This
interpretation of Jesus is common among those who deny his divinity but also recognize that his
teaching has positively affected billions of lives in the last two thousand
years. When thinking
this perspective through though, it becomes problematic very quickly. For
example, would
a “good” man, who is not God, accept
worship from other people as Jesus did on numerous occasions? Jesus accepts worship
from a leper (Matt. 8:2), by a man with an unclean spirit (Mark 5:6), by a
blind man (John 9:38), and by his disciples several times. Mark 2:5 records, When Jesus saw their faith, he said
to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Would a “good” teacher claim to have such
authority, if in fact he didn’t? Notice how those who did not believe Jesus to
be God in the flesh viewed such a statement: Now some teachers of the law
were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk
like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark
2:6-7). Jesus also stated that the way people viewed him would determine
God's judgment toward them on judgment day. In Luke 12:8-9, Jesus remarks, "I tell you, everyone who acknowledges
me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God;
but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God."
This would be an outrageous claim by someone who is a mere teacher! In John
10:30, Jesus even flatly states, “I and
the Father are one.” After saying this, many non-believing Jews picked up
rocks to stone him.
The
problem with the claim that Jesus was just a “great teacher” is further
compounded when one assesses the self-references of Jesus. He implicitly or
explicitly claims to be the “Christ” (the promised Messiah prophesied in the
Old Testament) in Matthew 16, Mark 9, Luke 22, and John 4, and in many other
places. Without question, the most often used self-reference for Jesus of
Nazareth is the Son of Man. In fact, this title is found over 80 times
in the Gospels. When James and John ask for preferential treatment in God’s
Kingdom, Jesus ends his response, “…just
as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life
a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). This is one of numerous examples in which
Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man. Without question, this title
is an allusion to a vision of the prophet Daniel, which is recorded in chapter
7. In this passage, the Son of Man approaches God Himself in His throne
room and is given an eternal Kingdom and authority over all people. The Son of Man is thus a claim to divinity.
Another self-reference of Jesus containing an even stronger claim to divinity is his “I Am” statements. Jesus states
"I am" nearly two dozen times and joins it with a metaphor in at
least seven instances: I Am the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51); I Am the
Light of the world (John 8:12); I Am the Door of the sheep (John 10:7, 9); I Am
the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14); I Am the Resurrection and the Life (John
11:25); I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6); I Am the true Vine
(John 15:1, 5). This "I Am" statement is an allusion to God's
personal Name as He reveals it to Moses in Exodus 3:14. It's the name
"Yahweh," (or the latinized "Jehovah"). In this passage,
God says to Moses, "This is what you
are to say to the Israelites: 'I Am' (Yahweh) has sent me to you.”
With
all of these facts in mind – that Jesus accepted worship from others, that he
claimed to have authority to forgive sins, Jesus’ assertion that people’s view
of him would determine their judgment and eternity, his explicit and implicit claims
that he was divine, and his claims to be the promised Messiah prophesied in the
Scriptures and the final messenger of
God – is it sufficient to say, “Jesus
was simply a ‘great man’ but he was not God”? As Kenneth Samples put it, “If
Jesus claimed to be God (as the well-attested historical documents convey) but
was just a man, then he was perhaps a morally bad man or a mentally sick man.
But he certainly was not a great man” (Without
a Doubt, 112). In conclusion, the claim that Jesus was merely a “great man”
or a “great teacher” fails. As C.S. Lewis put it, “He has not left that open to
us. He did not intend to” (qtd. in Samples, 112).
