If my calculation and projection are correct, you are reading this article four days after Easter Sunday (that was on April 17, 2022). I deliberately delayed submitting the subject that I want to consider today for two reasons that are very important to me. First, when I was growing up as a boy in Newtown, I attended a little Pentecostal Holiness Church on Dargan Street. Due to the fact that we did not have but a few children attending our church, we would always celebrate Easter on the Sunday after in the afternoon.
This was done to have more children participating in our Easter program. Many of the children who lived in the Newtown area and belonged to other churches would come and say the speeches that they had recited at their churches on Easter during our after Easter program. So, I wanted to give some acknowledgement and memory to this unique way of celebrating Easter. Additionally, I wanted to make some comments about what was the most essential and pivotal event in the annals of human history. My comments will be based on these words from the late Christian apologist and writer C.S. Lewis. Mr. Lewis said that Jesus was either a liar, lunatic, or The Lord in regards to His credentials and claim about being the Son of God. We are going to consider each of these three categories in light of the facts, history, and the universal impact of His life.
Why Jesus Was
Not a Liar
Let’s consider the reason why Jesus was definitely not a liar. One of the most compelling reasons why Jesus’ credentials and claim to be the Only Begotten Son of God and therefore the Second Person of the Trinity was not a lie was due to the prophecies His birth and life fulfilled. In all of the books of the Old Testament – from Genesis to Malachi – His birth, life, ministry, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension were predicted and precisely fulfilled. Things that He could not have had any control over like the timing of His birth, the place of His birth, being betrayed by a close friend for thirty pieces of silver, His crucifixion on a tree (cross), dying between two criminals, and His grave being made with the rich were not coincidental or planned by Him.
The probability of these things happening by mere chance or coincidence is so mathematically unfeasible that you are more likely to be struck by lightning ten times in your life or to be the first-place winner in a lottery contest with one hundred million participants. So, we have to conclude based upon these computations and things that we have considered and will yet consider that Jesus’ credentials and claim to be the Only Begotten Son of God was definitely not a fabrication, lie, or cunningly devised fable (2 Peter 1:16), but the absolute, infallible, and inerrant truth.
Why Jesus Was
Not a Lunatic
The definition of a lunatic is one who is insane or extremely foolish or idiotic. Just that definition contradicts the sane, wise, and very rational way that our Lord conducted Himself from the time of His childhood when He was found in the temple by His mother and stepfather both questioning the teachers and answering their questions (Luke 2:45-47). Throughout His life, the general consensus of the people as well as the theological elite was expressed in these words: “Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man” (John 7:45-46). This is just one of the many incidents and examples that proves unequivocally beyond any shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ was not a lunatic, but the saneness and wisest man who ever lived – barring none.
Jesus Christ Was and
Is The Lord
n this final section, I am going to conclude and give indisputable proof that Jesus is both the Lord of the living as well as the dead and that He was Emmanuel who was predicted to be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23). This prophesy was fulfilled along with all the others that we alluded to in the first section (Jesus Was Not a Liar). Everything that the Old Testament prophets, like Moses (Genesis 3:14), David (Psalm 41:9), Isaiah (Isaiah 7:14), Daniel (Daniel 9:25-26), and Micah (Micah 5:2) spoke about Jesus’ first coming was acutely fulfilled without any of it falling to the ground and not being fulfilled (Psalm 16 and Isaiah 53). The pivotal and indispensable truth of the Lordship of Jesus Christ was His Resurrection. Everything pertaining to His credentials and claim to be the Only Begotten Son of God and Savior of the World would have been invalid and a hoax, if He had not gotten up. All of the preaching and global evangelism would be based upon a lie from the Day of Pentecost until the present time (I Corinthians 15:12-20).
Thank God He is risen and is seated at the right of God as Lord of lords and King of kings.
He is our (believers) advocate and mediator who ever lives to make intercessions for us before the Father. Truly, there is a Man (the Godman) upon the throne, and He is our Elder Brother Who gave His life that we might live eternally.
