“Who do you say I am?”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:15-16)

When Jesus asked His disciples this question, it wasn’t simply to take the pulse of public opinion and gauge His popularity with His followers. The answer to this question – for all of us – is the most crucial box in the flowchart of our faith journey. Who is Jesus?

Some believe that Jesus was one of God’s prophets, along with Moses and Muhammad. Some would say He was a good man. A teacher. A rabbi. A religious man with enough passion to die for a cause He believed in. (That one doesn’t make Jesus much different than the guys who flew the planes into the towers in New York, does it?) The Pharisees accused Him of being possessed by the devil, at worst, and of misleading their religious followers, at best. But are any of those enough to justify or explain the course of history since Jesus walked the earth?

Even if people could agree that the resurrection actually happened (good luck with that in cocktail party conversations), consider the following:

But what if…

Who Jesus is is everything! Make no mistake: in conversations we may have about religion, Jesus will consistently be the sticking point. People can agree that there is a higher power. They may even call that power God. He may be in us, around us, or over us as Creator or Benevolent Fate. But if He didn’t come to earth as a human being to sympathize with our plight and conquer every temptation and pay the price for our individual and corporate sin, then, as the apostle Paul says, our faith is futile, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all men (1 Corinthians 15:17,19).

So if we call ourselves followers of Christ, whom are we following? Let’s see what the Bible says about who Jesus is.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; …and he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross…For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form...” (Colossians 1:15-16, 18-20, 2:9)

“…Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures…he was buried…he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and…he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

Who did Jesus say He was?

“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” (John 11:25)

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Recently I read one of the most creative and least biblical interpretations of that last verse in John. I read the book The Faith Club, which recounts the interfaith dialog between 3 moms – a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian. As a treatise on the actual doctrine of these faith traditions, the book was lacking, but as a window into the personal faith struggles of many people on a spiritual path, it was enlightening. The Christian woman, Suzanne, comes to the following conclusion after 2 years of dialog with her Muslim and Jewish friends, when a child in a religion class at her church asks a question:

Q: In order for each of you to believe in your religion, don’t you have to believe that the other two are wrong?

A: I’ve thought of the quotes of Jesus saying things like, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’ This is something Christians might use to suggest that Christianity is the only path to God. But, what else could Jesus be saying?...He couldn’t be saying that the only way to avoid hell is to be a Christian because the Church was not established in his time. However, he could be saying that if you reject Jesus’ example of living a life of compassion for your fellow man, then you are rejecting God. Of course, a holy life of love and compassion can be lived by any human of any faith. When Jesus talks about who will be in paradise, it is those who fed the hungry, clothed the poor, housed the homeless. He says, ‘Whenever you do this for the least of my brethren, you do it for me.’ In other words, our behavior is transformed by our recognition that God is in our fellow man, not necessarily the belief that Jesus is God.

Deep breath, Jenni. Where do I begin? This answer represents thinking so common in America today that it must be addressed, as much as I would like to dismiss it as well-meaning but misguided random theology. In essence, this paragraph states that it’s what we do, not what we believe that determines our place in eternity. Jesus’ identity doesn’t matter as much as how we behave. This puts him (and the authors say as much in the book) on the same level in history with Gandhi, Muhammad, or Mother Theresa. (Not that Mother Theresa would have stood for the comparison, mind you!)

Followers of Christ, we must settle in our minds firmly who we believe Jesus is. He is everything to our faith or we have nothing at all, in the words of Whitney Houston (“don’t make me clo-ose one more door….”). Jesus Himself said, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If Jesus’ identity wasn’t crucial to the kingdom of God, then His response to Peter’s claim that He was the Christ rings hollow: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). But it is crucial. Jesus asked who He was to Peter. Peter said that he believed Jesus was the Son of God – the One promised in Jewish Scriptures as the Messiah. Jesus affirmed that identity and then proved it by giving His perfect life and rising again to show the grave who’s boss. If I’m living my life depending on Him to open the way for my relationship with God and cleanse me from my sins, there’s no question more important to answer. And none with greater ramifications if we compromise. Who do you say He is?

• Read Revelation 5. What does this chapter reveal to you about Jesus’ identity? Does it confirm or change what you believed before?

• What parts of the quotation from The Faith Club did you find yourself agreeing with, if any? What parts would you refute? Would you know how to have a discussion with someone who had a similar opinion?