Who Is Jesus?
He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life.
He ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water.
He was weary, yet He is our rest. He paid tribute, yet He is the King.
He was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons.
He wept, yet He wipes away our tears.
He was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world.
He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd.
He died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.
Gregory of Nazianzus, 381 AD
What a wonderful synopsis of the life and ministry of Jesus. Those words were penned by Gregory of Nazianzus in the year 381 AD. Evangelist Billy Sunday said, “There are two hundred and fifty‑six names given in the Bible for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I suppose this was because He was infinitely beyond all that any one name could express.”
How true! The names given to Jesus in the pages of the Holy Scripture reveal various facets of His character and ministry, and that’s why there’s great value in studying those names.
Today, there is increasing confusion about who Jesus is. Jesus warned us that as we approach the end of the age, deception will increase, and many false Christs will arise. The Chosen is a popular TV drama series supposedly depicting Jesus in a new and fresh way. In the words of Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the series, “When you read the scriptures, you don’t get the emotional connection, the backstory, you don’t get the historical and cultural context quite as much, and you don’t get the human context.”
He goes on, “You should read the scriptures, 100 percent, no question about it. But when that’s all you do, sometimes you can miss out on the perspective of the cultural and historical surroundings of who Jesus was and what He was doing. And then you kind of miss out on the identification with those who knew Him. You can’t fully identify with Jesus…”. He is saying Christ cannot be fully known from reading the Bible. You really need theatrically artistic renderings to bypass your mind to get to your heart. This is a terrifyingly high view of the media and an insultingly low view of Divine revelation. In addition, Jenkins has stated publicly that Mormons and Christians worship the same Jesus. That is deeply troubling and inaccurate.
In addition, you may have heard of the 100-million-dollar ad campaign that launched this year across the United States with the title He Gets Us. Its stated goal is “[to help] rescue Jesus’ reputation from the “damage” done by His followers. While I certainly agree that some who profess to be followers of Christ have damaged His reputation, the remedy isn’t in presenting a Jesus who is biblically unrecognizable. The Jesus of this campaign, He Gets Us, is nothing more than an inspiring human who relates to our problems and cares...
