You wouldn’t know that by the relentless, organized, coordinated assault on the historical Jesus Christ that continues to this day from multiple directions.

The attacks have one objective — to discredit, deny, reduce, downgrade and diminish: 1) Christ’s Person as fully God and fully man, and/or 2) His atoning work on the cross to save humankind from its sins.

Many so-called “higher critics” paint Him as an effeminate, powerless, namby-pamby victim of circumstances that eventually would cost Him His life.

Sadly, this blasphemous diminishment of Christ and His saving work has infected many traditional churches of our day.

In my book, My Origin, My Destiny, I wrote: 

“… to increase the appeal of Christianity to the masses, many mainstream denominations have dumbed down the central message of salvation and morphed it into a social gospel that sounds more like a pop psychology self-help seminar than a matter of (spiritual) life and death. H. Richard Niebuhr put it this way: 

“We have made Christian faith the story of how a God without wrath brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment, through the ministration of a Christ without a cross!”

Ignorance of Christ Is NOT Bliss

The reason such assaults against Christ succeed is the widespread biblical illiteracy of many of those who claim to be His followers.

Succumbing to modern man’s “fruit fly” attention spans, we want dumbed down religion dished up in bite size, easily digestible portions, usually disconnected from their contexts.

Our resultant scriptural ignorance makes us easy prey to the countless wolves in sheep’s clothing who slip in unnoticed.

Thus, we have various imaginary Jesus’ floating around in the minds of Christians and unbelievers alike who is a pipsqueak, would-be social reformer lacking the power to swat a fly.

No wonder so many churches have no real transforming effect on the world around them. If such conditions prevailed two millennia ago, Christianity would have died off without a trace.

Don’t Say We Weren’t Warned

In one of the hundreds of Old Testament messianic Psalms, Israel is warned to be on the lookout for their Messiah and honor Him, or suffer the consequences.

As written in Psalm 2:12:

“Kiss his son, or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

Unfortunately, Israel chose to dishonor and kill their Messiah and, in 70 AD, Israel’s enemies, the Romans, conquered and totally destroyed their temple, and razed Jerusalem, before dispersing the surviving Jews to the four corners of the Roman empire.

The same choice is given to all men everywhere in every age … Receive and embrace Messiah Jesus and take refuge in Him or perish in the flame of God’s wrath.

Now that’s no milquetoast message.

Will the Real Christ Please Stand Up?

In a dramatic scene in Heaven as recorded in Revelation 5:5-11 we read:

“And one of the elders *said to me, ‘Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to be able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’

“And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slaughtered …’ Worthy are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slaughtered, and You purchased people for God with Your blood from every tribe, language, people, and nation.

“You have made them into a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.”

Bible commentator Bill MacDonald wrote, “In Revelation our Lord is presented both as Lamb and Lion. As the Lamb of God, He is the sacrificial One, bearing away the sins of the world. As the Lion, He is the judge, punishing His enemies. At His first coming, He was the Lamb. At His second coming, He will be the Lion.”

And in a final scene in Heaven, from Revelation 19:11-16:

“And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh, He has a name written: ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’”

Underestimate Him at your peril.