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Show What do people think of Jesus? By REV. ERIC V. KAELBERER Pastor of Cross of Christ Lutheran Church Last week I gave a brief opinion on the movie, "The Last Temptation Tempta-tion of Christ." You may recall that I said this movie was not based on a Biblical view of who Jesus was and is. Rather it was based on what one man sees as a "spiritual struggle strug-gle of the human soul." That got me to thinking, "What do people think of Jesus?" I ran across many different interpretations interpreta-tions of who the Savior is. Some are about as "far out" as the one portrayed in the movie, "The Last o Temptation..." Let's turn to Holy Scripture. What do the Old and New Testaments Testa-ments say about who Jesus is. In the Old Testament the prophet Isaiah has written: "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Is. 9:6) Isaiah goes on to say: "Surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for iniquities: the punish ment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds are we healed. (Is. 53:4-5) So, the Old Testament shows Jesus as the King, the sinless One who was able and willing to bear our sins and remove our iniquities, to forgive us by His grace, not our own efforts or strength. Martin Luther once said, "Every "Ev-ery word of Scripture breathes Christ. If we have not seen it, it is not because He is not there, it is simply that we have not looked deeply enough at the text." By the way, Luther was a professor of the Old Testament for more than 34 years. He knew his scriptures forward for-ward and backward. The conclusion which Luther and every other honest student of the Holy Scriptures has to come to is this: Christ Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of God is the One who brings us what we cannot earn for ourselves, life with the Heavenly Heaven-ly Father in total peace, for the sake of His sacrificial death on the Cross at Calvary. If your opinion of the Savior is based on anything other than the clear teachings of the Old and New Testaments, it is my fervent prayer that you will turn to the Word of life and allow the Holy Spirit to work through the word to show you the incredible faithfulness of the God of the universe. |