Morewood Young People's Lectures 2026 - Lecture 1: What Think Ye of Christ?

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What Think Ye of Christ? Before we begin... Our Lord Jesus posed the question below to the Pharisees, after He had answered and silenced all the various groups who had come to challenge and accuse Him: "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He" (Matthew 22:42)? It is clear that any answer presented will declare the heart of the answerer. Let us ponder a little an excerpt from one John Newton's poems: What Think Ye of Christ? What think you of Christ? is the test To try both your state and your scheme; You cannot be right in the rest, Unless you think rightly of Him. As Jesus appears in your view, As he is beloved or not; So God is disposed to you, And mercy or wrath are your lot. Some take Him a creature to be, A man, or an angel at most; Sure these have not feelings like me, Nor know themselves wretched and lost: So guilty, so helpless, am I, I durst not confide in His blood, Nor on His protection rely, Unless I were sure He is God. — John Newton "But ye, who do ye say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15) Skeptics Group / View What They Call Him Details / Beliefs Skeptics — "everything said about him is a legend." Muslims Muslim prophet Allah is one without any qualification whatsoever. Jesus performed miracles only by Allah's power and will. Jesus did not die on the cross. Mystics (aka "Progressive Christians": a post-liberal approach to the Christian faith, reconfiguring it into a Western, humanistic spirituality.) Mystic They reject Christianity as traditionally understood and Jesus is viewed as a Buddha-like figure: he was not God incarnate, but a mystic, someone who had experienced the sacred in a profound way and who shows us how to do the same. Unitarians Man above all others The Creator of the universe is a single person and Jesus Christ is an exalted man, not a preexistent divine person. Jehovah's Witnesses, some Adventists Michael the archangel They distinguish three phases, or stages, of Christ's existence: First, Jehovah created his "only-begotted Son", which is Michael the archangel, who created everything else. Second, he became man-God transferring the life-force of Jesus to the womb of Mary, ceasing to exist as an angelic being and becoming a perfect human begin, no more, no less. Third, he returned to his former state as Michael the archangel, giving up forever his perfect human life-there is no resurrection. Michael is viewed as "a god": having a "divine or godlike nature." Latter-day Saints (LDS, aka Mormons) (Mormon is supposedly an ancient prophet of Israelite descent). Mormon's God Jesus Christ is the first of God's billions of spirit children, which include all people who will ever live on the earth, for whom Jesus is their elder brother in the spirit realm. Christ is the "only begotten Son" in the sense that his human body was literally derived from the immortal, exalted body of God …

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