Who Is Jesus: A Question Everyone Must Answer

Who is Jesus?

Mark 8:27-38

One of the two most important questions one can ask is: “Who is Jesus?” If you were to go around and ask people today, you would get many answers. Some would be like the answers the Pharisees and Sadducees gave: “He was a crackpot.” “He was a narrow-minded bigot, just like Christians today.” He was a religious fanatic who had apocalyptic delusions. Some would profess ignorance or be indifferent to the question. Others would be a little kinder and say: “He was a good teacher.” He was a prophet.” He was a social justice warrior.” He was the father of liberation theology.” “He was a pacifist.” And others would point to some of his teachings on the Sermon on the Mount. Yet, there are many who would answer as Peter did: “He is the Christ.”

To answer this question, one needs to consult the Scriptures about what is said of Jesus as well as what Jesus said of Himself. So if you have your Bibles, open up to Mark 8:27-38 and let us read this morning’s text.

The text tells us that Jesus and His disciples were on the way to Caesarea Philippi, which was a city in Gentile territory north of the Sea of Galilee. One of the sources of the Jordan River was there which flowed out of a cave known as “The Gates of Hades.” (Hell) Above it was a large rockface into which a Pagan temple was carved into and was dedicated to the god Pan. The word “Pan” in Greek means “everything.” He was worshiped by goat dancers and gross sensuality much like the worship of Baal who was worshiped at this place before Pan. Caesarea Philippi was named after Caesar as well as Philip the Tetrarch, the one who had beheaded John the Baptist. So this was not the place where a good Jew was likely to be found. It must have seemed unusual for Jesus to have gone to this place. After all, there were no lost sheep of the House of Israel to rescue.

Jesus asks His disciples as they approach: “Whom do men say that I am?” This was an indirect way of getting to the question He really wanted them to answer, which was “But whom do you say that I Am?” They answered with several possibilities, The first was John the Baptist. That was Herod’s choice as we know. The disciples knew that was not the correct answer as some of them had been the Baptist’s disciples before coming to Jesus. The second answer was hat some considered Him to be Elijah. The prophet Malachi had prophesied that Elijah would return at the end of time to restore all things. This was not the right answer either, as Jesus told the disciples that John the Baptist had filled the role of Elijah. The third answer was “One of the Prophets.” This was partially correct as Jesus was a prophet. But Jesus was simply not just a prophet. He was the greatest of Israel’s prophets and so much more.

Now Jesus asks the disciples for their opinion. Peter answers for them and says “Thou art the Christ.” Matthew records more of the answer of Peter than Mark does. Mark also omits the blessing of Peter and the statement “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades (Hell) shall not be able to prevail against it. Why has Mark truncated the answer? Perhaps it was because tradition says that Mark got the material for his gospel from Peter himself. Out of humility, he may have truncated it. This is, of course, speculation on my part. But the shorter answer tends to put extra emphasis upon Jesus and His person without sharing the stage with Peter,

“Thou are the Christ.” This is the correct answer. This is true about Jesus. But what exactly does “Christ” mean? If one were to do a word search of Greek, the translation is “The Anointed One.” This word also translates the Hebrew “Messiah” which translates the same into English. One will notice that many modern English translations replace “Christ” with “Messiah.” The NIV uses “Messiah” John 20:31 where it says: “That you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah rather than Christ.” But should we be doing this. One of the biggest misconceptions about Jesus is that He was the Messiah that the Jews had imagined. The Messiah was going to come and overthrow the Romans and set up the new world capital at Jerusalem. This was Peters understanding of Messiah. One can see it in His rebuke of Jesus when He said that He was going to go to Jerusalem, not to take the sceptre of power to rule over the world in a physical way, but to be rejected and die. “Messiah” then becomes a tainted term because it was wrongly thought to be particular to the Jews ruling in an earthly kingdom rather than Jesus being the Christ of all nations.