An Intellectual Witness of Jesus Christ

Many of you probably feel inadequate in your testimony of Jesus. I am willing to bet that at least some of you have never felt the burning in the bosom (D&C 8, 9) or have heard his voice speak to your mind or heart. This can lead to feelings of frustration or disappointment. It can cause feelings of doubt, especially when others who scoff at those who believe in Jesus seem so sure in their position. It’s fine to rely on the testimony of others until you can reach a point of being able to stand on your own. While we might smile and laugh a bit at young toddlers learning to walk, nobody seriously teases and mocks them for their lack of ability. We all know that with practice and with a bit of experience they will learn to walk, eventually run, and some will even become so proficient that they can accomplish amazing athletic feats. The toddler learning to walk seems to have a great desire to figure it out — they try and try again.

That desire to believe — that willingness to keep trying even when you feel unsteady — is exactly the right starting place. Now let me give you something to hold onto while you find your footing.

An intellectual testimony of Jesus can be just as important as a spiritual testimony of Jesus. Both kinds of testimonies together will give you the ability to have unshakable faith.

There are those who say that there was never a man named Jesus who lived in Israel in the first century AD. You can look it up, but even non-believing historians say that there is no doubt that there was a historical figure named Jesus. No serious person in 2026 believes that Jesus was a completely made-up character. The question then becomes: how do we know that the man we call Jesus was who we claim him to be? We can answer that by looking at the words of Jesus himself in the four gospels.

We can find the explanation in C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity, in which he wrote a chapter called “The Shocking Alternative.” In that chapter he outlines a trilemma — related to the word dilemma, a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between alternatives. In this case, when talking about Jesus, the options given to us regarding what kind of being He was are these: Lord, lunatic, or liar.

Lewis writes:

God selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was — that there was only one of Him and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process. Then comes the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

The claim to forgive sins is particularly striking. Lewis continues:

We can all understand how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Yet this is what Jesus did. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin.

And here is the conclusion Lewis drives toward:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

You have now been given something just as useful as spiritual witness — though that witness will come in time. You have been given a reason. And one definition of faith that I think captures something true and important is this: acting in accordance with what you already have sufficient reason to believe.¹ By that measure, you now have everything you need to take the next step. Not a leap into the dark. A step onto ground that holds.

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But what do I know? I don’t know, Jack.