written by Guest Blogger
