A Good Moral Teacher
A lot of people have made the mistake of calling Jesus one of many good moral teachers who have arisen over the history of the world. C.S. Lewis had the following to say about this perspective in his famous 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 patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
This is one of the most potent arguments for the trustworthiness of Jesus' testimony of Himself that I have encountered to date. Fact #1: Almost all people throughout the world who are familiar with Jesus' teachings, no matter what religion they are, would claim him to be a great moral teacher, and some even assimilate him into their faih as a prophet or a guru. Fact #2: Jesus both implicitly and explicitly taught that he was of equal standing with the one true God. Fact #3: Everyone who believes Jesus to be a great moral teacher must summarily ignore his claims to divinity. But why?
The fact is, unless you pick and choose what you're going to accept about Jesus (in which case you can make Him or anyone else out to be whoever you like), you have to deal with his claims to divinity. If you take Jesus' teachings as a whole, you must accept his claims of identity as well as his moral claims. But this creates a problem for the "good moral teacher" position.
If Jesus preached moral perfection on the one hand yet knowingly propagated the monumental deception of his divinity and ability to save people from their sins on the other, then Jesus Christ is a liar. And he is not just a common liar, but the most amazing deceiver of all time, considering the countless billions whom this deception has overtaken throughout our world's history. Jesus claimed to be divine. If He was not divine, then He is the grandest liar of all, and light years from being a good moral teacher.
So was Jesus the most immoral man the world has ever seen? Common testimony from all people of all faiths who are familiar with His moral teachings will not allow this conclusion. In anyone's book, Jesus was undoubtedly one of the greatest moral teachers the world has ever seen, if not the greatest. But how do we deal with these claims to divinity? Well, maybe Jesus just had a screw loose. If He was a lunatic, then He would not be morally blameworthy for making these claims to Godhood. Problem solved.
Problem not solved. Virtually anyone familiar with the teachings of Christ will recognize them as the deliberative life-instructions of a very wise and good man, whose own life acutally measured up to the standards He set. In other words, the way he lived was consistent with the most sane and level-headed people we know. If Jesus was insane, then most of us would have to be classified as raving madmen.
But if Jesus was not a liar and was not insane, how else do we make sense of His claims to deity set right alongside His moral teachings and manner of life? The only option left which give both of these factors the consideration they deserve is to accept Him for who He claimed to be. Jesus is Lord of all and nothing less.
Not happy with this conclusion? That's to be expected. It's not easy to admit that we are not the Lord of our own lives, but there is great reward to be found when we do. Trust Christ, and He will save you. The proof is in the pudding, but you have to have enough courage to taste it before any real change can happen.
Want an out? Just ignore the problem altogether, and make Jesus who you want Him to be. This is the solution of the vast majority of people who are faced with the Gospel, and for a while they get their way. But remember, this is not an honest solution and will only provide you with a shadow of peace. And when you stand before God to be judged and your life is brought into the light, you will face the problem again, only then it will be too late. Resolve to deal with the facts now, and allow Jesus the opportunity to prove true in your life.
