Bringing Jesus Down to Size

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:9-14 NIV)

It happened again this week.  As the headline implied, there were shocking new revelations about Jesus.  Two scholars have written a new book claiming Jesus married the Virgin Mary and that they had two kids!  Absolutely shocking, isn’t it?  Who knew?  

I am never surprised or shocked when these claims appear in the media or in the classroom.  Ever since His resurrection, people have made attempts to diminish the divinity of Jesus.  The Jewish leaders were the first when they began spreading the story that Jesus’ disciples stole His body and hid it in order to perpetuate the fraud of His resurrection (Matthew 28:11-15) Many have followed.  

The 20th Century theologian Rudolf Bultmann claimed the resurrection of Jesus was mythical rather than historical.  In his view, the story gives Christians hope, but didn’t actually happen.  Some churches today, when they talk about the resurrection, view it from Bultmann’s perspective.  Some college professors seek to bring Jesus down to size by claiming His divinity was invented by the early Church, since the New Testament was written after His death.  A psychology professor I had in college called the resurrection and the miracles of Jesus “pure foolishness.”

Some are much gentler.  They call Jesus a great teacher and moral leader, but still deny His divinity.  C.S. Lewis dealt with this decisively when he wrote in his classic book, Mere Christianity: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

There are some today who do reject Jesus outright, claiming He never existed, except in the minds of those who made Him up. But most seek to make Him merely human.  In this way, by claiming He lived an ordinary life—with a wife and kids—He can be reduced to a mere man with no claims on us whatsoever.  And it is those claims that are so threatening.  If indeed, as John says, He came into a world that was His own, that it was made through Him, then the world and everyone in it belongs to Him.  In other words, He is Lord.  And, thus, why it is important for them to prove that to be a myth and untrue.  

Many would rather live as lord of their own lives than to submit to the Lord of life.  So they must bring Jesus down to the human level; make Him a mere man and strip Him of His authority.  

So today, don’t be surprised when people try to make Jesus merely a man.  It is their way to deal with Him so they can continue to be lord of their own lives.  But know one day they, along with all of humanity, will bow down and confess who He truly is—Lord of all (Philippians 2:9-11). In the meantime, if you have received Jesus, know you are His child, secure in His loving arms.

© Jim Musser 2014