Dear believer: You ask me to accept Jesus as my personal Savior; yet his behavior and teachings often expose one who should be escaped, not sought. I ask only that you read what follows in the spirit of open-mindedness taught in Prov. 15:10 NIV (“he who hates correction will die”) and Prov. 12:1 NASB (“he who hates reproof is stupid”) because I seek to “Prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:21).
So begin the words of Dennis McKinsey’s tract, Jesus Christ Is the Answer? This attack against our Lord is bad enough, but for the author of this tract to pretend to be open-minded (encouraging us to be such, also) is a farce. While Paul did teach Christians to “prove all things,” Mr. McKinsey’s intent is to “destroy all things” holy and true. This introduction is disingenuous, at best.
His very first objection to Jesus reveals that he has no understanding of such matters as sin, grace, or love:
While on the cross Jesus said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Mark 15:34). How could Jesus be our savior when he couldn’t even save himself? Those aren’t the words of a man voluntarily dying for our sins; those are the words of a man who can think of a hundred other places he would rather be.
McKinsey must enjoy his attempt at blasphemous humor; perhaps when he is in hell, he will think of a hundred other places he would rather be. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus voluntarily allowed Himself to be crucified. He affirmed that no man would take His life from Him; He laid it down of His own accord (John 10:17-18). Had His goal been to save Himself, He could have simply stayed out of Jerusalem. He knew and declared in advance precisely how He would be put to death (John 12:32-33). He taught His disciples who would kill Him (Mark 10:32-34). He also, in this same passage, prophesied of His resurrection.
Mr. McKinsey’s charge that Jesus could not save Himself echoes the remarks of the blasphemers standing at the foot of the cross: “He saved others; Himself he cannot save” (Matt. 27:42). Soldiers are similarly taunted with: “How can you bring peace when you’re going to war to kill people?” It’s a paradox that is nevertheless true, despite whatever irony is attached to it.
Could Jesus have saved Himself? Anyone who could walk on water, disappear through crowds, and summon twelve legions of angels could certainly have prevented the crucifixion: for that reason, they could not take His life unless He cooperated. But if He chose to continue living in the flesh (what could possibly be the attraction of the physical realm He created?), then where would be our perfect sacrifice for sins? How would we be redeemed by the Perfect Lamb of God?
Jesus prayed earnestly to be delivered from the intense agony He experienced on the cross, but He submitted to ungodly men (who had no understanding of what was being accomplished for them) because He desired to do the Father’s will (Matt. 26:42).
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27).
Jesus suffered separation from the Father while He was on the cross, just as all impenitent sinners will experience in hell. That is the way in which He bore our sins. Since the penalty for sin has been paid, there is no reason for anyone to spend eternity in hell–unless he just desires to do so.
2. Jesus called people fools after admonishing others not to do so: “Shouldn’t he be in danger of hell fire too?” First, one must consider that the context in which Jesus warned people against saying, “Thou fool,” is one of anger–anger that would lead to murder. Later Paul would write: “Be angry and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (Eph. 4:26).
Usually, when we call someone a fool, it is not the result of a thorough investigation, which has led to such a conclusion; the reason is that we are annoyed: “The light turned green, you fool; step on the accelerator.” This past year we have heard a great deal about “road rage,” which involves motorists who allow their anger to govern their behavior. Jesus warns against emotional outbursts that result in verbal or physical violence. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, writes:
This means an expression of abuse, the vilifying of a person. It means this bitterness and hatred in the heart finding its expression in words.When our Lord pronounced those woes, He did so in a judicial manner. He did so as one given authority by God. . . . He had offered the gospel to them; every opportunity had been given to them. But they had rejected it. Not only that, we must remember that He always utters these statements against false religion and hypocrisy (225-26).
In other words, it is the motivation behind calling someone a fool that puts one in danger of hell. When such a charge is made of a fellow human being out of emotional anger, it is wrong; when it is a judicial assessment, it is acceptable, such as the psalmist’s statement: “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God” (Ps. 19:1).
3. “Except those of biased Christian writers, there isn’t one writing outside the Bible in all of ancient history that clearly refers to Jesus of Nazareth.” This false charge is frequently made by those who either do not know or who do not want to know the facts. [Notice that all the Christian writers in the second and third centuries are termedbiased. Why is it that atheists are the only ones who are never biased? Perhaps they are, but their arrogance just prevents them from seeing it.]
The fact is that Jesus is mentioned by Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius, none of whom were “biased” Christian writers. They were secular historians; Josephus (a Jew) wrote of Jesus. And then there are the writings of the Talmud. This Jewish work, according to Edward C. Wharton’s Christianity: A Clear Case of History, was “completed about 200 A.D.” He further reports:
This great body of newly codified case law became the object of Jewish study from which grew a body of commentaries called the Gemaras. Together the Mishnah (the law book) and the Gemara (the commentary) are called the Talmud. Being Jewish, suffice it to say, all references to “Yeshu’a of Nazareth” in the Talmudic writings are unfriendly, but nevertheless sufficient in number to establish beyond doubt his historical reality (10-11).
In other words, Jews that remained hostile to Jesus actually (and ironically), in their efforts to fight against His influence, ended up substantiating His existence. Will Mr. McKinsey remove this objection to Jesus from His list, as honesty would demand?
4. “Isn’t Jesus a false prophet since he wrongly predicted in Matt. 12:40 that he would be buried three days and three nights as Jonah was in the whale three days and three nights? Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning is only one and a half days.”
How little research Mr. McKinsey has done to bring up such a frivolous (and easily refutable) question. The ancients did not count time in the precise way that we do. They counted any part of a day as an entire day; we do it by hours. We would not count “on the third day” as equivalent to “after three days,” but they did. This objection involves nothing more than trying to apply twentieth-century customs to the first century.
5. “Jesus’ prophecy in John 13:38 (“The cock shall not crow, till thou [Peter] hast denied me three times”) is false. Mark 14:66-68 shows the cock crowed after the first denial, not the third.”
This is an excellent example of mishandling the Scriptures (worthy of Jehovah’s Witnesses) and poor exegesis. What Mr. McKinsey hides from his readers is the prophecy recorded in Mark 14:30, the same chapter in which the fulfillment is found. Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” For that reason the cock is reported as crowing after the first denial (66-68) and again after the third denial, at which time Peter recalls what Jesus said about the cock crowing twice (72). As John refers to the incident, he simply refers to the final crowing; Mark gives the specific details of both crowings. There is no contradiction when the reader realizes that Mark gave a full report, supplying precise details.
But how honest is it for someone to give a false impression of an event by mixing two separate accounts of the incident when each is consistent within itself? It certainly shows a lack of real substance in the part of one who had encouraged “open-mindedness.”
6. “How could Jesus be our model of sinless perfection when he denies he is morally perfect in Matt. 19:17 (‘And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God’)?” Mr. McKinsey assumes what the text does not say. Jesus did not say, “Please don’t call me good, for I have sinned.” In fact, He, to the contrary, asked on another occasion, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” (John 8:46). When Jesus asked why the man called Him “good,” He was trying to get the man to see what such a statement implied. It implies, since only One is good, that Jesus is God (which is the truth of the matter).
7. “In 1 Cor. 1:17 (‘For Christ sent me [Paul] not to baptize but to preach the gospel’) Paul said Jesus was wrong when he said in Matt. 28:19 ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them. . . .’ So how could Jesus be a fountain of wisdom?” One thing is certain: with misrepresentations like these, McKinsey will never be accused of being “a fountain of wisdom.”
Paul himself was baptized (Acts 22:16), and he taught that others are to be baptized, also (Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:26-27; Eph. 4:5; Col. 2:12; Titus 3:5). To say that “Paul said that Jesus was wrong” certainly puts words in the apostle’s mouth that he never said. The context of 1 Corinthians 1 reveals that brethren had begun to be divided, setting up factions around certain Christian personalities. Therefore, Paul was happy that he had not personally baptized many there, lest they all claim him as their leader. This is the context of Paul’s statement: His mission was to preach; others could do the actual baptizing. Paul in no way contradicts anything that the Lord taught.
8. “How could Jesus, whom the New Testament repeatedly refers to as the son of man, be our savior when this is clearly forestalled by Psalm 146:3 (‘Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help’), and Job 25:6 (‘How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm’)?”
The reader is treated here to more “out of context” misapplications. Neither of the verses is a prophecy of Jesus as “the Son of man.” Rather they are talking about the nature of human beings. Mere men cannot save. But Jesus was no mere man–but God in the flesh (John 1:14). Sometimes He referred to Himself as “the Son of God,” referring to His Divinity; sometimes He referred to Himself as “the son of man,” referring to his humanity. To try to apply the two Scriptures cited to Jesus in particular instead of man in general is just another sampling of either ignorance or dishonesty.
9. “How can Jesus be God when he repeatedly said he was not God’s equal, wasn’t God? Obvious examples are John 14:28 (‘. . .for my Father is greater than I’), John 20:17 (‘I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God’), and John 7:16 (‘My doctrine is not mine but his that sent me’).”
All of these statements fail to take into account that Jesus “did not count His equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:5-8). Jesus submitted Himself to the Father and obeyed Him in all things, making the Father greater (in a sense). Nevertheless, when He said God was His Father, He made Himself equal to God (in another sense), and the Jews understood His statement precisely that way (John 5:18). When Jesus took upon Him the limitations of the flesh and put Himself in subjection to the Father, some things were given up, but He remained God in essence, if not in form.
10. “While on the Cross Jesus said, ‘Forgive them Father they know not what they do.’ To whom was he speaking? They say, ‘God.’ But I thought he was God. How can God speak to God if there is only one god? That’s two gods.”
Mr. McKinsey had no problem understanding that Jesus was speaking to the Father in the last question; when did he become confused? The fact is that there is one Godhead. One need only read as far into the Bible as Genesis 1 to read: “Let us make man in our own image” (Gen. 1:26). One of the common words for God in the Old Testament is Elohim, which is the plural form of El, translated “God.” The plural is also translated “God.” In the New Testament, they are referred to as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19, quoted by McKinsey earlier). These three personalities are one in nature, purpose, and character.
11. “Jesus told us to ‘honor thy father and mother’ (Matt. 15:4), but contradicted his own teaching in Luke 14:26 (‘if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother. . .he cannot be my disciple’).”
One wonders how atheists can often times hold advanced degrees and yet fail to understand what most people know without requiring any explanation. Even those who might be temporarily confused could find the answer to this one in the cheapest commentary available. The point of Luke 14 is that Jesus must come first, before all others–even one’s earthly family, which is frequently the place one finds the closest bonds. For that reason Christians are called brothers and sisters; all of us are God’s family.
Does McKinsey really think that Jesus taught that one must literally hate his own family in order to be a Christian? The passage is simply one of contrasts, for emphasis’ sake. Is animosity what generally occurs prior to one’s obeying the gospel? No one could possibly interpret the verse the way the author of this tract has–unless he tried really hard. Is it not interesting that often times those who exhort Christians to be open-minded are themselves anything but? The dishonesty in handling the Scriptures, the deliberate misrepresentations, and the objections that a mere tyro would avoid making lead us to doubt the integrity of this tract.