Wasn’t Jesus Just a Good Teacher?

The short answer: Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived, but He didn’t leave “just a good teacher” open to us. He said things no merely good teacher could say: that He could forgive sins, that He existed before Abraham, that He and the Father are one. If those claims were false, He wasn’t a good teacher at all; if they were true, He is far more than one.

A friend at school puts it like this: “I like Jesus. Love your neighbour, help the poor, don’t judge people. That’s great. But the Son of God stuff? People added that later.” It sounds generous. It even sounds respectful. And plenty of people who would never go to church say something similar.

They’re right that Jesus was an extraordinary teacher. “In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). The Sermon on the Mount has shaped laws, movements and whole lives. When He finished it, “the crowds were astonished at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28–29).

But listen to what else He said, not about how to live, but about who He was.

What He said about Himself

Some men lowered a paralysed friend through a roof, and Jesus said to him, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). The religious teachers in the room were horrified: “He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). They understood exactly what He meant. You can forgive someone who wrongs you. But if a stranger announces that he forgives everyone who wronged you, he is either talking nonsense or he is the one every sin is ultimately against.

In an argument about Abraham, who lived nearly two thousand years earlier, Jesus said, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). “I am” was the name God gave Himself at the burning bush. The crowd picked up stones to kill Him. Elsewhere He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). At His trial the high priest asked Him directly, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus answered, “I am” (Mark 14:61–62). That answer got Him crucified. Nobody is crucified for saying “Be kind to each other.”

Why “just a good teacher” doesn’t work

C. S. Lewis put the problem memorably. A man who said these things and was wrong would not be a great moral teacher. Either he would be badly deluded about himself, or he would be deliberately deceiving people about the most important question there is. Neither is what we mean by “good.” The only other possibility is that He was telling the truth.

And the rest of His life doesn’t look like delusion or deception. Deluded people are rarely wise; His teaching is some of the sanest ever spoken. Deceivers don’t usually spend their lives serving the poor and then die for the lie. Jesus was humble, clear-headed, kind and fearless all at once.

“But maybe He never said those things”

This is the move your friend made: the claims were added later, the way legends grow around heroes. But the claims are not in some late, strange source. They are in all four Gospels, including Mark, which most historians think is the earliest. They’re also in Paul’s letters, written within about twenty to thirty years of Jesus’ death. Legends need generations to grow, and these claims were circulating while eyewitnesses were still alive.

There’s another problem. The first followers of Jesus were Jews who said every day, “The LORD our God, the LORD is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4). They were the last people on earth likely to invent a man who was God. Something forced them to believe it.

So who is He?

Jesus didn’t leave the question to experts. He asked His friends, “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15), and He asks you the same thing. You can call Him deluded. You can call Him a liar. Or you can say, with the doubter Thomas when he finally saw Him risen, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). What you can’t honestly do is pat Him on the head and call Him a nice teacher. He never gave us that option.

Think about it: If Jesus really is who He said He is, what would change about how you treat Him, beyond admiring Him?

Go deeper: The Key Teachings of C. S. Lewis — sets out Lewis’s famous argument that Jesus’ claim to forgive sins leaves no middle ground: He was deluded, a deceiver, or exactly who He said He was. Start with chapter 5, “Who Is This Man?”