About this episode
In your average Comparative Religions course at your run-of-the-mill college, Jesus Christ will be presented in a lineup of major religious founders. He’ll be there with the likes of Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and maybe Martin Luther. And the similarities between all these people will be emphasized. They were all persons of strong character, who presented a world-view and preached a moral system. Many suffered for their beliefs, and all of them urged people everywhere to unite in serving a Higher Cause. The problem is, emphasizing similarities is sometimes more misleading than emphasizing dissimilarities. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, milk and urine are similar in that both come from a cow, but you wouldn’t really want to make too much of that similarity when the differences are so much more striking and important. So too with Christ. It’s an enormous mistake to emphasize the similarities between Himself and other religious founders when the differences between Him and them are so much more extreme. What is so special about Jesus? Why do we believe Jesus is God? There are four reasons. We will meditate on the first reason today.Jesus was the only person ever pre-announced for centuries If someone is planning on coming to your house for supper, you’d probably be grateful if they didn’t just drop in unannounced. That is doubly true for someone important: My wife hates it when I invite the Archbishop without giving her some advance notice. If God were coming to earth, wouldn’t be nice to have a little heads up – some advance notice. Jesus Christ is the only person in human history to be preannounced. Quite a few details were known about Him before he came like: How he would be born (Isaiah 7:14), where he would be born (Micah 5:2), when he would be born (Daniel chapters 2 and 7), when His public Ministry would begin (Daniel 9:2-27), and that he would work specific miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6 ). Isaiah 53, written 500-700 years+ before Jesus describes in an uncanny way how the Messiah would suffer and die to save many from their sins: Isaiah 53:3 He will be a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering…; he was despised and we took no account of him. And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried…Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and Yahweh burdened him with the sins of all of us. Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly, he never opened his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers never opening its mouth… They gave him a grave with the wicked, a tomb with the rich, though he had done no wrong and there had been no perjury in his mouth. Yahweh has been pleased to crush him with suffering…By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself. The first reason we know Jesus is God is that he is the only person ever to be announced for centuries in advance down to every detail of his life. When the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus were in confusion and despair about the identity of Jesus, he approached them and brought them out of their confusion by showing how he had been predicted and prophesied. And they believed: Luke 24:44 Then Jesus told them, 'This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled'. He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.