Pietà by Michelangelo, 1499

Who is Jesus?  Wow, talk about a profoundly important question!

There are a lot more people who “believe in Jesus” than there are those who know what Jesus actually claimed about himself.  Many think he was a great moral teacher, a prophet, or a wise Rabbi.  Some think a legend, a myth, or a contrivance.  Still others that he was one of many gods, or one of many roads to God.  That Jesus straightforwardly and clearly attacked these notions is of little consequence to those who will not invest the time to read the Gospels and weigh the evidence for his claims.

Jesus had to fulfill hundreds of Old Testament prophecies written centuries before he appeared on earth, and live within the Mosaic law of the Torah.  He had to submit to the cruelest punishment mankind could dish out, and to top it all off he had to rise from the dead.  No small feat.  When you think about it, he had to color between some extremely tight lines.  Lee Strobel calls this framework the “unmistakable fingerprint of the Christ.”  Only Jesus was man enough for the job—that was the whole point. Continue reading