Who Is Jesus Series

Part 1 Breaking the Da Vinci Code

“Who Is Jesus”

>One Solitary Life

> (Graphic)

> Dr. James Allan Francis, wrote it as a part of his 1926 book, "The Real Jesus," he was pastor of the First Baptist Church, Los Angeles CA

Nearly two thousand years ago in an obscure village, a child was born of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village where He worked as a carpenter until he was thirty. Then for three years He became an itinerant preacher.

This Man never went to college or seminary. He never wrote a book. He never held a public office. He never had a family nor owned a home. He never put His foot inside a big city nor traveled even 200 miles from His birthplace. And though he never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness, throngs of people followed Him. He had no credentials but Himself.

While He was still young, the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His followers ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was sentenced to death on a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth--the simple coat He had worn. His body was laid in a borrowed grave provided by a compassionate friend.

But three days later this Man arose from the dead--living proof that He was, as He had claimed, the Savior whom God had sent, the Incarnate Son of God.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today the risen Lord Jesus Christ is the central figure of the human race. On our calendars His birth divides history in two eras. One day of every week is set aside in remembrance of Him. And our two most important holidays celebrate His birth and resurrection. On church steeples around the world His cross has become the symbol of victory over sin and death.

This one Man’s life has furnished the theme for more songs, books, poems and paintings than any other person or event in history. Thousands of colleges, hospitals, orphanages and other institutions have been founded in honor of this One who gave His life for us.

All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the governments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned have not changed the course of history as much as this One Solitary Life.

Encyclopedia Britannica has more on Jesus than any other religious figure or political leader, over 20,000 words.

As a globe-trotting basketball player once observed,

"I’ve never been to a country where players respond to a missed shot by cursing Confucius, Buddha, or the

Maharishi.

The only name I ever hear taken in vain is Jesus Christ."

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> 2 Pet 2:1-3 KJV,

> 2 Pet 2:1-3 NLT

One of the primary problems of early Christianity was that of heresy.

Heresy as generally defined as a departure from the traditional Christian beliefs; the creation of new ideas, rituals and forms of worship within the Christian church. This was especially dangerous to a faith in which for a long time the rules as to what was the proper Christian belief remained very vague and open to interpretation.

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>Short Definition - Heresy A portion of the truth presented mistakenly as the whole

- Dan Brown’s book “The Da Vinci Code takes a little bit of Christ and mixes a lot of false teaching into his so-called accurate research

+ The major heresies fall into three categories:

> A. The nature of Christ

• > Christ was that he is fully God, yet existed as fully human, the two natures being "eternally distinct and uniquely united" at the same time, and that he suffered as a human.

> Jn 1:1, 1:14

- Col 2:9-10

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> B. Heresies of the Trinity;

> God the Father),

> God the Son (Jesus Christ)

> God the Holy Spirit

> All simultaneously three distinct beings, and all the same being, none subservient to another,

> All three with complete equality and a single will.

> There was no time when any did not exist.

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>C. Heresies of Man and Salvation

> My desperate need for salvation

> God already knows all who are chosen for eternal life (the elect), - Yet man has the free will to choose whether or not to believe in Christ’s redemptive work.

>Heresy - My work for salvation

C.S. Lewis, a former agnostic intellectual who became a believer

— Mere Christianity

"I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him, ’I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the sort of thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or He would be the devil of hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse."