No Ambiguity

Who is Jesus Christ of Nazareth to you? "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 good 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 moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." (C.S. Lewis)

Jesus Christ left everybody no doubt who He is. He fulfilled every prophecy of His namesake - Jesus, Yeshua, Savior. He justified with His perfect life, ministry of healing miracles and His own resurrection that the words He declared about Himself are true. Here are some of those names Jesus called Himself - 

• Son of Man - Matt. 9:6
• The Chief Cornerstone - Matt. 21:42
• True Bread from Heaven - John 6:32
• I Am - John 8:58
• The Door of the Sheep - John 10:7
• The Good Shepherd - John 10:11
• Light of the World - John 8:12
• The Resurrection and the Life - John 11:25
• The way, the truth and the life - John 14:6
• The True Vine - John 15:1

Just in this listing one can observe that when Jesus was questioned about His messiahship, Christ often went to a common day analogy to answer "yes". He used a cornerstone, bread, door, shepherd, light and vine. In these verses there was some mental and sometimes historical exercise to arrive at the conclusion of Jesus as Messiah, but the answer remained always - yes.

The other verses mentioned were much more direct and clear - John 8:58 (I Am), John 11:25 (The Resurrection and the Life) and John 14:6 (The Way, the Truth and the Life). Christ's proclamation of "I Am" reveals His oneness with the Everlasting God - who was, who is and is too come - Yahweh.

Christ's response to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus - "I am the resurrection and the life" - is so filled with hope, especially after death, it makes my heart swell and a huge grin appears on my face. Here is the account - 

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:21-27)

However, of these more straight forward responses, John 14:6 wins me over as Christ's main identity statement - all others flow from that. The full verse reads - "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" 

Of course Jesus knew who He was as He declared it and proved it. The angels and demons know who Christ is by the angel's involvement in the life of Jesus and the fearful proclamations of the demons to Christ when Jesus approached them (Matt. 8:28-32). However, God leaves the decision of faith in Jesus as Savior over our lives - in our hands. 

I am not the one who said these things about Jesus. The Lord said these things Himself, about Himself. There is nothing unclear about who Christ is and what He did for humanity. In the same way Jesus maintains that when you accept Him as your personal Savior, you also accept Him as Master of your life. There was clarity and purpose in His life and in His family He is also expecting No Ambiguity.