JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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Here we see the extreme deceptiveness of the false prophets where they are almost able
to deceive the very "elect." Such religious hucksters are most deadly when they are most
sophisticated religiously and theologically. For they can look like the real thing. This should not
surprise us in light of Paul's warning:
"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles
of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.
Their end will be what their actions deserve" (2 Co 11:13-15).
"For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly
slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of God
into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign
and Lord" (Jude 4).
The devil is not so dangerous when he is dressed in red underwear and proudly holds his
pitchfork. He is most harmful and destructive when he sits in the pew, lectures in the classroom,
and even preaches from the pulpit.
Who are these "wolves in sheep's clothing, these false prophets, false apostles, false
christs (antichrists)?
They are theological or religious liberals (to which many humanists belong) who have
reduced Jesus to a mere human being. The world-famed medical missionary and Nobel price
recipient Albert Schweitzer, prior to going to Africa, wrote two brilliant books dealing with "the
historical quest of Jesus" that shaped scholarly studies concerning the person of Jesus for the rest
of the century. Schweitzer's image of Jesus was that of an eschatological prophet who expected
the events in the immediate future to bring all history to a close and saw His death as playing a
decisive role in bringing about the end. But Jesus was mistaken since the end did not come and
He died perhaps realizing His mistake. This image of Jesus as an eschatological prophet
gradually became the consensus among scholars and is still felt in seminaries throughout the
world.
Liberalism in its blind skepticism has trivialized the Bible by reducing it to a mere
human document. And liberals keep flooding the secular bookstores with their "newest
discoveries" (e.g. Barbara Thiering and her Jesus the Man: A New Interpretation from the Dead
Sea Scrolls, John Dominic Crossan and his Jesus and The Historical Jesus, THE FIVE
GOSPELS by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar; Ian Wilson and his
Jesus: A Life, and Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus by John Shelby
Spong).