Countering the Lies About Jesus Christ and God
Lesson Overview
Countering the Lies About Jesus Christ and God with Dr. Erwin Lutzer
This standalone message is given by Dr. Erwin Lutzer, longtime pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago, drawing on his book Christ Among Other Gods. He gave it the working title “Finding a Jesus You Can Trust.” His aim is to send believers out able to say with confidence why Jesus is not merely one savior among many, but the only one qualified to bring us to God. He first exposes several false pictures of Jesus, then gives five reasons for Jesus’ uniqueness, and closes with how to use this in witnessing. Use this overview to review the key points after watching the full video.
The Many False “Jesuses”
Lutzer begins by observing that our culture offers many competing versions of Jesus, and that the Apostle Paul warned of “another Jesus.” He briefly examines several:
The purely human Jesus, “Jesus the man,” promoted by groups like the Jesus Seminar, who voted that only a small fraction of the Gospel sayings were authentic. Lutzer argues their conclusions rest not on new manuscript or archaeological evidence but on a prior commitment to a world without the supernatural, on subjective hunches rather than data.
The Gnostic Jesus, which he calls the Jesus of The Da Vinci Code. He challenges the novel’s claim that Jesus was only made divine at the Council of Nicaea in 325, calling that pure fantasy, and notes the Gnostic idea of a “cosmic Jesus” who supposedly indwells everyone. He recounts a pastor who claimed to preach “Christ” while accepting all religions, meaning not Jesus of Nazareth but a cosmic principle.
The love-only Jesus of popular culture, who affirms everyone and demands nothing. Lutzer argues this reads the New Testament “cafeteria style,” taking Jesus’ words on love while ignoring the Jesus of Revelation who is committed to justice and holiness and executes judgment (2 Thessalonians 1). The problem with all these false views, he says, is that at best they yield a Jesus we might respect but would never worship.
He illustrates the modern mood with a student who said God could have no authority over him because he did not believe in Him, making the self the final authority. Against this he sets the early church, which in a pluralistic Rome refused to let Jesus be placed in the Pantheon among other gods, insisting He stands above them as Lord.
Five Reasons for the Uniqueness of Jesus
Lutzer’s core is five qualifications that, he argues, set Jesus apart from every guru and prophet.
His sinlessness. To rescue a drowning person you need someone who is not also drowning. Lutzer describes searching the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions for a sinless savior and finding none: Hinduism, Buddhism, the Baha’i faith, and Islam all offer teachers or enlightenment but not sinlessness. Only Jesus is not part of our predicament, and this, Lutzer says, is why the virgin birth matters, since it preserved His sinlessness. He argues the virgin birth was not borrowed from pagan myth (those myths are polytheistic and immoral, and arose after the fact), but was predicted by Isaiah and recorded in holiness.
His life. Scholars have long tried to separate the “historical Jesus” from the “Christ of faith,” but Lutzer argues there is no razor sharp enough to do it: the New Testament is a seamless whole, and the attempts fail because they rest on subjectivity, not evidence. He uses the image of a painting destroyed by the wrong solvent, saying scholars keep looking for a solvent to dissolve the miraculous Jesus and find it only in their own unbelief.
His authority. Jesus spoke and storms stilled; He told a dying thief “today you will be with me in paradise,” opening heaven by His word. Lutzer contrasts Jesus’ claims with history’s great figures: Hitler, Lenin, Freud, Buddha, and Krishna all made grand promises, but none had “the nerve” to say “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” “I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world,” or “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus did.
His death. Beyond the physical suffering emphasized in Mel Gibson’s film, the deeper reality was spiritual: Jesus became sin for us, receiving what He did not deserve (our sin) so that we receive what we do not deserve (His righteousness). Lutzer illustrates with a judge who pays the fine he himself imposed, and urges, when examining the many “Jesuses,” to “look for the nail prints.”
His resurrection. Resting on solid historical grounds, the resurrection explains the existence of the church and the transformation of fearful disciples into courageous witnesses. To doubting Thomas, who then confessed “my Lord and my God,” Jesus offered His wounds as proof.
Drawing the Conclusions
From these five reasons Lutzer draws two conclusions.
First, Christ is the final and most complete revelation of God. When someone asks why there cannot be later revelations, he answers that later claimants (he cites Baha’u’llah) contradict Jesus at every point, and that when the sun rises the stars fade. Adding to the gospel subtracts from it; mixing it with anything dilutes it; it must stand alone (Hebrews 1, God has spoken by His Son).
Second, truth is objective, not something we invent or that evolves. Using the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant, Lutzer makes a sharp point often missed: every blind man was wrong (it was not a rope or a wall or cabbage), and only the one who could see the whole elephant was right. The religions of the world are not “superficially different and essentially alike”; compared with Christianity they are superficially alike but fundamentally different, separated by a vast chasm.
Using This in Witness
Lutzer closes with practical evangelism. He advises not arguing abstractly with atheists about God’s existence, but getting to Jesus quickly. He recounts asking a man who expected heaven on the basis of a good life, “how do you know?” When the man admitted it was just his opinion, Lutzer gently pointed out that only God knows heaven’s requirements, and that we need someone qualified to speak for God, which brings the conversation to Jesus. To a woman certain there is no hell, he said kindly that he had to choose between her word and Jesus’ word, and would go with Jesus.
His favorite tool is a “21-day experiment”: give a skeptic a copy of the Gospel of John (21 chapters) and ask them to read one chapter a day, each day noting who Jesus is presented to be. He argues that in the presence of Jesus no one stays unchanged, becoming either harder or softer, because it is Christ’s own word that converts.
He ends with an extended picture. Having once been waved through every White House checkpoint because he was “with” a Secret Service agent, he imagines believers arriving in heaven, waved past rank after rank of angels not on their own merit but because “you’re with him.” At the last, the Father inspects His children, finds no fault in them because they are clothed in Christ’s righteousness, and welcomes them home. There is only one who can do that, Lutzer concludes, and His name is Jesus.
Key Terms
Another Jesus: Paul’s phrase for the false versions of Christ that Lutzer catalogs.
The Jesus Seminar: the scholarly group that rejected most Gospel sayings, based (Lutzer argues) on anti-supernatural assumptions.
The cosmic Jesus: the Gnostic or New Age idea of a Christ-principle indwelling everyone, distinct from Jesus of Nazareth.
The five qualifications: sinlessness, life, authority, death, and resurrection, which make Jesus uniquely able to save.
The great exchange: Jesus receiving our sin and giving us His righteousness.
The 21-day experiment: reading the Gospel of John a chapter a day to answer “who is Jesus?”
Verses to Know
2 Corinthians 11:4, the warning against “another Jesus.” Hebrews 7:26, a high priest holy and separate from sinners. John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Luke 23:42-43, today you will be with me in paradise. 2 Corinthians 5:21, he became sin for us that we might become God’s righteousness. John 20:27-28, Thomas confessing “my Lord and my God.” Hebrews 1:1-2, God has spoken to us by His Son.
Takeaway
Lutzer argues that against every counterfeit, Jesus alone is qualified to bring us to God, uniquely marked by His sinlessness, His life, His authority, His death, and His resurrection, so that He is the final revelation of God and the only Savior, and the believer’s task is to bring people to Jesus quickly and confidently, trusting His word to do the work.