Is Jesus the Only God?
While Mark Driscoll doesn’t necessarily set out to create an apologetics text, he quickly finds himself having to deal with that issue. This first chapter does a good job of making us understand how Jesus would fit into today’s culture, and I’m not surprised by that, as Driscoll is so sensitive to culture.
He spends a lot of time discussing the various appearances of Jesus in pop culture, and to be honest I’m not sure what he was trying to accomplish. It makes for interesting reading. I am hoping to download some of the sermons from his Vintage jesus series; I’m curious as to how much transcription there was. I suspect that not only did he use his sermon material for the book, but some of the actual wording is a direct takeoff. Reading the book, I can so easily picture and hear Mark Driscoll as he preaches. The very style of his verbal delivery comes through in his writing, too.
This first chapter is a loose look at virtually everything that might be “thought” about Jesus, even offering a brief discussion of the demons thoughts about Jesus.
There’s a lot to discuss about this chapter, but for “book club” purposes, I want to grab onto a section from pages 21-23… “Jesus said He is God.” This is a bold statement of sorts, even though I personally agree. Driscoll’s first sentence in that section is this - “Jesus clearly, emphatically, and repeatedly said he is God.”
I suspect that Mark Driscoll is one of the most widely read and well read preachers I have personally listened to. This means that I am sure he has been exposed to multiple claims that “Jesus never said he was God.” I’ve heard it time and time again in discussions with atheists, agnostics, and even liberal Christians. He obviously knows that the Jehovah’s Witnesses use this line.
In my opinion, any time we say “Jesus clearly said He is God”, we need to be able to clearly back up our claim. I’m not sure Driscoll does a good job of that here. It is clear that the Jewish leaders were understanding Christ to claim to be God, and the use of “I am” is definitely a claim to being God. However, I’m still, personally, at a great loss as to convincing rebuttal to this claim.
To answer a naysayer with “Yes, He did,” but not have my “gun” fully loaded is frustrating to me. Make no mistake, I fully believe that Jesus was fully God. However, I’m not astute enough to have a verse in the Bible that I know right off the top of my head. If nothing else, Driscoll is encouraging me to “get my junk in a bag” and know what I’m talking about - at least know the Scriptures that drive my personal belief system. At least one Scripture.
Driscoll is the master of 10, 15, or more points in a sermon. In a way, I really like his approach to preaching. He doesn’t want to tease us, he wants to truly educate us as his listeners or readers. There have been thousands of sermons preached, thousands of books written, and thousands of songs sang about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, and Christianity in general. Yet, it’s still amazing that there are continually new ways being found to express our thoughts about this wonder that we call Life in Christ.
