I am constantly surprised by how many people call Jesus Christ a “great moral teacher” and stop there. He is often called an enlightened philosopher, a worthy prophet, and many other praise-filled things whereupon the speaker abruptly stops. The speaker stops short of calling him God in the flesh, Savior, Messiah, or any of the other more miraculous titles he is given.
I think this is simply absurd.
For one, how can anyone contemplate Christ’s teachings or fully seek to study and understand his life without a serious dilemma, requiring more than a trite dismissal of him as a “great moral teacher.” The things he said were hardly “moral” by human standards.
He said he is a door. A shepherd. Our high priest. He is bread. He tells us he has been poured out for us. This imagery is shocking in the least, if he is simply a great moral teacher.
If he is simply a great moral teacher, what does one make of his claims to divinity? How moral is it for a mere moral teacher to claim to BE God? I think it’s rather amoral, if indeed he isn’t God and knows it. “But he never really claimed to be God,” some throw in there. Didn’t he? He said, “Before Abraham, I AM.” God revealed himself to Moses by the name “I AM.” Every good Jew knows that. That is a claim to be God. He said, “No one gets to the Father except through me. The Father and I are one.” Again, we hear him say, “I am God.” How dare he heal on the Sabbath! And then instruct the Pharisees on the appropriateness to do good on the Sabbath. He said things like, “Unless one is more righteous than a Pharisee, one shall never see the Kingdom of God.” What nerve a man would have to say such a thing about the moral teachers, instructors, and most orthodox Jews of the time!
Perhaps most shocking was his forgiveness of sins. Repeatedly he forgave the sins of people who’d not committed a sin against him. He forgave the Samaritan woman who’d had many husbands and was living with a man she was not married to. He forgave a man who was lowered on a mat by several friends because of an illness; the illness disappeared when Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven you.” Who is HE to forgive anyone sins?! That is clearly the priest’s job and must be done through temple sacrifice according to Jewish law. What brashness! It’s more than brashness if he is simply a great moral teacher and nothing more. It’s blasphemy. It’s the opposite of great moral teaching. It’s heresy. He said, “I come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it,” a clear reference to prophesies of the Messiah. He said he is the Messiah. He quoted scripture prophesying that his own would receive him not. Even on the cross, crying out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” he references psalm 22, a prophesy of the very thing he undergoes as Messiah. Check it out, see if I’m wrong.
He said he will judge the world when he returns. A great moral teacher cannot make such a claim if that’s all he is. He said, “I was, am, and will be.” Infinity suggested. He destroyed the temple and rebuilt it in three days and prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem recorded by Josephus. This man was certainly not “Just a great moral teacher.” He was a rebel or a revolutionary? Perhaps. But only if it comes with great guilt, blasphemy, and heresy. Outright lies, they’d have to be. Was Jesus a liar? Is there anything about his nature or his life to suggest such a thing? The honest scholar concludes, “No. Jesus was not a liar.”
He was a lunatic then. He had to be outright crazy. He had no idea what he was saying or doing and was just plain nuts. The honest scholar, again, can hardly come to such a conclusion. Jesus was meek. He lived what he taught. He showed compassion and mercy. He told the truth. He loved the unlovable. These do not seem to be the traits of a lunatic. He faced persecution with grace and suffered the death of a sacrifice, making allusions to scripture till his last breath.
What then? What was he? If he wasn’t just a great moral teacher, if he wasn’t a liar, and certainly not a lunatic, what? Could it be that he was telling the truth about who he is and what he is doing?
If you believe he is not God, he is not the Messiah, but you call him a prophet, a teacher or a great man, you fool yourself with the convenience of double-think. You then find yourself right where Pilate was: “What do I do with this man who is called Messiah?” That conscious choice makes an eternal difference.