IS JESUS GOD ? - PART EIGHT

                                                 IS JESUS GOD ?

       PART EIGHT.

         (copied from
          Y-Jesus.com)



Benefit


Many people have lied for personal gain, in fact the motivation of most lies is for some perceived benefit to oneself. What could Jesus have hoped gain  by lying about His identity?  Power would be the most obvious answer. If people believed He was God, He would have tremendous power.  (That is why many ancient leaders, such as the Caesars claimed divine origin.)

The rub with this explanation, is that Jesus shunned all  attempts to move Him in the direction of seated power, instead chastising those who who abused such power and spent their lives  pursuing it. He also chose to reach out to the  outcasts,(prostitutes and lepers), those without power, creating a network of people whose influence was less than zero. In a way, that could only be described as bizarre. All that Jesus said and did moved diametrically in the other direction from power. 

It would seem that if power was Jesus motivation, He would have avoided the cross at all costs. Yet, on several occasions He told His disciples that the cross was His destiny and mission. How would dying on a Roman cross bring one power.

Death, of course brings all
 things into proper focus. And while many martyrs have died for a cause they believed in, few have been willing to die for a known lie. Certainly all hopes for Jesus' personal gain would have ended on the cross. Yet to His last breath He would not relinquish His claim of being the unique Son of God. 

New Testament scholar T.I. Packer points out that this title asserts Jesus'  personal deity.   


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