Who is Jesus?

he life of Jesus is the turning point of all history. Our calendar hinges on his birth — BC (before Christ) and AD (in the year of our Lord).

Jesus' followers declared that he is the Son of God who lived in Israel, and — although every governmental authority before whom he appeared declared him innocent — he died a criminal's cruel death. However, that was not the end of their story.

These followers were adamant that Jesus came back to life from death. Were they telling the truth about Him?

They were so convinced of these facts that they gave up their lives rather than deny them. The apostle Peter was, according to tradition, crucified upside-down on a cross because he refused to denounce his belief in Jesus as God's son. He was one of Jesus' first followers who traveled with him for more than three years and became one of his closest friends. In a letter Peter wrote late in his life, he said,

"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ …. We apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Israel and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by crucifying him, but God raised him to life three days later. Then God allowed him to appear, not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen beforehand to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is ordained of God to be the judge of all — the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name" (2 Peter 1:16, Acts 10:39-43).

C. S. Lewis has written,

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to" (Mere Christianity).

The question you need to ask yourself, then, is this. If Jesus is alive today (which we believe he is), can he make a difference in my life?

We can tell you that he can make a big difference in your life. If you have not experienced it, why not give it a go. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Why not click on "How do I become a Christian?"