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Did Jesus Really Say He Was God? (Mikel Del Rosario) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.
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Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everybody, welcome
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Speaker 1: to this episode of Thinking Christian.
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Speaker 2: I'm your host, Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today
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Speaker 2: by Dr. Mikel Del Rosario.
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Speaker 1: He is a professor of theology at the Moody Bible
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Speaker 1: Institute in Chicago, and he is the author of a
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Speaker 1: new book, Did Jesus Really Say He Was God? He's
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Speaker 1: also the host of a podcast called The Apologetics Guy,
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Speaker 1: and I'd encourage.
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Speaker 2: You to check that out.
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Speaker 1: It's on the Christianity Today network, as I understand it.
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Speaker 1: But today we're going to be talking about his book,
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Speaker 1: Did Jesus Really Say He Was God?
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Speaker 2: And so, Mikel, welcome to the show.
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Speaker 1: Really happy that you can come on and talk through
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Speaker 1: this important topic.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much, James. I appreciate the invitation.
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Speaker 1: So you're kind of coming at this topic from an
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Speaker 1: apologetic standpoint. And I will say, you know, my background's
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Speaker 1: in biblical studies, theological studies. This is one of those
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Speaker 1: where it's sort of surprising to me that people still
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Speaker 1: don't see that Jesus claimed he was God. You know,
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Speaker 1: I think, you know, going through all the different education
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Speaker 1: levels and listening to some of those scholarly conversations, it's
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Speaker 1: difficult to believe that people still have this question. So
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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about What prompted you to write
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Speaker 1: this book and why you feel this question is still
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Speaker 1: relevant for today?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there was a personal story that I tell,
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Speaker 3: a personal experience that I had where I was talking
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Speaker 3: to this woman after a church event one day, and
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Speaker 3: she began to raise this idea of where we ever
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Speaker 3: got this idea that Jesus is God or even claimed
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Speaker 3: to be God. And so she was like, why even
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Speaker 3: believe Jesus is God if he never even said he
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Speaker 3: was God himself? We start looking at some Verses in
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Speaker 3: the Bible, like in John, where he says, I and
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Speaker 3: the Father are one, and where he says, if you've
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Speaker 3: seen me, you've seen the Father. These kinds of very
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Speaker 3: explicit claims. But then she changes from a literary kind
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Speaker 3: of question, where in the Bible does Jesus say he's God,
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Speaker 3: to a historical question. Yeah, but did Jesus really say
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Speaker 3: he was God? Like, if it's just in John, which
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Speaker 3: was written later on in the 80s or the 90s,
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Speaker 3: why don't we see any hint of a divine claim
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Speaker 3: in the earlier Gospels, in the Synoptics, especially in Mark?
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Speaker 3: And so we began to talk about that. And it's
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Speaker 3: just surprising to me that we have so many Christians
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Speaker 3: now who, at least here in America, are actually doubting
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Speaker 3: and don't even believe that Jesus is God in some cases.
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Speaker 3: I was really surprised by this study that Lifeway and
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Speaker 3: Ligonier Ministries did, where they found that 43% of self-professed
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Speaker 3: evangelical adults in America who went to church regularly, they
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Speaker 3: agreed with the statement 43% of them did it. saying
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Speaker 3: that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. 43%.
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Speaker 3: Really crazy percentage.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, really crazy. And that was evangelical findings, as I recall.
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Speaker 2: Is that correct?
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Speaker 3: That's right. They polled 3,000 people, and they said that
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Speaker 3: you could actually increase that to 53% if you count
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Speaker 3: people who went to church regularly but wouldn't call themselves evangelicals.
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Speaker 3: So it's still amazing. So I think that anecdote of
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Speaker 3: just the people that I meet and that one lady–
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Speaker 3: there's a broader group of people who are now being
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Speaker 3: affected by reading skeptical scholarship, where they're being made to
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Speaker 3: question the Bible, where they're trying to fact check the
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Speaker 3: Bible and say, yeah, but did Jesus really say that?
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Speaker 3: So we got to be able to engage on a
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Speaker 3: historical level when we have those questions.
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Speaker 1: You know, did you find in scholarship, I guess when
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Speaker 1: I was kind of coming up through seminary, I was
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Speaker 1: around for the Jesus seminar or the aftermath of the
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Speaker 1: Jesus seminar where people were, you know, using different colored
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Speaker 1: beads to decide whether or not Jesus said it or not.
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Speaker 1: When we look at skeptical scholarship today, is it kind
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Speaker 1: of the same sort of question in the Gospels? Is
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Speaker 1: the question, can we trust the veracity of these sayings?
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Speaker 1: Can we trust the veracity of these accounts, and how
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Speaker 1: do we determine whether Jesus said it or not? Is
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Speaker 1: that always what's sort of the same question that's being
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Speaker 1: driven behind these kind of narratives and in the scholarship,
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Speaker 1: I suppose?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, corroboration is really the name of the game. So
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Speaker 3: it's not looking at the Bible as the Word of God.
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Speaker 3: We need to be able not to only be able
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Speaker 3: to appeal to inspiration or to inerrancy when we engage
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Speaker 3: with people who see the Bible differently. But they would
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Speaker 3: ask questions like, how do we really know that we
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Speaker 3: can that the Bible is giving us accurate history, that
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Speaker 3: what we're reading in the Bible is sourced in history?
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Speaker 3: Or for some people, can we even know history at all?
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Speaker 3: Is there truth out there that we can know? So,
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Speaker 3: I mean, it can get really philosophical like that as well.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, taking a look, not as the whole book, like, okay,
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Speaker 3: the Gospel of Mark is that historical, but rather, what
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Speaker 3: about this saying? What about that event? How much corroboration
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Speaker 3: is there for this event or this saying in the
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Speaker 3: life of Jesus? So there are rules that historians use
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Speaker 3: to try to be able to, really the point is
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Speaker 3: to come to the table with people from a Jewish background,
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Speaker 3: from an atheist background, from a Christian background, whatever, and
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Speaker 3: be able to have a conversation about the things Jesus
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Speaker 3: really said and did, even if we don't see eye
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Speaker 3: to eye on what the Bible is.
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Speaker 2: And how do you establish some of that corroboration?
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Speaker 1: Because my understanding is that there are pretty scattered references
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Speaker 1: to Jesus, and a lot of what we find in
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Speaker 1: the Gospels is going to be very specific. These are
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Speaker 1: sort of day-to-day stories of the type that wouldn't necessarily
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Speaker 1: have been even of interest to people who are writing
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Speaker 1: broader histories. So when you talk about corroboration, what does
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Speaker 1: that mean? What's that historical method look like?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so corroboration is the name of the game. So
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Speaker 3: it's kind of like when you are a lawyer preparing
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Speaker 3: a case, there are rules, the rules of evidence. Well,
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Speaker 3: there are kind of rules of evidence in doing historical
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Speaker 3: inquiry as well. So one of them is multiple attestations
6:15
Speaker 3: may have heard of multiple attestation before. That's just the
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Speaker 3: idea that it's really a common sense kind of thing
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Speaker 3: that if you have more than one witness telling you
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Speaker 3: something happened, even if they're not explaining it exactly the
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Speaker 3: same way or using the same details, it increases the
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Speaker 3: probability in the minds of historians that that thing really happened,
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Speaker 3: whether it's a car accident with five witnesses or whether
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Speaker 3: you're looking at something in ancient history, it's better to
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Speaker 3: have more than just one witness. So, for example, Jesus
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Speaker 3: for example, we have that in Mark chapter 2, in
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Speaker 3: the healing of the paralytic, where he says to the man, son,
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Speaker 3: your sins are forgiven. So that's a story that we
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Speaker 3: also get later in Matthew 9 and in Luke 5.
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Speaker 3: But then just the idea of Jesus saying your sins
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Speaker 3: are forgiven, there's another time in Jesus' life where, if
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Speaker 3: you remember the woman who anointed his feet, the lady
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Speaker 3: with the alabaster jar, Luke 7, what did he say
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Speaker 3: to her? your sins are forgiven. So historians will say, okay,
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Speaker 3: I mean, there's probably something to that. Jesus probably said
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Speaker 3: something like this. It's not just one time that we
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Speaker 3: have this in the tradition. So Jesus saying your sins
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Speaker 3: are forgiven is pretty solid.
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Speaker 1: And so using the Gospels, even outside of Christian circles,
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Speaker 1: as corroborating evidence is a fairly standard historical exercise. So
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Speaker 1: if I'm looking at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and I'm saying,
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Speaker 1: or Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, right, all three of those,
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Speaker 1: and maybe even into the later epistles, those kind of things,
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Speaker 1: where we're finding resonance between those texts and shared stories
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Speaker 1: between those texts, that lends to that cooperative evidence that
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Speaker 1: you're talking about.
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Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be sort of outside.
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Speaker 1: We don't have to go to Josephus or Philo or,
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Speaker 1: you know, those kind of arenas.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good point to make, because for
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Speaker 3: some people who don't regularly engage in these kinds of
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Speaker 3: conversations or read historians, they might say, well, the Bible
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Speaker 3: is just one book. And so, you know, cross-referencing Mark with, oh, well,
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Speaker 3: this coheres to what we see in John or in
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Speaker 3: Philippians or something. Uh, they're not going to understand that,
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Speaker 3: but historians who actually do work in classics in ancient history, uh,
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Speaker 3: understand the Bible is a collection of ancient documents. And
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Speaker 3: even within the gospels, we have sources. Uh, Luke, for example,
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Speaker 3: even says he uses sources. So that's where, um, historians
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Speaker 3: will say, okay, let's look at this saying, let's look
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Speaker 3: at this theme in the life of Jesus, not only
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Speaker 3: miraculous healings, but healing the lame, for example. Okay, there's more,
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Speaker 3: there's corroboration there. So they can get pretty specific that
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Speaker 3: way as well.
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Speaker 2: Very interesting.
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Speaker 1: I don't know whether I would have thought that corroboration
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Speaker 1: would work that way. It makes intuitive sense because, you know,
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Speaker 1: you have obviously Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that are
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Speaker 1: written about the life of Jesus, and maybe they're using
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Speaker 1: the same sort of sources.
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Speaker 2: You know, Luke is using sources.
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Speaker 1: And it seems like they have a lot of common material.
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Speaker 1: And so that lends credibility as opposed to detracting from
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Speaker 1: that credibility. And I'm sure with some people it does
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Speaker 1: detract from the credibility. Am I right about that?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, actually, that's a really good point to make, is
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Speaker 3: that for some people, they get a little nervous when
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Speaker 3: you don't have verbatim quotes from Jesus exact in each sentence. instance, right?
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Speaker 3: But that actually, for historians, that's actually a good thing,
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Speaker 3: because it tells us that they're not all just copying
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Speaker 3: off of Mark here. They're actually getting it from different traditions,
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Speaker 3: and so the core and the gist is the same.
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Speaker 3: For example, if Jesus says something like, who do you
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Speaker 3: say that I am? Or who do the crowds say
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Speaker 3: that I am? Or who do the crowds say that
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Speaker 3: the Son of Man is? It all means the same thing, right?
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Speaker 3: But because the words are slightly different, isn't that how
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Speaker 3: you would normally assume people would, you know, if you
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Speaker 3: talked three people who saw something happen at a party,
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Speaker 3: they wouldn't use all the exact same words. And when
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Speaker 3: we do see them using the exact same words, like
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Speaker 3: your sins are forgiven, that was, wow, that was a
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Speaker 3: very important saying that was preserved because that's just how
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Speaker 3: he said it. And so we have some things like
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Speaker 3: that where you can get Jesus' words exact.
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Speaker 2: Very interesting.
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Speaker 1: So Where do you think, I mean, obviously there's the
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Speaker 1: influence of sort of the critical scholarship that's raising this
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Speaker 1: question that Jesus even claimed to be God. And I
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Speaker 1: think we probably want to separate between people who are
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Speaker 1: claiming that Jesus isn't God and whether or not Jesus
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Speaker 1: himself claimed to be God. Those seem to be two
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Speaker 1: different things. Obviously they're connected, but I think we want
10:43
Speaker 1: to draw a distinction between those. So where is the
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Speaker 1: question of, did Jesus ever claim to even be God
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Speaker 1: really coming from? Are there specific factors, assertions, ways of
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Speaker 1: understanding that are driving that question forward into more popular thought?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think that when somebody says, where did
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Speaker 3: Jesus say he's God or did Jesus really say he
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Speaker 3: was God? We want to ask a question back, a
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Speaker 3: kind of what do you mean by that question to
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Speaker 3: unpack it and see where they're coming from. Some people
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Speaker 3: have a theological problem with it and say, if Jesus
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Speaker 3: didn't claim to be God the Father, then he didn't
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Speaker 3: claim to be God. And that's a misunderstanding of the
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Speaker 3: Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
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Speaker 2: For example.
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Speaker 3: Or they believe that being a man is the opposite
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Speaker 3: of being God. So if we see Bible verses where
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Speaker 3: Jesus gets tired, he gets hurt, well, he sleeps, how
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Speaker 3: can he be God, right? So sometimes it comes from
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Speaker 3: a theological misunderstanding or a theological problem. Sometimes it comes
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Speaker 3: from historical questions like if Jesus really said things like
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Speaker 3: I and the Father are one, like we see in John,
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Speaker 3: then why don't we see these exact kinds of claims
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Speaker 3: in the synoptics as well? I think they're there. They're
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Speaker 3: just implicit, and we shouldn't confuse the directness of a
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Speaker 3: claim with the existence of a claim. So I could
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Speaker 3: say I'm married. That's a very direct statement. I could
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Speaker 3: also say we just celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. That's
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Speaker 3: an implicit claim to be married. Without saying it explicitly,
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Speaker 3: I could just even wear a wedding ring and without
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Speaker 3: even saying anything, I'm acting like a married person. I'm
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Speaker 3: speaking like a married person. And that's what Jesus did.
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Speaker 3: He was acting like God. He was speaking like God.
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Speaker 3: And the scribes, the theologians in the audience, they understood it.
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Speaker 3: So I think we need to find out if our
12:32
Speaker 3: friend who's asking these questions, are they pushing back because
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Speaker 3: they have a theological misunderstanding or they have a historical
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Speaker 3: question about corroboration?
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Speaker 2: Okay. That's helpful.
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Speaker 1: You take sort of an interesting approach in your book,
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Speaker 1: and I really like the approach you've taken. You kind
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Speaker 1: of look at this as how would Jesus's enemies have
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Speaker 1: viewed what he was saying.
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Speaker 2: Which I think is sort of really historically compelling.
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Speaker 1: Watching the reaction of people who are going to disagree
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Speaker 1: with you gives you a sense of whether you're saying
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Speaker 1: the right thing or the wrong thing. And how they
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Speaker 1: understood it is actually pretty crucial to understanding the claims
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Speaker 1: that Jesus is making. And so you focus in on
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Speaker 1: basically just two narratives within the gospel accounts in Mark.
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Speaker 1: And so talk to me about why you took that
13:24
Speaker 1: approach specifically. And then we'll dive.
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Speaker 2: In a little bit and talk a little bit about.
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Speaker 1: These two texts and how you understand them to help
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Speaker 1: people understand that, hey, Jesus really is here claiming to
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Speaker 1: be God.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I suppose there's a couple reasons why. One,
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Speaker 3: I just haven't seen anybody else do it. I think
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Speaker 3: it's kind of a gap, like I wouldn't know why.
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Speaker 3: Nobody else has thought to write a whole book just
13:51
Speaker 3: looking at those two. Now, you could write a much
13:53
Speaker 3: bigger book than I did, but I just chose two
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Speaker 3: scenes to see how Jesus' enemies understood what he was saying.
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Speaker 3: Because here's the thing, sometimes skeptics will say, Well, of
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Speaker 3: course Jesus' disciples would believe that. They're his disciples. Of
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Speaker 3: course his friends would think this. They think Jesus is great. Well,
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Speaker 3: they just deified him and they just loved him so
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Speaker 3: much they turned him into this deity. Well, what about
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Speaker 3: the people who didn't want to follow Jesus? What about
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Speaker 3: the people who called him a blasphemer? Jesus wasn't just
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Speaker 3: a Mr. Rogers character going around with these happy sayings
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Speaker 3: about loving your neighbor. He was a highly controversial figure.
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Speaker 3: Why did he end up on the cross? which, by
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Speaker 3: the way, is another rule of evidence or criteria of authenticity.
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Speaker 3: If we see a scene or an event or a
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Speaker 3: saying in Jesus' life that helps us understand how it
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Speaker 3: is Jesus ended up on the cross, we're going to
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Speaker 3: pay attention to that as historians, because it helps us
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Speaker 3: explain something that's the bedrock, historical bedrock, one of the
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Speaker 3: most well-attested things about the historical Jesus that he was crucified.
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Speaker 3: And so, Yeah, so I chose that because one, nobody
15:00
Speaker 3: that I have seen has done that. And two, what
15:04
Speaker 3: stands behind this book is actually my dissertation research for
15:07
Speaker 3: my doctoral program at Dallas Seminary. And there's a little
15:10
Speaker 3: thing called originality. And so you have to do something
15:14
Speaker 3: that you find out there's a gap in the research here.
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Speaker 3: Why doesn't somebody look at this? And so I'm going
15:19
Speaker 3: to look at that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
15:21
Speaker 1: Always fun coming up with a dissertation topic and trying
15:24
Speaker 1: to figure out what the plethora of scholars who came
15:26
Speaker 1: before you haven't done. But I actually, you know, in
15:30
Speaker 1: looking through, so I got to look through the information
15:34
Speaker 1: that IVP sent me about your book. And then I
15:37
Speaker 1: went back and read through those different chapters in Mark.
15:40
Speaker 1: And I think the one that I found, now both
15:44
Speaker 1: of them were interesting, but I think the one that
15:46
Speaker 1: connects with what you just said, that Mark chapter 14,
15:50
Speaker 1: Where Jesus is being sort of grilled. He's being questioned
15:56
Speaker 1: about who he is and what he's done. And, you know,
15:59
Speaker 1: they're looking for an excuse to either release him or
16:02
Speaker 1: crucify him.
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Speaker 2: And his words ultimately lead to the latter, right?
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Speaker 1: And so that's one of those scenes where you do
16:10
Speaker 1: see a reason for him to move toward crucifixion.
16:17
Speaker 2: I'm getting my shuns mixed up. Toward crucifixion.
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Speaker 1: Is that part of the reason you chose that passage,
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Speaker 1: Mark chapter 14?
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Speaker 3: Well, this is one of the most explicit parts where
16:31
Speaker 3: he's really forcing a confrontation at the beginning of going
16:35
Speaker 3: into Jerusalem with the triumphal entry and kicks off the
16:38
Speaker 3: Passion Week, and now he is being asked directly, tell me,
16:43
Speaker 3: Caiaphas says, the high priest, are you the Messiah, the
16:47
Speaker 3: Son of the Blessed?
16:48
Speaker 2: Are you the Christ, right?
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Speaker 3: And Jesus says, I am. But he just stopped there.
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Speaker 3: He said, and you will see the Son of Man
16:55
Speaker 3: seated at the right hand of the power and coming
16:57
Speaker 3: with the clouds of heaven. Now, there's so much to
17:00
Speaker 3: unpack there that we don't typically think about if you just,
17:03
Speaker 3: you know, hear it during Easter time or something. But
17:07
Speaker 3: Jesus is combining Daniel 7 and Psalm 110. And this
17:13
Speaker 3: Son of Man imagery, Jesus always makes it definite, by
17:17
Speaker 3: the way, the Son of Man. That's somewhat we call
17:20
Speaker 3: that dissimilarity in uh the criteria of authenticity it's not
17:23
Speaker 3: exactly like in the old testament but it's not exactly
17:27
Speaker 3: like in the church either because we don't worship jesus
17:30
Speaker 3: as the son of man there's not a lot of
17:32
Speaker 3: worship songs that you probably know that worships jesus as
17:34
Speaker 3: the son of man and so it's always on the
17:37
Speaker 3: lips of jesus but he's combining these two texts daniel
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Speaker 3: 7 and psalm 110 and in daniel 7 the son
17:45
Speaker 3: of man is given all authority. All the nations of
17:47
Speaker 3: the world will worship him and his kingdom will be unstoppable.
17:50
Speaker 2: Who's this guy?
17:51
Speaker 3: He looks like a human being, but he has transcendent qualities.
17:54
Speaker 3: And then he's riding on the clouds as well. Only
17:57
Speaker 3: a deity does that. In Psalm 110, many Jews, when
18:00
Speaker 3: the monarchy didn't come back, they began to see this
18:02
Speaker 3: as pointing to the ultimate eschatological king. In fact, Jesus
18:06
Speaker 3: even poses a riddle to people. How can David call
18:10
Speaker 3: his descendant, his Lord, when he is his descendant, right?
18:13
Speaker 3: And so, He's putting these two things together and he's
18:16
Speaker 3: making a claim to have authority to judge in heaven
18:20
Speaker 3: and to judge, in fact, the representatives of God on earth.
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Speaker 3: And that's exactly what they're thinking when they cry blasphemy. Like,
18:28
Speaker 3: and who are you? And you're going to judge us?
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Speaker 2: Like, how dare you? That's the whole vibe.
18:32
Speaker 3: So it's because of that, that whole, the palpability of
18:37
Speaker 3: just the offense there in that scene, everything comes to
18:40
Speaker 3: a head right at that. It's a very, it's a
18:42
Speaker 3: pivotal scene in Jesus' life.
18:44
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that they would have reacted so strongly
18:46
Speaker 1: to that language of.
18:48
Speaker 2: Son of man.
18:49
Speaker 1: Just if we take Daniel 7 sort of in and
18:52
Speaker 1: of itself, Daniel 7 doesn't necessarily represent, I mean, it
18:56
Speaker 1: may be gestures toward the coming of a Messiah or
18:58
Speaker 1: the coming of a savior of some sort, but it
19:01
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily point directly to someone exactly like Jesus, right?
19:07
Speaker 1: When Jesus comes, he's now obviously analogous to that son
19:12
Speaker 1: of man. But he's an instantiation of son of man
19:15
Speaker 1: that nobody seems to be expecting. Is that a fair
19:18
Speaker 1: way to characterize it?
19:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that Jesus is actually saying I
19:23
Speaker 3: am that son of man in Daniel 7. But he's
19:25
Speaker 3: using that idea to show more about who he is.
19:29
Speaker 3: So he's taking something that's already in the Jewish contemplation. Again,
19:32
Speaker 3: one like a son of man. You always see this
19:36
Speaker 3: one like a son of man. But Jesus always makes
19:38
Speaker 3: it definite like a title.
19:39
Speaker 2: The son of man. That's right.
19:40
Speaker 3: The son of man. And there's no evidence in the
19:44
Speaker 3: text that he changed the topic right in the middle
19:46
Speaker 3: of this examination. He wasn't talking about some third party.
19:50
Speaker 3: They knew it's not any old son of man.
19:52
Speaker 2: It's Jesus.
19:53
Speaker 3: He is a son of man who's coming back again.
19:55
Speaker 3: And he's like, you can do what you want with me,
19:57
Speaker 3: but there will be another trial one day and you
19:59
Speaker 3: guys won't be judging me at that one.
20:02
Speaker 2: Well, the fact that they identify that as blasphemy suggests
20:05
Speaker 2: that sometimes the way we read it, which is could
20:09
Speaker 2: be rather plainly, right?
20:12
Speaker 1: We see all these different references to Jesus calling himself
20:14
Speaker 1: the Son of Man in various other places. But in
20:17
Speaker 1: this instance, it becomes a problem. This combination of elements
20:22
Speaker 1: in Mark 14 really does become a problem for the Jews. Now,
20:26
Speaker 1: they're looking for an excuse, which I don't think matters
20:30
Speaker 1: quite so much at this moment. But the fact that
20:33
Speaker 1: they label it blasphemy and not something else, really does
20:38
Speaker 1: tell us something about what Jesus is claiming here.
20:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:41
Speaker 3: And that blasphemy, sometimes people will say, well, where's the blasphemy?
20:45
Speaker 3: Because it's not blasphemy to call yourself the Messiah.
20:47
Speaker 2: And that's true.
20:49
Speaker 3: But Jesus didn't just say, I am the Messiah. He
20:52
Speaker 3: ups the ante more. He says, and you will see
20:54
Speaker 3: the Son of Man seated at the right hand of
20:56
Speaker 3: power coming with the clouds of heaven. And to them,
20:59
Speaker 3: here's the thing, again, as 21st century people, we might
21:02
Speaker 3: not say, that's not how I would claim to be God.
21:04
Speaker 3: That's not how anybody would claim to be God. But
21:07
Speaker 3: Jesus is operating in a very different world, a very
21:10
Speaker 3: different culture and context. And that's why I loved looking
21:12
Speaker 3: at his enemies. They were not misunderstanding anything he was
21:16
Speaker 3: saying here. They knew exactly what he was saying. And
21:20
Speaker 3: so the blasphemy actually could be a combination of things, really.
21:23
Speaker 3: It could be even just saying that you're going to
21:26
Speaker 3: judge the representatives of God on earth, that you're going
21:28
Speaker 3: to judge the Jewish leadership. Like, that could be considered blasphemy.
21:32
Speaker 3: Making yourself too close to God by taking... his divine
21:35
Speaker 3: prerogatives for yourself, whether it's saying, son, your sins are forgiven,
21:38
Speaker 3: like in Mark chapter two, and only God can forgive
21:40
Speaker 3: sins or who has the right to judge. Only God
21:44
Speaker 3: has the right to judge. Actually, forgiveness and judgment are
21:47
Speaker 3: just two sides of the same coin. And so Jesus
21:49
Speaker 3: has the right to forgive. He has the right to judge.
21:52
Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, you're making yourself too close to God.
21:57
Speaker 3: You're acting like God and you're speaking like God. And
22:00
Speaker 3: It is true, in fact, that Jesus would in fact
22:03
Speaker 3: be a blasphemer if he wasn't God as he claimed
22:06
Speaker 3: to be.
22:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know there were a lot of messianic pretenders
22:10
Speaker 1: who came along. You mentioned, you know, it wasn't blasphemy
22:14
Speaker 1: to claim to be the Messiah. Do you have any
22:17
Speaker 1: insight into some of the messianic pretenders that would have
22:20
Speaker 1: come before Jesus who weren't doing these things that Jesus
22:25
Speaker 1: was doing, who weren't claiming to be the Son of Man,
22:27
Speaker 1: who weren't claiming to be, you know, In other words,
22:30
Speaker 1: you could thread the needle and claim to be the
22:32
Speaker 1: Messiah without actually claiming to be God. And without being,
22:37
Speaker 1: you could be shown a false Messiah without being called
22:40
Speaker 1: a blasphemer.
22:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So first of all, if you end
22:44
Speaker 3: up on the cross, you're supposed to conquer Rome. Rome
22:46
Speaker 3: is not supposed to conquer you.
22:48
Speaker 2: Okay.
22:49
Speaker 3: So that was a tough sell, right? That's why some
22:51
Speaker 3: people began to, you know, how could he possibly be
22:54
Speaker 3: the Messiah? And so Yeah, the Messiah figures that came
22:58
Speaker 3: before or after Jesus, none of them ever claimed to
23:01
Speaker 3: forgive sins, for example, never claimed to judge the sins
23:04
Speaker 3: of the whole world. Even luminaries like Adam or Moses
23:08
Speaker 3: or Enoch, people who Jewish texts would imagine as possibly
23:14
Speaker 3: being deified in some way or having a role in
23:16
Speaker 3: the judgment by God's own invitation, maybe for a limited time,
23:19
Speaker 3: being able to sit with him in heaven. None of
23:22
Speaker 3: those people ever went around telling people, one day I'm
23:25
Speaker 3: going to judge the sins of the whole world. Or
23:27
Speaker 3: going around saying, I can forgive sins and forgiving people's
23:31
Speaker 3: sins third party. And by third party, I mean, if
23:35
Speaker 3: I did something against you, I could ask you to
23:37
Speaker 3: forgive me. But I can't ask you to forgive me
23:39
Speaker 3: for something I did to my son or something.
23:41
Speaker 2: To a third party, yeah. That's right.
23:43
Speaker 3: And there's nothing like that in Greco-Roman miracle workers or
23:48
Speaker 3: Jewish priests or prophets. And so it really is. He's
23:51
Speaker 3: acting like God. He's speaking like God. He's claiming to
23:54
Speaker 3: have divine authority that no human being who is a
23:57
Speaker 3: mere human being could have. Now, he happens to be
24:00
Speaker 3: a human being who's also God. And that's where you
24:04
Speaker 3: got to decide, as Jesus says, who do you say
24:07
Speaker 3: that I am?
24:08
Speaker 2: But I think that's crucial. I mean, I think that
24:10
Speaker 2: if we start to.
24:11
Speaker 1: Lose the idea that Jesus actually claimed to be God,
24:15
Speaker 1: there's almost not even a crux for decisions. It's just
24:21
Speaker 1: sort of like you're left with this guy who is
24:23
Speaker 1: reasonably good. The whole liar, lord, and lunatic that I
24:29
Speaker 1: remember from my beginnings in apologetics. You sort of lose
24:33
Speaker 1: it because if he didn't actually claim to be God,
24:37
Speaker 1: then he can just be a good guy in some way, shape,
24:42
Speaker 1: or form. And his teaching could be vaguely interesting but
24:45
Speaker 1: not necessarily authoritative.
24:47
Speaker 2: But that's never the picture we really get of Jesus.
24:49
Speaker 1: And I think this notion of blasphemy in Mark 14
24:54
Speaker 1: really draws that out. And you see something similar in
24:56
Speaker 1: Mark 2, which is the other passage you treat, which
24:59
Speaker 1: is in dealing with the forgiveness of sins. And like
25:02
Speaker 1: you said, those are two sides of a different coin,
25:04
Speaker 1: judgment and forgiveness. You're essentially judging in a good way
25:10
Speaker 1: when you're forgiving sins, judging in a bad way when
25:13
Speaker 1: you're condemning people. So, How does that Mark 2 one
25:17
Speaker 1: play into your overarching argument?
25:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is fascinating to take Mark 2 and 14.
25:24
Speaker 3: They're kind of like bookmarks of Jesus' ministry because you
25:28
Speaker 3: have the earliest miracle story and the earliest gospel in
25:31
Speaker 3: Mark chapter 2. And here he's claiming to have divine
25:35
Speaker 3: authority on earth to forgive sins. He says, so that
25:38
Speaker 3: you may know that the Son of Man has authority
25:40
Speaker 3: on earth to forgive sins. He tells the guy to
25:42
Speaker 3: get up and walk, and he walks. They call him
25:46
Speaker 3: blasphemer in that scene, remember? He calls himself the Son
25:50
Speaker 3: of Man, they call him a blasphemer, he points to vindication,
25:53
Speaker 3: and then the guy is healed, showing that it really
25:56
Speaker 3: did work. Even though you can't see sins being forgiven,
25:59
Speaker 3: you can see the man getting up and walking, right?
26:01
Speaker 3: But he's doing a similar thing in Mark 14. He
26:04
Speaker 3: uses the Son of Man, they call him a blasphemer,
26:07
Speaker 3: and he's pointing to vindication, and that vindication is his resurrection. Now,
26:12
Speaker 3: if you have authority in heaven to judge sins, and
26:15
Speaker 3: on earth to forgive sins. That is a claim to
26:18
Speaker 3: have authority in heaven and on earth. And it's a
26:21
Speaker 3: mirrorism for all of reality. And so you look in
26:24
Speaker 3: the opening chapters of Mark, Jesus has authority over nature,
26:28
Speaker 3: over demons, disease, and death. Who does that in all
26:32
Speaker 3: these different areas? And so it's the claims of Jesus
26:35
Speaker 3: that actually fill the resurrection with theological meaning, if you
26:40
Speaker 3: think about it. Here's another reason I wrote the book.
26:42
Speaker 3: is going to apologetics conferences, speaking at these apologetics events.
26:46
Speaker 3: I often notice a kind of classical model going through
26:49
Speaker 3: the whole event where you might start out with arguments
26:52
Speaker 3: for God's existence, might talk about the problem of evil,
26:55
Speaker 3: and then jump straight to a talk on the resurrection.
26:58
Speaker 3: But I found that there is a gap there because
27:01
Speaker 3: the resurrection is just not the resurrection of anybody. It's
27:03
Speaker 3: the resurrection of Jesus, and it is a vindication of
27:06
Speaker 3: the claims that he made about himself to have divine authority,
27:10
Speaker 3: to be the one who is the forgiver sins and
27:13
Speaker 3: the one who judges. And so if you look at
27:17
Speaker 3: Acts chapter 2, that is the very first Jewish apologetic
27:21
Speaker 3: for Jesus as Lord and Messiah. And Peter is pinning
27:25
Speaker 3: it on the resurrection and ascension of Jesus as vindication
27:29
Speaker 3: of his claims. In fact, in Acts chapter 2, he's
27:32
Speaker 3: even quoting the exact same text that Jesus alluded to
27:35
Speaker 3: in front of Caiaphas, Psalm 110. And he says, let
27:39
Speaker 3: All Israel know that God has made this Jesus Lord
27:42
Speaker 3: and Messiah.
27:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting.
27:45
Speaker 1: I think when I was able to preach last Christmas
27:51
Speaker 1: and I did a Christmas service and an Easter service.
27:55
Speaker 2: And so in both of those, I talked a little
27:57
Speaker 2: bit about the resurrection.
27:58
Speaker 1: And what I found myself sort of gravitating toward was
28:02
Speaker 1: this idea that other people had been resurrected. Lazarus had
28:06
Speaker 1: been resurrected. You know, Elisha resurrected the widow's son, the
28:11
Speaker 1: Old Testament. So resurrection wasn't as unique as we might think.
28:16
Speaker 1: It was important, but it wasn't only Jesus who had
28:19
Speaker 1: ever been resurrected. But it was only Jesus who had
28:22
Speaker 1: been resurrected, ascended into heaven and was glorified and sitting
28:28
Speaker 1: at the right hand of the Father. It's those three
28:30
Speaker 1: things that sort of put Jesus on this different level
28:33
Speaker 1: from everyone else. And demonstrate that it's not just, you know,
28:37
Speaker 1: when Lazarus is raised, you're not vindicating Lazarus, right? It's
28:42
Speaker 1: the whole sequence of events that happen with Christ that
28:46
Speaker 1: demonstrate that everything he claimed was true and really demonstrate
28:51
Speaker 1: him to be the way, the truth, and life.
28:54
Speaker 2: And we don't have.
28:55
Speaker 1: Any other instances of any human being being resurrected, ascended,
28:59
Speaker 1: and glorified other than Christ.
29:02
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
29:03
Speaker 1: And so it's really an interesting point I think you're
29:05
Speaker 1: making that leaping automatically to just the resurrection without some
29:10
Speaker 1: of these other components around them, and I think especially
29:12
Speaker 1: looking at Acts 2, we lose a little something there.
29:19
Speaker 1: We definitely lose a piece of the apologetic that we
29:21
Speaker 1: need to really demonstrate, hey, this was early Christian belief.
29:25
Speaker 1: This is what they thought happened after the resurrection. Kind
29:31
Speaker 1: of fascinating stuff. Let me ask you another question. I
29:37
Speaker 1: know you teach theology, and so I'm wondering how some
29:40
Speaker 1: of this has sort of woven its way into the classroom.
29:43
Speaker 1: How do you, how do you, you know, you're working
29:48
Speaker 1: at Moody Bible Institute, you're teaching undergraduate students, I assume,
29:51
Speaker 1: mostly undergraduate students. And so, you know, you're looking out
29:55
Speaker 1: at the next generation of pastors, ministry leaders, people are
29:58
Speaker 1: going to be really serving in the church. You're also
30:02
Speaker 1: seeing this sort of movement away from a deep conviction
30:06
Speaker 1: about Jesus being God. How do those things connect for you?
30:12
Speaker 1: What does it change for the way that you present
30:14
Speaker 1: theology to the students that you're teaching? How do you
30:18
Speaker 1: think about that from more of a pastoral perspective to say,
30:21
Speaker 1: you're going to be going out into this sort of context?
30:25
Speaker 2: What do you need to be armed with?
30:29
Speaker 3: I think all roads, all apologetics roads can lead to Jesus.
30:32
Speaker 3: So whether you're starting out with questions about the existence
30:36
Speaker 3: of God or the problem of evil or religious pluralism,
30:40
Speaker 3: whatever it might be, I always like to drive the
30:43
Speaker 3: conversation back to Jesus and to the claims of Jesus
30:46
Speaker 3: and who Jesus is. And there's actually a very attractive
30:49
Speaker 3: way to do that because at least for the most part,
30:52
Speaker 3: people are still pretty positive about Jesus. They might have
30:55
Speaker 3: a different idea of who Jesus is than the Bible presents.
30:59
Speaker 3: But I think many people are happy to talk about
31:01
Speaker 3: Jesus and to ask people what their perception of Jesus is.
31:05
Speaker 3: And it might even be a way to build a
31:07
Speaker 3: bridge with somebody, say, a Muslim friend or a Jehovah's
31:10
Speaker 3: Witness who wants to talk to you about Jesus and
31:12
Speaker 3: kind of compare what they believe with what the Bible
31:15
Speaker 3: teaches about Jesus. Or for those who say, I'm not religious,
31:19
Speaker 3: but I like history, to go that route and talk
31:21
Speaker 3: about the historical Jesus. But I like to show how
31:24
Speaker 3: Jesus actually is where we're driving to. So rather than
31:29
Speaker 3: kind of getting sidetracked into, well, now I'm kind of
31:32
Speaker 3: stuck here in a very, you know, high worldview level
31:37
Speaker 3: discussion about whether God exists or not. I want to
31:40
Speaker 3: drive it straight to Jesus. And let's talk about who
31:42
Speaker 3: Jesus is, who he claimed to be, and the vindication
31:46
Speaker 3: of his claims to be God through the resurrection, because
31:48
Speaker 3: that can get you to the gospel pretty fast.
31:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:52
Speaker 1: Just fascinating to think that, you know, we're going to
31:56
Speaker 1: be sending people out to minister in churches where there
31:59
Speaker 1: are a lot of congregants, a fair number of congregants
32:02
Speaker 1: based on that, um, state of the church, I believe
32:05
Speaker 1: is the study you're referencing there with, from Ligonier and Lifeway, um,
32:09
Speaker 1: or no state of theology report, excuse me, state of
32:11
Speaker 1: theology report, um, where people don't really believe that Jesus
32:19
Speaker 1: was God or potentially that even claimed to be God. Um, and,
32:26
Speaker 1: And that's where I think, you know, when I saw
32:28
Speaker 1: your book in the IVB catalog, I was like, this
32:31
Speaker 1: is a great question because.
32:34
Speaker 2: There are so many little areas of.
32:39
Speaker 1: Conversation that even I get into about where does Jesus
32:43
Speaker 1: really claim to be God?
32:45
Speaker 2: And they're asked, you know, like you could go to
32:47
Speaker 2: the stilling of the storm, right?
32:50
Speaker 1: Really is, it has this very similar tone to it,
32:52
Speaker 1: like you're referencing Daniel 7 and And Psalm 110, that
32:58
Speaker 1: story has a very similar feel to it, where this
33:01
Speaker 1: is sort of alluding back to Old Testament claims about
33:04
Speaker 1: what God can and can't do. Who can really still
33:07
Speaker 1: the winds and the waves?
33:08
Speaker 2: Well, that's God.
33:10
Speaker 1: That's a divine reference, but it's not exactly Jesus claiming it.
33:15
Speaker 1: And what I really like about yours is you actually
33:18
Speaker 1: focus in on these areas where he does claim it.
33:20
Speaker 2: Sorry, go ahead.
33:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say that Jesus... claim to
33:23
Speaker 3: be divine through a combination of his words and his deeds.
33:27
Speaker 3: And so sometimes they're looking for, that's the, some of
33:29
Speaker 3: the other misconception is there's only one way for Jesus
33:32
Speaker 3: to claim to be God. And if he doesn't say
33:33
Speaker 3: it in this exact way, I am God worship me.
33:37
Speaker 3: Maybe you've heard that before. Where does Jesus say, I
33:39
Speaker 3: am God worship me?
33:40
Speaker 2: Right.
33:40
Speaker 3: Well, many Muslims might ask that question is kind of
33:44
Speaker 3: a gotcha thing, but Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah,
33:47
Speaker 3: even though there's no quote anywhere that Jesus says, I
33:50
Speaker 3: am the Messiah.
33:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:52
Speaker 3: There's many ways to make that claim. And Jesus is,
33:56
Speaker 3: I mean, talk is potentially cheap, right? You could just
33:58
Speaker 3: walk in and say, hello, I'm Adonai, maker of heaven
34:00
Speaker 3: and earth, and you'll get stoned for that. But Jesus
34:03
Speaker 3: is doing the things that God does and talking like
34:07
Speaker 3: God does. Who else can claim to bind Satan and
34:10
Speaker 3: the wind and the waves obey him? And he's predicting
34:13
Speaker 3: his own death and resurrection, right? And then being vindicated. So,
34:18
Speaker 3: I think it's a very holistic way of seeing the
34:22
Speaker 3: way that Jesus communicated this.
34:25
Speaker 1: Let me ask one more question that kind of what
34:26
Speaker 1: you said just raised. I remembered a question I wanted
34:30
Speaker 1: to ask you. Mark 14, when Jesus is, you know,
34:33
Speaker 1: I think it makes a reference and I don't have
34:35
Speaker 1: the text right in front of me, but I'm recalling
34:37
Speaker 1: it makes a reference to they tried to say that
34:40
Speaker 1: Jesus claimed that he was the temple, but they weren't
34:44
Speaker 1: in agreement about that.
34:47
Speaker 2: Am I remembering that text correctly?
34:50
Speaker 3: Well, that he spoke against the temple.
34:52
Speaker 2: He spoke against the temple.
34:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, that he had some involvement in a temple disturbance
34:58
Speaker 3: was certainly true, but we don't have in the text
35:01
Speaker 3: exactly what they were saying about it. But Caiaphas says
35:04
Speaker 3: their testimony didn't agree, which is why he just asked
35:06
Speaker 3: Jesus straight.
35:08
Speaker 2: Would that have been....
35:12
Speaker 1: Because, you know, Stephen gets stoned later on in Acts
35:15
Speaker 1: 7 for very similar sort of speaking against the temple
35:19
Speaker 1: sort of allegations. I don't recall them calling that blasphemy,
35:25
Speaker 1: but would that have been an initial framing, do you think,
35:28
Speaker 1: for them to try to sort of pin Jesus as a.
35:34
Speaker 2: Blasphemer?
35:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good question. So there's Two definitions
35:38
Speaker 3: of blasphemy that I, two general definitions of blasphemy that
35:42
Speaker 3: I talk about in the book. One is more of
35:44
Speaker 3: a legal, very specific way to commit blasphemy, which is
35:48
Speaker 3: to say the divine name in a disrespectful way. There
35:52
Speaker 3: are cases you can actually say the divine name in
35:54
Speaker 3: a respectful way and it's not considered blasphemy. It's kind
35:57
Speaker 3: of a rare thing. This is why they say son
35:59
Speaker 3: of the blessed, for example, right? Jesus even says the power.
36:02
Speaker 3: These are circumlocutions. They're ways to honor God's name without
36:06
Speaker 3: saying it. But another definition of blasphemy is a cultural
36:10
Speaker 3: definition of blasphemy that's not the exact legal definition that's
36:15
Speaker 3: really precise that way. But speaking against the temple could
36:18
Speaker 3: be considered blasphemy. Speaking against God's chosen leaders could be
36:22
Speaker 3: considered blasphemy. And so there's a variety of cultural ways
36:24
Speaker 3: that you could be accused of blasphemy.
36:27
Speaker 1: And is that related then to this idea that if
36:32
Speaker 1: God has put it in place and you're denying it,
36:34
Speaker 1: you're actually denying him? You're saying that something God has
36:38
Speaker 1: established as good is no longer good.
36:42
Speaker 2: Is that sort of the logic of it?
36:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, in some way it represents God. So the temple,
36:47
Speaker 3: God's presence, the leaders of God or the leaders of
36:52
Speaker 3: the Jewish people are representatives of God in some sense.
36:56
Speaker 3: And so for Jesus to say he's going to judge
36:58
Speaker 3: the sins of the council members and the high priest,
37:01
Speaker 3: that could be considered speaking against God's appointed leaders.
37:06
Speaker 1: I think it's really crucial to understand that because it's
37:09
Speaker 1: interesting to me as he's going through this little trial
37:12
Speaker 1: that the Jewish people, the Jewish leaders, the religious leaders
37:19
Speaker 1: had sort of a stranglehold on the Jewish community because
37:23
Speaker 1: they could essentially do whatever they wanted. And if anyone
37:26
Speaker 1: questioned them, they could cry blasphemy. Whereas Jesus is just
37:29
Speaker 1: sort of sitting back and saying, no, no, no, I'll
37:33
Speaker 1: be judging you guys later. You do whatever you want
37:36
Speaker 1: to me now, but this is what's going to happen.
37:39
Speaker 1: It's sort of a fascinating dynamic and, you know, again,
37:42
Speaker 1: a claim that I suppose you could make if you
37:45
Speaker 1: were crazy, but in Jesus' case, he makes it because
37:48
Speaker 1: it's true.
37:51
Speaker 3: Yeah. The enemies of Jesus were not misunderstanding him at all.
37:55
Speaker 3: And that's a point I bring out in the book.
37:58
Speaker 3: It's a different way of, it's a different world. It's
37:59
Speaker 3: a different culture. And so for us, We might immediately
38:02
Speaker 3: gravitate to those very explicit claims in John and say, okay, look, well,
38:06
Speaker 3: here are these texts. I and the Father are one.
38:09
Speaker 3: They pick up stones to stone him. That's pretty clear.
38:12
Speaker 3: But we might have to do a little bit more
38:14
Speaker 3: digging to understand the cultural milieu and to understand how
38:18
Speaker 3: implicit claim to work in the Gospels to understand. No,
38:20
Speaker 3: he was pretty clear to those who were listening to him. Yeah, yeah.
38:24
Speaker 1: We don't understand it quite as well, but they got
38:27
Speaker 1: it intuitively just like that. Let me ask you what
38:33
Speaker 1: may be an easy question, but I think it's sort
38:36
Speaker 1: of one that needs to be asked. Why is this
38:39
Speaker 1: issue important? You know, we've we've talked about a lot
38:42
Speaker 1: of fairly large proportion of evangelical audiences, maybe not believing this.
38:48
Speaker 3: Right.
38:49
Speaker 2: Why is it important? What's the why would we ever care?
38:55
Speaker 3: Well, it's important on a number of levels. One, as
38:57
Speaker 3: we mentioned, it is the claims of Jesus that fill
39:00
Speaker 3: the resurrection with theological meaning. And so the resurrection, the
39:04
Speaker 3: very first Jewish apologetic for Jesus as Lord and Messiah
39:08
Speaker 3: says that the resurrection is that vindication. So that's one
39:12
Speaker 3: way that 3,000 people got saved that day, believing who
39:17
Speaker 3: Jesus claimed to be is actually true. And that's really
39:20
Speaker 3: the way many people come to faith today is just
39:22
Speaker 3: understanding slowly by slowly, one step at a time, who
39:25
Speaker 3: Jesus actually is. yeah and then they have to come
39:28
Speaker 3: face to face with the claims of jesus so you
39:31
Speaker 3: mentioned uh c.s lewis uh liar lord and lunatic yeah
39:36
Speaker 3: we all have to answer the question that jesus once
39:38
Speaker 3: asked peter this who do you say that i am
39:40
Speaker 3: right is he a liar is he a lunatic or
39:44
Speaker 3: is he really the lord as he claimed to be
39:46
Speaker 3: and that word lord in our bibles capital l-o-r-d is
39:49
Speaker 3: actually the Septuagint's way, the Greek translation of the Old
39:53
Speaker 3: Testament's way, of translating the divine name, Yahweh, in the
39:56
Speaker 3: Old Testament. And so when we say Jesus is Lord,
40:00
Speaker 3: we're saying that Jesus is Yahweh, He's God. And you
40:05
Speaker 3: have to ask yourself then, Jesus is either Lord of
40:07
Speaker 3: all or He's not Lord at all. And so what
40:09
Speaker 3: areas of our lives do we still have to give
40:11
Speaker 3: over to the Lordship of Jesus? That's one way it
40:13
Speaker 3: challenges us as Christians. And then for others, if you
40:17
Speaker 3: really claim to be God and He really rose from
40:20
Speaker 3: the dead, and you can talk about the evidence for
40:23
Speaker 3: the resurrection as a second part of that discussion. You
40:27
Speaker 3: have to make a decision, because the claims of Jesus, Jesus'
40:31
Speaker 3: divine claim is a divine claim on all of our lives.
40:33
Speaker 3: It's not just a fact of history that you can
40:36
Speaker 3: acquiesce to and study and say, well, that's really interesting
40:39
Speaker 3: that Jesus claimed to be God. It affects us today,
40:42
Speaker 3: and your answer to that question, who do you say
40:44
Speaker 3: that I am, could be your response. your connection to
40:48
Speaker 3: God and begin this, this wonderful life changing relationship with God.
40:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great answer, man. Really appreciate it. Appreciate
40:56
Speaker 1: you being here today. We're, we're out of time. Uh,
40:58
Speaker 1: where can people find you? Uh, we'll have a link
41:02
Speaker 1: to the book.
41:02
Speaker 2: And to IVP's website. This is an IVP book.
41:05
Speaker 1: And so they give us 20% discount on the book
41:07
Speaker 1: if you order it through their website. So you'll see
41:09
Speaker 1: that link and discount code in the show description, but
41:13
Speaker 1: where else can they find you, man?
41:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can check out my website, apologeticsguy.com. Also on
41:19
Speaker 3: social media, I'm at apologeticsguy on Instagram. And I have
41:23
Speaker 3: a TikTok now as well. And YouTube, of course, where
41:26
Speaker 3: you can get the Apologetics Guy show.
41:29
Speaker 2: It's fascinating that you could get apologeticsguy.com, man. Kudos on that.
41:34
Speaker 2: Those are difficult to get.
41:36
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. There's a fun little story about that.
41:38
Speaker 3: I know we're out of time, but real quick, I
41:40
Speaker 3: got that name. I've never shared this on a podcast before.
41:43
Speaker 3: I got that name from a bunch of atheist Reddits
41:46
Speaker 3: because I didn't think people could remember how to spell
41:49
Speaker 3: my name dot com, even though I own my name
41:52
Speaker 3: dot com. But they were saying, I don't remember who
41:55
Speaker 3: this person was, but this atheist debated this apologetics guy
41:58
Speaker 3: and he said this or that atheist. And he had
42:01
Speaker 3: to debate this apologetics guy.
42:03
Speaker 2: Like, oh, yeah, I'm your apologetics guy. Hey, why not?
42:08
Speaker 3: And sometimes people say, oh, I know a guy, you know,
42:11
Speaker 3: like I got this. you know, guy who helps me
42:13
Speaker 3: with X, Y, and Z. So I can be your
42:15
Speaker 3: apologetics guy.
42:16
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man. I love it.
42:18
Speaker 1: Well, we'll put those links in the show description as well.
42:22
Speaker 1: And so, man, I really appreciate you being here. I'd
42:25
Speaker 1: recommend this book to anybody listening It really is a
42:28
Speaker 1: very good read. And I would say you get to
42:30
Speaker 1: go into more depth than we got to go into here.
42:33
Speaker 1: There's just a lot more there. I think you wrote
42:36
Speaker 1: it really for undergraduate college students and.
42:38
Speaker 2: Those kind of things. So there's just a lot of
42:41
Speaker 2: depth in the research. It's very good.
42:43
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the portions of it that I got
42:46
Speaker 1: from IVP to read. I really loved and just enjoyed
42:50
Speaker 1: going through this with you, man. So thanks for being
42:52
Speaker 1: on the show and appreciate you taking the time.
42:56
Speaker 2: Thanks again.
42:57
Speaker 3: All right.
42:57
Speaker 2: Everybody, we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
43:01
Speaker 2: Take care, everybody.
43:02
Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
43:03
Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
43:06
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
43:09
Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
43:13
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.