These voices—and countless others down through the centuries—clearly differ on who Jesus was and what he came to do. But they are united in this unfortunate tendency to misdirect our attention from Christ’s central claim about himself and what he calls us to do in response.

In Western culture, Jesus of Nazareth remains the ultimate Rorschach test. Authors, common folk, popes, and skeptics have all looked at the shape of his life, ministry, and teachings and reached different conclusions about what it all means. A few examples:

• Fox News pundit and author Bill O’Reilly (a practicing Catholic) and co-writer Martin Dugard saytheir new book Killing Jesus offers an “accurate account of not only how Jesus died, but also the way he lived.” They claim Jesus was executed because he clashed with Rome over taxes.
• In his new bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan—a former Muslim who converted to Christianity before converting back to Islam—wants us to “question our most basic assumptions about Jesus of Nazareth.” Aslan says Jesus was a failed messiah who preached revolution and, not surprisingly, died for it.
• Dan Brown, supposedly relying on various Gnostic gospels, said Jesus was a mere man who married Mary Magdalene. In The Da Vinci Code, Brown said Emperor Constantine’s political muscle was a key factor in the Western church seeing Jesus as God’s Son.
• In a recent interview with an atheist journalist, Pope Francis appeared to soft-pedalJesus’ exclusive claims about himself. The pope dismissed “proselytism,” saying, “Each of us has a vision of good and evil,” and stated, “The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God.”

Avoiding the Central Claim

These voices—and countless others down through the centuries—clearly differ on who Jesus was and what he came to do. But they are united in this unfortunate tendency to misdirect our attention from Christ’s central claim about himself and what he calls us to do in response. Jesus made this one, central claim at various times during his ministry. Here are two examples:

• Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6-7)
•  “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” (Luke 12:8-9)

These claims, found in the Gospels, shock our postmodern sensibilities. Jesus, the only way? How exclusive! And how rude! There’s only about one thing most people outside the Christian community agree on when it comes to Jesus: He is not actually Lord, in the sense of being God incarnate and the ultimate Decider of our eternal destinies.

The Stakes

What is at stake? Only life and death. Nothing more. This is why sub-biblical portraits of Jesus are so problematic. For instance, Reza Aslan perpetuates one of the more pernicious fallacies when he writes, “The Gospels are of course extremely useful in revealing how the early Christians viewed Jesus. But they do not tell us much about how Jesus viewed himself.” If, as Aslan suggests, the Gospels do little more than convey the religious views of early Christians, then we who seek to live by God’s Word have a serious problem.

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