Jesus: Messiah, Prophet or Liar?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
by Walter Martin
 
 
John 2:18‑22
Then the Jews demanded of Him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all tHis?"  Jesus answered them, "Destroy tHis temple, and I will raise it again in three days."  The Jews replied, "It has taken forty‑six years to build tHis temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?"  But the temple he had spoken of was His body.  After he was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (NIV)
 
 
Jesus prophesied His resurrection.  He even prophesied the nature of His resurrection.  He put it to rest forever when He said, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."  The prophecy of His bodily resurrection is the foundation of all Christian theology.  Without its fulfillment, He was a liar.  He was a false prophet.  He was deservedly executed, and Deuteronomy 13 could be applied to Him without question.
But if Jesus is the Messiah, then He is in the true, classic sense of prophetic fulfillment, a Person with enormous power; not just charisma, but a Person with enormous power.  The Old Testament record reveals in Daniel 8 and 9 that Messiah will die-but not for Himself.  He will die for the sins of the people.  He would be the conqueror, and David said it would not be possible that death should hold Him hostage.  This is more than just an earthly ruler.  This is someone with enormous power.  We're talking about the Redeemer, we're talking about the Conqueror of death, we're talking about someone who died not for Himself, but for the sins of all mankind.
Christianity is the exclusive way to Heaven.  Why?  Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  If He didn't rise from the dead, He was a phony.  He was a false Messiah, a false prophet, a liar, a deceiver and demon possessed-at the very worst.
If He rose from the dead, as the Scripture says, then He is the Son of God with power, because of His resurrection.  He is the way, the truth and the life because no one else could rise from the dead and no one else could conquer death as He did.  His unique claim to everything is by virtue of His resurrection.  Therefore, He is the Son of God.  He is the Savior of the World, and that's why Christianity is the truth.
Our faith rests on the Resurrection.  There is the eyewitness testimony of more than five hundred people who saw Jesus after His resurrection-including the Apostle Paul who was not a believer at that time.  If you presented this in any courtroom, you could prove any case you wanted to-it's evidence.  But there is also the fact that Jesus Christ saves people.  When He saves you, He transforms you and only a living Savior can transform the lives of people.  He's been doing that for almost two thousand years.
The resurrection is the confirmation of the ministry of the Lord Jesus.  He is the Messiah.  Jesus said, "But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." (John 10:38)  What greater work could there be than this, that after having died physically, He should raise Himself from the dead?  Jesus said He would raise His body up.  He didn't say, "Destroy this body and my Father will raise me up."  He didn't say, "Destroy this body and the Holy Spirit will raise me up."  He said, "I will raise it up."  That was an affirmation of divinity because it meant I will conquer death.  He is Messiah, son of David.  He is the King Messiah.
 
The Church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the Word:
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
 
'Mid toil and tribulation
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore.
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest. [1]
 
 
 
 
 
[1] Sam­uel J. Stone, and Sam­u­el S. Wes­ley, The Church's One Foundation, 1866.