IS JESUS GOD / - PART SEVEN

                                            IS JESUS GOD ?  

   PART SEVEN.

       (copied from
        Y-Jesus.com.)


What Kind Of God ?

Some have argued that Jesus was only claiming to be part of God. But the idea that we are all part of God,  and that within us is the seed of divinity, is simply not a possible meaning for Jesus' words and actions.  Such thoughts are revisionist, foreign to His teaching, foreign to His stated beliefs, and foreign to His disciples'  understanding of His teaching. 

Jesus taught that He is God in the way the Jews understood God, and the way the Hebrew Scriptures portrayed God, not in the way the New Age Movement understands God. Neither Jesus nor His audience had been weaned on Star Wars, and so when they spoke of God, they were not speaking of cosmic forces. It's simply bad history to redefine what Jesus meant by the concept of God.

Lewis explains;

"Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that He was part of God, or one with God ....  but this man, since he was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else . And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips. "

Certainly there are those who accept Jesus as a great teacher, yet are unwilling to call Him God. 
As a deist, we have seen that Thomas Jefferson had no problem accepting Jesus' teachings on morals and  ethics, while denying His deity.  But, as we have said and will explore further, if Jesus was not who He claimed to be , then we must examine some other alternatives none of which would make Him a great moral teacher. Lewis argued, "I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I am 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.

In his quest for truth, Lewis knew that he could not have it both ways. 
Either Jesus was Who He claimed to be  - God in the flesh  - or  His claims were  false.  And if they were false, Jesus could not be a great moral teacher. 

He would either be lying intentionally or He would be a lunatic with a God complex.

next post 2nd August