Who is the true Jesus
The Question That Matters
It is possible to speak warmly about Jesus and still have very different ideas about who He is.
“He was a good man.”
“He cared for the poor.”
“He taught people to love one another.”
“He was a great teacher.”
These descriptions may express sincere admiration. They recognise something real about His goodness, compassion and wisdom. They can provide a welcome beginning for a conversation about Him.
But have we listened to what Jesus actually said, including what He said about Himself? Have we allowed His words to challenge the picture we already hold?
These questions concern people of many religions and worldviews. They also concern those of us who attend church, know Christian language and have heard the Gospel accounts many times. Familiarity does not necessarily mean understanding.
Only God knows each person’s heart and standing before Him. We can examine our understanding without claiming to know what only He knows. Our purpose is to listen together, placing ourselves beneath the same searching Word.
Three questions can guide us:
Who do you say I am?
Which Jesus am I following?
So what did Jesus claim about Himself?
1. “Who do you say I am?”
In Mark 8:27–29, Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is. Their answers reflect the explanations circulating around them: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets.
People recognise something significant about Jesus. They reach for familiar categories to explain Him. Yet their explanations fall short of His identity.
Then Jesus makes the question personal:
“But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answers that He is the Christ. The disciples must do more than report other people’s opinions. They must answer Jesus themselves.
We face that question too. We may have inherited an understanding from our family, culture, religious community or church. We may have absorbed impressions from books, conversations or the portions of Scripture we most readily remember.
Those influences need to be examined in the light of His words and works.
Who do I say He is? What do I mean by the answer I give?
Admiration, interpretation and revelation
Admiration concerns what we appreciate about Jesus. Interpretation concerns how we understand Him. Revelation concerns who He makes Himself known to be, through His words and works as Scripture records them.
These are closely connected, but they are not interchangeable.
We may admire His compassion while misunderstanding His mission. We may value His teaching while rejecting His claims. We may interpret Him through assumptions we have never allowed Him to challenge.
Different worldviews make different claims about Jesus. Some affirm His moral teaching while rejecting His divinity. Others honour Him within a religious framework that gives a different account of His identity, death or resurrection.
We should understand those beliefs accurately, allowing people to explain what they mean. Individuals within a tradition may differ considerably in their understanding.
Nevertheless, shared appreciation of Jesus can conceal profound disagreement about Him. Calling Him a teacher, prophet or example does not settle what we believe about His authority or His saving work.
The question is whether our description makes room for everything He reveals about Himself.
Have we heard the teacher we admire?
It is worth asking what we mean when we call Jesus a great teacher.
Do we know His teaching well? Have we considered its demands upon our hearts?
Zach Nielsen raises this issue in his article “More Than a Moral Teacher”. He observes that admiration for Jesus can rest on familiarity with only the portions of His teaching that seem manageable. He directs readers to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus addresses anger, lust and judgement, exposing our need for a Saviour.1
Jesus teaches love for enemies, forgiveness of those who wrong us, truthfulness without manipulation, generosity without self-display and a righteousness that reaches into our motives.
His words are beautiful. They also search us.
Calling His teaching good invites a further question: am I willing to receive it when it exposes what is wrong in me?
Our admiration can become the beginning of deeper listening. As we listen, we discover more of the One who speaks.
2. Which Jesus am I following?
Peter’s confession in Mark 8 is a decisive moment. Yet what follows shows how much he still needs to understand.
Jesus begins teaching that He must suffer, be rejected, be killed and rise again. Peter takes Him aside and rebukes Him.
Peter identifies Jesus as the Christ while resisting what Jesus says His mission will involve.
That should make us pause. We too can use the right title while attaching our own expectations to it. We may confess Jesus as Lord while keeping a particular belief, desire or area of life beyond His correction.
Peter’s understanding must be shaped by the purposes of God, even where those purposes overturn his expectations.
Recognising Jesus’ identity does not bring our need to listen to an end.
A version that suits us
Kevin DeYoung describes culturally shaped portraits of Jesus: an inspirational guide, a source of emotional reassurance, a supporter of our causes or an example of doing good. His concern is that our preferences can determine the portrait we construct. 2
The temptation is recognisable.
We may welcome a Jesus who comforts us while resisting His call to repent.
We may admire His service while hesitating before His authority.
We may value His generosity while protecting our possessions from His scrutiny.
We may gladly speak of His forgiveness while refusing to forgive someone who has hurt us.
This can happen quietly. Selective hearing does not always announce itself as rejection. Sometimes we simply give certain words our attention and allow others to remain at a distance.
The question comes home:
Am I allowing Jesus to shape my understanding and life, or accepting only what fits the life I already want?
There is a distinction between struggling to understand and deciding that we will not receive what we understand. The disciples often needed explanation. Honest questions can be part of learning to trust.
The searching issue is whether we remain willing to be taught.
When our convictions explain Jesus for us
I recently heard Jesus’ mission explained as coming to end animal sacrifices, understood through a commitment to vegetarianism. That was one particular explanation. It should not be attributed to every vegetarian or an entire religious community. But it illustrates how an existing conviction can become the controlling explanation of Jesus’ purpose.
There is a biblical connection between Christ’s death and the end of repeated offerings for sin. Hebrews 10:1–14 teaches that those sacrifices could never accomplish what His once-for-all offering accomplishes. The passage concerns sin, sanctification and the sufficiency of His sacrifice.
Jesus Himself says that He came to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). We must let His stated purpose explain His mission.
Luke 24:41–43 also records Jesus eating fish after His resurrection. That evidence needs to be considered when assessing the claim that His mission was to establish vegetarianism.
The response I heard was, “He is God. He can do anything.”
But an appeal to His divine power cannot remove the significance of what He actually did. God’s power is always consistent with His character. Scripture says that God cannot lie and cannot deny Himself (Hebrews 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:13).
We cannot appeal to Jesus’ divinity to set aside the evidence of His life. His words, actions and character belong together and must shape our understanding of Him.
The example invites a wider examination of our own hearts.
What convictions do I bring to Scripture? Am I willing for them to be corrected?
When something in Scripture challenges my picture of Jesus, do I reconsider my picture, or find a way to explain the challenge away?
Another Jesus
Paul’s concern in 2 Corinthians 11 is addressed to a church.
He fears that, as Eve was deceived by the serpent, their minds might be drawn away from sincere devotion to Christ. He then warns about their readiness to receive someone who proclaims another Jesus, a different spirit or a different gospel (2 Corinthians 11:3–4).
The warning is sobering because the name of Jesus remains in use. A message can speak about Him while distorting His identity and saving work.
Church attendance cannot make us immune to that danger. Neither can confidence, sincerity or familiarity with Christian expressions. We all need the correction of Scripture and the help of the Holy Spirit.
The KJV and NKJV speak in verse 3 of “the simplicity that is in Christ”. In context, Paul’s concern is the sincerity and wholeheartedness of their devotion to Him. He fears that deception will draw their hearts and minds away. 2 Corinthians 11:3–4, KJV and NKJV
This is distinct from the theological doctrine of divine simplicity, which teaches that God is not composed of parts. His attributes are not detachable components, allowing us to imagine His love operating apart from His holiness or His power apart from His goodness. Applied to the Son’s divine nature, this does not diminish His real humanity. 3
Paul is not explaining that doctrine in this verse. We should keep the meanings distinct. Nevertheless, these truths help us express something important about receiving Christ:
Our devotion is to be undivided, and the Lord we receive cannot be divided into acceptable and unacceptable portions.
We cannot construct a Jesus whose compassion we welcome but whose authority we dismiss. His mercy, holiness, truth and goodness belong to the one Lord who makes Himself known.
Learning Christ
Ephesians 4 brings this into the life of discipleship.
After describing a way of life marked by darkened understanding and alienation from God, Paul writes:
“But you did not learn Christ in this way” (Ephesians 4:20). He continues by speaking of hearing Him and being taught in Him, as truth is in Jesus. This learning involves putting off the old self, being renewed in the mind and putting on the new self (Ephesians 4:17–24).
Learning Christ changes both our understanding and our conduct.
John Stott draws attention to the personal reality of belonging to Him. The biblical language of being “in Christ” describes union with Him, like a branch belonging to a tree or a member belonging to a body. Jesus is a living reality whose presence shapes His people’s lives.4
This brings another question close:
Is Jesus chiefly someone whose ideas I appreciate, or someone I am coming to know, trust and obey?
A relationship with Him includes receiving His correction. We can bring Him our uncertainty and resistance honestly. His patience with His disciples gives us hope as we learn.
The One who searches our hearts is also the One who gave Himself for us.
3. So what did Jesus claim about Himself?
Our impressions and interpretations must finally come before Jesus’ own testimony.
What does He say about His identity, His mission and our response to Him?
He claims authority to forgive sins
In Mark 2:1–12, Jesus tells a paralysed man that his sins are forgiven.
The scribes recognise the significance of this and question His words. Jesus then heals the man as a demonstration that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
His compassion reaches to our deepest need before God. Understanding Him requires us to consider the authority He exercises as well as the kindness He shows.
He says He gives His life as a ransom
In Mark 10:45, Jesus explains His mission in terms of service and the giving of His life as a ransom for many.
His death belongs at the centre of understanding why He came.
We honour His service by listening to His explanation of it. His self-giving addresses our need for deliverance, and His death must shape our understanding of His mission.
He presents Himself as the way to the Father
In John 14:6–9, Jesus identifies Himself as the way, the truth and the life. He says that no one comes to the Father except through Him, and that seeing Him is seeing the Father.
These words require us to consider who He is alongside the teaching we admire.
He places Himself at the centre of our coming to the Father. Receiving His testimony means attending to that claim, even where it challenges a framework in which He is one spiritual guide among many.
He calls Himself the good shepherd
In John 10:11–18, Jesus speaks of knowing His sheep and laying down His life for them.
Here His authority and tenderness belong together. He knows those who are His, gives Himself for them and calls them into the security of belonging to Him.
The relationship He describes is personal. His sheep hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:27).
We are invited to ask whether we are listening for that voice and learning to follow where He leads.
He declares Himself the resurrection and the life
In John 11:25–26, Jesus places the hope of life beyond death in relation to Himself.
Speaking to Martha in her grief, He declares Himself the resurrection and the life. Then He asks whether she believes this.
His claim invites a personal answer.
The comfort He offers rests upon who He is. We cannot fully understand His tenderness towards Martha while setting aside the identity He declares.
He makes claims that exceed the role of a human teacher
In John 8:58, Jesus speaks of His existence before Abraham using the words “I am”. In John 10:30, He declares His unity with the Father.
These statements deserve careful attention within their contexts. They challenge any account that reduces Him to an admirable man whose religious significance can be separated from His own testimony.
We should give His words the time and seriousness they require. If our existing picture has no room for them, it is our picture that needs examination.
He claims all authority and calls for discipleship
In Matthew 28:18–20, the risen Jesus declares that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.
He sends His followers to make disciples, teaching them to observe all He commanded. He also promises His abiding presence.
His authority reaches into our response. The One who calls us to follow Him gives us the assurance that He will be with us.
His commission speaks of learning to observe all He commanded. We are continually being taught, and we continually need His grace. Yet the direction is wholehearted allegiance, with every area of life open to Him.
Will I receive Him?
These claims bring us beyond deciding which aspects of Jesus appeal to us.
They call us to consider whether He is trustworthy and whether we will receive Him as He makes Himself known.
We do not need complete understanding before we can turn to Him. We do need a willingness to let Him teach us who He is.
If I retain His name while rejecting His revealed identity, I am reshaping the person I claim to follow. Paul’s warning about another Jesus therefore deserves our careful, prayerful attention.
As we speak with friends, we must remember that we stand beneath this truth ourselves. Second Timothy 2:24–26 calls the Lord’s servant to kindness, patience and gentleness in correction, looking to God to grant repentance.
We want to speak truth clearly because people matter. We want to speak humbly because we too depend upon His mercy.
Our hope is that friends who admire Jesus will come to know Him more fully, and that those of us who confess Him will grow in faithful understanding and obedience.
* Who do I say He is?
* Which Jesus am I following?
* Will I receive what Jesus reveals about Himself?
These questions belong together. They bring us to the searching question running through them all:
Am I allowing Jesus to shape my understanding and life, or accepting only what fits the life I already want?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, we bring You the pictures we have formed, the words we readily welcome and the truths we struggle to receive. Let Your Word correct our understanding. Give us humble hearts, willing to listen and willing to change. Make Yourself known to our friends and to us. Help us speak of You with clarity, gentleness and love. Draw us beyond selective admiration into the joy of knowing, trusting and following You as Lord and Saviour. Amen.
- More Than a moral Teacher. Zack Nielson. The Gospel Coalition ↩︎
- “Who Do You Say That I Am?”. Kevin De Young. The Gospel Coalition ↩︎
- Divine Simplicity. An essay by Matthew Barrett. The Gospel Coalition ↩︎
- “‘In Christ’: The Meaning and Implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. C. S. Lewis Institute ↩︎