For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

2 Corinthians 11:4

A.W. Tozer is right, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” How you view God, and even more specifically Jesus Christ, will determine the type of life you will live, the convictions you form and the importance you place on yourself.

How you see Jesus matters. And even 2 Corinthians points to the idea that it is possible to be worshipping a Jesus that doesn’t exist.  People of his day were preaching a different Jesus than the Jesus that Paul knew and loved which resulted in shipwrecked lives and damaged faith. And I am afraid the Jesus that is being worshipped in many of our churches today bears no resemblance to the man who actually walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

This truth came to my attention yesterday as I was reading the book, Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas. Toward the beginning of the book Mr. Metaxas describes the German church’s majority viewpoint on how God was being preached and taught in the 1500s before Martin Luther became a monk. Here is what he says:

“Part of the difficulty that Luther would find as he trod this well-worn path, (a young religious supplicant on his way to monkhood), was that God the Father and Jesus the Son were both principally thought of as fierce judges. So the role of comforter fell to Mary, the human one who understood us and our trials, the soft mother full of grace who could protect her beloved child from harsh and unyielding men…Jesus was every bit as distant and remote and terrible and as God the Father ever had been.”

So in the ancient person’s mind, Jesus was not a God to take refuge in, but a God to run from and do everything in your power to appease. Metaxas continues, “And he (the supplicant) would realize that either there was no way for man to touch God – or there must be another way than the one they had been following. Either salvation was universally impossible or the whole current system-including the fearsome God behind it-was a diabolical hoax.”

So the church, in the 1500s, taught people to run to Mary, Jesus’ mother because she would protect the poor, helpless supplicant from the harsh and often capricious whims of an angry tyrant for a God and his equally harsh Son. She became the real Savior for many and still is because she was the one who truly loved.

I can remember talking to my crusty Grandfather about God, this is the exact God he believed in. Rarely did he enjoy life, he could often be found stooped over his rosary beads saying silent prayers to Mary while I had to tip-toe through the living room making sure not to disturb him. His God scared me, and he seemed untouchable. But so did my Grandfather. Old and angry, it was impossible for me to worship a God like that.

But as the years have gone by, and the medieval superstitions have faded away because of scientific advancement and technological brilliance, our need for God and his protection has also faded. God the angry Father has been stuffed in the closet with the rest of the old religious artifacts. A new historical liberation from the angry God now reigns supreme in the minds of men. In the mid-1900s, atheistic philosophers started spreading their wings and even declared in no uncertain terms, “God is dead!” The old dusty God was no longer to be feared.

Jesus, on the other hand, went through an extreme make-over of his own. He was no longer angry, instead, he became a good buddy who was invited to the party. As long as he brought some of his spiritual miracle magic, he was allowed to hang around. I like how C.S. Lewis in his essay “God in the Dock” puts it:

“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock.”

Jesus has been acquitted in our day and age because he is now considered a pretty cool guy. In the 60’s he was seen promoting free-love, in the 70’s he was passing around a marijuana joint with the Doobie Brothers as they sang “Jesus is just alright”, and he has been a favorite with the health and prosperity preachers since the 80’s all the way up until now, “Wanna get rich and buy a yacht, just ask Jesus, he will do anything for you.”

Jesus is now so cool he actively promotes the complete dismantling of the family. “Jesus won’t judge me, he loves me just the way I am. Even if I want to change my gender, leave my spouse, marry my dog and get high on meth.” No longer do we see him as the creator, he lets you create whatever world you want, you can be who you want to be, and he gives your new creation his stamp of non-judgmental approval and love. You don’t believe me, just ask the latest Bachelorette, Hannah Brown (our new gorgeous guru for societal mores), after she slept with three different men in one television episode. She says, “I have had sex and Jesus still loves me…I refuse to believe I give Christians a bad name…I refuse to live in shame.” Don’t you see, Jesus is there for her, standing at the edge of her bed cheering her on with cameras rolling to promote a new age of sexual liberation and bliss with any guy she wants to be with.

Isn’t the modern-day Jesus so cool, nice, and naive? Gotta love him. The only problem with the new Jesus is why in the world would anyone want to worship him?  He now worships us!

So how is Jesus actually portrayed in the pages of scripture? Because, as A. W. Tozer said, it matters how we think about him.

When Jesus presented himself in the temple for the very first time he chose a scripture from Isaiah to read from. He chose it because it tells us why he came and who he is. It is found in Luke 4:17-21, here is what it says, 

“The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

   ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

    He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

    to set the oppressed free,

    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’”

What Jesus says here, is that his in first coming to earth he came to proclaim “GOOD NEWS” and recovery of sight for the blind. So Jesus is clearly saying he is not the old mean and angry God the early medieval church promoted. He has come to bless and save us. And we don’t need Mary because we have him. He is not a God who we should hide under a rock from.

But notice something else, he also came to set captives free. What kind of captivity is he talking about? All through his ministry, he teaches that sin is killing us, and like chains and shackles, it puts us in bondage. He has come to set us free from sin. As Romans 6:1-3 says, “Don’t live in it any longer, that is why he died in the first place.” Sin kills, it destroys, and it ruins the design that God wants for you.

But here is where you do need to sit up and pay attention. The passage Jesus read from is found in a wonderful part of the Old Testament, Isaiah 61:1-2. But if you were to read it closely he left out the very last sentence of the verse. Here is what the complete version of verse 2 says and see if you can see what he left out, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.”

What? Why did he leave out the “day of vengeance of our God.”? Because that will happen the next time he comes. The first time Jesus came was to win our hearts, to bring good news, to set us free, The second time he is coming he is going to punish those who treat him like he is “a stupid and naive impotent small god”. Listen to how 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 puts it:

“God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.  He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.”

So which Jesus do you worship? The old God or the young and naive one? And does it even matter?

I think it does. No, I know it does!