WEBVTT

00:00.000 --> 00:03.720
The fact is, you said there were two facts
that you went after.

00:03.940 --> 00:04.880
And what were they again?

00:05.380 --> 00:07.180
First one, did Jesus claim to be the Son
of God?

00:07.340 --> 00:10.480
And then secondly, did He back that up by
returning from the dead?

00:10.620 --> 00:10.620
Ankerberg.

00:10.920 --> 00:11.360
All right.

00:11.620 --> 00:12.620
How did you go about it?

00:12.700 --> 00:12.700
Hitchcock.

00:12.700 --> 00:15.800
Well, the first thing I did, John,
I thought, well, a good historian probably

00:15.800 --> 00:17.220
wants to go to the earliest sources.

00:17.600 --> 00:20.340
And so I thought, well, what's the
earliest biography of Jesus?

00:20.460 --> 00:24.240
It's the Gospel of Mark, which most people
believe was the first of the Gospels

00:24.240 --> 00:24.500
written.

00:24.660 --> 00:26.980
It was based on the eyewitness account of
the apostle Peter.

00:27.500 --> 00:32.560
So I open it up, and the first thing I
notice is that Jesus, the most common way

00:32.560 --> 00:35.200
He refers to Himself is not as the Son of
God.

00:35.560 --> 00:36.700
It's as the Son of Man.

00:37.140 --> 00:38.320
So I said, well, case closed.

00:38.460 --> 00:39.600
He never claimed to be the Son of God.

00:39.740 --> 00:41.360
He's just saying, I'm the Son of Man.

00:41.380 --> 00:43.340
I'm just like you and everybody else.

00:43.680 --> 00:44.500
That's what I thought.

00:44.580 --> 00:45.960
And then I delved deeper.

00:46.660 --> 00:50.660
And what I found out is that when Jesus
referred to Himself as the Son of Man,

00:50.980 --> 00:52.600
He wasn't just claiming humanity.

00:52.620 --> 00:54.320
He was claiming so much more than that.

00:54.320 --> 00:58.760
Because what He was doing was applying to
Himself the description of the Son of Man

00:58.760 --> 01:01.640
that's found in the Bible, in the Hebrew
Scriptures, the Old Testament,

01:02.080 --> 01:03.200
in Daniel chapter 7.

01:03.300 --> 01:08.260
And if you look there, what you find are
divine qualities to the Son of Man.

01:08.320 --> 01:11.660
That is, He comes to judge all of
humankind.

01:12.300 --> 01:15.020
He has sovereignty, complete sovereignty
and power.

01:15.300 --> 01:16.680
He is worshipped by all people.

01:16.740 --> 01:17.920
Only God is worshipped.

01:18.300 --> 01:19.880
His kingdom will last forever.

01:19.880 --> 01:24.540
I mean, these qualities that you read in
Daniel chapter 7 are divine.

01:24.660 --> 01:29.500
And so what Jesus is doing is applying
that to Himself and saying, I am more than

01:29.500 --> 01:30.440
just a man.

01:30.440 --> 01:31.700
I am the Son of Man.

01:32.220 --> 01:35.000
And so all of a sudden I'm like,
whoa, okay, wait a minute, maybe there's

01:35.000 --> 01:35.200
more.

01:35.420 --> 01:40.600
One of my favorite examples of what He
said, and this gets missed by a lot of

01:40.600 --> 01:44.160
folks, I think, in Mark chapter 6,
is where Jesus is walking on the water.

01:44.300 --> 01:45.300
Everybody knows that story.

01:45.300 --> 01:49.820
And most Bibles translate His words as
saying, fear not, it is I.

01:50.660 --> 01:54.780
But actually, I delve deeper, and what you
find in the original Greek in which the

01:54.780 --> 01:59.460
New Testament is written, what Jesus
actually said was, fear not, I am.

02:00.060 --> 02:01.000
But what is I am?

02:01.140 --> 02:05.120
That is the way that God revealed Himself
to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus.

02:05.540 --> 02:07.720
And so all of a sudden He's making another
claim.

02:07.760 --> 02:12.060
And then it becomes even more overt in His
trial before Caiaphas, the high priest,

02:12.420 --> 02:16.280
where you just ask Him point blank,
are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed

02:16.280 --> 02:16.560
One?

02:17.040 --> 02:19.820
And the first two words out of Jesus'
mouth are, I am.

02:19.940 --> 02:19.940
Ankerberg.

02:19.940 --> 02:21.280
Yeah, we need to slow that down.

02:21.820 --> 02:22.740
Are you the Christ?

02:22.780 --> 02:24.420
That's the Messiah, okay?

02:24.980 --> 02:26.160
Are you the Son of the Blessed One?

02:26.180 --> 02:29.880
They wouldn't say God because they just
didn't do that in the Jewish culture.

02:29.960 --> 02:31.880
The fact is, but that's what it meant.

02:32.000 --> 02:33.240
Are you the Son of God as well?

02:33.660 --> 02:35.500
Double header, He says, I am.

02:35.560 --> 02:37.540
And then He adds something that goes even
worse than that.

02:37.720 --> 02:38.000
He does.

02:38.120 --> 02:42.040
He says, and you will see me on the right
hand of the Mighty One and coming in the

02:42.040 --> 02:42.600
clouds of heaven.

02:42.660 --> 02:43.700
That's coming in judgment.

02:43.820 --> 02:44.980
That's coming to judge humankind.

02:45.180 --> 02:48.120
Which is ironic, John, when you think
about it, because in effect He was saying

02:48.120 --> 02:51.480
to Caiaphas, oh, excuse me, you think
you're trying me?

02:52.340 --> 02:54.060
Quite the opposite is true here.

02:54.800 --> 02:58.820
And so how does Caiaphas respond when
Jesus, and by the way, that is a reference

02:58.820 --> 02:59.960
to Daniel chapter 7.

03:00.180 --> 03:03.660
He's applying that Son of Man to Himself.

03:03.800 --> 03:06.140
And so how does Caiaphas understand what
He says?

03:06.560 --> 03:07.920
He declares blasphemy.

03:07.980 --> 03:08.320
Why?

03:08.420 --> 03:11.160
Because Jesus is claiming to be God.

03:11.540 --> 03:15.220
It was clear to him, and it's clear as you
read through the biographies of Jesus,

03:15.640 --> 03:18.120
how this theme just repeats itself.

03:18.380 --> 03:22.940
In John chapter 10, verse 30, Jesus says,
I and the Father are one.

03:23.180 --> 03:26.400
And the word in Greek for one there means
one in essence.

03:27.020 --> 03:30.300
And so how does the audience understand
what Jesus is saying?

03:30.500 --> 03:31.940
They pick up stones to kill Him.

03:31.960 --> 03:32.220
Why?

03:32.340 --> 03:36.960
Because they say, you, being a mere man,
claim to be God.

03:36.960 --> 03:40.500
They understood perfectly what He was
saying, and they were going to kill Him

03:40.500 --> 03:40.840
for it.

03:41.020 --> 03:45.040
So I mean, I walked away from this,
John, saying, wait a minute, Jesus at

03:45.040 --> 03:49.200
least clearly made the claim that He is
the Son of God.

03:49.560 --> 03:50.160
That's clear.

03:50.280 --> 03:52.540
Now, the next question is, did He back it
up?

03:52.600 --> 03:54.540
Because anybody, I could claim I'm the Son
of God.

03:55.240 --> 03:58.140
The question is, does He have any
credentials to back it up?

03:58.460 --> 04:02.360
And it's remarkable, John, this is back in
the earliest records we have about Jesus.

04:02.360 --> 04:07.100
This is not some legend that developed in
the century or so after He died,

04:07.160 --> 04:07.840
which is what I thought.

04:07.900 --> 04:12.720
The idea that He was God, that He was
claiming to be more than just a human

04:12.720 --> 04:16.680
being, I thought this was stuff of legend
and mythology that developed a long time

04:16.680 --> 04:16.980
later.

04:17.020 --> 04:19.160
We go back to the earliest records about
Jesus.

04:19.400 --> 04:22.360
From the get-go, He's making these
extraordinary claims.

04:22.420 --> 04:26.260
He's telling parables about the wicked
tenants.

04:26.700 --> 04:31.700
And the message of that parable that He
tells is that He is the Son of God who was

04:31.700 --> 04:33.260
sent and killed as a result.

04:33.540 --> 04:34.420
Ankerbergsen Yeah, I like John A.T.

04:34.500 --> 04:37.480
Robinson, the guy that helped start the
Death of God movement and is redating the

04:37.480 --> 04:37.820
Gospels.

04:37.880 --> 04:41.380
He put this thing we're talking about,
the Gospel of Mark, as early as 40.

04:41.860 --> 04:45.460
Now, I'm saying, I'm not sure I agree with
that, but the fact that it's at 40,

04:45.520 --> 04:48.680
that's 10 years off the time Jesus in His
resurrection.

04:49.040 --> 04:54.540
I'm saying 10 years, man, these accounts
that we're talking about of Jesus saying

04:54.540 --> 04:56.620
these things are on the newsstands in
Jerusalem.

04:56.620 --> 05:03.220
And so you've got really solid evidence
that Jesus claimed to be God.

05:03.560 --> 05:06.840
Now when that struck into your mind,
what did it do to you?

05:06.900 --> 05:09.380
Ankerberg Yeah, and by the way,
we even have earlier stuff than that

05:09.380 --> 05:12.280
because we've got creeds of the early
church that go back, which had this

05:12.280 --> 05:18.700
annoying tendency as I looked at them to
affirm that Jesus is the, you know,

05:18.720 --> 05:24.120
the face of the invisible God,
and it reaffirmed that He is divine.

05:24.120 --> 05:27.140
And these are beliefs that go back even
before Mark was written.

05:27.920 --> 05:28.280
And...

05:28.280 --> 05:30.940
Ankerberg I'm just saying, how did it hit
you when you started, when this started to

05:30.940 --> 05:31.480
dawn on you?

05:31.600 --> 05:34.480
Ankerberg Well, first of all, I was
surprised because again, I thought this

05:34.480 --> 05:37.480
was going to take a couple of days for me
to deal with and I'd be done with it.

05:37.560 --> 05:41.480
But the more I looked at it, I thought,
wait a minute, Son of Man, He's making a

05:41.480 --> 05:42.140
divine claim.

05:42.340 --> 05:47.680
Look at these parables He would tell that
would position Himself in an extraordinary

05:47.680 --> 05:49.500
manner superior to all human beings.

05:50.540 --> 05:55.000
He is clearly, clearly saying something
that is dramatic, that is powerful.

05:55.280 --> 05:59.260
And the audience that He's talking to
understood it that way.

05:59.740 --> 06:01.580
You know, we can read it today and say,
well, how do you get this?

06:01.640 --> 06:03.740
But look at how the people reacted of His
day.

06:03.820 --> 06:05.240
They wanted to kill Him because He's