Bible Text: John 1:10-11 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living |

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. John 1:10-11

Several scholars who had served on the Jesus Seminar reportedly were killed in an automobile accident and ended up at heaven’s gate. “Why should we let you in?” asks Peter. “Well, we served on the Jesus Seminar,” replied the men. “Just a minute,” says Peter as he confers with Jesus. After a few minutes, so goes the story, Peter returns and says, “Sorry. No entrance for you. Jesus says you are to go straight to hell. Immediately, the scholars huddle together, much as a football team would do in a game. Then the leader says, “We have conferred together and our opinion is that Jesus never said that at all!”

While the story, of course, is a pun on the Jesus Seminar, their conclusion would be completely consistent with what they say about everything else that Jesus said. This group of alleged scholars believe that Jesus actually said only about 20% of what the New Testament contains of His words. The rest they believe is a fabrication and is not based on truth.

Wow! For centuries men and women from all walks of life have read the pages of the New Testament and accepted at face value what Jesus said—the Sermon on the Mount, the teaching of our Lord regarding life and death, love and fear, heaven and hell, joy and sorrow, and the hope of eternal life. His words, such as, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,” (John 11:25, KJV) have been quoted by the faithful every Easter around the world from the day Jesus ascended to heaven.

Generation after generation, the sick and dying have held to those words, spoken by Jesus in the Upper Room as the cross loomed on the horizon as He said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3).

If, of course, Jesus did not say most of what the Gospels record, believers have been on a nostalgia trip for a long time. In that case, the Jesus scholars (using a term rather loosely) are doing us a great favor in freeing us from these misconceptions and misstatements. But if, on the other hand, the Gospel is true and the historical record is based on fact, then these men are impostors, false prophets, disreputable scholars, and their research is biased, fraudulent, and totally self-serving.

You will read opinions of scholars saying that the real Jesus was a kind of nomadic eccentric, and that when He died, His body was placed forever in the ground and that the resurrection was a kind of mystic appearance which impressed the followers of Jesus.

Don’t you believe it for a minute. As professor Gregory Boyd put it, “The control-beliefs of a scholar determine what kind of Jesus he or she is looking for by defining what kind of Jesus is and is not possible.” In other words, the prejudices of those doing the investigation determine what their conclusions will be.

Frankly, I’m surprised that The Jesus Seminar has been given the space in print that it has received. The sad thing, however, is that some, not knowing the difference between a straight line and a crooked one, wonder if these men are indeed scholars and if they know something which we don’t know. As Thomas Adams put it, “As in the burning of some wet fuel, we cannot see the fire for the smoke, so the light of the Scriptures is darkened by the vapors of controversy.”

Resource reading: John 1:1-18