Jesus was just a moral teacher. Discuss (40 marks).

"Jesus was just a moral teacher.” Discuss (40 marks)

Many people believe that Jesus was a teacher of morality. His actions and lifestyle made him an example to humanity as to how we should live and treat each other. His teachings and moral example tend to inspire many Christians and others as he is believed to be a good and a holy man who lived a life close to God and advocated repentance, forgiveness and spiritual purity. This makes him a perfect example for others. His teachings also focused on loving others, healing the sick and looking out for the outcasts, the vulnerable and the disposed. Instead of being greedy for power and wealth he saw it as a problem. Jesus’ morality also contained a message of good news: salvation from sin and death and being reborn to eternal life. This made his ideas of reincarnation and the idea of being divine an inspiration and a goal for others. Therefore, without doubt we can claim that Jesus was a moral teacher but to claim that he was just a moral teacher is a very reductionist statement. This is because, Jesus was so much more than a moral teacher. He was a liberator, a wisdom teacher, a social revolutionary and the son of God. Had he not fit into all these categories, we would not refer to him as the “messiah” or as the “anointed one”.  In this essay I will endeavour to disprove the statement that the question gives via scholars such as C.S. Lewis, Richard Dawkins and sources from the Bible and the sermon on the mount.

Throughout the Bible, Jesus is portrayed as a great moral teacher. His way of thinking was extremely ahead of its time. In a time where people were segregated because of illness, race and gender, he alone aimed to unite all his people regardless of their class, wealth and situation. He was a man who could have used his great power to achieve wealth or military status, but he chose to be with his people instead, he chose to do what was right rather than to do what was socially accepted at the time. He even broke laws in order to prove that we can not claim to be religious by following the Bible whilst our brothers and sisters are suffering. He shows this on one sabbath day when he decides to ask the people a very simple yet a blasphemous question. He asked, “which is lawful on the sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?” when no one answered, he heal the man in fury. This shows us that “the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath” and that if necessary we must be willing to do what is actually good rather than what seems apparently good.

Jesus also used parables in order to teach us how we should make moral decisions. For example, he tells us to “love thy neighbour”. When they heard this, the people were confused, and they asked Jesus “who is my neighbour?”, he responded with the parable of the good Samaritan to show that everyone and everything created by God is our neighbour. In those days, the Jews and the Samaritans did not like each other. Yet, Jesus purposely uses them within his parable to show that we should also love our enemies. This alone proves that Jesus was a moral teacher and a great one at that. This is a widely accepted fact, even the infamous critic Richard Dawkins claimed that “Jesus was a great moral teacher”. However, what he fails to see is that Jesus was so much more. To say that Jesus is just a moral teacher is like saying that a cake only consists of flour. This is wrong because we know that there are different ingredients needed to make a cake and just like cake, there are many substances to Jesus, one of the substances being a moral teacher.

Moreover, Jesus was not just a moral teacher, he was also a challenger of authority. In the bible, Jesus is portrayed as a radical pacifist most of the time. However, there are times where he challenges people with authority. For example, he viciously turned the tables of the money changers at the temple. This is because he disagrees with their beliefs. They used religion to benefit themselves rather than to help those in need. They also claimed to be religious by obeying the sabbath instead of doing what was good, and because of these heartless actions Jesus was forced to challenge them time after time. As well as people with authority, Jesus also challenged the social norms of the society that he lived in. This is proven by the fact that he believed that men and women were equals and that he touched the lepers and the sick, something that the Pharisees would never do, this shows that he has more authority than them overall.

There are many today who prefer to place Jesus Christ in a category with other "great religious leaders" such as Buddha and Mohammed.  Their attitude is that there have been many great religious leaders, including Jesus, who have been helpful to the human race by encouraging good morals, but at the end of the day, these men were, after all, mere men. However, what makes Jesus different is the fact that he was the son of God. In his book “Mere Christianity”, C.S. Lewis writes, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." This shows that Jesus is first and foremost the holy son of God and by calling him a moral teacher we are inferring that he is a mere human with some knowledge. This is very insulting and ignorant.

The last and perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence to show that Jesus was more than just a moral teacher was the resurrection. It differentiated him from other moral teachers of the time. As well as that, the resurrection showed that Jesus was the king of heaven. How can we compare the king of heaven to a mere human moral teacher? The answer is that we can’t, and we shouldn’t because by doing so we are degrading Jesus’ omnipotence. On the other hand, we can argue that Jesus was the son of God and a great moral teacher. This is because his teachings are very applicable even to this day. For example, when he was crucified he said, “forgive them father for they do not know what they do.” This shows us that he is divine; even as he suffered, he asked God to forgive us. This line also shows us how we should act towards each other and the importance of forgiveness. The resurrection also proves that Jesus is the Lord almighty because no human, regardless of being moral or not, is willing to die for the sake of others.

In conclusion, Jesus was not just a moral teacher. He was the son of God, the “messiah”, the “anointed one”, the lord almighty and for us to call him a mere moral teacher is blasphemy in every sense of the word. The way he spoke, the way he lived and the way he was able to unite his people in a time of conflict shows that he is far from being human, he is indeed God. C.S. Lewis further explains this point by stating, "Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.” This shows that his moral teachings are so great that even his enemies respect him, but it also shows that his moral teaching is just one substance of his many characters.

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