Exposing false teachings is never really enjoyable. It makes me mad when I see them and I have had to often tell my tongue to stop before I blow up on the person espousing them, though often I fail. But there is one part of exposing a false teaching that is exhilarating: light is being shined and truth is being revealed. While it is more critical to know how to identify fakes by studying the real thing, it is very good to know how the fakes get in, what they look like, and how they act. Satan has a very limited playbook. He’s not very creative. Yet, he knows well how to disguise the same tactics. If we learn the main tactics, regardless of decoration, even if they are wrapped in Christianese and look like Jesus, we will be able to identify them no matter the form. See part 1 in this series on “Another Jesus” here, beginning to identify the false images of our Savior in our “Christian” culture.
The Transmogrifier Jesus has been makings his rounds in major Christian circles lately. This Jesus is the same savior for every religion, not just Christianity. The God of the Bible and Allah of Islam are the same. All religions point to God. They all have the same core truth. He appears to the Christian, to the Muslim, to the Hindu, to the Buddhist, to the African jungle tribes, in different ways but all go to the same God. If this Jesus was real, then what was the purpose of identifying all the false gods throughout the Old Testament, let alone the New Testament? God frequently describes Himself as being unique and separate from all the other gods. All it takes is a cursory study of the character of the gods to know that God is very different from all of them. Jesus cannot be Savior for them all because they all are unique and different in their claims. And He would also be a liar for declaring that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life; that no one could come to the Father except through Him. Jesus is not the god of any other religion than that which has been revealed in Scripture.
Related to this is the Universal Jesus, the Jesus that brings all people to heaven no matter what they believe or what they do. This Jesus emptied hell because he certainly doesn’t want anyone to suffer and instead wants everyone to be in paradise. And since he is so powerful, so good, and so full of love, even if they don’t want to actually follow him, he’ll still let them in and stay out of their way while in heaven. This Jesus is also promoted heavily in the “Emergent Church/Progressive Christianity” movements, though it is not necessarily a teaching particular to them. This Jesus is a liar because the Bible records a True Jesus who warned what hell would be like and even made clear that the majority would end up there. Take notice that in this Universal Jesus’s heaven, there is no God ruling it, nor is there any reference to anything being about him. This too is a figment of the imagination. It is absolutely true that the Universal Jesus would never send anyone to hell; he cannot send anyone anywhere because he doesn’t exist.
One alternative Jesus I have not seen until I began to converse with Old Earth Creationists is the Imperfect Jesus. This Jesus was a nice man and a good teacher, but he was limited in his knowledge and what he spoke about, because he lived in the first century and we are so advanced in our scientific knowledge now that he missed some things. After all, a mustard seed is actually not the smallest seed overall (though context is actually describing garden plants, or plantable seeds) so clearly Jesus really didn’t know everything. So when Jesus spoke about Genesis regarding the nature of marriage, the timing of its history, the nature of the conditions surrounding Noah’s Flood, and identifying Abel as the first prophet, clearly he was just referencing the myths and stories of the people, not actual history, because we know better now. This Jesus appeals to his humanity, denying that the True Jesus was the actual Creator in the Trinity, was God in the flesh, and had such a perfect unity with the Father that He did not speak anything that his Father did not say. So anyone claiming that Jesus might have gotten something wrong is also saying the Father got it wrong too, boasting his own intelligence and education as being higher than God. Said people are in for a rude awakening when they give an account for such claims on Judgment Day.
Related to this one is the Human Jesus. This particular Jesus was not the Son of God but just a man who lived exceptionally above and better than anyone else. He was not God, but just a man. He was a good teacher, a great expositor, and had wonderful thoughts of love and peace, but he wasn’t God, one of the persons of the Trinity. C.S. Lewis easily addressed this one. The True Jesus was no mere man. He was either Lord, Liar, or Lunatic, but He could never be just a man, a good teacher, or the like. He claimed to be God, which often nearly got Him stoned. If He was wrong, He was a liar and a fraud or insane; but if He was right about being God, then He truly is Lord and is God and no mere man.
Also related to this one is the Deified Jesus. Now the True Jesus is indeed God, but this false Jesus started as a man and then became a god. This is what the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, but it’s also in the teachings of numerous TV preachers. What goes along with this Jesus is the claim that because Jesus was once just a human who became a god, we too will become gods as well. Jesus is just the one who showed us how its done. The problem with this one is that Jesus always was God. He never stopped being God. He laid down His power and humbled Himself to become a servant, but He was 100% God the whole time.
Still related is the Created Jesus. Not exclusive to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, this is the idea that Jesus is just the son of God, not the Son of God. He was born, had an origin, and even had a brother by the name of Lucifer. This idea pulls from the fact that Jesus is the “begotten” Son of God, therefore he did not actually exist until he was born of the virgin Mary. This is easily refuted by examining the descriptions of Jesus. He did not just come into existence 2000 years ago, but as part of the Trinity He is from of old and everlasting. He is the Word of God become flesh. The Father and Jesus are described in a Father-Son relationship so we can see how the authority structure works. That is also why the Father identifies himself with the male gender, despite being neither male nor female but spirit.
The last one I’ll address in this post is what I would call a Mirror Jesus. This “Jesus” is basically a reflection of the person speaking about him. This is perhaps the most popular and most used false version of him. When someone talks about Jesus, ask them what he is like. In most cases, you will find that he likes what they like, hates what they hate, supports what they support, judges and condemns what they disapprove of, praises those they like, puts down those they don’t, etc. Quite frankly, he looks a lot like them if they were to be God.
You may notice a common trend with all these: they all put self on the throne and at the highest authority. They believe in God because they don’t want to look like idiots and deny the obvious, but they don’t want to submit to the True God and instead they make a god of their own interests and desires. I have six more versions of these “other Jesus” ideas that are quite rampant among our culture today, so look for them next week.
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