Who is He?

"When they heard these words, some of the people said, 'This really is the Prophet.' Others said, 'This is the Christ.' But some said, 'Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?' So there was a division among the people over Him. Some of them wanted to arrest Him, but no one laid hands on Him."
John 7:40-44

We dug into John 7:40-44 this past Tuesday (10/28/08). We arrived at one key question: Who do we say Jesus Christ is?

Right away we see that people are debating amongst themselves as to who Jesus is, but why is He so controversial? What makes Jesus so different from the other Rabbis? John 7:40 tells us it was "When they heard these words," they began to discuss. The teachings of Jesus were so different, they immediately grabbed the attention of the public. Even the officers sent to arrest him confessed that "No one ever spoke like," Jesus (v. 46). The other teachers at this time spoke with authority because they used Scripture as their basis. Their teachings were explanations of Scripture; they'd tell people about God according to Scripture, they'd tell people about various aspects of life according to Scripture. But Jesus was different. Instead of saying "Scripture says this about God," or "Scripture says this about life," He said things like "I say this about God" or "I say this about life." This was foreign to the people at this time. For instance, if we back up to 7:37 we see Jesus at the feast saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (emphasis mine). Jesus spoke with authority unlike any other teacher.

Because of this, people began to question who Jesus is. They couldn't decide if He was the Prophet, Christ, or neither. People still wonder such things. Was Jesus just a man? Just a prophet? Or is He the Christ?

How did people present their arguments? We see in verse 41-42 that some tried to use Scripture as their basis for their denying that Jesus is Messiah. However, their argument shows they didn't understand all the facts. They claim Scripture says Jesus must be a son of David and come from Bethlehem, but try to point out that Jesus doesn't fit these requirements...

This sort of thing certainly happens even today. Though instead of using Scripture, the common thing now is to use scientific reasoning to deny Jesus as Christ. Today, it's common to hear one say it is intellectual suicide to believe such things, or that it is a logical fallacy to buy into it. In other words, belief in Jesus Christ is seen as merely a crutch for the weak minded. We are told if only we would further our understanding of science or philosophy we would see the folly behind Christianity...

So who do you say Jesus is?

Do you really believe that, or is it just an empty, automatic answer? We are so accustomed to answering certain questions in a certain manner, yet often times the answer carries very little weight; religion tends to be one of those types of responses. Catholic. Lutheran. Baptist. Mormon. Muslim. Hindu. But are these responses actually what we truly believe, or are they responses that we give as a knee-jerk response? Perhaps they are given to merely satiate the curiosity of someone in order to get them to stop their pestering?

We see in verse 44 that peoples' belief about who Jesus is caused some to want to arrest Him. They were moved to want to act (but since it was not His time to be arrested, He was not touched) in a hostile manner. If we believe Jesus is Christ, are we moved to such strong actions? Does this belief in Jesus have any affect on who we are or what we do? It should. It must.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."
1 Corinthians 15:10