Who is Jesus really? That's the big question we tackle in this episode of the Bible 805 podcast. We dive into the depths of who Jesus is according to history, other religions, and, of course, the Bible. Understanding Jesus isn't just an exercise in theology; it's foundational to our identity as Christians. We explore various perspectives on Jesus, from those who see him as a mere historical figure to those who recognize him as the Savior and God in human form. This conversation aims to clarify misconceptions and help us grasp the significance of Jesus in our lives and faith. Join me as we sift through historical evidence and teachings to uncover the truth about Jesus.

Takeaways:

• God communicates with us through the Bible, providing everything we need for salvation and a personal relationship with Him.
• Our view of Jesus is crucial as it defines our identity; understanding who Jesus is impacts our lives deeply.
• Throughout history, various religions acknowledge Jesus, but as Christians, we believe He is everything and the only Savior.
• The Nicene Creed summarizes essential beliefs about Jesus, affirming His divinity and role in salvation since the early church.
• Historical evidence for Jesus includes accounts from secular historians like Josephus and Tacitus, reinforcing His existence and impact.
• Exploring the historical realities of Jesus is vital, as it can clarify misconceptions and deepen our faith in Him.

Links referenced in this episode:

• bible805.com
• youtube.com/bible805

Welcome to the Bible 805 podcast.

God wants us to know him and the Bible is one of the ways he's communicated everything we need for our salvation and a closer, more personal walk with him now and forever.

In this podcast, which comes out Wednesday morning with supporting materials published by Friday each week on www.bible805.com I take sometimes difficult sounding Bible topics and them easy to understand and apply. At least that's what my students tell me. See for yourself as we get started on our topic today, which is

Who is Jesus really? Answers from history, Other religions and the Bible

Our view of Jesus defines us show me your Christology and I will tell you who you are. Is what Karl Barth said about this. If our view of Jesus defines us, there certainly are many options to choose from.

These range from saying he was a myth to a good man, an ethical teacher to God in human flesh and the only Savior. In addition, Christianity is not the only religion that acknowledges he existed.

Hindu, Buddhist, all Eastern religions, Islam and Mormons all have a place for Jesus in their religion. But for the Christian, he is everything. A summary from the Bible puts it this Christ is the exact likeness of the unseen God.

He existed before God made any anything at all. And in fact Christ Himself is the Creator who made everything in heaven and earth.

The things we can see and the things we can't all were made by Christ for His own use and glory. He was before all else began, and it is his power that holds everything together. He is the head of the body made up of his people.

That is His Church which He began and he is the leader of all those who arise from the dead, so that he is first and in everything. For God wanted all of Himself to be in His Son.

It was through what His Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him, all things in heaven and on earth. For Christ's death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood. Now the Nicene Creed also defines who Jesus is.

Now creeds are statements that summarize important beliefs in the church, and this is one of the earliest creeds, coming from the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and though slightly revised over time, it is still a creed affirmed by all parts of the Christian community, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. The council was important because it meant to clearly define who Jesus is.

Was he an eternally existing third Person of the Trinity or a created being? A question still asked by many today.

Their conclusion is important because it defines what Christians believe about Jesus and have believed from the earliest days of the church. To help you remember it, I put together a little flyer that will be in your notes.

This is something that I actually did for Christmas, and at the head of it I will read you the heading and then I will read you the Nicene Creed, the reason for the season. And here is the creed. Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. God from God, light from light. Through him all things were made for us man.

And for our salvation he came down from heaven and was made man for our sake. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried. On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.

Why do Christians affirm these extraordinary things about Jesus? It's not a blind, unthinking faith.

Thoughtful Christians believe these things about Jesus, that they're true based on what we read in the Bible and how that is verified through history. If you haven't taken the time to explore the historical reality of the Christian faith, believe it or not, you owe it to yourself to do that.

That's what we're going to begin to do now.

Now, why we believe the Bible is a true record of Jesus life, Please listen to some previous podcasts and lessons that I've done on the Bible805 YouTube channel, where I define truth and go into greater detail in several lessons on why we can trust the Bible.

Now, aside from that, and I know you're probably not going to go rushing over to that and look at it, but let me give you just a little brief overview of what I talk about in those lessons. First of all, I define truth. Truth is what agrees with reality. It's what really happened. History helps us determine reality.

What really happened through archaeology, coins, artifacts and other writings.

The tangible, touchable evidence that we can see when something was unearthed, we know that then the writings that went along with it took place at that time. Part of that reality is the reliability of the history of the texts of the Bible. Massive amounts of textual support underlie our belief in the Bible.

There are more manuscripts than any other ancient text, and they are universally accepted. The manuscripts agree over time. Some say that they are corrupted or changed, but that did not happen. The Dead Sea Scrolls are great evidence of this.

Again, other podcasts and videos go into great detail on all this on the www.bible805.com channel and the YouTube Bible805 channel. Now, based on the reliability of the textual documents, scholars believe they are credible records of what happened.

However, the implications and application of the historical life of Jesus, they're up to individual acceptance or rejection. But there is extensive objective historical evidence that he lived and did the things recorded in the Christian Bible.

To believe that doesn't necessarily mean you even believe in God or that you're a Christian. It is perfectly okay to be exploring.

You're simply being intellectually honest to acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth existed when the Bible said he did. To be a Christian requires more, but not less than agreement with reality and true history. Now more about the historical texts about Jesus.

History about him in what we know the New Testament Gospels was written within the lifetime of those who knew him, by people who were eyewitnesses of the events. They're not fanciful stories made up hundreds of years after his death.

In a class, I was asked if there were other historical figures that mentioned Jesus and I did a bunch of research and what I found I'll share with you in this lesson. Other historical comments about him are all from historical figures, the ones we're going to go over in just a few minutes.

The first two centuries after his death, including.

Please note that these are all from secular sources that are widely accepted as living when they did and writing when they wrote, when they said that they. When they said different things took place. We believe that that's when they took place.

They include all sorts of things about Jesus that we will look at in their writings and the people that we're going to look at. We're going to talk about Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacitus, various Roman leaders, Christian writers, critics of Christianity.

And now let's just jump right in and look at them. First of all, Josephus. He lived from 37 to 101 AD, just right after the death of Christ.

He was a Roman historian who lived during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD he did careful research on the entire history of the Jews. And this is what he wrote about Jesus in, in his book, the Antiquities of the Jews.

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ.

When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to death to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him, did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life. For the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.

And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. Now, oh goodness. There is all kinds of debate on parts of this passage.

The things that say he was the Christ and that he rose from the dead and all that, but. But there's no conclusive evidence whatsoever that confirms that Josephus didn't say exactly what he said.

The primary doubt comes from people who approach the passage with an anti supernaturalist viewpoint. They approach it with the idea, oh, this can't possibly be true. And so they say Josephus then obviously didn't say that. Well, he did.

Even if the comment.

But even if you take those out, if the comments on Jesus as the Christ are disregarded, it still excellent historical verification of his life and death and the start of the Christian faith. Then Tacitus, the well known, well trusted, well admired Roman historian, he was a senator and again an historian of the Roman Empire.

In the histories of Tacitus, reporting on the Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that destroyed Rome in 64 AD. Here's what he writes. Nero fastened the guilt on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilate.

And the most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. Now note, the apostle Paul was killed in this persecution.

Therefore all his books had to be written prior to it, which again again is evidence for the early writing of the Bible.

But going back to Jesus, Tacitus did not have a positive view of Christians, but his comment is solid historical evidence again of the dating and the fact of Jesus death. And the existence, even this early, of the Christian Church in Rome.

Three more emperors of Rome in the second century talked about Christians, as one historian said, Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. They all deal with the persecution of Christians. Trajan, in replying to Pliny's letter, he was a minor administrator out in one of the providences.

He didn't know what to do about Christians.

Trajan said to him that the Christians were not to be hunted out and if the accused Christians would sacrifice to the gods, they were to be acquitted. Hadrian, around 122, 123, was likewise writing about how to handle accusations against Christians growing and all kinds of problems with him.

Marcus Aurelius, who lived from 161 to 180, was concerned with philosophical rather than legal issues. He did not believe the Christians laid down their lives nobly and for the right reasons, but out of sheer opposition and with histrionic display.

From his perspective, all the Christians had to do was go through the motions of sacrificing and they'd escape death. Their deaths must have seemed unnecessary and fanatical to him.

Again, though many of these are negative comments, they are confirmation of the basic beliefs and existence of the early Church. Christians also wrote extensively at this time. One of the best known was Polycarp. He was actually an apostle.

He was a disciple, excuse me, of the Apostle John. And he was martyred in 1:55. And he somewhere between 155, 167, he was 87 years old.

Polycarp's life was a direct link to one of the disciples, to John. In his writings he talked about John sitting around and telling them about Jesus.

In his writings he repeated an early agreed core of beliefs when he said, I greatly rejoice with you in our Lord Jesus Christ, because you follow the example of true love as displayed by God, and in it that it bringeth forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sins suffered even unto death, but whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the bands of the grave.

But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ himself, who is the Son of God and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in the faith, in all truth, in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long suffering, forbearance and purity. More testimonies of the early Church writers as to the identity of Jesus.

The Epistle of Ignatius to the Church at Smyrna, where Polycarp was the bishop.

This was written about 108 AD in very truth with respect to our Lord Jesus Christ, that he was the Son of God, the firstborn of every creature, God the Word, the only begotten Son and was the seed of David according to the flesh by the virgin Mary, was baptized by John, that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him, that he lived a life of holiness without sin and was truly under Pontius Pilate in Herod, the Tetrarch nailed to the cross for us in his flesh.

These early records are important because some say that the idea that Jesus was God and Savior was a mythology that developed hundreds of years later than Jesus life. That is the case in the lives of some historical religious figures such as the Buddha.

In contrast, Polycarp knew John, one of Jesus disciples and was repeating to Ignatius what he learned. This direct testimony from the earliest days from the people who lived with Jesus and saw him die.

They also saw him come back from the dead and believed he was God. That Jesus is God and Savior is not a belief that developed hundreds of years after the historically verified life of Jesus.

But it was described by witnesses of it who passed it on to others, not only friendly accounts. Here we have an enemy of the faith that records early beliefs. This is a man named Celsus.

And here's what he said and here is what Malcolm Nicholson said about him.

Around 177 to 180, Celsus wrote the True Word, an attack on Christianity, parts of which were preserved in quotations in Origen's contrast Celsa, written around the mid third century. As far as we know, this was the first time an entire pagan work had been devoted to Christianity. Rather than just passing references in other works.

Celsus knew more about Christianity than any previous pagan writer. He was the first to refer to the founder of Christianity by his name, Jesus rather than the Christ.

He knew many details which Christians believed about the life of Jesus.

He talks about his virgin birth, the visit of the Magi, the massacre of the innocents, his baptism by John, his disciples miracles, his betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection.

Celsus reasoned that if Christians worshiped Jesus, they couldn't be true monotheists and understood that if he could discredit Jesus, he could discredit Christianity. He wrote that the virgin birth was made up and Jesus real father was a Roman soldier named Panthera.

That there were no reliable witnesses to the dove descending of Jesus baptism and the Jesus miracles, well, he says, well, they happened, but they were magic. He dismissed the resurrection as a hallucination and wishful thinking, though he didn't agree with the Christian belief system.

His words again show that the core of beliefs was based on real events he couldn't deny and by his very writings show that it was a belief system well known enough to be worthy of a scholarly attack very early in the history of the church. And just to go back, I just love it where he, he says, well, you know, his miracles really did happen, but they were magic.

It wasn't God, they were magic. I just sort of have to laugh on how the unregenerate mind will just justify and come up with different reasons.

But he couldn't deny the truth that these things happened.

Summary of the historical facts about Jesus Based on the repeated early witnesses about Jesus both for and against him, they are unanimous on the core events of his life, his good deeds, his miracles, his death and resurrection, that they did indeed happen.

Now, whether you believe the Bible is a divinely inspired document or not, specifically the New Testament, it is a credible historical source for the life of a historically verified Jesus of Nazareth, regardless of who you attribute them to, whether God or any other source, why you think they happened, magic, sorcery, some other reason. The historical record shows his miracles did take place and his death and resurrection are historical facts.

Not only is the historical record of Jesus life verified by history, but his followers were so changed by the reality of his resurrected life, the belief that he was God and the source of forgiveness of sins and eternal life, that they believed because of these things that he also fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. Now, because of that belief, they completely abandoned their previous Jewish system of sacrifice and way of worshiping God.

This was an extraordinary happening.

Thousands of years of persecution, from Egypt through the Babylonian captivity to wars of the Maccabees to their current occupation by Rome, could not destroy their previous Jewish system of worship. And yet within a few months of the resurrection of Jesus, everything changed because of Jesus, his followers.

Of course, not all the Jewish people believe this, still don't today.

But his followers declared he was the fulfillment of all the religious history that had gone before and that by his resurrection he validated his claims and showed he was the only way to God. To them, Jewish religious observances were the fulfilled foundation and the Christian church was born.

Now, historical acknowledgment of Jesus, that's still not enough since the reality of a person called Jesus is verified historically.

Other religions can't and don't try to deny that he existed, but they have a vastly different way of explaining who he was, what Christianity is all about, and everything about him, how they explain him.

Now you must understand these differences because salvation in Jesus is only possible if you know the real Jesus, not simply someone with that same name. These other religions talk about a Jesus, but it is not the Jesus of scripture.

Throughout the ages, like Celsus, many acknowledge he lived, but they attempt to redefine him in his life. Let's now look at other religions and how they define Jesus.

But first please do take a look at the other podcasts and videos where I go into detail on the historical truths of other religions.

In contrast to Christianity, the challenge here is that though faith is always requires a step beyond facts, it should still be based on true history, not fantasy. Now this is a very short overview that I'm going to give you in a few minutes again of much longer teaching on the Bible805 website.

But first of all, how Eastern religions New Age people view Jesus. Hinduism believes that Jesus Christ is a teacher, a guru or an avatar, an incarnation of Vishnu. He is the son of God, as are many others.

His death does not atone for sins and he did not rise from the dead. Buddhism believes that Jesus Christ is just basically a good guy. He's not part of the historic Buddhist worldview.

Buddhists in the west today generally accept Jesus as an enlightened teacher. Buddhists in Asia believe Jesus was an avatar or bodhisattva, but not God.

New age of various kinds today believe Jesus was a good teacher, that he had God in him, just like all of us have God in us. All these acknowledge though that there is no historical basis for any of their beliefs actually for any of their own or about Jesus.

They will simply believe what they want to believe because they want to believe it, because tradition has believed it, not because it is based on history. They all believe that individuals determine their own truth. Now let's look at two others more closely. First of all, Islam.

Islam describes Jesus as a prophet, but not the prophet, which of course is Muhammad. They believe Jesus Isa in Arabic was not God or the Son of God. His virgin birth is likened to Adam's creation.

He was sinless, a worker of miracles and one of the most respected prophets sent by Allah. Jesus was not crucified or resurrected. They believe that was a hoax.

Jesus, not Muhammad, will return to play a special role before the future Judgment Day, perhaps turning Christians to Islam.

Now again, more complete lessons are on the Bible805 site and on them I have the exact passages from the Quran that show the different beliefs that I just talked to you about. Now a few historical comments on Islam. Muhammad lived from 570 to 632 AD.

He was born into a polytheistic culture in the Middle east and he really reacted to all of the polytheism. He believed that there was only one God and that that God was Allah. He was exposed to monotheism and Christianity, but not in depth.

He really didn't know that much about them. There is no historical basis for the assertions that he makes about Jesus in the Quran.

Muhammad himself actually was illiterate and he received his content for the Quran from a visitation by an angel. It's not something that he put together by research or study or anything like that. It was all revealed to him.

Very respectfully though, we are not talking about the same Jesus. To describe Jesus as a prophet equal to other prophets is not enough.

Now some later comments build upon his works and I will read some of what his leaders and prophets in the church, what they say about God and Jesus, because these are good summary of their thoughts. First of all, Mormon theologian Bruce McConkie says God the Father is a perfected, glorified holy man, an immortal personage.

And Christ was born into the world as the literal son of this holy being. He was born in the same personal, real and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father.

There's nothing figurative about his paternity. He was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events.

The appointment of Jesus to be the savior of the world was contested by one of the other sons of God. He was called Lucifer, son of the Morning, Haughty, ambitious and covetous of power and glory.

This spirit brother of Jesus desperately tried to become the savior of mankind. Mormons also believed that if you're a good Mormon, you too can have your own world like Jesus did.

One of their famous quotes is as man is, God once was. As God is man may become. Some opinions about Jesus also come from the Book of Mormon, a document with absolutely no historical factual verification.

Again, it was something received by Joseph Smith from an angel. There Jesus humanly conceived the spirit brother of Lucifer they believe preached to the Indians of North America.

That is not the historical Jesus of the Bible. Of these views of various religions, all these completely ignore history and the historical record of what Jesus said about himself.

He claimed to be God, he forgave sins. He said he was one with the Father. He stated he and he alone was the only way to God.

He proved his words were true by his historical death, burial and resurrection. A useful summary from the website tentmaking.org about Jesus and other religious figures. Let me read it to you. Buddha never claimed to be God.

Moses never claimed to be Jehovah. Muhammad never claimed to be Allah. Yet Jesus Christ came to be the true claimed to be the true and living God.

Buddha simply said, I'm a teacher in search of truth. Jesus said, I am the truth. Confucius said, I never claim to be holy. Jesus said, who convicts me of sin?

Muhammad said, unless God throws his cloak of mercy over me, I have no hope. Jesus said, unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins. CS Lewis also has this great summary of Jesus and here let me read it to you.

A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's 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. Why all these different views? Why? Why did different religions say all these goofy things?

Well, the Bible warned us this would happen.

In 2nd Corinthians 11, 3 and 4 the apostle Paul says, but I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus repeached, or if you receive a different spirit than the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. We are warned that there will be false Jesus preached and so we must be ready.

Note this warning was written to the Corinthians Church, a church with all sorts of moral challenges. The biblical Jesus can be very demanding and it can be tempting to want to worship one who allows us to live as we want to live.

But ignoring the truth or accepting another view doesn't change what is true, what is in accord with the reality about Jesus. Now here's what to do. Always clarify which Jesus people are talking about.

Especially with groups such as the Mormons and other cults who use his name but are not talking about the biblical Jesus. I cannot emphasize this enough. So many times I've heard people when they talk to Mormons say, well, they believe in Jesus. Well, yeah, which Jesus?

I don't want to be too terribly flippant here, but I live in Southern California. My personal banker's name is Jesus. Jesus. You know that just because somebody has that name does not mean we are talking about the same person.

When you talk to people, it isn't important what your opinion is. You are sharing what the historically accurate documents say about Him.

You do not have to believe the Bible is the word of God to respect it as a historical document. Our duty is to know the truth and to be able to share it with gentleness and respect for ourselves. Be sure you know the real Jesus.

Get to know him in His Word. All the Bible talks about him and Bible 805 has reading plans, commentary, lessons. So much that will help you in that.

But beyond all historical and scholarly truth, we personally, individually need to know the real Jesus and why we believe what we believe, especially for the dark nights of our souls. Every Christian experiences times of doubt, especially when times are hard. We need to know not just what we believe, but who we believe in.

For me, when circumstances, people and even church people disappoint, I find comfort in the facts of history. I'll literally sort of lay there sometimes at night and go over this and this and this. Well, I know this happened. I know this happened.

I do go over those things. I remind myself Jesus really did live, die, rose again, and someday I will see Him. Faith to faith.

Then I remind myself what the Bible says about this historical Jesus. I remind myself that though history is a comfort, that Jesus is not confined to history, but that at a point in time the eternal God broke into it.

As he tells us in John 1 where it says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

And we've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And I remind myself why he came.

In John 3, 16, 17 it says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. Regardless of all else. The most important question who do you say Jesus is?

Who is Jesus to you if you're not a follower of his? Explore further The Case for Christ is an excellent book.

It's where a skeptic who also happened to be a crime reporter searches for the historically verifiable truth about Jesus and after a two year search, decided what the Bible said about him was true. Check out other resources on Bible 800 5.

Read the Bible, check out the primary documents about his life for yourself and if you are a follower of Jesus, does your life reflect that? Of course, we all have a long way to go, but are we even trying? Or is our life one excuse after another on how we'll do this or that for the Lord?

Or try to be more like him when we get older or more financially stable? Or don't have all these other things going on that are going on now?

No matter where you are in your faith journey, how old or young you are, if you truly believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for your sins and freely gives you a glorious eternity with him, now is the time to live out what you believe about Jesus. That's all for now.

Please check out the Show Notes, a complete downloadable transcript, graph, expansion and related materials at www.bible805.com until next time, I'm Yvonne Prynn, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are in your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's Word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.