Originally posted by answers
... Jesus Christ claimed to be the true and living God...
Actually, No, Jesus NEVER claimed to be God.
unbound.biola.edu
We have nothing that was written by Jesus. We have some stories written ABOUT Jesus, many years after Jesus died, but we have no document where Jesus claimed to be God.
What we do have is a society that was starting to enjoy fiction as a form of literature, and one of the most popular words was The Book of Enoch, where an OT hero was elevated to the status of angel and given a title, The Son of Man.
Anyone familiar with the Book of Enoch would have recognized that Jesus is quoting from it, not making a claim about himself.
Matthew 16:27
'For, the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father, with his messengers, and then he will reward each, according to his work.
Matthew 16:28
Verily I say to you, there are certain of those standing here who shall not taste of death till they may see the Son of Man coming in his reign.'
If Jesus was the Son of Man, why would they have to wait until they "saw the Son of Man coming in his reign"?
Jesus was already there.
The Son of Man was not.
Here's some unsound thinking from Josh McDowell (Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict [Nashville: Nelson, 1999], 321.)
If God became a man, then we would expect him to:
Have an utterly unique entrance into human history.
(Why? Being born of an unverifable virgin birth is a side-show gimmick, not a sign of an all-powerful God.)
Be without sin.
(Christian dogma - first you would have to believe that all ordinary human beings must be sinful, which requires that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowlegde, a silly myth that doesn't bear scrutiny)
Manifest His supernatural presence in the form of supernatural acts—that is, miracles.
(Yes, miracles. More side-show flim-flam. If I can perform miracles - like David Copperfield - then I must be God. Nonsense)
Live more perfectly than any human who has ever lived.
Speak the greatest words ever spoken.
(Jesus missed the boat on this one - unless he spoke them and no one wrote them down.)
Have a lasting and universal influence.
Satisfy the spiritual hunger in humanity.
Overcome humanity's most pervasive and feared enemy—death.
(More nonsense. The concept of human beings dying and going to meet God is God's idea, right? So why would God overcome God's plan for us to die? McDowell can't even get his own theology down.)