Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus? I think at the heart of Christianity, and the most important question before we even come to believe in him, will be this: Who is he?

One of Jesus' biggest claims is this: he is the son of God. He was sent by His Father above. If anyone made those claims today, you can be sure he will be sent to IMH in no time. So what credentials does Jesus have in saying those loaded words and claims? Why are so many people convinced that he is God, not a lunatic? Or are we deluded and deceived?

In Luke chapter 3, some of those credentials were being recorded for us.
- 3:22 The Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.
- and a voice came from heaven: "You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
- 3:23-38 tracing his genealogy, Jesus was a descendent of David, of Abraham, of Adam and ultimately of God.
- 4:1-13 Jesus was the only person who resisted the temptations of Satan in the desert. He was perfect and sinless.

Why was Jesus sent to earth? What was his mission?
Jesus stated his mission explicitly in Luke chapter 4 that he was anointed by God to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind and to release the oppressed. In the Old Testament, the prophets have talked about such a person coming to bring freedom to God's people and Jesus is saying here that he is the one that fulfils the Old Testament prophecies.

It is interesting to note that Jesus came to proclaim freedom for the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed. It is unlikely that he meant these solely literally or many of us would not have been saved. But rather, the point here, and later in other parts of Luke, is that only those people who recognised their sinfulness and their need to be saved would respond to his offer of salvation and freedom. In addition to the physical freedom from poverty, illness and oppression that he claimed to bring, the underlying mission is to bring spiritual freedom from the bondage of sin which we are all under.

Despite his preaching of this good news, Jesus himself knew that many would come to reject him and his message, even among his own people, the Jews. Many would ask for him to perform miracles and signs, and yet many would not believe.

Isn't this true for us today? In the face of such good news, we choose to continue to give ourselves excuses and reasons why we cannot believe. We continue to ask for signs and miracles and choose to disbelieve when there are none of those. We choose to believe in these acts of miracles rather than in the person of Jesus Christ. We continue to doubt and question and ask for more evidence for his existence. And yet there are people, when thrown with all the evidence and proof, will choose to reject him..

My point is simple. God sent his son Jesus down only once to offer freedom and salvation to all who choose to hear him. And fortunately for us, this was recorded in the 4 gospels by his disciples. When we want to find out who Jesus is and what he came to do, we can look no further than the 4 gospels in the bible. There is no way for us to look elsewhere for answers or to look internally for our own human wisdom and understanding to decipher this mystery. Which is in fact no mystery at all..