Who Was Jesus? God the Son Who Became Man

When Josh was a kid, he went to St. Ignatius, a Catholic school in Sacramento, California. Blue corduroys, brown shoes, a white knit shirt, and a red cardigan. His blue-collar parents sent him there less for his spiritual survival than for his actual survival, because their neighborhood, Strawberry Manor, was not a safe place to grow up.

Every week at mass, young Josh looked up at a graphic crucifix hanging behind the priest. He did not know much about Jesus. What he remembers feeling was simple: I feel sad for that man that this happened to him.

Today Jesus is a lot more to Josh than a wooden figure on a cross. That is where the fifth message in the Reasons for Hope series began, with a question that sounds almost too obvious for a Sunday morning. Who was Jesus? Not who Hollywood says He is, or even who your parents or your pastor said He is. Who was He, really?

Picture a string wrapped around a room thirty times, with one tiny pin dot on it. That dot is your whole life on earth. The question of who Jesus is to you fills the rest of that string.

Did Jesus Actually Live?

You do not have to be a Christian to believe Jesus of Nazareth was a real person. Josh compared it to Abraham Lincoln. None of us has met Lincoln, yet nobody seriously doubts he lived, because we have letters, newspapers, and documents. The same kind of historical investigation points to Jesus.

Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian who was not a Christian, mentions James as "the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ." Tacitus, a Roman historian with no interest in promoting Christianity, explains that "Christus" was executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. And around 112 AD, a Roman governor named Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan about a problem he was having with Christians. He described them gathering before dawn to sing hymns to Christ as if He were God.

None of these men were preaching. They were recording history, and it points to a real first-century Jewish man named Jesus who taught, gathered followers, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Jesus Was Truly Human

That last fact matters more than it might seem. Josh pointed out that Christians sometimes emphasize Jesus being God so strongly that we accidentally picture Him as God pretending to be human. That is not what Christianity teaches. Jesus was born. He grew up. He got hungry and tired. He had friends, experienced joy, and wept. He was rejected, He bled, and He died. He was human like you and me.

But this very human Jesus kept saying and doing things that raised another question. Was He only human?

The Claims Jesus Made About Himself

In Mark 2, friends lower a paralyzed man down to Jesus. Everyone expects a healing. Instead, Jesus looks at him and says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The religious leaders catch it immediately: "Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Imagine someone wrongs you, and a stranger walks over and says, "Do not worry about it. I forgive him." Who does he think he is? Yet Jesus claims the authority to forgive sins committed against God, and He does not correct the leaders.

After He walks on water in Matthew 14, His disciples worship Him, and He receives it. In John 8:58, speaking of Abraham, who lived around 2,000 years earlier, Jesus says, "Before Abraham was born, I am!" Not "I was." I am. His listeners pick up stones, because they know God gave His name to Moses in Exodus 3:14 as "I AM WHO I AM." In John 10:30 He says, "I and the Father are one."

Then there is John 14:6: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus does not say He knows the way or will teach some truth. He says He is the way, the truth, and the life. That is why Jesus does not let us file Him away as a good teacher or a great moral example. As Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ, puts it, Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.

One God, and Jesus Is God the Son

This is where things can feel confusing. Jesus prays to the Father and calls Himself the Son, and then there is the Holy Spirit. So which one is God?

Scripture is clear that there is one God. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yet that one God is revealed as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Josh admitted every illustration eventually breaks down, from water, ice, and steam to the three-leaf clover. God is not three pieces combined into one, and He is not one person changing costumes.

John opens his Gospel this way: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Then: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

Here is the line from Sunday worth remembering. Jesus was not a man who became God. He is God the Son who became man. He never stopped being God, and He genuinely became human.

Why Would God Do That?

Why would the Creator step into His own creation? Josh gave two reasons, and the order matters.

First, Jesus came to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. If Jesus only came to be a better example, we would still have the problem of sin. We have chosen our own way over God's way and taken the crown for ourselves, and trying harder does not fix that. If you owe a debt you cannot pay, someone teaching you to budget might help going forward, but it does not pay the debt. We need a Savior.

Josh knows that firsthand. At nineteen, he was a telemarketer making $5.25 an hour, deep in debt, with a baby on the way, and a selfish kid headed nowhere fast. At an Amway business meeting, of all places, he walked forward at an altar call, shaking and crying without fully understanding why. Looking back, he describes it as realizing who he was and being washed clean. It felt like Jesus saying, "Yeah, that was bad, but we got you." He says Jesus has kept saying that ever since.

Jesus said it Himself in Mark 10:45: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." A ransom is a price paid to set someone free. Paul puts it this way: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Josephus cannot do that for you, and neither can a pastor. Only Jesus saves.

Second, Jesus came to show us what life with God was meant to look like. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Watch how He handles power, interruptions, children, and enemies. Watch Him talk with the woman everyone else has already judged, and lay His hands on the person everyone else avoids.

We do not follow Jesus so He will save us. We follow Him because He is our Savior. Rescue comes first, then transformation.

Who Do You Say He Is?

In Matthew 16, Jesus takes His disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asks, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They list the popular answers. Then Jesus makes it personal. "But what about you? Who do you say I am?" Peter answers, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

That is where all of this leads. Whether you are eighty or eight, a WSU freshman or someone who has called the Palouse home for decades, you do not need to worry about what everyone else says about Jesus. The question is sitting right in front of you.

Maybe your first step is recognizing that Jesus was real, and that faith does not require you to shut off your brain. Or maybe you have been around church your whole life and the real question is different. Am I actually following Him? Does He get my time? My money? Josh admitted he can fall into the same trap: knowing a lot about Jesus without living anything like Him. The invitation Jesus gives is not just "know about me." It is "follow me."

Taking It Into Tuesday

Josh closed with a simple challenge for the week. Open one of the Gospels and read a story about Jesus. Then ask what He was like, what He did, and what it would look like for you to follow Him.

Sit with these questions this week:

Plan Your Visit

Sunday ended where it always leads, at the table. Real Life on the Palouse takes communion together as a regular part of Sunday gatherings, a chance to remember that a real person died on a real cross for a real purpose, and that He is coming again.

Join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM at the Eastside Marketplace in Moscow. Kids are cared for and taught at their own level through Lifer Kids, so the whole family can be part of the morning. And if this series has stirred up questions, bring them. Mark Mittelberg, a longtime friend of Lee Strobel, joins us on Sunday, October 25, for An Evening with Mark Mittelberg.

Plan Your Visit today!