"Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist", ca. 1497, Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino) (Italian, Florentine, 1473–1517) @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In this painting, we see an opinion of the identity of Jesus Christ through the eyes of a 15th century painter, clearly influenced by the dominant Roman Catholic persuasion of the day.
But just who is Jesus Christ? How can we know?
My wife and I are class leaders for a Christian foundations class, at Scottsdale Bible Church, called Class 100, which is taught by pastor Steve Eriksson.
Our post-modern culture puts forth a great number of answers to the identity of Jesus Christ. Even more strange, our culture says that all of these opinions can coexist with one another, and would further prescribe many "truths" to this answer.
Yet, if you read the actual claims of Jesus, regarding his identity, you will quickly learn that he did not leave his identity subject to confusion.
He claimed to be God!
As C.S. Lewis writes: “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 up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Here is a wonderful, well thought out instruction, by pastor Steve Eriksson, on the one true identity of Jesus Christ, from our second session of Class 100:
Note: this would be a wonderful lesson to forward to a new believer, or some one scratching their head about Christ.
