Who is Jesus?

For many, the most crucial question to determine who is a Christian and who is not is, "Do you believe in Jesus?" But I'd argue that two even more fundamental questions must be asked before we proceed to the "Do you believe Jesus?" question.

These fundamental questions are: "Who is Jesus?" and "What's to believe?" And this is foundational because we might be using the same words to mean very different things. On a side note, this is very common in "christian" cults; very often, they use the same words orthodox Christianity uses, but with different meanings.

I have written on the theme of true saving faith many times before (this answers the question "What's to believe?"), so today, I want to focus on Jesus's identity question. 

In 2 Timothy 2:17, Paul, as he charges Timothy to rebuke false teachers in the church, reminds them that their false teaching spread like gangrene. And I think we have a very destructive false teaching spreading in the body of Christ today, but we are so distracted with other also important issues that we are ignoring an even more critical problem. And this problem is the identity of Jesus Christ.

Looking at some theological belief surveys done throughout North America (like The State of Theology by Ligonier), you will find some disturbing statistics among evangelicals. You would have numbers around 90% believing that Jesus indeed resurrected from the dead and that his sacrifice is the only one that could remove our sins, but at the same time, you have around 60% of the people believing Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God, and other 45% who believe Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.

In other words, you have a large number of evangelicals who trust the sacrifice of Jesus, but this Jesus is not the Jesus we find in the pages of Scripture. The Jesus of Scriptures is fully God and fully man. He is the Word who is eternal, who was God and was with God from the beginning; and all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (John 1). 

Pastors need to start teaching a more robust Christology; our people are perishing for lack of knowledge. Christological heresy is spreading like gangrene, and churches are dying and will continue to die, and we will wonder why. 

Christian, you don't need to be part of a cult to have cultish beliefs. You don't need to be in a false church to believe a false Gospel. The acknowledgement of the true identity of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our Christian life individually and as a church. 

My encouragement for you today is to get to know the Jesus of the Bible. Not the Jesus of a TV show, not the Jesus of pop culture or whatever other Jesuses of secular imagination. You need to know who He truly is. Otherwise, you might believe in a Jesus who is not the Jesus of the Scriptures. And these other Jesuses are powerless to save.

Nino Marques