Part II
There is one possible exception to that, when the rich young ruler came to him and said, “Good Master.” He stopped him and said, “Why callest thou me good?” Those that want to talk about Jesus not thinking he was perfect point to that verse; they miss the rest of it, because Jesus said to him, “Wait a minute. Don’t come and call me good rabbi, good teacher. If you are going to call me good, also recognize that only God can be good, so don’t tap the appellation on to me without recognizing that I am also God.”
He had that sense of moral perfection; no sense of a moral inadequacy is ever exhibited anywhere in his behavior.
2. He seated all authority in himself.
He even said he had all authority: “You build on what I say, you build on a rock. You build on anything else, you build on sand. All authority in heaven and earth is given to me.”
Again to point to the other illustration used, He said concerning the law (genera-tions of approval had been placed on it): “You have heard it said unto you, but behold I say...” He pronounced judgment without a flicker.
Now, we don’t make saints of people like that. We ask the criteria, “On what do you base this authority?” He based it on himself: “Behold, I say unto you...”
3. He put himself at the center of the Religious Universe.
He went further and put himself at the center of the religious universe. Jesus didn’t come preaching a doctrine or a truth apart from himself. He said, “I’m the way. I’m the truth. I’m the life. By me if any man enter in... I am the door of the sheepfold. He that hateth not father, mother, wife, children, brother, sister, yea, and his own life also, taketh up his cross and come after me, cannot be My disciple.” He made your rela-tionship with him, putting him the center of the religious universe, the determinative of all religious benefits.
4. He talked of the Eternal from the in-side.
There is a certain frame-of-reference of familiarity with your home. For example, I may matter-of-factly say, “The couch in my office at home is brown. You don’t ask, “How do you know?” We speak of home with “inside knowledge” and it comes across that way. We don’t argue; we expect to be believed. That’s the frame-of-reference Jesus projects when he talks about eternity. Matter-of-factly, he says, “I’m going back. I’m going to prepare a mansion for you. And after a while, I’ll come back and get you and take you there.”
He says again, matter-of-factly: “Before Abraham, I was.” Or, again, “I saw Satan cast down.” Or, again, “There is joy in heaven by the angels when a sinner repents.” He projected and would have us believe he had “inside knowledge” of eternity and pre-earthly existence before and after “inside” the heavens with God.
5. He would die, a ransom.
He said something’s wrong with the whole world that could only be set right by him dying, a “ransom” in the context where his hearers knew exactly what a ransom was. The ransom was what you paid to restore a lost inheritance, to deliver someone destined to death because of their error. It was the price paid to redeem from the consequences of falling short, doing something wrong, losing an inheritance – and the ransom restored you to that which had been lost. He said the whole world was lost, and he came to die and pay the price of ransom, to redeem them.
6. He would raise again.
He said he would raise again (there was more than that, but I’m choosing very selectively just a few), that when he died, he would raise from the dead.
Now, if I, the Pastor, walked up to the podium at the Cathedral and picked up the microphone and said “All authority in heaven and earth is given unto me,” you would think, maybe Pastor means he’s going to quote, “that into my hands has been delivered this word of God to preach with authority.” So you might check that one off, that maybe this is the Pastor emphasizing the authority of the Word that he is reading from.
But if then I went on and said, as though talking to God: “Here I am, Father. I have done all you sent me to do. There are no flaws in me, no imperfections. The law doesn’t bother me, I have fulfilled it,” and started claiming a perfection like Jesus did, you would start backing up and start looking with sympathy toward Mrs. Scott. And if I further went on to say, “Your eternal destiny is dependent upon putting me in the center of your life and making me your master,” by then I would have been interrupted or viewed as “off my rocker.” I don’t think I would have even gotten to what I didn’t include here, that I would have you think that I was a denizen of eternity.
And what if I were to stand up here and say, not in spiritual terms but expecting to be believed? – “Before Abraham was I was. You know, that guy that came out of Ur; I was there. I saw Satan when he was cast out before Adam was ever born.”
And then I would talk about heaven with a familiarity with which we talk about our homes. If I tell you the couch in my home is beige, and you say, “How do you know?,” I’m going to reply, “Because I live there!” But I’m claiming that kind of familiarity with heaven! You put people in a nut house that talk like that! And then if I would say that I was somehow a ransom for the world, then, someone help my wife lay hands on me before I’m a “goner.”
Will you please stop to realize that this proclaimer of impossible things about himself is the only kind of Christ who walked around on the stage of history and is the only one you can find in the sources. You don’t find other religious founders doing or saying these things that Jesus said! Buddha never thought he was perfect; he struggled with the essence of tanya, which was their meaning for that corrupt desire that produces sin. He sought the way of the sensual release; he sought the way of the aesthetic yogi, and neither one worked. He came to the eight-fold path that brought him into a trance-like state where he lost conscious identity with this life, called nirvana. And when he came out ofthat state,he offered those who followed him the eight-fold path, and all he would say is, “It worked for me. Try it; it will work for you.”
He never thought all authority was seated in him. Instead, he told his disciples (and it’s part of their tri-part basket of scriptures) that he wasn’t worthy to lead them. All he left them was the way that worked for him. No assumption of authority seated in him. He never thought he was the center of the religious universe. “The Way” worked, his eight-fold path. Same with all the others.
Mohammed never thought he was perfect. He was God’s – Allah’s – prophet. He had visions of eternity that impressed the desert man, but he never claimed to have been there. He never died a ransom for anybody. He had a criteria for authority: God revealed it to him in a vision. Jesus never pointed to a vision like the prophet who would say, “The Lord said...” Jesus said, “I say...” Confucius did a logical analysis of society, and he point-ed to that external analysis as his authority.
None of the other leaders made them-selves the center of the religious universe, seated authority in themselves, had a con-sciousness of perfection about themselves, claimed an identity with eternity before and after their temporary stay here on earth. None of these traits attached to or are claimed by the other respected founders of a religion. That’s why you can respect them as “founders.”
With Jesus, you’ve got what C. S. Lewis called the “startling alternate.” Either He thought these things were true, but was too stupid to know it’s impossible for a man to make these claims, and thus he could not be wise, or he was wise in knowing these things weren’t true, but was capable of duping his followers because of self-serving motives into believing that about him, and that makes him not good. The conclusion is, that those who say he was a “good and wise teacher” reveal they have never really taken the time to en-counter the only Christ that ever walked the stage of history.
:laugh: