Jesus' Purpose

I was wondering what you all thought of the following statment:

"Jesus the Christ came to earth to be an example, not to be worshipped."

 

C.S. Lewis aptly refuted such silliness:

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great 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 human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
- from Mere Christianity

 

Is that the best you can do? and you call yourself open minded... you've got all so worked up over the idea of telling other people what's right that you've forgotton yourself...

I pity you.. goodbye

 

every time people called him the son of god(before his death) he replied im the son of man and we are all children of god. jesus' purpose is to be our king. cus no other man can be wise enough, and uncorrubtable enough to do it without f***in up. its important in christianity to go directly as you can to the source, and not worry what people or religions have to say.

 

I am not sure about the first part, but it does not sound right to me. The second part I agree with, definitely not to be worshipped. Ironic.....

 

He was never proud to think more of him self than what he really was, a slave to the Lord and a messanger.
You claim that he wanted to be worshipped, then why did he reject being called [All]good sense this can only be given to the Lord of the worlds:

Jesus said “And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”(Hence he is not God)


Jesus said "I do nothing of myself"(Are suggesting that God can't do nothing for him self)


Why did he pray, does God pray to God or is he being an example for us to follow? Is it not clear that he is following the way of all the prophets, the clear and unchanged message of Christ, the same message as Noah(peace be upon him);

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.


He was not more than a servant. We granted Our favor to him, and We made him an example for the Children of Israel. [Quran Zukhruf]

 

Not so. See Matthew 16. 13-17.

 

And just so we can see it in context:

13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
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14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.


There is also this in Matthew 26:


59 Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;

60 But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,

61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

62 And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

65 Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

Which is in agreement with Mark 14:


54 And Peter followed him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest: and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire.

55 And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.

56 For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.

57 And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying,

58 We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.

59 But neither so did their witness agree together.

60 And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?

62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

63 Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses?

64 Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.


And Luke 22:


66 And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into their council, saying,

67 Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe:

68 And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go.

69 Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.

70 Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

71 And they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.


You see, Christ claimed to be God on many occasions. He claimed to forgive all sins (which only God can do). He DID come to be an example, but that was not His primary reason. He came to be an atoning sacrifice.

 

I think Jesus was a Prophet, He didn't come to earth to die for our sins but to teach us how to reach God. We are all children of God.

 

"its important in christianity to go directly as you can to the source, and not worry what people or religions have to say. " wayfring stranger

true but the message of christ will never be completey correct because you cant hear it from his mouth, that is to say i think many of his teachings may have been lost or misunderstood.

but i agree it is better to study it for yourself then be told how it should be interpreted.

 

i'm not sure that jesus wished to be worshipped. he taught us to worship the father. what good is a lamb at taking prayer requests? he was here to enforce the law for those of us who couldn't, and to serve as a living example of god's purpose for mankind on this plane. jesus prayed to god. since he was the ultimate human, i try to follow his example. therefore i pray to god, too.

 

Or He was saying that He was God. If you say that I am good and only God is good, then who are you saying I am? Was Jesus implying that He was NOT good?

He claimed to be God. No mere prophet would do that. No, He was either insane, a liar, or God. His claims demand that we remove simply being a good man or prophet as a possibility.

The loss of any of His teachings is an assumption that you cannot validate or support. If His teachings were misunderstood, then He was a very poor teacher, wouldn't you say?

As for studying for yourself, it is important to utilize a proper hermeneutic. Being able to read greek and hebrew helps since you can read the original documents as well. Just reading through a modern translation without any knowledge of historic Judaism or the culture of the time is asking for trouble. That isn't to say that everyone has to be a scholar. There are many timeless and simple truths that are easily found in scripture. However, relying on secular and religious experts for their opinions of difficult passages when formulating your own opinions is a wise thing to do as they, even if they are biased, are much more learned than most of us here.

 

He was the fall guy, like LHO. We get to just gather up all our sins, and dump them all on his shoulders, thus becoming pure enough to clear customs at the big retirement village in the sky. Ya see, when Isaac was nearly filleted by his pop, Abe, God arrived at the last second, just like in the old Batman tv series, and saved Isaac's life. Thereafter, a billygoat was given the task of sinremoval, and everyone piled their skeletons on the scapegoat before getting the boarding pass to the Promised Land. But I guess Billy wasn't up to the task, and God said, "If you want something done right,......." and so Gabriel paid a late night housecall to Mary's bedroom, and then God hung out for 33 years, but only as an example, he wasn't allowed to have any fun, like sex, or marriage, of course. then they nailed him to a cross, blamed his own people (A cunning Roman twist), thought they killed him, but lo, he disappeared.....And his blood washes all our sins away, thereby ensuring we make the cut, and get a pass into Heaven.

That is what I heard anyway.

 

Jesus was more than just a man, He was God.

2 John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the WORD, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

John 1:14 And the WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotter of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

 

I like kc's views. more loving.

 

Arguably it can be validated. Proof exists in the form of the Gnostic Gospels which were re-discovered in the last century. There is a great deal of difference between what Jesus says in them and the canonical gospels.

The other point I'd make here is that just because people on general don't understand someone doesn't mean that they are not a good teacher, or that they have nothing to say. Take the cases of Einstien, Foucault and Wittgenstien. All acknowledged thinkers of genius, yet how many people do you meet in the street who could give any account of their ideas, or claim to have any understanding of them?

 

See http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0088a.html

 

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I would agree that just because someone doesn't understand a teacher that the teacher is necessarily a poor one. However, when people accused Christ of blasphemy, He did not try to correct them. He didn't say "No, you misunderstand what I said." He said "You will see the Son of Man coming on clouds." He reinforced their interpretations of what He said. Would a good teacher reinforce clear misunderstanding as correct?

 

I see your point. But was he actually reinforcing a misunderstsnding?
I have no idea what "the son of man coming on clouds" means. I wonder if Jesus meant it to be taken literally? Little else he said was literal in that sense - he spoke in parables etc.
But I don't know how sure we can be of the acurracy of the 4 gospels anyway, and such judgements could only be absolutely accurate if we did know with certainty what he said.
Even so, I don't think its fair to compare Jesus to a modern teacher. He wasn't really addressing a bunch of rationalists in his day, and none of what he said (so far as we believe in its authenticity) is primarily addressed to the intellect.