Jesus’ every communication from the God who sent him is rebuffed by being too incredible to believe or even hold in the mind’s eye for more than a couple seconds. This makes his words and sentences _claims._Why? Simply because we don’t have the ability to believe them! Think about this. The simple statement that God had sent him here as light bounces off like gibberish. Too ethereal. Too wild. Hearers simply toss it out and walk away...but with that little nagging consciousness that if God really sent a man this is exactly what he would be like.

Among the common people as well as the leadership, he simply could not be dismissed. The fact that they were spoken, have stood for 2000 years, and continue to get identical response from each successive generation, demonstrates their universal applicability over two millenia. No better, or more individual-touching criteria could be devised whereby to gauge humankind’s response. I say this to anticipate the question how can one man’s words to a few folks in a small mid-eastern country twenty centuries ago serve to put the entire race of men on trial? I’ll turn that around: How would you do it if you were God, mankind’s maker?