Why is Jesus The Answer?

Dear Believer:
You ask me to accept Jesus as my personal Savior; yet his behavior and
teachings often expose one who should be escaped, not sought. I ask
only that you read what follows in the spirit of open-mindedness taught
in Prov. 15:10 NIV (”he who hates correction will die”) and Prov. 12:1
NASB (”he who hates reproof is stupid”) because I seek to “Prove all
things” (1 Thess. 5:21).

1. While on the Cross Jesus said, “My God my God, why hast thou forsaken
me” (Mark 15:34). How could Jesus be our savior when he couldn’t even
save himself? Those aren’t the words of a man voluntarily dying for our
sins; those are the words of a man who can think of a hundred other
places he would rather be.

2. Jesus said, “whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of
hell fire” (Matt. 5:22). Yet, he himself did so repeatedly, as Matt.
23:17, 19 and Luke 11:40 and 12:20 show. Shouldn’t he be in danger of
hell too?

3. Except those of biased Christian writers, there isn’t one writing
outside the Bible in all of ancient history that clearly refers to Jesus
of Nazareth.

4. Isn’t Jesus a false prophet since he wrongly predicted in Matt. 12:40
that he would be buried three days and three nights as Jonah was in the
whale three days and three nights? Friday afternoon to early Sunday
morning is only one and a half days.

5. Jesus’ prophecy in John 13:38 (“The cock shall not crow, till thou
[Peter] hast denied me three times”) is false. Mark 14:66-68 shows the
cock crowed after the first denial, not the third.

6. How could Jesus be our model of sinless perfection when he denies he
is morally perfect in Matt. 19:17 (”And Jesus said unto him, Why callest
thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God”)?

7. In 1 Cor. 1: 1 7 (”For Christ sent me [Paul] not to baptize but to
preach the gospel”) Paul said Jesus was wrong when he said in Matt.
28:19 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them….” So
how could Jesus be the fountain of wisdom?

8. How could Jesus, whom the New Testament repeatedly refers to as the
son of man, be our savior when this is clearly forestalled by Psalm
146:3 (”Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom
there is no help”) and Job 25:6 (”How much less man, that is a worm? and
the son of man, which is a worm”)?

9. How can Jesus be God when he repeatedly said he was not God’s equal,
wasn’t God? Obvious examples are: John 14:28 (“…for my Father is
greater than I”), John 20:17 (”I ascend unto my Father, and your Father,
and to my God, and your God”), and John 7:16 (”My doctrine is not mine
but his that sent me”).

10. While on the Cross Jesus said, “Forgive them Father they know not
what they do.” To whom was he speaking? They say, “God.” But I
thought he was God. How can God speak to God if there is only one god?
That’s two gods.

11. Jesus told us to “honor thy father and mother” (Matt. 15:4), but
contradicted his own teaching in Luke 14:26 (”If any man comes to me and
does not hate his father and mother … he cannot be my disciple”).

12. In John 3:13 (”And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that
came down from heaven, even the Son of man…) Jesus erred because 2
Kings 2:11 (“. . . and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven”) shows
Elijah went up earlier.

13. In Matt. 16:28 Jesus said, “There be some standing here, which shall
not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his
kingdom.” Yet, they all died and he never came.

14. Jesus told us to “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you,” but
ignored his own advice by repeatedly denouncing his opposition. Matt.
23:17 (’Ye fools and blind”), Matt. 12:34 (”O generation of vipers”),
and Matt. 23:27 (”. . . hypocrites … ye are like unto whited
sepulchres…”) are excellent examples of hypocrisy.

15. Even many of the staunchest defenders of Jesus admit that his
comment in Matt. 10:34 (”I came not to send peace but a sword”)
contradicts verses such as Matt. 26:52 (”Put up again thy sword into his
place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword”).

16. The Messiah must be a physical descendant of David (Rom. 1:3, Acts
2:30). Yet, how could Jesus meet this requirement since his genealogies
in Matt. 1 and Luke 3 show he descended from David through Joseph, who
was not his natural father (the Virgin Birth)?

17. Jesus told a man in Mark 8:34 that “whosoever will come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” The obvious
question is: What cross? He hadn’t yet died on the cross. There was
nothing to take up. That man would have had no idea what he was talking
about.

18. In Mark 10:19 Jesus told a man to follow the Commandments. Yet one
of those listed by Jesus was “defraud not,” which isn’t even an Old
Testament commandment.

19. In Luke 12:4 Jesus told his followers to “Be not afraid of them that
kill the body.” But Matt. 12:14-16, John 7:1, 8:59, 10:39, 11:53-54,
and Mark 1:45 show that he hid, escaped, and slunk around often.

20. In Luke 23:43 Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today shalt
thou be with me in paradise.” But how could they have been together in
paradise that day if Jesus lay in the tomb for three days?

21. For Jesus to be executed for our sins makes about as much sense as
my son telling a judge that he would accept execution for my crimes.
Although a nice gesture, it has nothing to do with justice. What judge
worthy of the title would agree?

22. Lastly, in Matt. 15:24 Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel,” but later told his followers to “Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations” (Matt 28:19). To whom, then, are they
to go–only to the Jews, or everyone?

-A special thanks to Dennis McKinsey whose site, Biblical Errancy, can be found in our links.