JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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Could a demented person produce such a sermon?
If Jesus were demented then one would hope that the whole world were affected with His
kind of insanity!
LEGEND
A third alternative is that either the Person of Jesus or His claims to deity is but a legend,
that the stories themselves are legendary. To believe that Jesus Himself is mere legend is flying
in the face of an overwhelming number of evidences outlined in chapters 2 and 3. It would be
incredible and inconceivable that the One whose birth was without question the greatest event in
human history is pure legend. His momentous birth that has changed the course of history is even
reflected in our calendars as history has been divided into two parts—B.C., before Christ; and
A.D., anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. Those who believe that Jesus is legendary, view the
belief in Jesus' claims to deity as equally incredible. They believe that what actually happened
was that Jesus' enthusiastic followers, in the third and fourth centuries, put into Jesus' mouth
words He would have been shocked to hear and would have repudiated. For the disciples to have
created such a person as Jesus would be nothing less than phenomenal. In fact, the biblical record
shows that these followers had a very difficult time even grasping who Jesus was (Peter being
the first). They slowly learned what His teaching meant and found it difficult to apply it to their
own lives. If there is one thing that impresses us about them, it is that they were cut out of the
same cloth of humanity that we are. They were representative of humanity at large. Since Jesus is
beyond human comprehension, only God could reveal such a Person and only God could be such
a Person. The finite mind cannot comprehend, much less produce, the infinite. Like begets like.
This is true in the realm of imagination as well as in the physical and material realm.
To propose, therefore, that the Jesus propagated by the disciples is the figment of their
own imagination (in that their portrait of Him is exaggerated), is simply ludicrous. Such a belief
requires a giant leap of credulity!
Testimonies of Jesus' Character
The contemporaries of Jesus gave the following unusual testimonies concerning Him:
"I have sinned, for I have betrayed innocent blood" (Mt 27:4).
--Judas Iscariot
"I find no basis for a charge against this man" (Lk 23:4).
--Pontius Pilate
"He commited no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. . . .
A lamb without blesmish or defect" (1 Pe 2:22; 1:9).
--Apostle Peter
"He had no sin" (2 Co 5:21).
--Apostle Paul