Who Do You Say I Am?

He said to them, but who do you say I am?
(Matthew 16:15 NKJV)

This is the most important question you will ever answer: Who do you say Jesus is? Many people accept that He existed, that He was a Jew from Galilee, and that He lived during the first century. Many also accept that He was martyred on the cross, and that His teachings were radical and influential. They are ready to accept Him as a great moral teacher, but not as the Son of God. But He could not possibly be a great moral teacher if He is not who He says He is. He would either be, at best, a liar or, at worst, mentally deranged. Most issues have shades of gray, but not this one.

C.S. Lewis sums it up beautifully:

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 thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a 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.

I know which one I believe—Jesus is the Son of God. Which do you believe? Ponder on this long and hard before you reply—the answer you arrive at will literally mean life or death.