Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Who Do You Say That I Am?


I am not showing this picture to reveal my thoughts about who I am supporting for President in November. Why I am bringing this up is because of the assumption that some in our day make about who Jesus Christ is. It is very common today to say that Jesus was just a good person and had some good teachings that we can learn from. That is the assumption behind this pin. Jesus was a do-gooder. That begs the question of the title of this post. Who does Jesus say that he is? John 14:6 says "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus is more than just a good teacher. He is the only way that sinful man can have any hope of salvation. The Gospels are full of places where Jesus claimes to be not only the way of salvation, but God himself. In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one." Somehow I don't think that those who would make this claim connecting Jesus as a community organizer to their candidate would also want to claim that he is also God. But that shows ultimately what they believe about Jesus. He was not a community organizer. He was the one who, "though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men......Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:6-11. The work of Christ was more than a political slogan. It has restored the broken relatioship between man and God. I know that's not community organizing.