February 15, 2017 Show with Kenneth Samples on “God Among Sages: Why Jesus is NOT Just Another Religious Leader”

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 15th day of February 2017, and I want to thank all of you, the hundreds of you in the listening audience who really made my day very special today, even though it was a very quiet, uneventful day on my birthday.

I so appreciate the flood of birthday wishes I received, and I hope that I responded to each and every one of you.

I was trying to spend several hours just replying as briefly as I could to fit everybody in, but I really appreciate it more than I can possibly convey to you, and I appreciate those of you who are praying for new advertisers and new sponsors for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio as well.

Well, it's great to have Buzz Taylor, the Reverend Buzz Taylor, back in the studio as my co -host today.

Thank you very much. And today we have a guest who is near and dear to my heart.

I became familiar with Kenneth R. Samples back in the late 1980s when he was co -hosting on a fairly regular basis the

Bible Answer Man broadcast, and he was the token Calvinist there at CRI, as I remember.

And I said to my pastor at the time, Mike Gaydosh of Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, Long Island, New York, I said, you know, we should have an apologetics

Bible conference with Ken Samples of the Bible Answer Man. And he said, that's a great idea, and I reached out to Ken.

He was more than happy to fly out to Long Island, New York, where he conducted this conference.

And I can remember the first day when we, or I should say the first evening of the conference, which was a Friday night when we were out to dinner, when we arrived in the parking lot about an hour early, the parking lot was filled with cars and a line of people waiting to get through the locked door of the church.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, my dear friend Kenneth R.

Samples. Hello Chris, it's good to be with you and with your friend

Buzz. It's been a long time since I've chatted with you, so it's a real pleasure to be with you again.

So thank you again for having me on. And one of the reasons that you also hold a very special place in my heart is that you held a very special place in my late wife

Julie's heart, and for some reason she always used to call you

Ken Sampson, even though she knew your name was Ken Samples. That was her little joking pet name for you.

And she thoroughly enjoyed meeting you, and I remember us having, just the three of us having dinner together on several occasions, and it was just such a joy to get to know you and have our friendship grow deeper over the years.

And I'm glad that we are back in touch with each other. Yes, I remember your wife very fondly.

She was a very sweet woman, and I found it very difficult when she passed away.

She was such a warm and caring person. And so, you know, it's been a while, so it's great to be with you again.

Well, Ken, before we go into the subject at hand, let me first announce to our listeners the email address if they'd like to join us on the air with a question for you.

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. But Ken, before we get into the discussion, I know that after you left

CRI, you have joined the team at Reasons to Believe, and you are a senior research scholar there.

Tell us about Reasons to Believe and exactly what you do there as a senior research scholar.

Yes, Reasons to Believe is a science -based Christian apologetic organization.

It's been about 30 years, I think, functioning as a place in which

Christians can come to tackle faith science issues.

I work with about a half a dozen Ph .D. scientists. I'm kind of the oddball on the scholar team because I'm not a scientist, my training is in theology and philosophy.

So Reasons to Believe seeks to show that Christianity and science are compatible, that God's Word and God's world go together.

And so I have a blog, I write books, I give talks, and I've been involved in Christian apologetics here at Reasons to Believe for almost 20 years, and then before that at the

Christian Research Institute. So I've been engaged in the world of Christian apologetics for about 30 years now.

Great. And theologically, you are Reformed, as long as I've known you.

You have been a Calvinist, as I said earlier. You were the token

Calvinist on the panel on the Bible Answer Man, and you have been involved in PCA churches and the

URCNA, the United Reformed Church of North America, and now you're attending a Reformed Anglican church.

Tell us something about that. Yes, I've been a

Reformed Christian for, oh boy, almost 30 years,

I think. I used to have long discussions and debates with my mentor,

Walter Martin, about Reformed theology and different evangelical points of view.

I attended a United Reformed church for almost 19 years and was a teacher there, and recently my wife and I have found an

Anglican church not too far from our home. And so I like the

Anglican liturgy, and I'm still getting in trouble for being a

Calvinist. So... Oh, you mean this is not a Calvinistic Anglican congregation?

Well, it is a Reformed Anglican church connected with the

United Reformed, excuse me, it's connected with the Anglican Church of North America.

Okay, because I know a number of five -point Calvinists who are Anglicans, who are strong 39

Articles men and so on. Yes. So maybe you have some hope in leading that congregation into the full -blown

Reformed faith. But... Go ahead.

Yeah, you know, Reformed theology is unique in the sense that it has influenced a number of theological traditions, not just Reformed and Presbyterian, but certain

Baptists, certain Congregationalists, and of course the Anglican tradition, and so Reformed theology continues to have a big influence both here in the

United States and in various parts of the world. Yes, and the 39 Articles are clearly influenced by Calvinism, and of course

Thomas Cranmer was known for having Calvinistic beliefs and so on, who drafted that document, which, interestingly enough, even as a

Reformed Baptist, I can say I agree with the majority of the 39 Articles, even the article on baptism, because you'll find that it does not say anything about infant baptism.

It says that you should not prohibit children from being baptized, and Reformed Baptists baptize children if they repent and believe, so...

Well, nobody's perfect. Certainly not you, Buzz. But anyway, it's great to have you back on the program, and I'm very excited about this book.

That you have written, God Among Sages, Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader, and this is probably the most prevalent issue that will come up when we are having discussions with our family, friends, and loved ones who are not

Christian, and may have more of a liberal pluralistic bent to them, where they are not necessarily atheists or agnostics who are against religion, even though I believe atheism and agnosticism are religions.

But those that would claim to be spiritual, they think that perhaps they're more open -minded and loving and tolerant than we are, because we have exclusive claims in the

Christian faith regarding Christ and his redemptive work on Calvary.

But tell us why you felt the need to write this book, because there have been similar books on similar themes written over the centuries, and even in the 20th and 21st century.

Why is this a needed book to not only read, but have in our libraries and help us to be further equipped to have a ready answer for the hope that lies within us?

Yeah, Chris, the book really was formulating in my mind about 25 years ago, not long after I left the

Christian Research Institute. I began teaching at a public college, teaching philosophy, logic, world religion courses.

And in Southern California, even then, there was a diversity of religious perspectives at the college.

I had Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists in the class, and of course, Christians and skeptics.

And I would teach on the world religions. Inevitably, the students would discover that I was a Christian professor.

And they'd hang around after class and want to ask me questions. They wanted to know, how does

Jesus differ from people like Krishna and Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad? And I was thinking even then, boy,

I wish I had a book that would focus specifically in comparing and contrasting these major world religious leaders with Jesus.

And so that's a topic I never let go of. I wanted to bring this book out.

And so I think what makes this book unique, Chris and Buzz, is that there really is a very careful comparison between Jesus and Krishna, the central religious figure within Hinduism.

Siddhartha Gautama, the most important figure, of course, within Buddhism. Then Confucius, the great

Chinese philosopher and teacher. And then finally, probably the most controversial of all the world's religious leaders, would be

Muhammad. So I think what makes the book unique is I use an eight -point comparison.

And the book really is divided into three parts. The first four chapters look very carefully at Jesus.

What did Jesus think of himself? Everybody has an opinion about Jesus. But what was Jesus's view of himself?

I look at his life and ministry. I look at a historic Christology, looking at what orthodoxy teaches as opposed to some of the heretical positions, and defend the historicity of Christ.

The center of the book, or the second part of the book, is really kind of the nuts and bolts of the book.

That's where I compare Jesus with Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, and Muhammad. The latter part of the book, or the third part, looks at issues that are so relevant that you've mentioned.

Issues of, can't all religions be true? What about tolerance? Is it bigoted to think that Christianity is true and other religions are false?

So I look at those types of very common questions. And I think the distinctive part of the book is that unique comparison.

I don't think any other book has really put these religious side -by -side with Jesus the way

I've done. So a long time in coming, I'm very happy that it's out, and I am very happy to be able to recommend it to people, because this, as you've said, is a very relevant question.

I just want to read an endorsement for the book by someone that I have interviewed in the past on Iron Sharpens Iron, Gary Habermas, who's well known as being one of the greatest living

Christian experts on the issue of the resurrection of Christ. Gary Habermas says, this is not the typical world religions volume that simply provides an information -filled survey of major faith options.

Rather, Ken Samples emphasizes an interactive approach done in a comparative fashion that contrasts strengths, weaknesses, philosophical implications, and historical foundations of the relevant religious documents.

More than 50 tables and charts provide many such contrasts and assessments in visual overviews that encourage grasping key ideas in a single view.

The result is a text that affords a variety of opportunities to mix and match preferred features that particular instructors wish to highlight.

Such approach affords excellent opportunities to mold a religious course. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

That's Gary R. Habermas, Distinguished Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty University and Theological Seminary.

And the book, it's quite a substantial book, by the way, as far as its length and depth.

You start off with an introduction about Jesus and the world's religious leaders.

And if you could comment a bit on that, because very often Jesus is just mixed into a bowl with not only other gods that non -Christian religions worship, but even great figures from history like Mahatma Gandhi and other people like that.

And he is just another great man, a great philosopher. In fact, if I recall, it was

Jesus Christ is George W. Bush's favorite philosopher. And I remember

Alan Keyes very rightly corrected him and said, Jesus Christ is not a philosopher, he is

God in flesh or something. That's right, yeah. I remember that very well.

Yeah, this is the very beginning of the book, and what's interesting is that everybody seemingly has an opinion about who

Jesus is, this includes all of the world's religions. Most people have some take on Jesus, you know, and as the subtitle of my book,

Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader, I point out that, you know,

Jesus in Matthew 16 draws the attention of his disciples by asking, who do the people say the

Son of Man is? Well, I take that passage and I kind of rewrite it in light of our modern day ideas.

I mean, the Hindus think that Jesus is one more avatar in the pantheon of Hindu gods.

The Buddhists think that he is a Bodhisattva. Muslims say that Jesus is merely one of the prophets of Allah.

And of course, I then draw that and say, but Christians affirm Jesus Christ as the

Son of God, the Lord God in human flesh, and that really kind of leads into that early part of the book, where we look at what

Jesus says about himself, his appeals to divine titles, his claiming to be equal with God the

Father, and you're exactly right, Chris. We live in a time where people are not commonly aware of how historic

Christianity has viewed Christ. They see him as just one more religious face put in with all kinds of other religious leaders, rather than seeing him in a historic

Christian context as not being merely a prophet of God. You know, all of the prophets, so to speak, whether they are biblical or outside of the

Bible, prophets always claim that they have a revelation from God, and they point back to that particular

God. Historic Christianity says that Jesus is a revelation of God in human flesh, and so the doctrine of the

Incarnation is the prism of which historic Christians look at all things, including the

Atonement. Jesus can reconcile God and man because he is God and man.

He can conquer death because he is the Son of God. And so, as Alan Keyes said in that debate so many years ago,

Jesus is a type of philosopher and teacher, but he's a whole lot more than that.

He is Lord God Almighty. He is the extension of Yahweh Elohim, and so it's critical that people understand both

Christians and non -Christians who Jesus is, and that's why I start the book the way I do. It's also interesting to note that in our age of tolerance,

Jesus is the one that is not tolerated. Not the one of the scriptures, the genuine

Jesus. The Jesus of Hallmark cards, and the Jesus that is meek and mild and helpless in a manger, and the

Jesus that is a peace -loving hippie that we kind of get that image from films and other depictions of him.

He is tolerated and loved, but he is a false Jesus, isn't he, Ken? Well, of course, we do believe that Jesus was a meek and mild infant in the manger, but I'm speaking of the other distortions of him being just a peace -loving hippie, a guru, someone who just was all about peace, love, and understanding, and nothing else.

That's exactly right. I mean, the historic Jesus, the Jesus in the canonical

Gospels, is a man who makes divine claims for himself.

He claims to be able to forgive people's sins, he accepts worship of his followers, he claims to be able to raise the dead to judge humanity.

These are prerogatives that only Yahweh has. And what's interesting in conjunction with your point there,

Chris, is that many people who would advocate religious pluralism, the idea that all religions can be true, virtually all of the leaders who write in this field recognize that all religions can't be true if Jesus is

God in human flesh. If historic Christianity is true, then it's not possible to reconcile pluralism.

And thus, I think in many ways, people want to reinterpret Jesus, but he's not only the one who makes divine claims, he's also the one who talks the most about issues like divine judgment and hell.

And so if you're going to accept or reject Jesus, I think you want to address the historic person that we see in the

New Testament Gospel. Yes, and perhaps it would be a good idea for you to lay out cardinal doctrines about Jesus Christ that must be believed by the faithful.

There perhaps are some peripheral issues regarding Christ that may be debatable and may be disagreed upon, but there are certain things that we must believe in order to be considered a member of the body of Christ, in order to prevent being excommunicated or marked as a heretic, in order to have the peace that surpasses all understanding that we will indeed be with him one day in glory when we depart this earth.

There are certain things that we must know and believe, and of course we would have among them that he is eternal, that he never had a beginning and of course became man at the incarnation, born of a virgin and was fully

God and fully man, was crucified for the sins of his people, rose again and ascended and is seated at the right hand of the

Father. But if you could specifically outline in more full detail these cardinal teachings about Christ that are not issues that we can differ on.

Yeah, it's critically important for all historic Christians, whatever denomination, whatever church that they attend,

Orthodox Christians who believe in the essentials of historic Christianity, would say that the incarnation is the very foundation of what we believe about Christ.

So the triune God, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, he takes to himself a human nature and becomes incarnate as man, and so Christian orthodoxy, going back to the ancient councils, reflected clearly in scripture that Jesus is a single person, but he has both a divine and human nature.

Those two natures are in union, and so Jesus is, according to the ancient

Christians, the theanthropos, a Greek word meaning God -man.

And so Christ is fully God and fully man. This incarnation, of course, changes the very way which we look at all of Christianity.

Christ can make an atonement and reconcile God and man, Jesus's bodily resurrection from the dead is again possible because of his divine nature, and so Christians affirm the full deity and humanity of Christ that sets them apart from particular contemporary groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, like the

Mormons, but it also separates our view from some of the Christological heresies, modalism, various other

Christological heresies, and so yeah, the incarnation,

Christ's divine nature, his human nature, his bodily resurrection, all of these are the critical components of his life, his perfect life, his sacrificial death, his resurrection from the grave, and of course everybody, as my colleague, my mentor

Walter Martin used to say, everybody has a view of Jesus, but not everybody's view of Jesus is derived carefully from scripture.

Yeah, and we're going to take our first break right now. There are several of you waiting to have your questions asked and answered, and we will get to you as soon as possible.

For those of you who would like to join them with a question of your own on the air, email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

USA, and if you need to remain anonymous for some reason, for instance if you are in a non -christian home, you don't want to identify yourself, something of that effect, you can feel free to remain anonymous, but otherwise please at least identify yourself by name, first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

We're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away. There's more, a lot more with Ken R.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today is Dr. Kenneth R.

Samples, and we are discussing his book, God Among Sages. If you'd like to join us with a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. And perhaps I should also remind our listeners of the subtitle because it's certainly more explanatory,

Why Jesus is Not Just Another Religious Leader. Email address again is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. And I do want to, I don't know if you knew this,

Ken, but one of my faithful listeners is

Cindy Martin Morgan, one of the daughters of the late

Walter Martin. And I just wanted to read your dedication to Walter Martin that you have written in this book, to Walter R.

Martin, the original Bible Answer Man, tenacious apologist of historic Christianity, insightful scholar on the new religious movements, and mentor to a new generation of apologists.

That was very kind of you, and I'm sure Cindy Martin Morgan will be very happy to hear that dedication to her late father.

Yes, I remember Cindy well. I remember when she was just a young girl and she would come to her father's

Bible class, and I remember Walter affectionately. He had a big influence on me.

I probably would not be doing what I'm doing without his kind of mentoring influence.

So, you know, a warm shout out to the Martin family. I still think of Walter often and fondly.

Well, before we go to the listener questions that we have waiting for us, if you could explain what you mean by Jesus's stunning self -understanding.

Yeah, what's radical here about the New Testament is that Jesus has his own awareness, his own consciousness of his own identity, and there is a clear recognition that he is the divine son of God.

Jesus, on a number of occasions, makes himself out to be equal with God.

We see this in John 5, John 8, John 10. In a very specific case, in a rigorous debate with some of the

Jewish religious leaders, the religious leaders become exasperated with Christ, and they ask him in John 8, you know, who are you?

And Jesus reaches into the Old Testament and utilizes the most sacred name of God.

In Isaiah 45 through 48, Yahweh refers to himself as I am or I am he, and Jesus says before Abraham came into existence,

I am. They pick up stones to stone him. They interpret this as blasphemy. So Christ makes appeals to divinity.

He refers to and connects himself to divine titles like son of God and son of man.

He utilizes the prerogatives of deity. I mentioned before, he claims to be able to forgive sins, even sins not committed against him.

He claims to be able to do the very things that only God can do, raising the dead, judging humanity, receiving worship, hearing and answering prayer.

And Jesus sees himself as being equal to the

Father, and so this idea is stunning that a first century Jewish person would consider himself

God in human flesh. This is, I think, the place we have to begin with Christ.

This separates Jesus from all of the other religious leaders. Jesus is, again, not merely a prophet.

He is not merely a religious face in the crowd. Christians see him as being both

God and man, and therefore Savior and Lord of the world, and that stunning self -understanding is really the foundation of historic

Christianity itself. We have a listener in Slovenia, Joe, and I have to enlarge the font on Joe's question because the type is very small.

Let's see here, Joe in Slovenia says, I'm having frequent conversations with self -identified

Christians who are affirming the idea that Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or God in general speaks directly and specifically to people today.

The troubling thing is that this claim that God speaks audibly or at least in a person's heart or mind inevitably becomes the authority for their beliefs about God.

The things they affirm that he said to them become the grid through which they interpret the Bible. They cling onto these personal revelations with equal or greater tenacity than scripture.

Ultimately, their Jesus is defined by them, by these messages they think they are receiving from him.

How should we handle this phenomenon? What should be said and done in these situations?

How do we advocate for the God of scripture and love our brothers in these situations?

Yeah, that's a great question. Obviously, if you begin to interpret scripture in light of your own experience, you're going fundamentally backwards to what historic

Christians have understood. Protestant Christianity, of course, would assert that scripture is the supreme authority.

It is God's word, and therefore all experiences that you have, positive, negative, whatever they are, are to be tested in light of what scripture teaches.

And so the problem with this, if you begin to interpret scripture or use your experience as the prism for all of this, that's very problematic.

And I think we've seen examples of this throughout church history, where experience becomes the prism rather than following the clear teaching of scripture, following the creedal statements and historic affirmations of Christian truth claims.

So we have a long history of these kinds of things. I think what we need to maybe do with your friends there is to tell them that, you know,

Christians do have experiences with God. We all have undoubtedly had times where we felt the presence of God, or we've seen

God's providence answer prayers, or various issues, but we always want to evaluate, judge those experiences in light of scripture.

So I think the experience that's being described there is mistakenly and potentially harmfully putting the cart before the horse.

Scripture says, 1 Thessalonians 5 .21, test all things and hold on to the good.

Scripture is seen as the supreme norm by which all other experiences and ideas are to be judged, and I think you can convey that, and there's lots of unfortunate examples in church history where Christian experience has become the dominant theme rather than following God's word.

And as we brought up recently in a different interview, in Paul's letter to Timothy, 2

Timothy chapter 3 verses 16 and 17, Paul writes, all scripture is inspired by God, or God -breathed, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

So therefore, this speaks to the effect, not only the fact that it's inerrant because it's

God -breathed, but it is sufficient. We don't need anything else because if the scripture makes us fully equipped for every single good work, then how on earth, why on earth,

I should say, would we need anything else? Yeah, great passage, great passage. Now of course, as we were saying,

I believe it was yesterday, in our discussion on Sola Scriptura, that does not mean that we cannot benefit from great teachers from the past and present, people like Ken Samples, who

I am interviewing right now, and our own pastors and elders and so on. In fact, the

Bible commands that we submit to the elders that he has appointed over us. But the scriptures, as far as a word from God, we don't need a new fresh word from God.

We have the scriptures right in our hands. So this issue of Sola Scriptura, one of the battle cries or one of the watchwords or pillars of the

Reformation, is not really just solely a watchword and a rebuke to the

Church of Rome. It is also a reminder to evangelicals, because of the charismatic movement, and many

Pentecostals have disregarded this issue, even if unconsciously. In your part one, number four, it says, answering challenges to Jesus' historic identity.

Would you enlarge on where you're coming from with that section? Yeah, what's very interesting when you begin to compare

Jesus with the world's religious leaders, we know a lot about Jesus.

We know the timing of his birth. He's born in the reign of Caesar Augustus.

He dies at the hands of Pontius Pilate. When you begin to look at a comparison with the other religious leaders,

Hindu scholars are not certain whether Krishna was ever a historical person at all.

The ideas about him may have been an amalgamation of various people, but quite frankly,

Hinduism doesn't care too much about historicity. It is emphasizing a higher state of mythology.

Also, with the Buddha, Buddhist scholars are not certain what century the

Buddha was born in. He may have been in the sixth century. He may have been in the fourth century.

There may be 250 to 300 years difference about when

Siddhartha Gautama was born. So in terms of Jesus, we know an enormous amount about the timing of his birth, his death.

We have solid manuscript evidence written very early by people who were eyewitnesses or associates of eyewitnesses, and you have not only oral tradition, but you have the early writings of the

Apostle Paul. You have the Gospels. All of this is within 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

If you compare that, for example, with the Buddha, none of the Buddha's teachings are available until 400 years later.

In terms of Krishna, there is no way of even knowing how long the period may have been.

If Krishna existed at all, he may have existed 5 ,000 years ago. So we know an enormous amount about Jesus, and typically in Hinduism and Buddhism and in other

Eastern religions, there isn't a great emphasis upon the historicity of these people.

You don't have Buddha studies and Krishna studies the way you would have

Jesus studies here in Western Christendom. So I look at some of the challenges that people raise about what we know about Jesus.

Was he a historical figure? I look at the Gospels. I look at the Epistles.

I look at oral tradition, and I also look at about 12 different sources from Jewish, Roman, and Greek authors that mention

Jesus either in the 1st or 2nd century. Again, illustrating the point that we have solid textual evidence for Christ, we know a lot more about him, our sources are early, and when compared with the other religious leaders, that's a huge difference.

What about the fact that, I don't know if this is addressed in here or not, or if you've addressed it all in the book, but you don't see all kinds of prophecies about the coming of Muhammad and all that, but you do about Jesus all through the

Old Testament. Is that addressed in your book at all? Yes, it is. I do mention that Jesus in a

Jewish context is seen as fulfilling prophecy, and that we're able to connect the

Old and New Testament in a way that is much more difficult in terms of looking at the other world's religions.

And so, when it comes to historicity, when it comes to that connection of when these people lived, and what do we know about them, and what can we affirm about them,

Christians are on a much more solid ground in terms of historicity, textual evidence, than any of the other religious leaders of the world.

And by the way, I forgot to mention to our listener in Slovenia, Joe, you have won a free copy of God Among Sages, Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader by Kenneth R.

Samples, and we thank you very much for providing an American address where your daughter lives to ship this book.

So, thank you very much for contributing to Iron Sharpens Iron, and please continue to spread the word in Slovenia and beyond about this program, and more importantly, infinitely more importantly, continue to spread the word about Jesus Christ and his life -giving gospel.

We do have, let's see, we have

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, and I have to enlarge his question as well, because I can't read it.

The font on this is so tiny, and I'm not sure why it's coming up that way lately, or maybe

I'm just going blind. Is it true that the Lord Jesus is unique among all the religious leaders in the world due to the fact that he himself is

God who took on his father's wrath through substitutionary atonement?

Yes, is that concept even vaguely resembled in any other religion?

You know, I'm really glad that that question is raised, Chris, because one of the points I make in the book is that whether you look at Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, or Muhammad, none of those four religious leaders do anything that changes their follower status in the afterlife before God.

That is, Krishna can't take you to moksha, Buddha cannot take you to nirvana,

Confucius is not able to help you to fulfill your moral guide, and certainly

Muhammad doesn't do anything to change the outcome of the judgment in terms of paradise or in damnation, and so one of the powerful points that distinguishes

Jesus from these other religious leaders is that Christ's death on the cross, his atoning sacrifice, where Jesus takes the wrath of God into himself and snuffs it out, this idea that Christ is our

Redeemer, our Savior, there's no Savior in Islam, there's no

Savior in Buddhism or Krishna or Confucianism. So one of the very important differences is that Jesus is not only our high priest, but he saves us, and he does something that changes our very relationship with God.

That makes him different, that idea of a Savior, and so your question, is there the idea of a redemptive sacrifice?

Well, there are sacrifices that are offered in various religions, but nothing in terms of someone who would actually sacrifice his life, take the wrath of God because of sin, and impute righteousness.

That's a unique feature of the New Testament. That means that Jesus does something that changes his followers.

He dies to save them, not true of the other four religious leaders that I look at in my book.

We have a listener from Davao City, Philippines, now living in Kannapolis, North Carolina, Casey, who asks, what are some of the most common objections that you hear from those who deny the exclusivity of Christ, and how do we answer those objections?

In fact, I'm sure you would agree, Ken, that a lot of those objections to the exclusivity of Christ come from people who claim to be

Christian, more on the liberal end of the spectrum, obviously. That's right. I mean, we live in a culture in which the idea that people would claim that Christianity is uniquely true is seen, unfortunately, as not only intolerant, but bigoted.

Oftentimes, claims are made about the religions in asserting that, why can't all religions be true?

Why can't... I mean, if you're born in India, the likelihood is you're going to be a Hindu.

If you're born in the Middle East or South Asia, you're probably going to be a Muslim. If you're born in the

Western world, the likelihood is that you'll be a Christian. So why can't all the religions be true?

Well, I think there are three fundamental problems with that idea. The first problem is that these religions teach fundamentally different things.

It's not just the differences between Chris and I, whether we infant or whether they have to be older.

It's not merely an issue of whether you're pre -millennial or all -millennial or post -millennial. When it comes to the world's religions, they don't even agree as to how many gods there are.

Some religions are monotheistic, teaching one. Temple Hinduism says there are 330 million gods.

The philosophical Hindus say that the universe is God. They also don't agree as to whether God is a person.

Judaism and Islam say God is personal. Christianity says that God is more than personal.

He's one god in three persons. Buddhism and Hinduism say God is less than personal.

So the first problem is they don't agree about fundamental issues, and we could throw in things like, what is the fundamental problem of humanity?

Is it sin? Is it karma? What is it? The second one is there's no way to really boil these religions down to a lowest common denominator, because even if you say

Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, and Confucianists have a similar ethic, they probably do have the second five of the commandments, if you will, the

Ten Commandments. But even there, we behave according to our deepest theological ideas.

So the sanctity of human life, our opposition to abortion, our opposition to euthanasia in a

Christian context is people are made in the image of God. They're not disposable items.

They have inherent dignity and moral worth. So it is our theological views that drive our ethical beliefs.

So there's no kind of fundamental common denominator. And then the third one, and it's the most devastating, the religions of the world contradict each other.

I mean, even if you take Islam and Christianity, Christianity says Jesus is

God incarnate. Islam says Jesus Christ is not God incarnate.

Both of those beliefs cannot be true. One is right, and the other is false.

And so the idea that all religions can be true, it faces intractable problems.

And I think our culture simply is, we're not challenging people to think carefully.

I don't believe Christianity is true because I'm a bigot or intolerant.

I believe it because Scripture teaches it, common sense teaches it, and Scripture teaches it.

And I would be, I think, not carrying out my responsibility if I were to tell people anything other than Jesus is

Lord. That is the biblical point of view, and he is

Lord to the exclusion of all other persons who make that claim, whether it's

Krishna, whether it's Buddha, whether it is Hitler, or whomever makes the claim to be the ultimate leader.

It's true of Jesus Christ alone. And we have to go to another break right now, and we'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. Before I return to our interview with Ken Samples, I want to remind our listeners that Iron Sharpens Iron is in urgent need of new advertisers and sponsors and benefactors.

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Iron Sharpens Iron with your gifts. We are back now with our interview with Kenneth R.

Samples. I think I may have given you an elevation in your credentials by calling you doctor earlier.

Was that an error on my part, brother? That is an error. I have a master's degree, but I won't hold you too faultful for that.

Well, I think that you certainly deserve a doctorate. You're certainly one of the most brilliant brothers in Christ that I know, a brilliant people in general that I know, and it is certainly an honor to know you.

We are discussing today Ken's new book, God Among Sages, why Jesus is not just another religious leader.

In studio with me is the Reverend Buzz Taylor, who providentially is on a well -deserved vacation right now and was able to return for an undetermined period of time to co -host with us, hopefully as often as his schedule permits every day if possible, until he goes back to his full -time employment.

And I want to let our last listeners who sent in questions know, that was

Tyler and Casey, that you both have each won a free copy of God Among Sages, Why Jesus is

Not Just Another Religious Leader, compliments of the publishers,

Baker Books, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com, who will be shipping out those books to you.

And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings, the owners of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

for their faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron by shipping out all of our winners, all of their free

Bibles, books, DVDs, CDs, and anything else they win by submitting questions to our guests.

And that saves Iron Sharpens Iron a lot of money because these, certainly these expenses, mount up to quite a considerable cost since Iron Sharpens Iron gives away books every week.

Sometimes we go weeks giving away free books and Bibles every day. So thanks again,

CVBBS .com. One of the things that struck me as you were contrasting

Jesus Christ with the other religious leaders of the world and gurus and so on,

I recall that C .S. Lewis had quite an impact on your life. And C .S.

Lewis has a quote that I will summarize or paraphrase, but it is something to the effect that Jesus Christ is either lunatic, liar, or Lord.

If you could comment on that, because it seems that that is the only alternative if we take seriously the biblical account of who

Jesus Christ truly is. Yeah, that comes right out of his famous book,

Mere Christianity, which was the first Christian book that I ever read. My sister had become a

Christian. I kind of grew up in a nominal Catholic family, didn't really understand Catholicism or historic

Christianity, and read that book and it had a huge impact on me. Your point is very well taken there,

Chris. We know a lot about Jesus. We know that he was a historical figure.

We know the era in which he was born, which he was crucified. He is a historical person, not a legend, not mythical, and therefore since Jesus makes claims to divinity, we have only a limited number of options.

Either he made those claims and knew what he was doing and was in fact divine, and therefore would be

Lord God Almighty, but if he made those claims and he was not divine, then we're left with some difficult alternatives.

Maybe he knew that he wasn't God, made the claims anyway. Remember, he allowed people to worship him, he claimed to be able to forgive sins, he said that he would raise the dead and judge humanity.

If Jesus made those kind of claims and he knew that he was not the divine

Son of God, then he would be a liar, he would be a false teacher, he would be malicious, and there's nothing more horrific than someone who would deceive people in terms of spiritual issues.

On the other hand, the other alternative, if he is not

God in human flesh, is that he was mentally ill.

And of course, in the Gospels, you have members of Jesus's own family, including his brother

James, who they want to take control over him, because here is a person making divine claims.

What's interesting, of course, is that this same brother of Jesus, James, sees his brother risen from the dead and moves from thinking his brother has a mental illness, has suffering mental delusions, to becoming one of the most central apostles of early

Christianity, leading the council in Acts 15. So that's a very powerful transformation.

I mean, thinking your brother is mentally ill, to concluding that he is the Son of God, and ultimately suffering martyrdom.

So I think Lewis had it right. There's no good reason to believe Jesus was mythical or legendary, and since the

Gospels are given to us by eyewitness testimony, we have to take his claims seriously.

If he isn't Lord, then we're stuck, I think, with a lunatic or a liar, and none of those alternative explanations come anywhere close to Christ.

Christ is the person who has the greatest mental health. In fact, I'll give you a quotation from one of the leading world religious scholars.

He said of Jesus that Jesus not only preached the

Sermon on the Mount, but he in fact kept the Sermon on the Mount. And, you know, this this idea that Jesus would be a lunatic or a liar, none of that makes any sense.

It doesn't conform to know from what we know. And that quotation comes from Houston Smith, one of the leading religious scholars.

He said Jesus not only preached the Sermon on the Mount, he actually lived it. How could a lunatic or a liar ever live the exalted morality and value -laden ideas that come out of the

Sermon on the Mount? Amen. And in fact, the text involved in Jesus's family thinking that he was a lunatic, that also is,

I think, a very powerful verse to disprove the Roman Catholic idea of Mary being sinless.

Because we have, as you quoted earlier from Mark 3 verse 21, we have it written, when his family heard about this they went to take charge of him for they said he is out of his mind.

And then later on, in verse 31, then Jesus's mother and brothers arrived.

Standing outside, they sent someone to call him. And so there you have

Jesus's mother being in the company of the other children that she had that thought

Jesus was crazy. So obviously this was not an act upon Mary that was free from any sin.

I mean, it's obvious here. Wouldn't you agree? Yes, I think it's very clear that Mary, even with the miraculous events that she experienced early in her life with regard to the birth of Jesus, that she and her

Jesus's siblings recognized that Jesus was making these divine claims, and they had very serious concerns about his mental health.

And in the context of a first -century Jew claiming to be God, these are extraordinary claims.

It is only in light of the resurrection that these ideas of Jesus being delusional are changed, where James becomes one of the great pillars of the faith.

But that's right, Mary, a great servant of our

Lord and a great follower of her son, nonetheless went through a process of confusion and had doubts and experienced confusion about the very nature of her son, and she probably should have known better.

And thus, there's only one person who is without sin, and that is the

Lord Jesus Christ. All of the rest of us are sinners, and in Scripture, even

Mary says that, that she is a sinner that needs to be saved.

And so I think those events are very extraordinary. They go back to C .S.

Lewis's argument, we know Jesus wasn't a legend, he makes divine claims, we're stuck with making choices, being a liar or a lunatic doesn't fit, and so what he calls the shocking alternative is that Jesus is

God in human flesh. And if that's the case, Chris, and if Christ is risen from the dead, there isn't any message more important for people throughout the world to hear, to understand, and to respond to, because I don't know whether Krishna ever existed, but I do know the

Buddha died, he was cremated, I know Confucius died, he was buried, I know

Muhammad died, he was buried. Jesus is the only person who has conquered death, and that puts

Jesus not only in a different category in terms of degree, Jesus is in a different category than Krishna, Confucius, Muhammad, and the

Buddha in terms of kind. Jesus is a fundamentally different being, fundamentally different person, than the other individuals

I address in my book, and that's very important for people to hear and to understand.

Before we take a question by Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania wants to know, is your wonderful book

The Cult of the Virgin, Catholic Mariology and the Apparitions of Mary that you co -authored with Elliot Miller still in print, and if not, do you ever plan on it returning to print?

And I wholeheartedly agree with our listener that this is a really wonderful, phenomenal book on this subject that very few people have written on it.

In fact, on all the books on Catholicism that I've read, I don't know if I've ever seen one that gives a full treatment to the apparitions the way that you have provided.

Is that book ever going to return in print? Yeah, I appreciate that. Boy, that goes all the way back to 1992, and when

I was working at the Christian Research Institute, I actually went to a small city in the former

Yugoslavia called Medjugorje, because people there were claiming to have visions of the

Virgin Mary. Through my friendship with a Roman Catholic scholar, Jesuit Mitchell Pacwa, I was able to go to meet these young people who are probably in their 40s or early 50s now, but Elliot Miller and I, who

I worked with at the Christian Research Institute, wrote this book. Elliot dealt with Catholic Mariology, I dealt with the apparitions.

The book is out of print, but it is available via amazon .com.

You can purchase it through Amazon. I have given consideration to revising the book, and you know what's interesting,

Chris, is I've also had certain skeptics who have quoted that book, looking at issues like apparitions, looking at issues like people having after -death experiences.

So the book has gotten a lot of attention, not only from Catholics and Protestants, but even from some skeptics who are trying to make sense of these religious ideas.

I would like to revise the book. It's not easy to always go back and do those kinds of things, but I'm definitely thinking and praying about it, and I'd have to contact

Elliot Miller and see if we could pull that off. But thank you for saying nice things about that book, and you can get copies on Amazon.

And if you need a new publisher, I can always recommend Solid Ground Christian Books, which is one of our sponsors.

Thank you, yes, that's important. Yeah, I will talk to Mike Gadosh about that after the program and see if he has any interest in that, and I believe with much confidence that he would.

Just one, I don't want to derail the conversation of the subject, but it is interesting to note, since you mentioned

Medjugorje, that the more conservative and traditionalist

Catholics, including my friend Dr.

Robert St. Genes, who I just had participate in a debate with my other friend, my

Evangelical Reformed Baptist friend, Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary, where he is the professor of apologetics, he debated my friend, my

Catholic friend, Dr. Robert St. Genes, on Mary, sinless queen of heaven or sinner saved by grace.

And I happen to know that Dr. St. Genes, although this was not a part of the discussion,

I know that he is very opposed to Medjugorje, and as I was saying earlier, as is a considerable portion of the very conservative

Catholic realm, especially the traditionalists, they believe that is actually demonic.

They affirm wholeheartedly Fatima, but they do not believe in Medjugorje, and in fact, if I'm not mistaken,

I believe that even the bishop, the Catholic bishop of Medjugorje and Yugoslavia, does not even affirm that apparition as being truly from the mother of Christ.

But anyway, I just thought that I'd bring that up because it is... Yeah, when I was in,

Chris, when I was in Medjugorje, I met with the bishop, and he was adamantly opposed to the apparitions.

And I'm not surprised that there are even Catholics who have serious doubts about that, even though they might affirm

Fatima, Lourdes, and some of the other so -called apparitions. So it is a critical topic, and I hope you'll talk to Mike Kadosh about that.

I am interested in maybe seeing that book come back into print. Yeah, and it shows our

Catholic friends that a lot of Catholics, they will say, how on earth could a vision from Mary be false if the vision is telling us to love and follow

Jesus? Well, obviously, this is a vivid example of even Roman Catholics who believe there can be false and perhaps even satanic apparitions of Mary.

So, and by the way, just quickly, because this is not the subject that we are discussing, and I definitely want to have you back on to discuss this, by the way.

Do you believe that the women who saw or alleged to have seen the apparition of Mary at Medjugorje, do you believe that they are charlatans, purely knowing that they are deceiving people, or that they are mentally ill, or do you believe this is satanic?

That's a great question. Because of my friendship with Father Pacwa, I was able to meet all of the central people involved in this, including the priest that was their spiritual advisor of the so -called seers.

And I asked him that very question, and he was a German, came from Germany, a

German priest, very analytical, very well aware of, in fact had training in mental health professions.

And so I asked him, I said, why do you think that this is true? And he said, well, he said, probably the simplicity of these people.

He says, I don't think these young people have the kind of intellectual capabilities to create some kind of hoax or to lie about it.

I would share that. These young people did not strike me as the kind that were charlatans.

I will tell you this, though, Chris, I talked with one of the young women that was one of the seers, and she mentioned a book that the so -called

Virgin had recommended. Poem of the God -Man? Poem of the God -Man. And that is an occult book.

That, to me, puts up red flags all over that this may in fact be a spiritual counterfeit.

And so you can, for those interested, you can get copies of The Cult of the Virgin, where I go into some detail about that.

Great. And Susan, by the way, you have won a free copy of God Among Sages, Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader.

Thank you very much for the excellent, actually comment rather than question, but Reverend Buzz Taylor, you had a question for Ken Sample.

Based on the way the conversation was going before, I wanted to make sure we landed on this hard enough, and we started to, but I just wanted to underline it, that really the answer to the question of whether Jesus was, you know, lunatic, liar, or Lord, lies in the resurrection.

The fact that he not only made claims, but it was followed up by the resurrection, and of course the

Apostle Paul, wherever he preached, it was central to his message, was the resurrection.

Jesus, you know, God raised him from the dead, you know, and, you know, God has appointed a man through whom he's going to judge the world, and he's given assurance unto men by raising him from the dead.

And I really believe in our witness today, we need to be a lot more vocal about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, instead of just a relationship.

We need to tell, hey, this is who Jesus is. He was raised from the dead. You can't equal that anywhere else.

And there were multitudes of eyewitnesses to his, not that they saw him come out of the tomb, but they saw the risen

Christ. Well, in my witness I tell them, you know, he was seen alive, over 500 people, that's good enough in any court of law, here's the written record of what they saw back in that century, take it or leave it.

Yes. Yeah, that's terrific. I mean, I can tell you, in looking very carefully at the life of Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, and Muhammad, Jesus's life, his death, and his resurrection set him apart from all other individuals.

I think of that early creedal statement, the kerygma in 1st Corinthians 15, that Jesus died, he was buried, he rose, he appeared.

The resurrection is not only a central truth of Christianity, but it is also the central supporting fact of the truth of the faith.

And so, Buzz, I couldn't agree with you more. We need to talk a lot more about not only

Jesus's life and death, but his glorious resurrection from the grave. In fact, I want to pick up on something related to that when we return from our final break.

If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We do have several of you already waiting to have your questions asked and answered, and we will try to get to as many of you as possible before the end of the program.

Don't go away. We will be right back with Ken Samples and more of our discussion on God among sages.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back, this is

Chris Arnzin. If you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest for the full two hours with a half hour to go is

Kenneth R. Samples, and we are discussing his book, God Among Sages, Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzin at gmail .com, chrisarnzin at gmail .com.

Before we go to the questions that I was going to ask, I just want to squeeze this in with one more comment from a listener or question related to the

Cult of the Virgin book. He said, this is R .J.

from White Plains, New York, who says, don't you think that the language, the

Cult of the Virgin, was somewhat explosive in turning off to Catholics unnecessarily?

Is this mean -spirited to describe the Catholic Church as such? Well that's interesting,

Ken, because that is a actual Roman Catholic phrase that the Vatican uses, isn't it? It is, in fact it is.

I remember when we were giving consideration to the title of the book, I was the one who came up with the title, and you know, cultus means devotion, and so the

Cult of the Virgin can be understood as being affirmative of what

Catholics believe. Of course it also carries the implied idea that it may be a false devotion.

So our intention was not to turn off Catholics, in fact I can illustrate that, because we asked a

Jesuit scholar, Mitch Pacwa, to write a response, and we included it within the book.

So we had no intention of trying to misrepresent the Catholic Church. We wanted to actually have a real dialogue, a real discussion, and I think if you read that book, you'll see that Elliot and I tried to be as fair as we possibly could, and I think letting

Mitch, Father Pacwa, respond shows that we were not trying to misrepresent anybody's viewpoint.

Yes, I am not a modern ecumenist. I do not believe that the Church of Rome and the heirs of the

Reformation have the same gospel, but I can say that Mitch Pacwa is one of the finest apologists

I've ever met. Obviously I'm in very serious disagreement with much of what he believes, but I believe he's an honest man.

I don't believe that he uses trickery or falsehood or things, or should I say, things that he knows are false to try to win an argument in a debate.

And he's a gentleman, and I truly enjoyed his company, and please send my regards to him. I had him involved in at least two of the great debates out on Long Island during that decade -long series

I had of debates, live public moderated debates, with Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and Dr.

White even agrees that Mitch Pacwa is among the finest of Catholic apologists alive today, and please, if you ever have the providential occurrence to speak with him, send him my best regards and tell him

I would love for him to be involved in the new series of debates that I've launched in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the first one just several months ago.

I'll do it. Mitch is a person of integrity, and I've always enjoyed, as much as we differ with each other, we have developed a respectful friendship, and so if and when

I see him, I'll pass on your best regards. Thank you very much. And what I was going to say to bolster the importance of the

Resurrection, as Reverend Buzz Taylor brought up, my co -host earlier, the fact that millions may die for a lie unknowingly, but few, very few, would die for a lie knowing that it is indeed a lie, and this gives incredible weight to the martyrs of the first century, does it not, who witnessed and saw the risen

Christ and were tortured gruesomely and died for this faith, where he was worshiped and adored and followed as the one and true living

God, and this is not to be equated with Muslims flying into buildings and so on, because these

Muslims who are dying for their faith, these terrorists and suicide bombers and all these kinds of things, these folks are dying for a lie not knowing that it is a lie, but the martyrs of the first century certainly knew that Jesus Christ truly was the risen and living

Christ. That's exactly right. I mean, if the Apostles actually concocted this theory, if they made it up, if they invented this story and then went out and died for what they knew was a lie, that is absolutely absurd.

They had very good reasons to give consideration as to whether this was true.

A number of them faced enormous hostility and ultimately martyrdom, and thus the transformation of the

Apostles is one of the great powerful evidences for the truth of the Resurrection.

I mean, James went from thinking that his brother suffered mental delusion, the

Apostle Paul thought that the early Christians needed to be arrested and even executed because they worshipped

Jesus, and yet Paul's conversion is probably the greatest conversion in the history of humankind and religion.

My comparison would be Paul saw becoming Paul, going from being an enemy of the

Church to becoming the greatest missionary, writing 13 New Testament books, becoming the great apologist of Christianity.

It would be like Reagan becoming a communist, or Hitler becoming a member of the

Jewish faith. It is an extraordinary transformation, and to think that they could do it for any other reason than that they experience the real, true

Resurrection of Christ, I don't think any other explanation really holds logical cogency or is really supported.

So yeah, I think you're right on target there. CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York wants to know, is the

Jesus of the Oneness Pentecostals the true Jesus? Very interesting question because people may be deceived by the

Oneness Pentecostals because they do believe that Jesus is

God, but they do not believe in the eternality of Christ.

They believe that He came into existence in the manger, do they not? Yeah, this is a very important point, and I think it's important,

Chris, to point out that the United Pentecostals are different than the Pentecostals.

We're not here talking about the Assembly of God. One of the most important things the

Assembly of God did early in the 20th century was to oppose the

Jesus -only theory. So Oneness Pentecostals believe in a form of modalism, they really do believe that the

Father became the Son, and so modalism is erroneous because it doesn't hold that there is an eternal unity of the three persons, and so Jesus -only teaching from the

United Pentecostal Church is not a form of historic Christian orthodoxy.

It is seen as an aberration, a doctrinal heresy, and that's again where there's such a critical importance of teaching the

Trinity, teaching the two natures of Christ, and I undoubtedly think,

Chris, I remember reading years ago that maybe 80 % of the people who joined the

Mormon Church were at one time in an evangelical church. I also read something similar, that 80 % of the people who joined the

Watchtower were once in a Catholic Church. Now as strong as we differ with the Catholics over issues like Mariology, the authority of Scripture justification,

Catholics are at least Trinitarian, and why they would end up in these churches, I think we have a larger problem, and that is even within evangelicalism, there is not enough careful teaching of the essential truths of the faith, and so the

Jesus of the Oneness Pentecostals is a false Christ.

It is not the Jesus of the New Testament, nor the teaching of the creedal statements of the early

Christian Church. Now the Jehovah's Witnesses scoff at what we are saying about the deity of Christ because they say there is no passage in the

Scripture where Jesus says, I am God. Of course he does say I am, which was a title only uttered by God in the

Old Testament when Moses saw the burning bush and God was speaking through the bush and declared that he is the

I am, but the very fact that Jesus accepted worship and never rebuked anyone for worshiping him, isn't that a clear evidence, irrefutable evidence, that he viewed himself as deity?

I think that's right. I think, you know, there's many ways, and I go about five different ways in that first chapter of my book,

God Among Sages, illustrating that Jesus was well aware of his own divinity and the point you make is very solid.

Jesus not only made divine claims, he not only claimed to be the great

I am, and of course the response of the people who were in opposition, they saw his claims as being, you know, idolatry.

They saw them as being claims of heresy, but your point here is a solid one, and that is that Jesus has the prerogatives of deity, claims to be able to forgive sin, and the

Jewish person is there and says, who can forgive sin but God alone? He receives worship.

Paul and Silas don't do that. Jesus accepts worship, he claims to be able to hear and answer prayer, he claims to judge humanity, to raise the dead, and so Jesus not only claims to be

God, not only appeals to some of the most sacred titles, but he acts.

You know, there are certain things only God can do. Jesus claims to be able to do the things that only

God can do, therefore Jesus is claiming to be God. And in fact, if Jesus were not

God, it would have been wicked of him to not defend himself and further explain what he meant when the

Jews were crying out for his death, the fact that he never tried to refute what they assumed he was saying, because the fact of the matter is, if he allowed them to go on thinking that he was culpable for them committing murder, even though it was his own murder, he would have been a contributing factor and that would have been sin.

If he allowed the Jews to cry out for his death, which led to the

Romans appeasing them, this would have been a great wickedness on the part of Christ, because they would have had that sin heaped upon their souls when they would be, you know, they would have been, if he had made it clear that what they were accusing him of, claiming to be

God, was a misunderstanding, he would have prevented them from being culpable of murder.

Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I mean, look, there is,

I've studied religious sects and cults most of my adult life, and Chris and Buzz, spiritual deception, abuse, deceit is one of the worst things that could possibly happen, and so we are confronted with Jesus's claims, and he's very forthright in confronting various positions, and I think that we need to emphasize that, you know, everybody has an opinion about Jesus.

I do, you do, the world's religions do, the cults do, but what did Jesus think of himself?

And in John 8, John 5, John 10, Mark 14, various places,

Jesus claims to be God in human flesh, and that's what the religious leaders of the time thought he was claiming.

That's why he was put to death. What are some prevalent heresies being taught about Christ within professing

Christendom and dare I say even evangelicalism today that you are aware of? Yeah, in chapter three of my book,

I kind of look at what I call a Christology, so I began to look at the theological issues that are relevant to the person of Christ, and focusing most of my attention on the

Incarnation. But clearly, as we've already seen, there are heresies that, they've never gone away, heresies are...today

we have cults and new religious movements, and they're kind of heresies dressed up in spacesuits, and so heresy is always something that is lurking at the door.

So when we look at certain parts of evangelicalism, there is confusion about things like modalism, that there's only one person in the

Godhead who simply changes forms. There, of course, are ideas about Jesus's death that are sometimes seen as heretical.

Chris, I think that, I think one of the biggest emphases that needs to be made is that we need solid

Christian churches that are teaching biblical doctrine, that are presenting a historic

Christian view of Christ, of the triune nature of God, and so evangelicalism certainly needs a lot of solid theological support.

And I'll say even this, I remember having a very skeptical professor who did not believe in the

Resurrection, and he discovered that I was a Reformed Christian, and he said something to me that I never forgot.

He said, you know, Reformed Christians almost always know exactly what they believe. And I think that that is something that the other branches of Christendom, the other denominations, can model, because we need to teach people what they believe and why they believe it, and that there is a fundamental difference between the

Jesus of historic Christianity and the Jesus of Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jesus of the Latter -day

Saints, the Jesus of the United Pentecostals, and, you know, doctrine is not something that is nice, it's absolutely essential.

And so we live in kind of an experiential world. We had that question earlier, where people want to judge their faith based upon the unusual experiences that they have.

There's too much church history that tells us that there are dangerous heresies that can shipwreck your faith, there are things that you must believe, and if you deny them, you have departed from historic

Christianity. And so these are points that we really need to be very firm, we need to be winsome and gracious.

You know, sometimes Reformed people are criticized that we talk a lot about grace, but we're not very gracious.

I want to be gracious. Those people are idiots, let me tell you. But I also want to be very firm about the truth.

Yes, and by the way, I was just joking there, Ken, I don't know if you heard. I said those people are idiots, but anyway.

Let's see, well one of the things that I think is a,

I don't know how widespread it is, but there is a heretical understanding of Christ that all surrounds, or I should say is rooted in, the fact that the

Scriptures say he was tempted in all ways such as we are, and people have derived from that due to a 20th and 21st century understanding of the word tempted.

They have derived from that that Jesus actually may have fantasized or thought about or almost committed sins, perhaps like some of the more blasphemous stories that have been concocted about Jesus and Mary Magdalene and so on, but they think that tempted means, like we use it today normally, if somebody is tempted to have a piece of chocolate cake when they've already eaten too much, they think that, you know, it is a similar thing that Jesus is mulling something around in his mind and just overcoming that, that desire.

In fact, I am not going to mention his name. He's a very famous evangelical broadcaster who, if I mention his name, not only would every

Christian listening very likely know who he is, but even some of my non -christian listeners would know who he is just because of the fact that he is a world -renowned and even involved in political discussion in television and radio.

But this individual actually said that Jesus wanted to commit sin at times, but he never yielded to that temptation because he was truly tempted in all ways such as we are.

And isn't wanting to commit sin sin that would have made him a sinner if he wanted to commit sin at times?

Yielding to it is besides the point. In fact, Jesus Christ is the one that put the magnifying glass over the

Ten Commandments and saying that even if we lust in our hearts, we've committed adultery. Right, right.

Now that's critically important, I mean, and I think in terms of my book God Amongst Ages, you know, the

Buddha and Confucius are very candid that they had faults, that they were broken people, that they had difficulty keeping their own moral principles.

So it is what separates Christ, one of the areas we've talked about, his death and his resurrection, but also his holiness, his perfect life.

I think that, you know, Christians sometimes don't appreciate how sinful we really are, that wanting to sin is in fact itself sinful.

And what we get from the New Testament is Jesus says to his family, can any of you point to any moral failure?

Even Pontius Pilate can't find any fault with this man. One of the things that separates

Jesus, again not just in degree but in kind, is his faultless life.

And that is something we shouldn't play around with. I think there are confusions that Christians have sometimes about, well, was

Jesus able not to sin, or was he not able to sin? But again, that drives us back to teaching about the person of Christ, that he was the only person without original sin, he's the only person that didn't break the commandments of God, he's the only person that did not miss the mark, and thus

Christ is righteous and holy, fulfilled the law of God, and therefore his fulfilling of that law can be applied to us as being justified by grace, true faith, alone in Christ, we stand justified as if we had kept the law because he kept it in our stead, we have been forgiven.

So these are issues that are very critical, and you know,

I want to help, I want to encourage our evangelical friends to take doctrine seriously.

I would love for them to take a peek at God Among Sages, because I teach a lot of Christology, I teach a lot of Christian doctrine in the early part of that book, and then do some comparing and contrasting.

So you're touching on things that are very important to me and dear to my heart. Could you please exegete

Hebrews 4 .15, that very verse that I was talking about, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin.

Yeah, that's such a wonderful passage, and I think what we need to convey to people is that Jesus was fully human.

He had a human nature, he was not, you know, we don't embrace a Gnostic or a

Docetist Christ, we believe that Christ had a full human nature, he was a real human being, and he encountered temptations, but he did not entertain them in such a way that he sinned.

You know, there's only one person in the history of the human race that has been tempted without succumbing to sin, and so we see there

Jesus's real humanity. He was, again, a single person with both a divine and human nature.

He was tempted, but the Scripture is categorically clear that he did not sin, and you can sin in your thoughts, you can sin in your words, you can sin in your deeds, you can sin by what you do, by what you fail to do, and in none of those ways do we see

Christ anything other than righteous, and I go back to that quote by Huston Smith, the powerful thing is that Jesus not only taught the

Sermon on the Mount, but he lived it, and nobody has lived the Sermon on the Mount other than Christ.

Amen. So in other words, the temptation that Christ has received in all things as we are were that is in reference to the outward forces surrounding him that tempted him, not that he was mulling things over in his mind and coming close to yielding to anything like this.

Exactly, yes, right. And I'd like you to summarize in about two minutes what you'd most want to leave our listeners with, what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before they leave this program today.

Well, I first of all want to say, Chris and Buzz, it's been a real privilege to be with you, and I think fondly of,

Chris, the things that the ministry opportunities we've had in the past, and the opportunity

I had to spend time with you and your wife. I want to encourage your listeners to take a look at my book, not from the standpoint of just wanting to sell books, but from the idea that this is a book that will really equip you.

I tried to write it like a tool chest. It contains lots of tools that will help you feel comfortable to be able to sit down, maybe with a

Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a person in another world religion, and be able to talk carefully and intelligently about the person of Christ.

I think lots of Christians don't share their faith because they feel rather intimidated, so this is a book that will help a

Christian to grow in their knowledge. It's also a book you could give to a non -Christian, maybe a non -Christian who's interested in how

Jesus differs with the various people. And again, I want to say how much I've enjoyed

Chris being on with you and Buzz, and I hope we can do it again.

It's been too long. In fact, when you get off, when we get off the air, I'd like you to hold on the line because I have a calendar right here and I'd like to schedule our next interview.

That'd be great. Thank you very much. And I'd like to remind our listeners that God Among Sages, Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader, is published by Baker Books, and if you'd like to purchase a copy of it for those of you who did not win one today by submitting a question, or even if you have won one today and you just want to order more to bless other people with a copy of this book, go to CVBBS .com.

That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

and Todd and Patty Jennings will be sure to sell that to you at a very competitive price.

They are very well known for having very low prices on their books, lower than you can get in many other

Christian book warehouses and so on. But thank you so much,

Ken, and please hold on the line and we will be right back with you to schedule our next discussion on Iron Sharpens Iron.

I want to thank the Reverend Buzz Taylor for being my co -host today. I want to thank everybody who listened. By the way, everybody who wrote in a question today is getting a free copy, if I forgot to mention that, they're getting a free copy of God Among Sages.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guests tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.