The REAL Jesus vs. The Fake

 Most of the world has heard of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. However His name might be pronounced in each person’s language — Jesus, Yeshua, Iesous, Gesu, Yesu — nearly everyone has heard the name.

But how many people KNOW Him? For that matter, what about professing Christians? They claim to worship and follow Jesus Christ, but how many Christians actually KNOW Him? Very few!

There’s a vast difference between knowing a name and knowing the person who bears that name. Most of the world knows very little about the real Jesus of the Bible, and there are countless false perceptions about Him!

Let’s address a few of these.

Jesus Is a Mighty Savior

Most of the world views Jesus as a frail, long-haired fellow with a gentle, soft-spoken manner. An ancient “peace and love” hippie. A weak, emaciated fellow who not only went peacefully to the cross, but who could’ve rendered no resistance in the first place.

As Timothy Griffith has already demonstrated, Jesus didn't have long hair. Please refer to that post for a more thorough analysis.

The real Jesus was also NOT the wimpy, effeminate creep we see in artwork! The real Jesus is a mighty Savior and Redeemer, our Rock and Fortress, our Deliverer.

Isa. 9:6 gives Him, among other titles, this one: Mighty God. Though a fitting title, this English translation gives us only a sliver of the full depth of meaning here.

In Hebrew, “mighty” is gibor (Strong’s # H1368), which means “mighty, strong, mighty man, valiant man.” In this verse, “God” is El, singular, rather than the more common, plural form Elohim. It’s Strong’s # H410, and means not only “God,” but literally, “strong, mighty, a mighty one, hero.”

Thus Jesus Christ is literally a Strong, Strong One; a Valiant, Mighty One; a Mighty Hero. As our El Gibor, our Mighty God, He is mightier and more powerful than we can even imagine!

Many of Jesus’ other titles imply strength and power, too. He is our,

• Rock (1 Cor. 10:4)

• Sure foundation (Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 3:11)

• Cornerstone (Isa. 28:16; 1 Pet. 2:6)

• Savior (Luke 2:11; many others)

• Redeemer (Tit. 2:14)

Additional descriptions, used only in the Old Testament, that appear to refer to Jesus Christ include Fortress, Strong Tower or High Tower, Shield, Defender, and more.

Think about this, as well. In Mark 11:15-17, we read, “Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it a “den of thieves.”’”

When Jesus stormed into the temple, chased out the money-changers, and flipped over their tables, do you think these were the actions of a weak man? Or a strong man?

Could you imagine the wimpy, effeminate creep we so often see in artwork attempting something like this? Why, the money-changers never would’ve fled from the temple. They would’ve simply laughed!

The Old Testament sacrifices further illuminate Jesus’ true qualities of power and might. As the Book of Hebrews shows, especially in chapters 9-10, these sacrifices foreshadowed Jesus’ own sacrifice.

Now, the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers describe four main types of animal sacrifices: burnt offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and trespass offerings. They further show that most of the sacrifices involved lambs, rams, bulls, and goats.

Obviously, bulls and rams exude strength and power. In the Old Testament, the most common Hebrew word for “ram” is ayil (Strong’s # H352), which means “strong or robust.” As for bulls, Moses’ blessing on the house of Joseph in Deut. 33:17 should suffice, “His glory is like a firstborn bull, and his horns like the horns of the wild ox; together with them he shall push the peoples to the ends of the earth….”

What about lambs? I was surprised to learn this, but they, too, show strength. In the Old Testament, the most common Hebrew word for “lamb” is kebes (Strong’s # H3532), which is “from an unused root meaning to dominate; a ram (just old enough to butt).”

Through bulls, rams, and lambs, the Old Testament sacrifices foreshadowed, not the death of a weakling, but the sacrifice of our mighty Savior. Our Shield, Defender, and King.

Why was He, then, as prophesied in Isa. 53:7, “led as a lamb to the slaughter”? Because He had the power to resist and chose not to. He CHOSE to lay down His life for us.

As Jesus said in John 10:17-18, “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

When He was about to be betrayed, Jesus ordered His disciples to arm themselves with weapons (Luke 22:36-38). Having visible means of resistance, He then went voluntarily to His death, reminding His disciples, “Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” (Mat. 26:53).

Again, while standing before Pontius Pilate, Jesus told him, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).

Yes, Jesus had every means of resistance at His disposal. Having all power and might, He chose to suffer and die so that we might live. That’s strength!

And when He returns in glory, it will be to rule all nations “with a rod of iron” (Rev. 19:15). A rod of iron signifies power and strength, just as iron represents strength in Deut. 33:25, Judg. 1:19, Job 40:18, and many other places.

So why, then, is our mighty Savior, the Son of Almighty God, so often — blasphemously — portrayed as a wimpy, effeminate creep?

As we’ve seen previously, the false gods and messiahs of the ancient world, such as Adonis and Attis, often exhibited these traits. Some of them were sexually ambiguous; many of their priests were eunuchs and cross-dressers. Attis himself was supposedly a eunuch.

And, as we also saw, many of the early “Christians” compromised with the pagans wherever they could, seeking common ground. Many religious traditions of modern, mainstream Christianity stem, not from the Bible, but from paganism. Defiling the persona of Jesus Christ, and ascribing to Him the traits of ancient pagan deities, is one example.

Jesus Magnified the Law

Most of the world believes that Jesus Christ did away with the Old Testament laws, and that we no longer have to obey them. That when He died, He nailed God’s law to the cross. That all you have to do to be saved is to “believe in Jesus.”

None of those things are true, as we've written previously.

Jesus Christ told us plainly that He did NOT come to do away with God’s law. In Mat. 5:17-20, He said,

17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

18 “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

19 “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20 “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

How much plainer could it be? If you break God’s commandments, you won’t be in His Kingdom! But whoever does and teaches God’s commandments will be great in His Kingdom. These are Jesus’ own words.

Far from abolishing the law, He strengthened it. These are some of the ways Jesus magnified the law:

• Not only must you avoid sexual immorality, but you must not even lust (Mat. 5:27-30)

• Not only must you refrain from murder, but you must not even lose your temper and speak thoughtlessly (Mat. 5:21-26)

• Do not divorce your spouse except for sexual immorality (Mat. 5:31-32)

• Not only must you avoid swearing false oaths, but you shouldn’t swear at all (Mat. 5:33-37)

• Pray that emergencies do not arise on the Sabbath (Mat. 24:20)

• You will give account to God, not only for your actions, but for every idle word you speak (Mat. 12:36-37)

As Jesus preached throughout His earthly life, it’s not enough to obey God outwardly, to go through the motions of obeying His law. You must obey Him cheerfully, with your whole heart, because you love Him with your whole heart, mind, and soul (Mat. 22:34-40). He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

Jesus Christ practiced what He preached, too. He kept the law perfectly. How do we know? Because He never sinned: “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth” (1 Pet. 2:22; quoting Isa. 53:9). “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4; KJV). So, since Jesus never sinned, and sin is the transgression of the law, that means that Jesus never broke God’s law.

Think about that for a second. Jesus never lusted, never broke the Sabbath, never spoke a careless word. Though filled with righteous anger more than once, He never lost His temper or acted without self-control.

Can you imagine? For most of us, it would be remarkable to live one whole day without sinning in some way. Jesus lived an entire lifetime without sinning!

But not only did Jesus preach the law and keep the law, He was Himself the Lawgiver. He said, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). And again, in Col. 1:15-17, we read,

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

When Jesus said that He and His Father are one, that means He and His Father are of one mind and one spirit. They act with one accord and one purpose. Therefore, His Father’s law is also His law.

The Old Testament usually speaks of God in both singular and plural ways. In Gen. 1:26, Elohim, which is literally “Gods,” said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Yet in the following verse, it says, “So God [Elohim] created man in His own image; in the image of God [Elohim] He created him; male and female He created them.

Again, God the Father and Jesus Christ work together in harmony. They are separate, yet one. As John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

When God created the world, the Father and the Son acted together. When God called Abraham, the Father and the Son acted together. When God plagued Egypt, the Father and the Son acted together. When God gave Israel the law on Mt. Sinai, the Father and the Son acted together.

Yes, that means Jesus Christ gave the law on Mt. Sinai, the very law that He taught and followed when He came to this earth. As He said in John 8:58, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” And how did He introduce Himself to Moses? As “I AM” (Ex. 3:14).

So what about Col. 2:13-14? We read, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

Many mistakenly think this means Jesus did away with the law and nailed it to the cross, even though He told us He did no such thing! Rather, He took away the penalty of the law, which is death. “For the wages of sin [law-breaking] is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Jesus called the world to repentance: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Mat. 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32). What are sinners? Lawbreakers. What must lawbreakers repent of? Breaking God’s law! And when we repent of our sins, what does God forgive us of? Breaking His law.

Does that mean that after we repent of breaking God’s law, we can go on sinning and deliberately breaking His law to our heart’s content? Here’s the Apostle Paul: “Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Rom. 6:2).

Remember, God’s law is both Jesus’ law and His Father’s law. They are one. So did Jesus come to die so that He could abolish His own law? Of course not! What foolishness. Once again, here’s the Apostle Paul: “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law” (Rom. 3:31).

The one who seeks to destroy God’s law is not the Son of God, but rather His adversary, Satan the Devil. Satan is a murderer, a liar, and a lawbreaker. Jesus Christ is not!

Jesus Judges

Many also think Jesus judges no one. That He accepts all people for who they are. That no matter what a rotten, evil person someone might be, all he has to do is believe in Jesus and he will be saved.

This belief is largely based on misunderstanding John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

When Jesus came to earth 2,000 years ago, He didn’t come to bring Judgment Day. He didn’t come to sentence anyone to eternal death at that time. Rather, He came to preach repentance and to die for us, so that whoever repents can avoid that death sentence.

Do God the Father and Jesus Christ love you? More than you can imagine!

Will God accept you if you repent? Absolutely! No matter what sins we’ve committed, God will forgive us if we humble ourselves before Him and repent. He will wipe away our sins and forget them, as if we’d never sinned at all.

Does that mean He’ll still accept us if we refuse to repent? Will He just laugh it off if we go on living in sin?

By no means!

One day, Jesus will judge the world, and He will sentence the unrepentant to eternal destruction. John 5:22 tells us, “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.”

Those who, having been given every opportunity to repent, still refuse to obey God’s law, won’t be in His Kingdom. In Mat. 7:21-23, Jesus said,

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

22 “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’

23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Yes, God has standards! And Jesus Christ, being one with His Father, has the exact same standards. He won’t tolerate wickedness in His Kingdom.

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).

Jesus Is a Warrior

Let’s look at one final trait of Jesus Christ that may surprise a few folks. Was Jesus really all about peace, love, and harmony? Yes — but He’s also a warrior!

This is NOT to say that either the Father or the Son love war, that They enjoy death and destruction, or that They rejoice in the death of Their enemies. Far from it! Those are characteristics of Satan.

“‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!” (Ezek. 33:11). God “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9; ESV).

God loves peace. He is the “God of peace” (Rom. 15:33; 16:20; Phil. 4:9; 1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 13:20).

But ultimately, He will establish peace by vanquishing the wicked. When Jesus returns to this earth, it will be as a conquering King, as “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev. 19:16), and “the armies in heaven” (v. 14) will follow Him. He will destroy the armies of the wicked (Rev. 19:17-21), and He will have Satan bound and cast into a bottomless pit (Rev. 20:1-3).

This isn’t out of character. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Thousands of years ago, He appeared to Joshua as “the Commander of YHWH’s Army.” In Josh. 5:13-15, we read,

13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?”

14 So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?”

15 Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.

As noted earlier, when Jesus came to earth as a human being, He held great power and simply chose not to use it. He had another purpose, another mission.

Yet, while on this earth, Jesus told us this in Mat. 10:34-39:

34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.

35 “For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’;

36 “and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’

37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

39 “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Jesus has called us into battle, not “against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). Our Savior and Messiah is also our Commander.

He gives us two choices: to be with Him or against Him (Mat. 12:30; Luke 11:23). To be on God’s side or Satan’s side, for Satan “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). To be one with God is to be divided from the world; to be one with the world is to be divided from God.

As we read in Jam. 4:4, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

It should be no surprise, then, that the world doesn’t know the real Jesus Christ. It should be no surprise that people have so many false perceptions of Him. One day, all will come to know Jesus and His Father (Jer. 31:34), but that time is not yet.

Hopefully, this post will give us a better glimpse of who Jesus Christ really is. The real Jesus is a mighty Savior and Hero, not a wimpy, long-haired hippie. The real Jesus magnified, explained, and obeyed God’s law; He didn’t abolish it. The real Jesus is a just and righteous Judge; He will not accept or tolerate wickedness. The real Jesus is a Warrior and King.

This is our true Savior and Messiah!