The Son of God Among Us
SABBATH AFTERNOONRead for This Week's Study:
Matt. 23; Mark 9:12; Luke 24:7; John 1:1-14, 29; Heb. 2:9.
Memory Text:
"The one who existed from the beginning is the one we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is Jesus Christ, the Word of life" (1 John 1:1, NLT).
Key Thought: Nobody else in history has had such a huge impact on the world or such a divided opinion as much as Jesus. The future of each of our lives comes down to one crucial question Jesus Himself asked: " 'Who do you say I am?' " (Matt. 16:15, NIV).
Some people today dispute whether Jesus ever lived, but the historical evidence is overwhelmingly clear. The real issue concerns His identity and purpose. Was He just a good man, or was He the Son of God?
"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."—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1960), p. 52.
As Adventists, we work from the starting point that the Bible is the Word of God and that what it says about Jesus is the truth, period. We do not have the time to waste on all the nonsensical high-critical speculations about whether Jesus really said and did the things the Bible says that He said and did. As Adventists we believe those things because they are written in God's Word.
After all, if we cannot believe the Bible, what can we believe?
*Study this week's lesson to prepare for Sabbath, July 26.
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