3

CHAPTER 1

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?

Jesus once asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” (Mark 8:27). The disciples responded with two of the many answers being given in their day, John the Baptist and Elijah. Over the centuries since that time me have given further answers. Some have said that Jesus was merely a good man, or even an angel, or, as the so-called intellectuals of our culture prefer to say, a fiction created by the early Christians. Jesus question has stirred continual strife.

Jesus taught that such discord does not reflect upon Him or the clarity of His revelation but reflects upon the world system. Many men who reject Jesus’ claims think to judge Jesus just as they do with the revelation of God in and around them. If the light shines in the world and men say there is darkness, the problem is not with the light; the problem lies with the men who are blind to that light (John 3:19-21). In particular, biographical studies of Jesus, including the articles in weekly news magazines each Christmas season, reflect the presuppositions of their authors. As one astute observer quipped, “By their lives of Jesus ye shall know them!”

When Jesus disciples gave the above answer, Jesus continued to press them: “But who say ye that I am?” (Mark 8:29). The disciples, most notably Peter, responded that Jesus was the Christ. When rightly understood, this is the correct answer to Jesus’ question. Jesus responded that such an answer reflected direct revelation from God. Both acceptance of true revelation and the many false responses to that revelation will be considered in the following section, not in relation to what they show Jesus to be but in relation to what they show their authors to be. The evidence will show just how loaded is the basic question, “Who do you say that I am?” which Jesus addresses to all men.

THE CONTEXT OF JESUS CHALLENGE

Before considering the revelation concerning Jesus and the false response to that revelation, we must look at the historic situation in which Jesus’ challenge arose. His question arose only after very definite historical development had occurred in both Gentile and Jewish worlds, a development which was carefully designed to prepare men to face the question intelligently and maturely. After such prepared men faced the question, of course, there arose extensive and vigorous debate which has continued down to the present hour about Jesus’ real identity. In the next few paragraphs I shall trace this historical preparation, the presentation of Jesus’ challenge, and the response to the challenge. After covering these points, the final section will outline the details of the revelation concerning Christ and the false responses given to each of these details.

HISTORICAL PREPARATION FOR THE CHALLENGE.

The apostle Paul wrote that God sent His Son “when the fullness of the time came” (Gal. 4:4). Although in context Paul’s expression concerned primarily the fitness of Christ’s coming to Israel, it is possible to speak about a “fullness of time” in both Gentile and Jewish worlds because Israel’s history was so entwined at this time with that of the surrounding pagan Gentile culture. If nothing else was made plain in the closing eras of OT history through the prophets and the apocalyptic texts, it was that God’s sovereign plan encompassed all nations everywhere.

Historical Preparation of the Gentile (Pagan) World. The sequence of events in world history prepared the pagan world around Israel in a way that would have been impossible ages earlier in the Garden of Eden. First, the civilization begun by Noah upon the “reconstructed” planet after the flood event, departed from the then-known Word of God. God let Noahic civilization become paganized (Deut. 4:19; Acts 14:6; 17:30; Rom 1:24-32). The once simple monotheistic worship of El Elyon of the earliest post-flood communities (note Gen. 14:18-20) rapidly gave way to various idolatries of the fleshly mind. Fallen mankind insisted upon the impossible task of recreating the universe to make it safe for sinful living without having to give account to the holy sovereign Creator. The divine attributes which alone undergird the successful functioning of man created as a finite replica of his Creator were “relocated” inside man and nature. The pagan world spawned varied mythologies and many idols. The constellation and stars, for example, instead of being viewed as manifestations of God’s glory (Ps. 19:1), were turned by the Gentiles into fatalistic instruments of astrology (Isa. 47:13; Amos 5:26). Fear of these idols’ non-existent powers was a confession of man’s physical limitations over against inevitable sickness, death, and the various evils in nature itself (storms, famines, earthquakes).

A second period of history further prepared the pagan world for Jesus’ question. After the exile of Israel in the sixth century, B.C., as we studied in Part IV of this

series, there was an explosion of new religions throughout the world along with the rise of philosophy in Greece. Seven world religions appeared within 50 years of each other all emphasizing man as his own savior in either pessimistic or optimistic forms. Each in their own way mirrored the transfer of political sovereignty to the Gentiles and the rise of an imperialist spirit in paganism. Of special interest to this study was the rise of Greek philosophy with its unique conviction that a single rational order underlies all of reality. The great Hellenic scholar, F. E. Peters observes:

“The rationalistic premise operative in much of Greek thought and life. . .was, at root, the belief that unaided human reason was an adequate instrument for both understanding and action. Very few Greeks. . .denied the existence of the gods. . . ; what the rationalist premise did suggest was that the operation of these gods was unnecessary for the acquisition of either truth by intellect or good by will.”[1]

At bottom, however, the new thought was as equally sinful, pagan, and autonomous as the earlier mythologies. Greek philosophers before Christ were not the “open-minded” seekers after truth that they are usually presented as in the classroom. As Van Til notes:

“It is taken for granted that the Greeks may fairly be compared to children who begin to wonder about things around them. But this comparison would be fair only if [the pagan notion of history] were true. The comparison presupposes that the human race was for the first time emerging into self-consciousness in the person of the Greeks. [It] takes for granted that the human race had never been in close contact with a God who was closer to them than the universe. [It] takes for granted that the physical facts would naturally be knowable first, and that if God is to be known he must be known later.”[2]

The Greek adventure led to the rise of Rome, the fourth and final form of pagan kingdom in the vision of Daniel 2. In Rome all the contributions of the pagan

kingdoms came together in one mighty organization. The supremacy of the city and the kingdom over every area of life can be illustrated in the very legend of

Rome’s founding. Rousas Rushdoony notes:

“Two boys, abandoned twins, set out to found a city. Romulus plowed a furrow as the first wall around the planned city, with the trench as the moat, and the overturned earth as the wall. His brother, Remus, express his contempt for the wall and moat by leaping across them into the City, whereupon Romulus killed him at once, declaring, ‘So perish all who ever cross my walls?’ Rome thus began, first, with two boys abandoned by their family, and, second, with the murder of a brother as its first sacrifice. The priority of the City to the family is emphatically set forth. But this is not all. Third, the first citizens were not members of a common

family or clan but neighboring shepherds, outlaws, and stateless people. The City made them Romans, not ties of family or of blood. . . .”[3]

While prominent Romans like Cicero wanted reason to control the state, the actual political conditions prompted brute force and power to control the state. Under Caesar Augustus, Roman organization and unity reached its zenith (and it was under this Caesar Augustus that Jesus Christ was born [Lk 2:1])..6 Although by the time of Jesus’ birth Roman power had reached a peak, people were increasingly disillusioned with man’s solutions to the practical and theoretical questions of life. Confidence in classical philosophy was waning. Masses of people sought answers in the numerous cults throughout the Empire. Men looked for a superman to bring stability to society. Since Jewish OT Scripture continued to circulate throughout the Roman Empire, its Messianic hope not unexpectedly influenced Gentile pagan writers. For example, Tacitus, the Roman author, wrote: “The majority were deeply impressed with a persuasion that was contained in the ancient writings of the priests that it would come to pass that at that very time, that the East would renew its strength and they that should go forth from Judea should be rulers of the world.”[4] Likewise, Suetonius confirms this distorted Messianic expectation in pagan society during NT times: “A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all the East that it was fated for the empire of the world at that time to devolve on someone who should go forth from Judah. This prediction referred to a Roman emperor, as the event, showed, but the Jews applying it to themselves broke into rebellion.”[5] The NT era had become a time in which great expectations for man’s success were dissolving into a general pessimism and hope for some new miraculous solution was on the rise.

Thus in the period after 600 BC the fallen human race, dominated by Gentile rule which had been given an imperialist spirit by God, passed through the four kingdoms predicted in the book of Daniel. Each kingdom built upon the previous one until with Rome, the fourth kingdom, pagan society had thoroughly experimented with economic programs (Babylon), unification of culture (Persia), philosophy (Greece), and humanistic law (Rome). The deterioration of hope in Rome by Jesus’ time, shown by the rise of mystery cults, loss of freedom for many in slavery, and arbitrary totalitarian power, gave ample proof of the mental

limitations of man. This awareness, together with the previous sense of man’s physical limitations prior to 600 BC, set the stage for the Coming of the Messiah. When He claimed to be the “Son of Man” and able to set up the ultimate Kingdom on earth, His claims would be met with a seasoned evaluation. Mankind had already glimpsed the possibilities, had strenuously tried in autonomous ways to fulfill those possibilities, and had failed. Historical Preparation of the Jewish World. The Jewish world was prepared for the Messiah in a much more definite fashion than the Gentile world. As God’s elect nation, Israel was singled out for special covenantal treatment as we have studied in Parts III and IV of this series.

The pre-exilic kingdom era of the first temple taught Jews the priority of ethical loyalty to God in every area of life. Under the judges, Jews learned that the people without firm leadership could not bring in kingdom conditions. Under the kings, Jews learned that fallen human leadership could not bring in kingdom conditions, either. They learned time and time again that neither society, kings, nor idols could accomplish the job; Yahweh alone was sufficient for every need. The exile and subsequent restoration reminded the Jews that redemption was an issue that involved all nations, not just Israel. They found that if Israel were ever to be delivered, God would have to work in some way with their Gentile overlords. His supremacy over all men, not just Hebrews, would have to become manifest. Moreover, the Hebrew prophets increasingly emphasized that God had future plans for the Gentiles. As the OT canon closed, the prophecies touching many Gentile nations became widely known in the world.

In the period directly preceding Jesus’ day, a great time of testing occurred during the Maccabean Wars against the occupying forces of Syrian-Greeks.[6] The Jews sharply and bitterly resisted radical attempts to force them to amalgamate culturally with Hellenism. When Antiochus IV (who was the prophetic “foreview” of the Beast) demanded that unclean animals be sacrificed on Jewish altars, the Scriptures be destroyed, and Jewish boys not be circumcised, a priest called Mattathiah and his sons, who lived in the town of Modine in Western Judea, triggered a fierce war between the Jews and Antiochus IV. The exciting beginning of the war is reported by F. F. Bruce:

“In [Modine], as in other [towns], a pagan alter was set up, and the inhabitants were summoned to participate in sacrifice thereat. The king’s officer, who was present to supervise and enforce participation, invited Mattathiah to offer sacrifice first. . . .But Mattathiah loudly and contemptuously repudiated the suggestion, proclaiming that he and his family would maintain the ancestral covenant though all others should apostatize. Nor was this all, for when a more pliable citizen came up to the altar to offer sacrifice, Mattathiah ran forward and killed him and then killed the officer who stood by. The altar was then pulled down, and Mattathiah uttered his war cry: ‘Let everyone who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me.’[7]

After several years the Jewish forces won their independence from Syrian control and maintained their separateness from Hellenic culture. By Jesus’ day, although the Romans had entered the region and brutally suppressed the Jews once again, the memory of the Maccabean Wars lingered on among the Jewish

“Zealot” party.

During this era, called by Jesus the “times of the Gentiles” (cf. Luke 21:24), an uneasy truce existed between the forces of Jewish nationalism and the Gentile demand to unify all cultures into one great Kingdom of Man. Jewish culture was a constant political problem to Roman administrators because it was religiously exclusivist. The Kingdom of God program in Israel, as we learned in Part III, was from its very beginning with the call of Abraham out of Babylon exclusivist and a disruption to the paganized Noahic civilization. Although Roman officials would undoubtedly liked to have eliminated the troublesome Jewish nation altogether, they could not afford serious trouble like the Maccabean Wars on the strategic eastern border of the Roman Empire where the hostile Parthians dwelt just to the east.

On the other hand, Israel faced her own persistent inability to be wholly faithful to her exclusivist religion. God had gradually led the nation to look forward to a future Messianic Kingdom. In Roman times this Kingdom seemed very imminent. The Qumran sect, for example, separated from the rest of the nation to await the Teacher of Righteousness and the coming Judgment upon the world. Apocalyptic literature describing in gross details the end of the world became extremely popular among the Jews. Rabbi Abba Silver comments:

“Prior to the first century the Messianic interest was not excessive, although such great historical events as the conquest of Persia by Alexander, the rule of the Ptolemies and Seleucides, the persecutions under Antiochus, the revolt of the Maccabees, and the Roman aggression find their mystic-Messianic echo in the apocalyptic writings of the first two pre-Christian centuries. . . .

The first century, however, especially the generation before the destruction, witnessed a remarkable outburst of Messianic emotionalism. This is to be attributed, as we shall see, not to an intensification of Roman persecution but to the prevalent belief induced by the popular chronology of that day that the age was on the threshold of the Millennium.”[8] (Emphasis supplied)

Israel, then, faced the predicament that the outside world despised her faith but that, at the same time, she was not living up to that faith. The situation dramatized the spiritual limitations of man. Jews would consider Jesus’ claims in the light of how He would solved the external problem of Roman animosity and the internal problem of beginning a new Messianic Kingdom.[9]

The “fullness of time” came, therefore, to both Gentile and Jewish worlds. Historical experience had made mankind aware of its physical, mental, and spiritual limitations. Great leaders of both worlds—Thutmose III, Moses, Sargon, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, and Augustus—had failed to solve the problems. The Eastern religious cults promised nothing better. In this environment appeared the Lord Jesus Christ.

PRESENTATION OF THE CHALLENGE.

Jesus challenged mankind by His method and by the content of His teaching. Jesus’ career was controlled carefully by a definite method of approach that in turn affected the way His challenge would come to mankind. First, Israel heard His challenge and responded to it. Then the Gentile nations heard the challenge and responded to the situation created by Israel’s previous response.

The teachings themselves had a remarkably comprehensive content. Jesus did not merely lecture as Plato had in the Academy at Athens. Instead, He showed by His miracles that He had a divine-human nature. Thus the content of His teachings was affected by His own nature. This startling claim constituted as much of the challenge as did His verbal teachings. The method and content of Jesus’ challenge will now be examined, although the content will be more fully developed in the rest of this Part V of the framework series.

The Method of Presentation. Careful students of the NT have often remarked over the strangely narrow outlook of Jesus during His ministry. He never traveled outside of Israel. In fact, He never visited the Greek cities inside the nation. For example, He never visited the Greek cities in the Decapolis area to the east and south of the Sea of Galilee whereas He visited the Jewish cities to the west and north of the Sea many times. Jesus went so far as to prohibit His disciples from preaching to, or having any contact with, Gentiles (Matt. 10:5-6). Gentiles were called “dogs” and “pigs” (Matt. 7:6; cf. 15:24-27). Obviously Jesus insisted upon the provincial Jewish outlook when, for example, He remarked to a Samaritan woman that salvation “is from the Jews” (John 4:22). [In doing so, of course, Jesus also refuted the view held today by certain pseudo-Christian cults that claims the “Jews” of the NT era were racially distinct from the “Hebrews” of the OT era.] As one Jewish scholar stated it:

“Jesus was born a Jew; he lived on the ancestral soil of Palestine, never once setting his foot on alien territory; he taught a small group of disciples, all of whom were as Jewish as he; the language he spoke dripped with Jewish tradition and lore; the little children he loved were Jewish children; the sinners he associated with were Jewish sinners; he healed Jewish bodies, fed Jewish hunger, poured out wine at a Jewish wedding, and when he died he quoted a passage from the Hebrew book

of Psalms. . . .Jesus was a Jew, and his Jewishness was solid to the core. . . .Jesus was born into a definite thought life which was Jewish; he shared the Jewish system of ideas; the only Bible he was familiar with was the Hebrew Old Testament; his apocalyptic ideas were those of his own fellow Palestinians. No Jew was born and raised in the bosom of his people more completely than Jesus. . . .”[10]

What was the purpose in this extremely Jewish outlook if Jesus indeed wished to reach all mankind? The answer lies in the great covenants that Yahweh had made with Israel. According to these covenants, Israel was not called into existence for her own sake; rather she was to be a channel through which “all the families of the earth [could] be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Israel was to be God’s own possession, “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (Exod..10 19:5-6). The Jewish nation was God’s appointed instrument to reach the world. As we discovered in Part III of this series, Israel was God’s “disruption” to the paganized Noahic civilization. From its origin, therefore, God would henceforth reach the nations indirectly through Israel rather than any longer speaking to the nations directly. George W. Peters writes:

“Our Lord addressed Himself first to Israel in order to restore Jews to their place, purpose, and destiny. Israel was to have the opportunity to be made into a servant of the Lord in order to draw the world to the Lord. . . .It may seem at first that Christ failed in winning a hearing among his own people. . . .However, we must not interpret this as total failure. A substantial remnant came out of the rejection. The apostles, including Paul, were all Jews; the first Christian church was a Jewish Christian church in the city of Jerusalem. . . .The first missionaries to the nations were Jews. . . .Thus the Jews gave us the Bible, the gospel, the missionaries, and the first churches. Let us always keep this in mind.”[11]

When Jesus brought his challenge to mankind, therefore, He brought it to Israel first so that His words and works would reach the rest of mankind through God’s elect nation. His method of presenting the challenge thus fulfilled the OT pattern.

The Comprehensiveness of the Presentation. Jesus’ challenge was not only addressed to mankind out of a Jewish context but was also enlarged beyond His verbal teachings to Jesus’ very nature and actions. He presented Himself as a unique Person in word, work, and being. Jesus’ entry into this world was unique according to the NT testimony. By the virgin birth Jesus succeeded in acquiring a legitimate humanity without sin. Additionally, His full divine nature was successfully combined with true human nature in one person. Thus, while other religious teachers claimed to represent God or to be a manifestation of deity, Jesus claimed to be God. The implications of Jesus’ supernatural entry into the world constitute a tremendous portion of his challenge.

During His life, of course, Jesus said and did many outstanding things. In later parts of this pamphlet a case will be made that one of the most outstanding features of Jesus’ career was the authority He assumed over man and nature. Jesus challenged people to consider how He exercised control over the elements of nature and how He demanded that His words by accepted on His own implicit authority. Whereas other teachers justified what they taught by an appeal to a standard of truth outside of themselves, Jesus insisted that He was the standard of truth Himself!

Not only was Jesus’ life unique; so was His death. Jesus was the only member of the human race who, without guilt of suicide, chose to die. When Jesus died, He accomplished what no other teacher ever accomplished and what no OT sacrifice ever did: He somehow bore the sins of the world upon Himself and received God’s judgment upon them. Finally, Jesus challenged mankind by His physical resurrection. He thus demonstrated that the long-promised “new creation” had begun to appear. The last chapter in cosmic history was now being written. Resurrection was no longer mere prophecy or speculation; it had become historical fact.

Jesus, therefore, in asking mankind to consider who He really was, forced man to consider His virgin birth, His miraculous life, His unique death, and His pioneering resurrection—not merely his verbal teachings. His challenge, mediated to humanity through Israel, was comprehensive.

RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGE.

Once Jesus’ challenge became known in both Jewish and Gentile worlds, a spirited debate followed, one which continues to the present. Although the challenge came to a prepared humanity in the “fullness of time,” it has not been well received by the majority of men. The response, first among the Jews and then among the Gentiles, has been largely negative.

Response among the Jews. The Jews, it was seen above, had been prepared for their Messiah by OT history which should have made them clearly aware of God’s high spiritual demands and the limitations of their flesh. Nevertheless, apart from a faithful remnant (John 12:19; Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:14, 28), their official national response to Jesus indicated that they were still prisoners of the very spiritual limitations they had been trained to recognize. While Jews had become acutely aware, for example, of Gentile hostility to their exclusivistic way of life, this very Gentile hostility frightened them into trying to murder Jesus, a fellow Jew. Caiaphas, the High Priest, argued that if Jesus were allowed to continue his ministry He would stir up such controversy that Rome would militarily and politically intervene and take away what freedoms Israel had left (John 11:27-52).

In the same vein, the Jews had experienced over and over their own inability to keep the Law in a way that pleased Yahweh; but instead of driving them to God’s grace, their inability had led them to mitigate the lofty demands of the Law. To replace the Torah and its vital gracious spirit, many of them substituted an intricate network of legalistic, human regulations. (Note the previous discussion of “law” versus “grace” in Part III of this series.) In a Talmudic passage for example, one reads the rabbinical instruction to pay more attention to these rules than the original Scripture or Torah:

“My son, be more careful in [the observance of] the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah, for in the laws of the Torah there are positive and negative precepts. . . ; but as to the laws of the Scribes, who ever transgresses any of the enactments of the Scribes incurs the penalty of death.”[12]

By living within these rules as their primary authority over the OT Scripture itself, the Jews hoped they could attain a sufficient righteousness to enter God’s kingdom.

Starting with John the Baptist, however, and continuing with Jesus, they were faced with the demand that their righteousness “must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). The righteousness of legalism was too superficial, too inferior, to please God (Matt. 23:23). To please God truly, according to Jesus, the Jew had to admit his inability to keep the Law and come by faith to Yahweh, trusting that God would justify him and enable him to live righteously (Luke 18:9-14; cf. Deut. 5:29; 10:16; 30:6; Ezk. 36:25-31). Jesus’ constant assault upon the legalist rules deeply angered the Jewish leadership (Matt. 9:10-13; 12:1-14; 15:1-4; 23:13-39; John 9:16).

Moreover, the loyal devotion to Yahweh which was the very essence of Jewish historical preparation apparently had been transformed into a misplaced loyalty to exceedingly questionable interpretations of the OT. By Jesus’ day, for instance, the Second Temple buildings had attained a pseudo-sanctity reminiscent of the sinful, “impregnable” image of the First Temple under the pre-exilic kings. Back in that era, if you recall Part IV of this series, the pre-exilic nation had forgotten the conditions of blessing under the Sinaitic Covenant in their desire to remember the nation’s unconditional election of the Abrahamic Covenant. Jesus’ remarks were thus construed as an attack upon God’s sacred ground (Matt. 26:61; 27:40; cf. Acts 6:13-14; 21:28).

In addition to the false view of the Temple, the popular imagery of the Messiah pictured him as a glorious reigning king, not a suffering servant who would have to die vicariously for the nation (John 12:34). Although Isaiah 53 was interpreted Messianically (before this passage was used by Christians), interpretations did not always see a vicarious suffering in it. Some interpretations saw the Messiah suffering in conflict with the enemies of Israel. Another glaring example of a highly questionable OT interpretation that blocked Jewish acceptance of Jesus’ claims was the idea that the Messiah was not in any way to be identified as Yahweh Himself. In spite of OT references to the contrary (see next Chapter), when Jesus did claim identity with Yahweh, the reaction was extremely violent (Matt. 26:64-66; John 8:58-59; 10:30-36). This misplaced loyalty to questionable OT passages is explained in the NT as a “hardening” that has come over Israel due to her past rejection of Yahweh (Rom. 11:25-27; cf. Isa. 6:9-12)..13

Since the first century national rejection of Jesus by Israel, mainline Jewish thought has further hardened its position and, in the case of its liberal wing, has come to deny the very existence or hope of a Messiah. The key OT passage in Isaiah 53, for example, is now said to refer, not at all to the Messiah, but to the Jewish people. Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum notes:

“To interpret Isaiah 53 as speaking of Messiah is not non-Jewish. In fact, if we are to speak of the traditional Jewish interpretation, it would be that the passage speaks of the Messiah. The first one to expound the view that this referred to Israel rather than the Messiah was Shlomo Yizchaki, better known as Rashi (c. 1040-1105). He was followed by David Kimchi (1160-1235). But this was to go contrary to all rabbinical teaching of that day and of the preceding one thousand years. Today, Rashi’s view has become dominant in Jewish and rabbi theology. But that is not the Jewish view. Nor is it the traditional Jewish view. Those closer to the

original writings, and who had less contact with Christian apologists, interpreted it as speaking of the Messiah.”[13]

Other Jewish objections have been added to the first century ones. These include Jesus’ “failure” to bring peace, the anti-Semitic behavior of groups identified with the Christian faith, the impossibility of a man become God, and the fear that a Jew who accepts Jesus will cease to be a Jew.

The Jewish response to Jesus’ challenge has showed only too well that in spite of historical preparation under the sovereign grace of God, the Jews as sinful men have responded to the advent of Jesus in the same way as they responded to God’s earlier revelation in the OT times—by rejection of God, albeit, perhaps more subtly. Their autonomous thought has become cloaked in the garb of biblical terminology and/or ethical concerns. As John the Apostle poignantly expressed it: “His own received Him not” (John 1:11).

Response among Gentiles. After the Jews nationally rejected Christ, the Gentiles had their turn to respond to Jesus’ claims. Their response was no better than the Jew’s response. Gentile pagan autonomy stubbornly resisted wholesale capitulation to Christ.

Gentiles continued their idolatry of nature and arrogant estimation of man’s mental capacities. Pilate’s remarks to Jesus epitomize the majority Gentile view:

Pilate: “Whence art thou?”

Jesus: (no answer)

Pilate: “Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have the

power to release thee, and I have the power to crucify thee?” (John 19:9-10)

In other words, whatever importance and authority Jesus had, so the Gentile mind worked, He was beneath the importance and authority of the “almighty” state. Politically, Gentile thought has always tried to put Christ under the state. As an illustration, Arianism, the main heresy denying Jesus’ full divine nature, was consistently popular with statists. Rushdoony writes: “By denying that Christ is Lord and Savior, Arianism. . .had made the state man’s lord and savior, and the Arians were dedicated statists. The emperor, not Christ, His Word, and the Church, was central to the Arians.”[14] He also points out:

“In its modern form, statist theology goes further. It not only ignores Christ and the Church, it begins to deny their right to exist. A critical background is the issue of taxation. The modern state assumes the position of having a right to tax the Church as a corpus politicum, and then magnanimously forgoes this right on the ground that the Church is a charitable or non-profit institution. The hidden premise is that the Church is under the state and exists by its permission.”[15]

Like Pilate, modern pagan thought still says to Christ, “I have the power. . .” Another issue is shown by an earlier dialogue between Pilate and Christ:

Jesus: “Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

Pilate: “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38)

On a deeper level than the issue of statism, less viable but more lethal, modern pagan thought amplifies Pilate’s remark, “what is truth?” As architects of developed paganism, Gentile world leaders make all truth ultimately subjective. Truth to them is merely what one thinks is truth. Van Til describes the Greek fountainhead of this paganism:

“Socrates discovered the principle of interpretation, which man ought best to follow, to lie within himself, in nous, rather than in water, in the indeterminate (aperion), in air or in anything else which was external to man. . . .Socrates possessed a voice which spoke to him, but its advice was actually internally consonant with his own consciousness; namely, if the gods ever told him anything, he would by himself, of necessity be relegated the task of judging the truth or falsity thereof. The principle was an internal one.”[16]

Such a view of truth makes any kind of historical, verbal revelation from God to man impossible. Since all truth, according to this form of fleshly thinking, is ultimately subjective, one cannot reach real truth about God as Christ insists that one can do. Alan Richardson, for example, illustrates this kind of thinking:

“The facts about the Jesus of history are accessible to us only through the apostles’ faith in him. The Gospel writers were not biographers or historians, and they chose to tell us only such things about the life and teaching of Jesus as seemed good to them to illuminate essential aspects of the Church’s faith in him.”[17]

In this modern unbelieving thought statements about Jesus would be merely autobiographical testimony about what early Christians thought; they would not be statements about objective reality external to their thoughts. Their views about Jesus would be more important in degree than what the early Christians

ate and wore but are no different in kind. They all simply show ancient opinion and life.

Thus the response to Jesus’ challenge in both Jewish and Gentile worlds has been largely a negative one. The majority of Jews have rejected Jesus’ claims on spiritual and ethical grounds; the majority of pagan Gentiles, on philosophic and theoretical grounds.

THE ONLY TWO OPTIONS

Jesus presented His challenge in word, work, and deed. The Light of the world came to men, and some came to the Light while others fled from the Light. We now examine each of the four major areas of Jesus’ challenge—His birth, life, death, and resurrection—so we can observe how the two responses interpret this revelation. In this way, we can see the full structure of belief and unbelief.

The Birth of the King. The first event to be studied is the birth of Jesus Christ. Since the birth event brings into existence the God-man, the doctrine resulting from this historic fact centers upon the nature of Christ, i.e., what sets Him apart from all other teachers. The correct interpretation of the virgin birth claim depends for its validity upon the truthfulness of the prior biblical doctrines of God, man, and nature. If OT revelation is valid, then the virgin birth and incarnation of God fit neatly into the big picture.

On the other hand, the negative responses to this supernatural birth presuppose a radically different view of God, man, and nature. The pagan answer must be understood in terms of its prior “faith” that God and man are both part of the grand Continuity of Being from which both have arisen. On such a basis, no other response to Jesus’ claim is possible except a thorough denial that a God like the biblical God has incarnated Himself in a man. Thus the nature of Jesus radically differs between the two options.

The Life of the King. The second event in NT revelation of Jesus is his life, especially between His baptism and His death. This event brings into view the authority and sanctification of Jesus. Again the correct interpretation of Christ’s life depends upon the OT doctrines of revelation and sanctification. If, for example, God truly speaks into history as the OT insists, then Jesus’ claim to have implicit (self-authenticating) authority for what He taught is perfectly reasonable, given His accompanying claim to be God incarnate. The apparently real temptations and vexing decisions facing Christ, too, are reasonable if the OT picture of human sanctification is true.

On the contrary, negative critics unanimously deny Jesus’ right to have inherent authority for His teaching. This unbelieving objection, however, rests upon the prior pagan position that God does not speak verbally into history as pictured by the OT. Moreover, Jesus’ claims appear so incredible to these critics that they deny Jesus ever said them of state that, if He did, He must have been deluded or insane.

The Death of the King. Besides the birth and life of Christ, His death is a third major point of revelation. Jesus’ “execution” on the cross is the basis for His atoning work, according to the Bible. Jesus’ atonement logically relates to previous OT pictures of judgment-salvation such as the flood and the Exodus. The major OT salvation-by-grace theme that so clearly is linked to blood sacrifices sets up the proper interpretation of Christ’s death. The NT interpretation of Christ’s death, therefore, continues smoothly the OT thinking on judgment-salvation.

In opposition to this presentation of Christ’s efficacious death, pagan-based negative responses have always tended to minimize the work of the cross. Christ’s death is presented as nothing more than a martyrdom or a tragic mistake. Its “effects,” if any, on man are wholly subjective; therefore Christ’s death can only stimulate or evoke some feeling in the human soul, in this thinking. The reason why unbelief so interprets the cross is that it lacks any sense of moral guilt before a justly wrathful God. Specific non-Christian views may differ in some details, but this denial of the efficacy of the cross holds true for all of them.

The Resurrection of the King. Finally, the fourth event and major part of Jesus’ challenge is His resurrection. This event is so astounding that only acceptance of the event as the one made possible by the OT view of historical progress makes sense. In the OT all history was seen as eventually culminating in one final judgment by Yahweh to be followed by life in His presence or by exclusion from His presence forever. Resurrection was seen to be part of this last great end to history. Thus when Jesus rose from the dead, it signaled to those thinking in OT terms the beginning of the end times. History had reached its final point in Jesus although it would continue outside of Him for a temporary interval.

For the negative critic the claim of resurrection cannot be dealt with in detail: it can only be dismissed as a wild and spurious claim. Either the resurrection is “spiritualized” in pagan thought, or it is denied. The pagan view of history is so radically at odds with the OT view of history which undergirds the true interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection that anything like resurrection is wholly beyond its grasp.

SUMMARY

The remainder of this pamphlet will take up in order the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ in order to present both the true and false interpretation of each of these factual events. Man’s responses to Christ’s challenge serve to expose not Christ but the responders. Those accepting Christ positively fit into the flow of historic revelation begun in the OT. Those responding negatively fit into the age-old desire of autonomous man to exist independently of his Creator. Since Jesus Christ is the highest expression of revelation in the world, the difference in responses is seen with the utmost clarity. Think on the question, dear reader, who do you say that Jesus is?

END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 1

1. F. E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), p. 425.

2. Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), p. 18.

3. Rousas J. Rushdoony, The One and the Many (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1971), p. 91.

4. Tacitus, History, V.3.

5. Suetonius, Life of Vespasian, 4:5.

6. See any good history of this period such as F. F. Bruce, Israel and the Nations (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1963), pp. 128-196.

7. Bruce, p. 148f.

8. Cited from his work Messianic Speculation in Israel which is quoted in David L. Cooper, Messiah: His First Coming Scheduled (Los Angeles: Biblical

Research Society, 4005 Verdugo Road, 1939), p. 498.

9. See Part IV of this series on revelation through OT prophets prior to the exile.

10. Ernest R. Trattner, As A Jew Sees Jesus, as cited in Arnold G. Fruchenbaum, Jesus Was A Jew (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1974), p. 13.

11. George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), p. 52..18

12. Rabbi Dr. I. Epstein, ed., The Babylonian Talmud, Dedar Mo’ed (London: The Soncino Press, 1968), II, 149.

13. Fruchtenbaum, p. 35.

14. Rushdoony, p. 155.

15. Rousas J. Rushdoony, The Foundations of Social Order (Nutley, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1972), p. 73f.

16. Cornelius Van Til, Who Do You Say That I Am? (Nutley, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., 1975), p. 12.

17. Alan Richardson, The Bible in the Age of Science (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1961), p. 143.