SESSION ONE

The Identity of Jesus Christ

Course Overview

COURSE DESCRIPTIONThis course is part of a year long journey of discipleship. Through teaching and large group discussion, we will develop a strong historical and theological foundation for our lives as Christians.

COURSE OBJECTIVES• To rediscover the basic tenets of the Christian faith• To gain confidence in the defense of the our faith• To identify strategies for effective evangelism

To be a Christian is...

(1) to believe that Jesus was born, lived, died, and was raised from the dead?

(2) to accept that God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ in order to reconcile all people with Himself?

(3) to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

Option #1 - has to do with the historical Jesus and the events of His life in the first century.

Option #2 - has to do with the theology of Jesus which explains the incarnation and Christology

Option #3 - has to do with the personal, subjective experience of Jesus.

God’s Only SonRediscovering the Identity of Jesus

QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE

• Did Jesus really exist?• Is the New Testament a reliable source of information?• What does the New Testament say about Jesus?• What does it mean to have a relationship with Jesus?

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures 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 one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

- Tacitus Roman Historian (c.116 A.D.)

Did Jesus really exist?

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

- JosephusJewish Historian (c.94 A.D.)

Did Jesus really exist?

Is the New Testamenta Reliable Source of Information?

The New Testamentas History

What does the New Testamentsay about Jesus?

Identity of Jesus

The Humanity of Jesus

• He was tired (John 4) and hungry (Matthew 4)• He was angry (Mark 11)• He loved (Mark 10)• He was sad (John 11)• He was tempted (Mark 1)• He learned and worked (Mark 6)

Identity of Jesus

The Divinity of Jesus

• Authority to forgive sins (Mark 2)• Authority over nature (Mark 4 / Psalm 107)• Authority to judge (Matthew 25)• Jesus is worshiped (Matthew 2)• Jesus is called Lord (I Corinthians 12)• Jesus is called Savior (John 4)

Ἰησοῦς ΧριστóςΘεοῦΥἱόςΣωτήρ

JesusChristGod’sSonSavior

Identity of Jesus

The Ministry of Jesus• Preaching, Teaching, & Healing• Announced the “Kingdom of God”• Challenged religious leaders• Associated with the poor and marginalized• Commissioned his disciples to “Go” in His name!

Identity of Jesus

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus

• Core of the gospel message• The death of Jesus was salvific

(Next Week: The Nature of Salvation)

• Jesus rose bodily from the dead• The resurrection is the center of Christianity• Jesus is alive and is Lord of the world!

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 the 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 patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

C.S. LewisMere Christianity

What Does It Mean To Have A Relationship with Jesus?

NEXT WEEK

The Nature of Salvation

• Why did Jesus die?• What is salvation?• What does it mean to “work out” our salvation?