The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Lorne Moorhead, Pastor at Northern Fellowship Chapel, Creighton. It is a mistake to make Jesus over into the kind of person acceptable to ourselves. Some of the people living at the time of Jesus did not find him acceptable and were offended at him. Jesus went among the despised, the poor, and sinners and what seemed like the dregs of society. This bias in favour of the common people was misunderstood by the religious establishment. They expected a lot more from their Messiah. Surely he would mingle with the elite of society and with those who held positions of power. Jesus didn't do that, so he made a lot of people unhappy with him. Some years after Jesus' resurrection and ascension, there were those in the church who were offended that Jesus could have been human; they believed He was ONLY a divine person so they minimized His humanity. Some writers made up legends of miracles He was supposed to have done as a young boy. Others taught that Jesus didn't really die on the cross but only appeared to do so. They were protecting His divinity and denying His humanity. In our time things have almost reversed themselves. Most people are happy to think of Jesus as a great human being but reject that He was the divine Son of God. The eye witnesses who wrote about His divinity in the New Testament are portrayed as local yokels who would believe anything. The miracles of Jesus are often explained away as being scientifically impossible or as natural phenomena. Jesus' astonishing claims of oneness with God the Father and of being the only way of salvation for sinners are toned down or flatly contradicted. Each age finds its own reasons to be offended by Jesus. A course in sound systematic theology could be a great help to prevent these wild swings of speculation about who Jesus was and what His purpose was in coming into the world. Jesus is recorded by Luke in chapter 7 and verse 23 to say "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me."
