Matthew 16:15 - Jesus is Lord

Scripture Matthew 16:15
“Who do you say that I am?”

Comment

If Jesus was not just a mortal prophet, a great and powerful man then who was He?

This is the central question of the Gospel? And it is asked by none other than Jesus himself, who turned to His disciples and said: “Who do you say I am?”

There are really only 5 possibilities and they all start with the letter L

Legend
Liar
Lunatic
Light and fluffy new ager
Lord


Legend

The problem with calling Jesus a “legend” is that no reputable historian in the world would say Jesus never existed. Most of the New Testament was written when the eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus life, death and resurrection were still alive. If the apostles were enthusiast who just got a bit excited and mistook their rabbi for God, then why do the Gospel accounts show the disciples to be slow to understand His message and put their faith in Him?

Liar

Maybe the apostles told what they believed to be true. Isn’t it still possible that Jesus was the deceiver here, bent on selling Himself to the crowd for the usual reasons of power and money?

The problem is Jesus does not do the things that a deceiver or opportunist would do. He flees into the desert when people try to make Him king (John 6:15). Then He makes speeches (John 6:25-60) that are guaranteed to offend all but the most die-hard grassroots supporters. He repeatedly conceals His miracles (Mark 5:43, 7:36, Luke 5:14) etc. Such “political” blunders characterised His entire career. If He was after worldly power, He had a strange way of showing it.

Lunatic

Perhaps Jesus was just insane and merely believed He was God. This explanation doesn’t work. Consider the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew ch’s 5-7). Does this look to you like the ravings of a lunatic? Read again His deft answer to the people who wanted to catch Him in His words (Mark 12:13-17). Observe His brilliance and subtlety of His answer to those who wanted to stone the woman taken in adultery. (John 8:1-11). This kind of savvy is hardly evidence of madness.

Light and Fluffy New Ager

Some say that Jesus did claim to be God, but He meant it in an Eastern or ”New Age” way. He was merely asserting His “God” conscienceness in an attempt to awaken this same conscienceness in us. He was, in short, a guru to the Jewish people. It is an interesting thought but its not what Jesus said. On the contrary, He affirms that God is Lord of heaven and earth, not that He is heaven and earth. He does not speak of God as identical with creation. Far from asserting that He’s OK and we’re OK, he frequently tells us we are evil, but He is without sin; we are from below, but He is from above (John 8:1-11; 23) He insists that the way to life is not by discovering our divinity but by putting our faith exclusively in Him.

Jesus is the Lord

As we consider all the evidence, there is only one possibility that truly satisfies: Jesus is who He says He is.

He is God in the flesh.
He is the eternal Son of God, the Messiah, sent to save the world from it’s sins.
He indeed is the Lord of the universe, who came to give us eternal life.
He really and truly shed His blood for us on the cross and
He really and truly rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.

Now He offers us all the riches of His love, mercy, forgiveness, joy, power, and peace by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life with His Father through the sacraments of His Church, which is His body.

That’s what we find when we really “seek the truth”.

Source: The Da Vinci Deception by Mark Shea and Edward Sri



"[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is"

Source: Ignatius of Antioch – who knew the Apostle John - Letter to the Romans 1 [A.D. 110].