Today, August 28, 2026

Who do you believe Jesus of Nazareth to be? It is impossible to pass this question by. “Who are You? Who do You make Yourself out to be?” The Son of Man—who is He? “Who do you say that I am?” is one of the most important questions in the Gospel. When a demon-possessed man was brought to Him and He healed him, the people...

Who do you believe Jesus of Nazareth to be? It is impossible to pass this question by. “Who are You? Who do You make Yourself out to be?” The Son of Man—who is He? “Who do you say that I am?” is one of the most important questions in the Gospel. When a demon-possessed man was brought to Him and He healed him, the people began to say: “Could this be the Christ, the Son of David? Is He not the One who is to save the world?” Yet He Himself says: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” The answer to the question of who Jesus is constitutes that very sword, penetrating to the deepest place, “to the division of joints and marrow”; it is not a question that can be answered evasively.

Thus Pharaoh hardens himself when God, through Moses, commands him to let His people go. The book of Exodus says: “I will harden Pharaoh's heart” (Exod 4:21). It would be naive to suppose that, through some special creative act, God compels him to refuse. Only demons act in this way, taking possession of a person's will. But once faced with the necessity of choosing, Pharaoh can no longer remain evasively polite. Either the One who sent Moses is God and must be obeyed, or there is only one living god in Egypt—Pharaoh.

Like Pharaoh, the Pharisees are faced with a choice: either this Man is the Saviour of the world, or... There is no place here for tender-hearted “political correctness.” In fact, this principal question of life transforms the wavering, weak-willed heart and gives it the opposite quality. Depending on the answer, however, the result will be either the firmness of living faith or hardness and cruelty, as with Pharaoh and the Pharisees.

This is precisely what Jesus states when He says: “Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.” In our time, posing the question in this way seems excessively rigorous; we would prefer to evade a direct answer. Yet nothing except this answer to Christ's call will make your heart steadfast and your life real. That is why this question is God's gift to us.