May I throw a spanner in the works? A number of people here have made comments to the effect that whilst they agree with and applaud pretty much all of Jesus' teachings, they do not accept that He intended that people worship Him as the one true God (also a number have said that they believe that there are many different ways to the Truth, etc., etc.). Question: How do you reconcile that kind of universalist view with the fact that Jesus is clearly recorded as having stated that He was/is God ("Before the world was formed, I AM"); and that salvation was through Him alone ("No-one comes to the father except through the Son").
The consensus seems to be that Jesus was a great moral teacher and nothing more. But surely his claims about himself, outlined above, do not leave that interpretation of His life open to us? Either his claims were false, in which case He must simply have been a deluded megalomaniac a la David Koresh- that is, hardly a great man by any objective reckoning- or they were true; in which case eternal salvation really must hinge on a saving faith in Him and Him alone. Any thoughts/commenmts?