The resurrection of Jesus is hard for many skeptics to accept. Understandably so! After all, salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone. People don’t come back from the dead and you can’t use logic to make someone believe that Jesus did. Believing the claim that Jesus came back from the dead requires faith.
But it is also not unreasonable to believe in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. That’s why, in this short blog series, I’m starting with a hard look at Jesus’ crucifixion to perhaps invite someone to consider the claims of Christianity for the first time. When we consider what the cross tells us about Jesus’ identity, it will be much easier to see why many of us are convinced in our hearts of who Jesus really is.
In the first post, I started with the proposition that Jesus was crucified. Of course, Jesus’ followers believe, but you would have a hard time even finding a modern biblical scholar – even a non-believing skeptical scholar – who would deny that Jesus died on a Roman cross in first century Palestine. If you’re still on the fence, I want to encourage you to go back and read that post and then come back here for part two.
In this post, we will look at the second part of our proposition: “therefore, He is God’s Son.”
Again, I’m not trying to convince someone of something that they can only accept by faith. My full proposition is as follows:
It is reasonable to conclude that Jesus is the Son of God because He was crucified on a Roman cross in the first century AD.
In order to conclude that this claim is reasonable, we have to look at what the cross tells us about the identity of Jesus.
II. What does the crucifixion of Jesus tell us about His identity?
Logically, there are only two ways to look at Jesus’ identity. He is either the Son of God, or He is not. And if He is not, then He lied or He’s crazy.
Consider this from C.S. Lewis, which has come to be known as Lewis’ Trilemma (though he was not the first to come up with this argument):
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is 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. … Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”
Bruce Metzger, who was the George L. Collard Professor Emeritus of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary and a well-known New Testament textual critic, gave an even more succinct summary of the argument:
It has often been pointed out that (1) Jesus’ claim to be the only Son of God is either true or false. If it is false, he either knew the claim was false or he did not know that it was false. In the former case (2) he was a liar; in the latter case (3) he was a lunatic. No other conclusion besides these three is possible.
What does all of this have to do with the crucifixion? Simply this, that the crucifixion helps us cut through the possibilities to arrive at the most reasonable possibility of who Jesus is.
1. Maybe Jesus was a Liar
In the first century BC, the Roman orator and writer, Cicero, wrote that crucifixion was “the cruelest and most hideous punishment possible.”
In the first century AD, the Roman philosopher Seneca used words like, maimed, deformed, and carcass to describe the victims of crucifixion.
There is much we can learn from history about the horrors of crucifixion.
It is unreasonable to conclude, then, that Jesus lied about His identity and willingly died on the cross for the sake of that lie.
In fact, even harder to believe is that many of Jesus’ closest followers would later die for that same lie.
Chuck Colson was Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon and served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. In prison, he became a follower of Jesus, and later became the founder of Prison Fellowship and the host of Breakpoint. He wrote several books about His faith.
As he reflected on the claims of Christ and the behavior of His disciples, Colson concluded:
I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world – and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.
I realize that this is not conclusive proof that Jesus is the Son of God, but again, it is unreasonable to think of Jesus and His followers as liars and impostors. Read everything else Jesus said in the Gospels and filter it through the veracity test. His leadership and teaching are not that of a liar.
2. Maybe Jesus was a Lunatic
If He isn’t a liar, perhaps Jesus was a lunatic. Maybe He genuinely believed that He was the Son of God but was suffering from delusions of grandeur or a messiah complex.
To some, this is the only logical explanation for why Jesus died on the cross: He wasn’t lying. He genuinely, but mistakenly, believed He was saving people.
But again, we have to go back to Jesus’ teaching and His life to see that ‘lunatic’ doesn’t accurately describe Jesus. In fact, His actions and teachings have been revered even by non-Christians for two millennia! It’s hard to find a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew or even an atheist today who thinks Jesus was crazy.
True, Jesus’ claims are hard to swallow and hard to follow, but crazy? Study His parables. Consider His life and ministry. Look at His compassion and selflessness. He was not narcissistic by any stretch of the imagination.
Going deeper, consider the claims of the prophets who preceded Jesus and how their predictions concerning the Messiah are perfectly fulfilled by Jesus. Nearly every page of the Gospels was predicted by someone who prophesied anywhere from four hundred to a fourteen hundred years before Christ. If Jesus was crazy, then He had an uncanny ability to be crazy in a very sane way.
Of course, some of those predictions were fulfilled before Jesus ever could’ve manipulated their fulfillment. For example, three different prophets allude to the Messiah coming out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1-4), from Bethlehem (Micah 5:1-2), and Nazareth (see Matthew 2:23 and explanation on this from any decent commentary). Little did any of these prophets know that they weren’t contradicting one another, but that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, his parents would flee for safety to Egypt, and would return to their hometown to raise him in Nazareth. So, a crazy person could have manipulated some prophecies, but not all. And certainly not the prophecies fulfilled by Jesus’ birth and early life.
The leap in logic to concluding that Jesus was a lunatic is extremely unreasonable. Skeptics may see it as the best option given their unbelief, but I’d like for my reader to consider one further possibility:
3. Maybe Jesus is Lord
Historian Philip Schaff wrote:
How, in the name of logic, common sense, and experience, could an imposter — that is a deceitful, selfish, depraved man — have invented, and consistently maintained from the beginning to end, the purest and noblest character known in history with the most perfect air of truth and reality? How could He have conceived and successfully carried out a plan of unparalleled beneficence, moral magnitude, and sublimity, and sacrificed His own life for it, in the face of the strongest prejudices of His people and age?
If you believe Jesus was a liar or a lunatic, you wouldn’t be the first one.
Some of the Jews considered Jesus to be a liar. In John 7:40-43 we read:
When some from the crowd heard these words, they said, “This truly is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some said, “Surely the Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? Doesn’t the Scripture say that the Messiah comes from David’s offspring and from the town of Bethlehem, where David lived?” So the crowd was divided because of him.
Isn’t it interesting that many of the skeptics in Jesus’ own day dismissed Him as a liar simply because they didn’t know enough about Him? Some had the gut instinct to ponder that maybe this was the Messiah, and if they had bothered to ask about where Jesus came from, they would’ve confirmed that He was in fact born in Bethlehem even though He was raised in Galilee.
Still others considered Jesus to be a lunatic. Even His own family!
One day, “Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him, because they said, ‘He’s out of his mind.’ (Mark 3:20-21)”
On another occasion, some of the Jews said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?” But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” (John 10:20-21)
Later, the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy and picked up rocks to stone Him. But Jesus said,
Do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God? If I am not doing my Father’s works, don’t believe me. But if I am doing them and you don’t believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” Then they were trying again to seize him, but he eluded their grasp. (John 10:36-39)
Jesus identified Himself as the Son of God. He confirmed that truth by doing the Father’s works, teaching with authority, and by fulfilling prophecy. But His death on a Roman cross was the ultimate confirmation.
Humanly speaking, resurrections are impossible. The purpose of this article is not to convince the reader that Jesus rose from the grave. It would be illogical and unreasonable to assert that a human has the power to rise again from the dead. However, when we look at the person and work of Jesus Christ, and we see His willingness to fulfill prophecy and to suffer and die on the cross, the most reasonable conclusion we can come to is that Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. He is not a legend (as we saw in the first post). He is not a liar. He is not a lunatic. The crucifixion of Jesus cuts through the false theories and helps us arrive at the best conclusion, that Jesus truly is the Son of God.
Final Thoughts
Once again, only the Holy Spirit can convict and convince a person that Jesus is God’s Son and that He came to save sinners. But I hope skeptics who read this article will consider that Jesus’ identity as the Son of God is reasonable.
Indeed, the crucifixion of Jesus is the best evidence that Jesus truly is God’s Son.
So, to any skeptics reading this, my hope is that you will consider the Gospel narratives (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The Apostle John even gave us His purpose for writing about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In John 20:30-31, he writes:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
As you read, ask this question: Am I reading about a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.
Is Jesus God’s Son or isn’t He?
