Who is Jesus?
It’s a fair question, and most people never get a straight answer to it. So here is ours, in ordinary words. We believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God — God himself, who became a real human being. That is a large claim and we’re not going to soften it. What follows is why we hold it, and what we think it means for you.
Six minutes, no strings
This short film is by BibleProject, an American studio that makes animated explainers about the Bible. We didn’t make it and we don’t profit from it. We’re using it because it’s the clearest six minutes on the subject we know of, and because we’d rather point you at something good than talk over it.
“Who is Jesus?” by BibleProject, used as they make it freely available. Watch it on YouTube if you’d rather.
Five things we believe about him
He really lived
Jesus of Nazareth lived in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories, and was executed by the Roman authorities around AD 30. That much is ordinary history — recorded by Roman and Jewish writers who had no interest in flattering him. He wasn’t a myth and he wasn’t a Victorian invention. He grew up in a carpenter’s household in an unimportant town in an occupied province. That is where the story starts. It is not where it finishes.
He is God, and he became human
This is the heart of it, and we hold it without hedging. Jesus said things no good teacher says: that he could forgive sins, that he existed before Abraham was born, that anyone who had seen him had seen God. He was not a wise man who was later promoted. He is God the Son — fully God and fully human, one person, not half of each. You can decide he was mistaken, or that his followers made it up. What you can’t reasonably do is keep him as a kindly moral teacher who happened to say those things. He didn’t leave that option open, and neither do we.
He spent his time with the wrong people
Religious people of his day found him infuriating, and the reason is worth sitting with. He ate with collaborators, with prostitutes, with people everybody else had written off — and he did it before they had changed anything about themselves. That order matters: welcome first, change later. It is the single idea this church is built on, and we didn’t invent it. If Jesus is God, then this is what God is like.
He died in our place
Jesus was crucified. Christians have always said this was not a tragic accident or a noble gesture, but the point: that on the cross he took the punishment our wrongdoing deserved, so that we wouldn’t have to. In our place. It is the oldest thing we say and the hardest to say casually. Nothing was owed to us and nothing was earned by us — which is exactly why it’s called grace.
He rose, and he is alive now
On the third day the tomb was empty. His friends had scattered in fear; within weeks that same frightened group were telling anyone who would listen that they had seen him alive, and they kept saying it while it cost them their livelihoods and, for most of them, their lives. We believe they were telling the truth. Jesus rose bodily from the dead, returned to his Father, and will one day come back to put the world right. It is an extraordinary claim. We think it is a true one.
So what?
Here is the Christian message, as plainly as we can put it.
Something has gone wrong — in the world, and in us. Nobody needs persuading of the first half. The second half is the uncomfortable one: the line between the decent and the awful doesn’t run neatly between people, it runs through each of us. The Bible calls that sin. It isn’t mainly about breaking rules. It’s about being cut off — from God, from each other, from the people we were meant to be. And it isn’t something we can fix by trying harder, or we would have managed it by now.
So God did not stand at a distance and shout instructions. He came into it himself. The God who made everything became a baby in an occupied province, lived a life we couldn’t, died a death we deserved, and rose again — so that the thing standing between us and him is dealt with, by him, at his own cost.
That means the offer is not be better and God might have you. It is you are already wanted, and it has already been paid for. You can’t earn it and you don’t need to; you can only accept it. We believe Jesus is the one who makes that possible — not one way among many, but the way God has opened, once, for everybody.
Which is either the best news you have ever heard or an elaborate fiction. We think it is the first, and we have staked our lives on it. But you are allowed to weigh it, argue with it, and take your time — and we would honestly rather you did that than agreed with us to be polite.
The questions people actually ask
Wasn’t Jesus just a good man and a great teacher?
He was a great teacher. He was not just that, and he never allowed anyone to settle there. He accepted worship. He forgave sins that had been committed against other people, which only the one who is wronged by all sin can do. When he was asked directly whether he was the Son of God, he said yes, and was executed for it. “Good teacher” is the one description of Jesus that the evidence doesn’t support. We believe he is God. That is the church’s position and it always has been.
What about suffering? If there’s a God, why is the world like this?
This is the hardest question there is, and anyone who answers it quickly isn’t taking it seriously. Christianity doesn’t offer a tidy explanation, and we won’t pretend to one. What it offers is a God who didn’t stay out of it — who was himself tortured to death, and who wept at a friend’s graveside rather than explaining why it had to happen. That isn’t an answer. For a lot of people it turns out to be better than one.
Isn’t the Bible just made up?
It’s a library, not a book — sixty-six documents written across roughly a thousand years, including history, poetry, letters and law. The accounts of Jesus were written within the lifetime of people who had been there, and they’re oddly unflattering about their own authors, which is not how you write propaganda. We believe the Bible is God’s word and trustworthy. You don’t have to accept that to start reading it. Start with Luke or John; either takes an evening.
Hasn’t the church done terrible things?
Yes. Some of it recent, some of it here, some of it to children. We are not going to argue with you about that, and we won’t ask you to weigh it against the good. What we’d say is that Jesus was fiercest with religious people who used God as a cover for power — so if that’s your objection, you are closer to him than you might think. Our safeguarding policy and our designated person are named on this site, because talk is cheap.
Can I believe some of it and not the rest?
We’re not vague about what we believe — it’s written down, and we’ve just set it out above. But you don’t have to sign it to be welcome here. Faith isn’t a switch that goes from off to on; for most people it’s a long argument they keep losing slowly. There are people at this church who have followed Jesus for fifty years and still have weeks where none of it feels true. You are not required to have it sorted before you turn up.
Do I have to change first?
No. That’s the whole point of the third thing on the list above. Come exactly as you are — with your questions, your doubts, your past, your Sunday hangover. Following Jesus does change people, and we’d be lying if we said otherwise, but that is his work and it happens afterwards. It is not the entry fee.
Are you going to try to convert me?
We’re a church, and we do think Jesus is worth knowing — we’re not pretending otherwise. But nobody here will corner you, pressure you or keep score. Plenty of people come to things we run, enjoy them, decide the faith part isn’t for them, and stay friends with us. That’s a perfectly good outcome.
What if I want to follow Jesus?
Then say so — to God, in your own words, however clumsy. There is no formula and no magic sentence. It usually amounts to two things: being sorry for what’s wrong and asking him to deal with it, and trusting that in Jesus he already has. Something like I don’t understand all of this, but I want in. Then tell someone. Tell us, if you like. We’ll help you work out what comes next — which usually means reading one of the Gospels with somebody, and in time being baptised, when you’re ready and not before.
Four ways, and none of them commit you to anything
Read it yourself. The Gospel of Luke is the easiest place to start and you can read it free at BibleGateway. Nobody will know you did.
Come to Alpha. Eight evenings, a meal, a short film and a conversation where every question is fair game — including the rude ones. You can disagree with everything you hear.
Come to Doubts & Drinks. The same conversation in the pub, with no course and no sign-up. Sceptics especially welcome.
Come on a Sunday. You don’t have to believe anything to sit in the room. Nobody will ask you to stand up, explain yourself, or put money in anything.
Or just send us a question. A real person reads every one — usually Dan or Annie — and there’s no such thing as one that’s too basic or too hostile. Ask the thing you actually want to ask.