V1. n.10. Loosening Your Grip on Jesus

The path away from Jesus and New Testament Christianity is a slippery slope. First you question whether Jesus’ teaching and death and resurrection are the only way to God. Then you imagine that all religions are equally valuable and all really teach the same thing. This is a very pleasant route to take. No one will say to you “Who do you think you are?” “How can you say you are right and all those others wrong?”

Loosening your grip on Jesus can be even more subtle. You can dissolve Jesus’ hard Gospel teachings and the New Testament’s insistence on believing and doing what Jesus taught into vague pronouncements about “Jesus.” This technique also eases the burden of having to defend the exclusive teachings of Jesus. “Jesus” language is rather impressive, until someone points out that Jesus cannot be divorced from his Gospel and teachings. He said that we are not to shrink “from me and my Gospel, me and my words” (Mark 8:35, 38).

Paul did not shrink from declaring what? Declaring “Jesus”? No. “The whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

Abraham believed God by believing what God said, what He promised. So Jesus uses that same clear language: “He who hears my word and believes in the One who sent me….” (John 5:24). “Believing in Jesus,” “accepting Jesus” is not believing in Jesus at all until his word is understood, received and acted upon. Faith is believing inspired words.

Jesus calls his word the “word about the Kingdom” (Matt. 13:19) — all about the King and how you can become heir to the Kingship of the world with the King himself. It is a royal story from start to finish.

One more point: Some today think they have found a verse which justifies a “personal relationship” over intelligent understanding of the teaching of Jesus. They tell us that Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You search the Scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life, but you will not come to me to have that life” (John 5:39). It is a mistake to think that Jesus was playing down a search of the Scriptures in favor of a “personal relationship.” Jesus went on to say that believing in him means “believing my words” (John 5:47). Jesus’ words are now part of Scripture and “faith comes by hearing and hearing from the [Gospel] message of the Messiah” (Rom. 10:17). The Scriptures are sufficient to provide patience and hope (Rom 15:4) and “the wisdom that leads to salvation” — through Christ and his gospel.