Why the Fuss Over Jesus?

John 5:18  - This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus can polarize. Talking about Jesus with others can bring one of three reactions: love, hostility, or tempered complacency. The last option comes from those who acknowledge many good things about Jesus – like his commands to love another and help the marginalized and his helping the hurting like the man he healed in John 5 who provoked this conflict. People in the third category like to say Jesus was a good man, but they struggle with what they see as the arrogant claim of Christians that Jesus is the only way to God and eternal life. Although people in the third group try to rewrite history and say Jesus’ exclusiveness was an addition of his later followers, people in the second group get it right. They understand you cannot separate Jesus’ ethical teaching and good works from his claims even if they do not like it.

The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were in that second group. They understood that Jesus claimed to be God. They understood Jesus considered himself above their law that forbade carrying a sleeping mat on the Sabbath day – an added interpretation of God’s law that missed the point. They understood that even though a man who had been crippled for 38 years was able to go to the temple completely healed for the first time in his life, this Jesus who healed him challenged their entire system, and they were not willing to accept him.

Where do you fall in those three groups? Do you resent this Jesus like the Jewish leaders did or do you just consider him a good man while rejecting what he said about himself? Either of those options has the same bad result. Look what Jesus told them a few verses later: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24) Jesus explains here that he has the unique role of eternal judge and the ability to set free those who believe in him. As good as his teaching and benevolent actions were, the main reason Jesus came is to change our eternity through his death in our place on the cross. That required him being the only begotten Son of God the Father. It is not our arrogance as Christians to claim Jesus’ exclusivity. It is his nature. He is the only one. He is the way to eternal life.

Whichever of the three groups you started today in, I pray you believe that Jesus was more than just a good teacher. You eternal destiny is at stake. Receive him as the Lord that he is.