Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Let’s play a game of guess who. I’ll give you a number of facts that will lead to a particular person and your job is to guess who it is:

1. He’s an American President.

2. He was the leader of the Republican party.

3. He attended Yale University.

4. A member of a political family.

5. He was involved in military operations in Iraq.

6. His name was George Bush!

Have you got it? You might have but here’s the twist. It could still be at least two people, couldn’t it? Even when we give his name we still haven’t narrowed it down to a single actual individual. And it’s possible for several things to be true of more than one person.

The question is sometimes asked, “Do all religions worship the same God?” The answer is, of course, no. Simply by using the same three letters doesn’t guarantee the same subject is meant.

But what about the Jesus? Does everyone who has the name Jesus on their lips mean the same person? In this instance the answer might seem more difficult. But on reflection, the answer’s no. The Jesus invented by the Jesus Seminar can hardly be the Jesus whom Christians worship.

And this despite the fact that there are certainly a large number of ‘facts’ in common:

1. He was a first century Jew.

2. He was from Galilee.

3. He gathered disciples.

4. He was known as a miracle worker.

5. He died on a cross.

Despite agreement on this – and many other things – it still isn’t clear we’re talking about the same person. When Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27), none of these minimal facts would have been sufficient.

The answer to the question is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Son from eternity who became incarnate in calendar time, living and dying for the salvation of all who belong to him. On the third day he rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father where he sits even now in his flesh interceding for his own.

This is the real Jesus.

And this is why 1700 years on Nicaea is still important. Because if Jesus isn’t truly God then we’re talking about a different Jesus. It isn’t a detail about who he is, as if we were nit picking about the exact shade of his beard hair, it’s absolutely fundamental to who he is. If Jesus isn’t God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, Begotten not made, then we are still in our sins.

There are two things to take away from this thought. First, let’s be sure when we talk with people that we’re talking about the same Jesus. There are some who reject – or take with a pinch of salt – the Scriptures but will happily talk of ‘Jesus’. But if the Scriptural testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ is jettisoned then we lost access to the real Christ and we’re left adrift. Equivocations sometimes seem a nice way to differ in peace, but the cost here is too high.

Second, let’s thank our heavenly Father that he sent his one and only eternally begotten Son to take on flesh for us. That because of his full divinity he has made a permanent way to the Father for us (Hebrews 9). This is the real Jesus and what a Jesus he is. Hallelujah!

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Benjamin Lucas trained at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and has an MA in Theology with the University of Wales. He is married to Emily and they have three children. He is the Associate Vicar at All Saints' Lindfield.

Views expressed in blogs published by the Latimer Trust are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Latimer Trust.