Doug Groothuis | What If Jesus Is Right? | Steve Brown, Etc.

Announcer: Hey, what did Jesus actually say about himself? The answer matters. Let's talk about it with Doug Groothuis on Steve Brown, Etc.
Announcer (Female): He's an old white guy, an author, broadcaster, and seminary professor who's sick of religion. And he's brought friends. Please welcome Steve Brown, Etc.
Steve Brown: We're so glad you're here, y'all. You always have a place at our table and we recognize that the gift of your time to this program is a major gift. Our gift to you is a major gift too, so we're even. In case you're wondering, I'm Steve, the aforementioned old white guy. Matthew Porter, our executive producer, is here. Matthew, you said you stopped going to the gym because of a back issue?
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Steve Brown: I'm not touching that. Our one-man IT department, John Myers, is in the tech bunker. I'm going on vacation soon, so that should cut John's work in half. Dr. George Bingham is the president of Key Life. I don't want to say Key Life needs your donations, but George is trying to run John's old office as a hotel room. Kathy reminds you that there's a major meteor shower that can be seen tonight. It peaks at 3:00 AM. Kathy peaks at 7:00 PM. We have an interesting conversation ahead of us and a great guest. In every poll, people kind of like Jesus. They don't know who he is and they don't know some of the things he said. Maybe they wouldn't like him so much. They just don't like the church. Frankly, sometimes I feel that way too. Our guest has written a great book and the title is *What If Jesus Is Right? Examining Jesus' Claims About Himself in a World Full of Falsehoods*. Doug Groothuis taught at Denver Seminary as a professor of philosophy for more than 30 years. In 2024, he joined the faculty of Cornerstone University as its first distinguished research professor of apologetics and Christian worldview. Doug has authored more than 20 books and his latest, which I hold in my nicotine-stained fingers, is *What If Jesus Is Right?* Doug, this is a needed book. Even Christians are surprised. We paint this picture according to our own preconceived ideas of Jesus. We make him into a nice, kind kind of magician who performs magic tricks for people he loves and who read the Bible and pray a lot. So this is a book that is designed for people like that, but it's also designed for unbelievers. Did you just finally get tired of hearing the nonsense and decided you were going to tell the truth about Jesus? Was this a long-time project?
Doug Groothuis: It really comes out of my life as a follower of Jesus. I became a Christian about 50 years ago and I've written a number of books about Jesus, but someone suggested this book—a guy named Bill Jensen. Some of you may know him; he's a long-time book agent. I started working with him and he said, "I've wanted somebody for years and years to write a book called *What If Jesus Is Right?*" I said, "Okay, I'll write that." We had some concerns. I'm an academic, I teach philosophy and apologetics, and they wanted a book that was a little more approachable, a little more popular. So I called in my good friend Lindsay Medenwaldt, who is the co-author of the book. She's a professor at Northwestern University and a graduate of Denver Seminary, a very fine young woman. She's in her 40s, but I’m 69, so she's a young woman. Everyone is young to me. We made it, I think, a lot more approachable. Lindsay understands popular culture better than I do. She can find the podcasts and the YouTube broadcasts and so on to illustrate points. But Jesus is too important to be misunderstood. We tend to domesticate him. We want him to be the genie that comes out of the bottle when we're in trouble. It's great to call on Jesus when you're in trouble, absolutely, but he's the Lord of the universe and he's the Savior of the world. So he should be at the center of our lives. We should not be at the center of the universe; Jesus Christ should be. This book is both Christology, the doctrine of Christ, but it's also very evangelistic and apologetic. We're not just saying this is what Jesus claimed and what he did. We're telling you why it's rational to believe it on the basis of reason and evidence. But it's not a heavy apologetics textbook. I wrote one of those; it's 839 pages. So if you want the fuller story, you could read that. You can also use that bigger book as a doorstop or for weightlifting. What if Jesus is right? What if he's right in saying that he will judge the world at the end of history? What if he's right when he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." What if he's right that he said he had the authority on earth to forgive sins in Mark 2? What if he did, in fact, rise from the dead after having been crucified, as he predicted? What if he's right? If he's right, the right answer is we should follow him. We should stop making excuses. We should get on board with the kingdom of God. Jesus said, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," and he was the kingdom of God in person. His kingdom will have no end and he said that he would establish the church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Lindsay and I want people to take Jesus for who he is in all of his radical claims, in all of his miraculous actions, in all his fulfillment of prophecy, and realize that he was right. Where some things he said have not yet been fulfilled, like the second coming and the final judgment, we can trust him that they will be because of his track record. We're building a logical case. I don't think it's intimidating or too abstract, but you might put it in the category of a popular apologetic for the Jesus of the Bible.
Steve Brown: That's good. On the other side of the break, you might want to make a quick comment on it. Everything you said is what the Bible said about Jesus. How do you know the Bible is true?
Doug Groothuis: The basic argument is that we can start with the Gospels. That's where we know the most about Jesus and ask, "Are they historically reliable documents? Have they been transmitted accurately through history and were they written by people in the know?" The answer to those questions is yes. We can go from there.
Steve Brown: We'll pursue that. You don't want to go anywhere. This is heady stuff. There's a lot of hard stuff, like Jesus hung out with whores and drunkards, and there's a lot about love, for God so loved. But there's the other side too. We're going to pursue that and some of the reasons the scripture is true. This is a book you want to get. You want to give it to everybody you know, believers and unbelievers, and say to both of them, "Hey, put this in your pipe and smoke it. What if Jesus is right?"
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Steve Brown: Hi, this is Steve Brown. In case you didn't know, one of the main reasons Key Life exists is to remind believers that God isn't mad at his children. Why am I telling you this? Because our weekly email, Key Life Connection, takes the best of the videos and articles and puts them right in your inbox. We'd love for you to try it. It's free. Go to keylife.org/subscribe. Hey, we're so glad you're here. We're talking to author and professor Doug Groothuis. His new book is titled *What If Jesus Is Right?* That ought to keep you up at night. Before the break, I gave him only 25 seconds in which to answer the question, and frankly, it was enough for me. He did quite well for 25 seconds. Let's go back to that subject that a lot of people ask. They say, "You say all this about Jesus, but all of it is in the Bible, and how do I know the Bible is true?" Talk some more about that, please.
Doug Groothuis: That's a perfectly good question. The first thing I would ask is, "Do you know what the Gospels say about Jesus?" Many people have not even read one of the four Gospels. Being familiar with the Gospels is part of being an educated person. It's also in your self-interest to do so because Jesus claims to be the Savior of the world. He claims he came to bring abundant life and he also says that he will be the judge of history. Rational self-interest should say, "I want to see if this is true or not, because a lot rides on this." He's not a guru or yogi. If you ask about the Gospels, some people say the Bible has been translated so many times it's not reliable. No. If we're talking about the New Testament, we've got about 5,800 complete or partial Greek manuscripts. There's a very strong manuscript tradition, especially when you put it up against other pieces of ancient literature. It has been reliably handed down. With the Gospels, you have John, who was a disciple of Jesus. Matthew was a disciple of Jesus. Mark was a colleague of the Apostle Peter and Luke was a colleague of the Apostle Paul. These are written probably before 70 AD—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—perhaps even John. They're written by people who were there, eyewitnesses, or those who consulted eyewitnesses. We don't just have one account or two accounts or three; we have four. They mesh together. They don't contradict each other. They tell the story from somewhat different angles, but they all agree that Jesus is the divine Messiah, that he came to bring the kingdom of God, that he died to atone for the sins of the world, and that he rose from the dead. If you just look at it through the lens of what is reliable ancient history, you'd say, "I should investigate this."
Steve Brown: It is. I remember when I was in graduate school at Boston University, that was a seminary, and we were taught that the Gospel of John was written late, in the second or third century, until somebody found a fragment—one of the oldest biblical fragments anywhere. It was the first century and it was the Gospel of John. I remember the professor of New Testament stuttering that morning when he was making a comment on it. It was a cool thing. He said, "Whoops, maybe I need to take the Gospel of John a little more seriously."
Doug Groothuis: Just a shout-out to one of my former colleagues at Denver Seminary, Craig Blomberg. Craig's probably the best or in the top two best scholars at defending the reliability of the New Testament. He has spent so much of his career doing that. Lydia McGrew is also excellent with her reportage model. If you're skeptical and you say, "I'm not sure this really happened, can I trust it?" you don't have to take a blind leap of faith in the dark. You can read Craig Blomberg. You can read our book. We give some apologetics for the reliability of the New Testament and we have footnotes. Remember footnotes? You can actually go and read other books on this subject. Don't say it's a bunch of myths, legends, just like other religions; it's not trustworthy. Christianity is an historical religion based on verifiable facts that count for eternity. And don't ask AI.
Guest (Male): I was drawn immediately to the last chapter in part one where you talk about the false Jesuses. You specifically mention five in there. We don't have time to go in great detail; people need to buy the book. But the reason I'd like for you to go through it a little bit with us is that I have a very dear friend that I've had for close to 15 years. She's very intelligent and she knows a lot historically about Christianity. I realized as I was reading through this stuff about the false Jesus, she falls into this category because she just doesn't have it right in terms of the actuality of who Jesus really is and what that means. If it's true, if he is who he says he is, then exactly what you were just saying about what difference does that make. Would you talk about those a little bit—the fake Jesuses?
Doug Groothuis: There are a number of them. One would be the "Vague Jesus." We know Jesus gave us statements like "turn the other cheek," he told the parable of the Good Samaritan—these things have entered our language. "Practice what you preach"—everybody knows that phrase and it comes from Jesus. People will say things like, "Jesus was a great teacher, or maybe the greatest of all teachers." But he's not only a teacher. He is the most incisive and wise and penetrating teacher of all time. I also think he was a philosopher in a sense. I've written about that in another book. But you have to say, what did he teach? He didn't just teach the parable of the Good Samaritan. He also said that he was the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through him. He said he had the authority on earth to forgive sins. He said he was the ultimate judge of history. He said he had the authority to send his angels to do his will. Who has authority over angels? It's God. He claims to be God incarnate and there are several times where he accepts worship. A Jew in the first century accepting worship means he thought he was divine and it was appropriate to worship him. He also said, "You're either with me or against me." Jesus draws a bright line in the sand of eternity.
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Steve Brown: We're hanging out with author Doug Groothuis. You can keep up with him at douglasgroothuis.com. You ought to be able to spell "Douglas." The other one's a little bit different: G-R-O-O-T-H-U-I-S.com. On Facebook and X at Doug Groothuis. Before the break, we were talking about false Jesuses. I think there ought to be a universal rule in grammar and among theologians and Christians—something we would fight for—and that would be that you do not make Jesus plural. But we did. You were talking about that. Would you continue, Doug?
Doug Groothuis: Just about everybody will say Jesus was a great teacher. Then I want to say, "How do you know what he taught?" It's in the Gospels. Do you know everything that he taught? Consider this: This is in Matthew 11:28-31. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." He's saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" just in a different way. He and the Father have a special, unique relationship and he, Jesus, is in the position to reveal the Father. Then he utters these words, which are more well-known but they need to be understood in context. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." You don't want to separate that strong claim that he's the revelator of God and the mediator from the yoke. It's not just "believe a few of my teachings and live your life in a gentle way." He's saying, "Take my yoke upon you. I reveal God as no one else reveals God." He's not a mere teacher, he's not a mere prophet, he's not a mere sage. He is all those things, but he's more. He is the divine Messiah. You think of the great philosophers—and I'm a philosopher—you'll never read Aristotle or Plato or Descartes saying, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." They try to get at the truth in various ways, but they don't make claims like that. Jesus makes claims like that repeatedly. We have a chapter in the book on all the "I Am" statements from the Gospel of John. Think of "I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life," and he says that before he raises Lazarus from the dead in John 11. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine." Then "I am he." In John 8, he says, "Before Abraham was, I am." These "I am" statements, as New Testament scholars have pointed out, are not just saying something about himself like "I'm tired, I'm happy, I'm upset." He's claiming divine attributes with this "I am" sort of statement. We can't just read that out of the Bible. If you think this is not true, but you want to accept certain passages of the Sermon on the Mount, then tell me what your principle of discrimination is. Why do you not take the whole Jesus found in the Gospels and the rest of the Bible? If you take him seriously, then you repent and you believe and you follow Jesus. By God's grace, that's what I did about 50 years ago. I don't look back and I want to commend and defend Jesus and the whole Christian worldview the best I can.
Steve Brown: You ought to write that in a book. I'm reminded of *The Chronicles of Narnia* when the little girl goes into Narnia. She's thirsty and she sees a stream and then she sees Aslan the lion. She said, "Do you eat little girls?" He said, "And boys and worlds and universes." She says, "Will you move while I get a drink of water?" He says, "No." She says, "Then I'll go somewhere else to another stream." Aslan says something really profound, which is what Doug has been saying. Aslan says to her, "There is no other stream."
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Steve Brown: We're hanging out with author Doug Groothuis. For anything of value in the world—watches, diamonds—there's a counterfeit version that's much cheaper, much easier to access, widely available. It's the same way with Jesus. One of those is the "New Age" view of Jesus. Talk about that because that feels like that's something that has just not gone away.
Doug Groothuis: It's out there. I wrote a lot about this years ago. We talk about this in the book as well. This view of Jesus says that Jesus was a great spiritual teacher, master, guru, swami, avatar, sage, something like that, but he's not in a category by himself. He is one of many mystical masters who came to reveal the truth about the self and God. This supposed truth is that God is within all of us. We're part of a great cosmic unity and the way to find salvation is not to repent and come to Christ as the Lord, but to go within and find your own Christhood. People that follow the New Age Jesus will say they love Jesus. I was on a panel discussion years ago and a woman in the audience said, "I love Jesus, but I know he would never want us to worship him." I've found about nine times in the Bible, even before the book of Revelation where everybody's worshiping him, where people worshiped him. The New Age Jesus is a counterfeit. A counterfeit is an illicit imitation of the real thing that looks enough like the genuine to deceive people. That's why scripture repeatedly tells us to test the spirits. 1 John 4: Test the spirits to see whether or not they are from God. If they say Jesus has come in the flesh, meaning the biblical doctrine of the incarnation, they are from God. If they deny it, they are not from God. Galatians 1 says that there are false angels and false gospels and they're damnable teachings. Paul says if anyone denies the gospel that we preached, let him be eternally condemned. Christianity is a religion that insists on the truth about Jesus. The New Age Jesus is diluted. He's put on the same level as Buddha, Confucius, Hindu teachers, avatars, and so on. The only way you can do that logically is to discredit what the New Testament says about him and to argue for this pantheistic worldview—everything is one and everything is divine. Neither project can be sustained. Believe me, I've been writing and teaching on this for half a century. They'll take Jesus' teachings out of context. For example, Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you. Some will say probably this should be translated "the kingdom of God is in your midst." So people say, "Oh, Jesus said that God is within all of us. He had God within him, this universal energy force, principle, vibration. We too have the universal principle force vibration within us. We can attain Christhood the way Jesus attained Christhood." Well, a text out of context is a pretext for error. That's what New Age people do with the Bible, whether it's Deepak Chopra or Ken Wilber or whoever it is. As I said earlier, the documents we have are reliable. They should be read in a logical way. You try to extract—it's called exegesis—you take the meaning out of the text and you don't come out with Jesus as a guru for pantheism. It's not there. He didn't teach karma, he didn't teach reincarnation. He taught that God was a personal being. He said, "When you pray, pray like this: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." He didn't say, "When you pray, chant 'Om' until your mind goes into neutral." That's the New Age Jesus. That's a false Jesus. That counterfeit of Jesus doesn't call you to repent, doesn't warn you of hell, doesn't die on the cross to atone for your sins. It's a counterfeit Jesus who saves no one.
Guest (Male): Doug, is there one perspective that believers come to you when they find out you’re a philosopher and apologist that they say, "How do I deal with this question when people ask me?"
Doug Groothuis: The book does deal with this. One of the false views of Christ is that if you have faith in Christ, he will always heal you and always deliver you from trouble. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. He said, "In this world you will have tribulation." Tribulation! "But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We overcome the world by our faith in the one who overcame the world. What we need is a strong theology of the supernatural—God still works wonders and miracles—but on his timetable. We also need a good theology and biblical sense of suffering—how to suffer well for the Lord. Jesus teaches us how to do that. He himself cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But he was atoning for the sins of the world. He was buried; he rose again from the dead victorious. This question of God, good, and evil is one of the big ones.
Steve Brown: Y'all have got to get this book. It's a good study book for small groups. It's a good evangelistic tool for your unbelieving friends. And you probably need some help too, so get it: *What If Jesus Is Right?* Doug, you done good. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. You keep writing, we'll keep having you on this broadcast. Makes me feel good just saying that. Jesus said it: "You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free." And just to add a footnote, a very important footnote, don't forget about the freedom part. Don't forget about the love part. Don't forget that Jesus is Jesus, the real Jesus, incarnate in our world, walking our street, being tired the way you're tired, afraid the way you're afraid. That was all for us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Underneath all of this, which is so important that we consider, is a reminder about a God who is far different than we thought, just as Jesus is far different than some think. There isn't an Old Testament God who is angry and a New Testament God who isn't. There's one God. He's good all the time. He's wise all the time. He's kind all the time. He is just, but just and justice are for you because he loves you. Next week we are going to have our friends Barbara and Angelo Giuliani on our program. Barbara's a senior editor at New Growth Press. They've been doing a series over the last couple years called *The Gospel-Centered Life in the Bible*. Barbara and Angelo have just finished one on the Gospel of Mark and it's called *Life-Changing Power Through Jesus*. It's a study guide for people and small groups. One of my favorite things is to introduce friends to friends and you're going to like them a whole lot. They make me look like a Pharisee. So even if you don't want us to, we're coming back next week. Same time, same place. It'd be great if you joined us. Between now and then, don't do anything we wouldn't do and that gives you a wide, wide door. Hey, this is Steve Brown. One of the reasons Key Life exists is to remind believers that God isn't mad at his children. Why am I telling you this? Because our weekly email, Key Life Connection, takes the best of the videos and articles and puts them right in your inbox. We'd love for you to try it. It's free. Go to keylife.org/subscribe.
Guest (Male): This is Pete Alwinson and if you're a guy, I want to show you how to recover and reclaim an intimate, growing relationship with your heavenly Father. Check out *Like Father, Like Son: How Knowing God as Father Changes Men*, available now at keylife.org/store.
Steve Brown: Believer, I want you to remember that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound and you will run out of sin before God runs out of grace. Grace, the real good news of the gospel. Find it now on keylife.org/store.