Pastor Mark Schwarzbauer PhD

Family Worship Center

Luke 22:66-71

66 As soon as it was day, the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, came together and led Him into their council, saying, 67 “If You are the Christ, tell us.”

Luke 22:66-71

But He said to them, “If I tell you, you will by no means believe. 68 And if I also ask you, you will by no means answer Me or let Me go. 69 Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God.”

Luke 22:66-71 70 Then they all said, “Are You then the Son of God?”So He said to them, “You rightly say that I am.”71 And they said, “What further testimony do we need? For we have heard it ourselves from His own mouth.”

Part One: The Exclusive Claim

The Exclusive Claim

Not only did Jesus clearly claim to be God in the flesh,

He specifically stated that He was the ONLY way to get to

heaven, John 14:6.

The Exclusive Claim

We shared 6 other scriptures clearly stating Jesus was

God. Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh,

His disciples affirmed it. Paul expounded it.

The Amazing Determination• Everyone who confronted Jesus or was

confronted by Jesus had to make a determination; was Jesus really the Messiah, God in physical form, and the only way to heaven as He specifically claimed?

• What will YOU do with Jesus?• The struggle is both logical and emotional.

Let’s look at the logical today and the emotional next week.

Part Two: The Exclusive Logic

Jesus Claimed Ultimate Exclusivity

• To claim He is God means, Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna and all others are wrong.• To claim He is the only way to

get to heaven means that no other religion will get you to heaven.

Jesus Claimed Ultimate Exclusivity

• Pertaining to this Ravi Zacharias states “You may not agree with Him. But Jesus has made a most meaningful statement.”

Jesus Claimed Ultimate Exclusivity

• These are extremely exclusive statements, in a culture that hates exclusivity • (or put another way whose

pluralism demands exclusive non-exclusivity.)

Jesus Claimed Ultimate Exclusivity

The problem with hating exclusivity is

that truth is by definition exclusive.

The LAW of Non-Contradiction

• The Laws of Logic – The Law of Non-contradiction. Something cannot be both A and Non-A at the same time. Opposite assertions cannot be true at the same time.

The LAW of Non-Contradiction• You cannot defeat this Law. The

moment you open your mouth to argue against the Law of Non-contradiction you are proving it!• This is why the Eastern Mystic

says… “He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know!”

The LAW of Non-Contradiction“Aristotle says that without the principle of non-contradiction we could not know anything that we do know. … the principle of non-contradiction is a principle of scientific inquiry, reasoning and communication that we cannot do without.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-noncontradiction

The LAW of Non-Contradiction

Therefore to hate exclusivity is to

ultimately hate both logic and truth.

The Ultimate Contradictions

• 1. Those who say “There are no absolutes…” contradict themselves because to say there are no absolutes is an absolute!

The Ultimate Contradictions

• 2. Those who tell you “You can’t exclude people” are doing just that… they are excluding those who hold to logical exclusivity.

The Ultimate Contradictions

• 3. The contradiction of the BOTH/ AND…• The view of Either /Or

vs. Both/And.

The moral of this story is that all religions are like these men. The different religions each touch a different part of ultimate reality. Therefore Christianity is arrogant to say it has the exclusive truth.

The Ultimate ContradictionsDid you catch the incredible

contradiction? The person telling the story claims all religions are

blind and only he/she can truly see! These leaders only had a small

perspective but the narrator sees the whole picture… Now who is

truly being arrogant?

The Ultimate Contradictions

Still, the real issueis not about who is

arrogant, but what is actually

true and real.

The Ultimate Contradictions

3. You can’t use the Either/Or… you Must

use the Both/And.

The Ultimate Contradictions• 3. You can’t use the Either/Or… you

Must use the Both/And.• What is wrong with the above

statement? Rephrased… “In other words I must either use the Both/And or nothing at all?”• They are using the Either/Or to

demand you only use the Both/And!

The Ultimate ContradictionsSimple logic defeats all arguments

against exclusivity. However, many people don’t function by logic; their

lives are run by emotion. Next week we will look at how to lovingly

present truth in the midst of illogical emotion.

The Pilot’s Seat