Who is the True Jesus?

There is a crisis in the Church today, an identity crisis.  Some professing Christians cannot identify Jesus the Christ.  Some believe in the baby Jesus, some the perpetual victim of the cross, some the one who only loves caucasians, some the good teacher, some the prophet, some the spirit-brother of Lucifer, and some the one who promises health and wealth to all who have enough faith.  However, Jesus the Christ is not the Jesus in which these people put their faith.

If you knew Abraham Lincoln to be 5’2” and wearing braces, it would be obvious to you the Abraham Lincoln you knew was never president of the United States.  But people don’t use this same logic to recognize the Christ of God.  Knowing the true Jesus is as easy as reading the Bible (without taking passages out of context or twisting them).  Salvation only exists in the true Jesus (John 14:6, Galatians 1:6-9).  If we put our faith in any other Jesus but the one described in God’s Word, we do not belong to God.

Below are listed some of the teachings about Jesus from God’s Word, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses/Watchtower Society, Mormons/the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Word Faith Movement, and the Roman Catholic Church.

God’s Word:

·         Jesus Christ possesses all the divine attributes, and in these He is coequal and coeternal with the Father (John 10:30, John 14:9).

·         God the Father created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them through His Son, Jesus Christ.  It is by Jesus Christ all things continue to exist and function (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-17,  Hebrews 1:1-2).

·         At the incarnation, Jesus set aside only His prerogatives as God; He did not cease to be God.  He became the God-man; He put on human characteristics.  In Jesus divinity and humanity are forever one (Philippians 2:5-8, Colossians 2:9, Micah 5:2, John 5:23, John 14:9-10).

·         God’s purpose in the incarnation was to reveal Himself, redeem humanity, and rule over His kingdom (Psalm 2:7-9, Isaiah 9:6, John 1:29, Philippians 2:9-11, Hebrews 7:25-26, 1 Peter 1:18-19).

·         Hebrews 10:10-14  “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,  waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.  For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

·         1 Timothy 2:5  “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”

·         1 John 2:1  “…And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;”

·         If we belong to God and ask anything in accordance with His will (what Jesus would want for us), He will give us what we ask (John 15:7, 1 John 5:11-15).

Islam:  Jesus was only a human prophet.

Sura 19:27, 29-31 “Then she brought the child to her people.  They exclaimed: “O Mary you have done a most astonishing thing!...But she pointed towards him.  “How can we talk to one,” they said, “who is only an infant in the cradle?”  “I am a servant of God,” he answered.  “He has given me a Book and made me a prophet, and blessed me wherever I may be, and enjoined on me worship and zakat for as long as I live,..”

Sura 61:6  “And when Jesus, son of Mary, said:  “O children of Israel, I am sent to you by God to confirm the Torah (sent) before me, and give you good tidings of an apostle who will come after me, whose name is Ahmad (the praised one).”

Sura 9:30-31  “The Jews say: “Ezra is the son of God;” the Christians say: “Christ is the son of God.”  That is what they say with their tongues following assertions made by unbelievers before them.  May they be damned by God:  How perverse are they!  They consider their rabbis and monks and the Christ, son of Mary, to be gods apart from God, even though they had been enjoined to worship only one God.”

The suras listed above were taken from Al-Qur’an, a contemporary translation by Ahmed Ali.

Jehovah’s Witness:   “Christ is God's Son and is inferior to Him.  Christ was first of God's creations.  Christ died on a stake, not a cross.  Christ was raised from the dead as an immortal spirit person.”

The statements listed above were taken from the Jehovah’s Witnesses official website at http://www.watchtower.org/e/jt/index.htm.

Mormonism:   Jesus Christ was a preexistent spirit like the rest of us and we are literally His brothers and sisters.  However, because Jesus is the firstborn of God’s spirit-children, He is set apart from the rest of us.  Jesus is not the unique Son of God according to Mormonism

“And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; and all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn.  Ye were also in the beginning with the Father” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:21-23).

“His humanity is to be recognized as real and ordinary – whatever happened to him may happen to any one of us.  The Divinity of Jesus and the Divinity of all other noble and stately souls, in so far as they, too, have been influenced by a spark of Deity – can be recognized as manifestations of the Divine (Elder B. H. Roberts citing Sir Oliver Lodge in Joseph Smith, King Follett Discourse, p. 11 note).

Word Faith Movement:  God created by His faith.  Jesus is our magic word or genie in a bottle who must grant  our wishes.

“Christians are discovering that we have authority in the Name of Jesus to resist sickness, disease, poverty, demons and fear” (http://www.kcm.org/real-help/article/our-great-salvation).

“True prosperity is the ability to use God’s ability and power to meet the needs of mankind—regardless of what those needs may be…

Physical prosperity is twofold—health and wealth. Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law—sickness, poverty and death (Deuteronomy 28:15-61). Health and wealth belong to the believer. Meditation on the Word and acting on the Word will bring results (Joshua 1:8). When you act on the Word, mix your faith with it and do not doubt in your heart, the Word will work for you” (http://www.kcm.org/real-help/article/understanding-prosperity).

“Understanding Faith - Part 1 – If God Can't Do Anything Without Faith…Neither Can We

by Gloria Copeland

But the point is, at some moment in time, faith must be released on our behalf for a supernatural event—like salvation—to happen in our lives…  The moment you and I received Jesus as our Lord, we gave God an opening into our lives. Our faith gave Him entrance to come in and save us. By faith, we gained access to the favor of God to be born again. But that was just the beginning…  So, if you need healing, it’s done. If you need food, it’s done. If you need protection, it’s done. If you need a house, or a job, it’s done. You and I don’t have to try and talk God into any of these things—they’re already done! God promised them to us, then He ratified His promise through the blood of Jesus, the sacrifice of His own Son” (http://www.kcm.org/real-help/article/understanding-faith-part-1-%E2%80%93-if-god-cant-do-anything-without-faith%E2%80%A6neither-can-we).

“Understanding Faith - Part 2 – Framing Your World With Faith

by Gloria Copeland

God framed the worlds by faith. Everything God made, He made by faith. Everything He does, He does by faith.  For you and me, it’s no different. What works for God will work for us…  Remember, “God said...and it was so.” God’s act of speaking released faith, or heavenly materiality, to that which He believed. When He said, Light be! He fully expected light to be. His faith took action. It spoke…  Likewise, our mouths are the implements of faith that speak the words out of our hearts to enable us to reap the harvest we desire. We reap that harvest by believing and thus speaking the promises of God into fulfillment” (http://www.kcm.org/real-help/article/understanding-faith-part-2-%E2%80%93-framing-your-world-faith).

Roman Catholic Church:    Jesus is co-advocate, co-mediator, co-savior, and the perpetual victim of sacrifice.

969  “This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect.  Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation…. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”

1367  The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice:  “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.”  “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner…this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”

The above entries (969 and 1367) were taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, revised in accordance with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II.