The Great Tri-lemma:

The Great Tri-lemma:

1) Liar

The Great Tri-lemma:

1) Liar

2) Lunatic

The Great Tri-lemma:

1) Liar

2) Lunatic

3) Lord

I am trying 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 thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic— on a 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 patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

- 1 Corinthians 15:14

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

- 1 Corinthians 15:17-19

Jesus claimed to be:

Jesus claimed to be:

1) The “I am”

Jesus claimed to be:

1) The “I am”

“I am who I am”

Jesus claimed to be:

2) Equal to the Father

Jesus claimed to be:

2) Equal to the Father

“I and the Father are one.” – John 10:30

“If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

- John 10:37-39

“If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

- John 14:7

Jesus claimed to be:

3) The Messiah

Jesus claimed to be:

3) The Messiah“The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who

Jesus claimed to be:

3) The Messiah

“…speak to you am he.”- John 4:25-26

Jesus claimed to be:

4) Morally and Spiritually Superior

Jesus claimed to be:

4) Morally and Spiritually Superior

“I am the light of the world.” - John 8:12

Jesus claimed to be:

4) Morally and Spiritually Superior

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” - John 14:6

Jesus claimed to be:

1) The “I am”2) Equal to the Father3) The Messiah4) Morally and Spiritually Superior

“Nothing greater can any man say of himself. It is true, or it is blasphemy. Christ was God or godless.”

- John Piper

“...love your neighbor as yourself.”- Matthew 22:39

“Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who accept my commandments and obey

“…them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

- John 14:19-21(NLT)

“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of

the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

- Ephesians 2:14–16