If for nothing else, you have to applaud the Jewish leaders' passion. They had conviction and a spine to prove it! They thought Jesus was dead wrong and were prepared to see him dead for it. They had little patience for unpopular fools traipsing across the hill country stirring up the people: They had none for popular ones claiming to be God. "So they picked up stones to throw at him" (John 8:59).
Perhaps recognising the integrity of this kind of response, the British literary critic and Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis made the following observation (Mere Christianity 40-41):
"I am trying here 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 one 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 the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.
He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
Whatever else might be said of Jewish leaders' response to Jesus' teachings and personal claims, it cannot be said that they failed to take him seriously! Alas, if we would follow their example and Mr. Lewis counsel!
Today's Readings: Thursday, April 6th, 2006.
This excerpt is taken from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. You may purchase a copy here
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