The Speech That Made BISHOP BARRON Famous (Must-Watch)

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:01]Well, greetings to everybody. I am just delighted to be addressing the SEEK 21 conference, even if it has to be in this virtual way. You know, I've said this before many times publicly, but I'll say it again. I think FOCUS is one of the great ministries of its kind anywhere in the world. So, I believe in what you're doing, delighted to be able to be a participant in your conference this year. And furthermore, I was delighted when I got news of what you wanted me to speak about. So, the committee proposed the topic, and for me it was the identity of Jesus. There's nothing I'd rather talk to you about than Jesus.

[00:00:36]He's everything.

[00:00:38]He's the alpha and the omega. He's the name above every other name. He's the standing or falling point of our faith.

[00:00:43]Everything centers upon him, revolves around him.

[00:00:49]What's the most fundamental claim the church makes about Jesus? It's this, everybody, that in the singularity of his person, he's the coming together of divinity and humanity.

[00:01:00]Two natures, divine and human, coming together in the unity of his person without mixing, mingling, or confusion.

[00:01:08]As such, and I want to stress this right away, that can sound kind of desperately abstract, but as such, Jesus is the fulfillment and culmination of all the great institutions of Israel.

[00:01:20]Think of temple, think of prophecy, think of Torah, think of law, covenant. All of it was designed to bring divinity and humanity together, to reconcile God and his people.

[00:01:35]All this happens in the most unsurpassable way in the very person of Jesus, where the two natures, divine and human, come together. That's why we say he's the fulfillment of Israel. That's why we can say with Paul, he's the yes to all the promises made to Israel.

[00:01:56]Furthermore, it's why we say he is our salvation.

[00:02:03]If Jesus is simply divine and not human, then we're not saved.

[00:02:11]If Jesus is human simply and not divine, then we're not saved. That's the way St. Athanasius put it long ago.

[00:02:21]Our salvation depends upon the coming together of divinity and humanity. Think for a second, it's a very common view today that Jesus is a great ethical and moral teacher.

[00:02:32]Okay, if that's all he is, then he's in the same boat we are.

[00:02:37]If he's not divine, he needs to be saved as much as we do.

[00:02:41]But turn that around. As the church fathers said, what has not been assumed has not been saved. If he's not fully human, then we have not been saved.

[00:02:54]The great Orthodox teaching of the church is meant finally to preserve the dynamics of salvation because that is what happens when divinity and humanity come together.

[00:03:06]Now, up and down the centuries, you know of this, heretics have emphasized in a one-sided way divinity or humanity. Think of the Monophysites, the Docetists centuries ago who overemphasized the divinity of the Lord.

[00:03:21]But think too of the Nestorians who overemphasized his humanity. I'd say today we're much more Nestorian than we are Monophysite. We tend to overemphasize the humanity of the Lord.

[00:03:33]The trouble with all these heretical positions is they undermine the fact of salvation.

[00:03:39]So, for us today and for you in your missionary work, you're going to come up against this problem of, you know, simply humanizing Jesus, making him one interesting religious figure among many. We need, I think, especially today to emphasize his divinity.

[00:03:59]Now, why do we say it? What's the warrant for claiming the divinity of Jesus?

[00:04:04]I would say this.

[00:04:06]Though he is like Abraham and Moses and and Jacob and Jeremiah and Isaiah sent, so all those figures would have said they were sent by the God of Israel. And Jesus, too, says, "I'm sent."

[00:04:21]Nevertheless, Jesus speaks and acts in the very person of the God of Israel.

[00:04:31]Which makes him qualitatively different than any of the other sent figures who came before him.

[00:04:38]Jesus is presented consistently in all the gospels as the one speaking and acting in the very person of God.

[00:04:46]Now, let me try to show this with just a few examples, but see, once you get this, everybody, you see it everywhere.

[00:04:52]You see it, in fact, as the primary purpose of the gospels. The gospels are not there to say, "Oh, look at what a wonderful ethical teacher he is."

[00:05:02]The gospels are there to say, "This is the one who is God."

[00:05:08]Few examples.

[00:05:10]Jesus says to the paralyzed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven."

[00:05:16]And the bystanders remark, "Why does this fellow speak in this way?

[00:05:20]It is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?" It's Mark 2:4-7.

[00:05:28]You know, when I was coming of age, we were taught largely that the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are a low Christology, emphasizing the the humanity of Jesus. And only in John do you find this very high Christology emphasizing his divinity. Can I just say to everybody, that's so much nonsense.

[00:05:46]That statement here, now it's using a more of a Jewish symbol system and context, but that statement from Mark 2 is just as high a Christology as anything in the Gospel of John.

[00:05:59]How about this?

[00:06:01]Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, so in Matthew 5 6 7, Jesus says, "You've heard it said, but I say."

[00:06:10]Now, we might just, you know, pass over that little statement. Trust me, in the 1st century, in a Jewish context, they didn't pass it over because what he was referring to there was the Torah.

[00:06:21]You've heard it said in the highest possible authority there is.

[00:06:26]The Torah that was given to Moses, but I say.

[00:06:31]That took their breath away.

[00:06:33]Because he was now claiming the authority of the one who spoke to Moses.

[00:06:42]How about this? In reference to himself, Jesus says, "You have a greater than the temple here."

[00:06:50]That's Matthew 12:6.

[00:06:53]Jacob Neusner, you know, the great American Jewish theologian, wrote a book about Jesus. Pope Benedict liked it a lot.

[00:07:01]And he said, "You know, if I were following Jesus and listening to his teaching, I would have liked a lot of what he said. I would have followed him until he said that."

[00:07:11]Neusner said, "Then I would have walked."

[00:07:13]Now, you see why.

[00:07:15]For a 1st century Jew, temple, the dwelling place of God in practically a literal sense.

[00:07:22]The temple, the holiest possible place because Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives there.

[00:07:28]Therefore, for Jesus to say in reference to himself, "You have a greater than the temple here," that means he's the dwelling place of God, and they didn't miss that.

[00:07:39]That's why it was such a strange, breathtaking thing for him to say.

[00:07:45]How about this?

[00:07:46]Referencing his own teaching, Jesus remarks, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away."

[00:07:58]It's Matthew 24:35.

[00:08:01]You know, I've written a few things in my life. If I were to stand up before you and hold up one of my books or articles and and if I were to "It Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." I mean, you you'd have me institutionalized.

[00:08:15]I mean, you you'd call somebody to help this poor deluded man.

[00:08:20]Who could say such a thing about his own words except the one who is himself in person the eternal word?

[00:08:30]And this, "Unless you love me more than your mother and father, more than your very life, you are not worthy of me." It's Matthew 10:37.

[00:08:45]Yeah, okay, we could imagine maybe a religious teacher or founder saying, "Unless you love God more than your very life. Unless you love God more than your mother and father, the things you love most in the world, you're not worthy."

[00:08:59]But to say it of yourself?

[00:09:01]"Unless you love me more than the highest goods in this world, more than your very life, you're not worthy of me." The only one who could legitimately say that is the one who is in his own person the highest good.

[00:09:22]You know, that story of the calming of the of the storm at sea, which you can find in all four Gospels, great nature miracle. Yeah, of course it was. But no first-century Jewish audience would have missed the overtones of that.

[00:09:36]Jesus who calms the storm. Throughout the Old Testament we find references to God's power, Yahweh's power to still the storm.

[00:09:46]Just one of many is Psalm 107.

[00:09:50]Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he brought them out from their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed.

[00:10:00]I love in John's version Jesus walks on the water.

[00:10:05]Again, they wouldn't have missed the reference to the very beginning of the book of Genesis when the ruach Yahweh, the the breath, the spirit of God hovers over the surface of the tohu va-bohu, the stormy, chaotic waters.

[00:10:22]Who is this man that even the wind and sea obey him? Do you see the implication very clearly for this Jewish audience is this is the one who in his own person is doing what God alone can do.

[00:10:35]And so everybody, in light of all of this, we can understand the famously weird question that Jesus poses in Caesarea Philippi.

[00:10:47]Who do the crowds who do people say that I am?

[00:10:52]You know, again, if if I were to say, you know, I spoke to the Seek 21 conference. I mean, what did they think about my talk?

[00:11:00]Or, you know, what do people think about some of the books I've written? Or, what are people saying about Those would be reasonable questions.

[00:11:07]But if I were to pose the question uh to all of you, who who do people say that I am?

[00:11:14]Well, you think I lost my mind.

[00:11:17]And we hear this all the time in the Gospels, but how peculiar that question is. But it makes the point that the Gospels are not first and foremost interested in the moral teaching of Jesus. They're interested in who he is. Notice, please, everybody, the creeds that we proclaim every Sunday don't say a word about his teaching.

[00:11:42]But they are obsessed with the fact that he's God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.

[00:11:53]That's not some later Greek imposition.

[00:11:56]Don't believe people who say that.

[00:11:57]That's an instinct coming right up out of the Gospels themselves.

[00:12:01]They want us to know who this Jesus is.

[00:12:05]And now, here's the point.

[00:12:08]This means that Jesus compels a choice, a decision, in a way that no other religious founder or figure does. And now, very important for all of you who are involved in missionary work. And I don't mean that you do this in some kind of, you know, some kind of violent way or imposing yourself.

[00:12:28]But it is implicit in the theolog of the Gospels that Jesus compels a choice.

[00:12:38]If he is who he says he is, well, I I have to give my whole life to him, right? If he is God, not just one teacher among many, he's God. Well, then my mind, my soul, my heart, my body, everything must belong to him. He's my everything. He is indeed the alpha and the omega. And and this is what C.S.

[00:12:56]Lewis saw, of course, so clearly. If he's not who he says he is, then he's not a good person. He's not a inspiring ethical teacher. He's a bad man. He's deluded. He's crazy. He's he's self-absorbed.

[00:13:11]Hence the famous C.S. Lewis trilemma, either he's liar, lunatic, or Lord. The point is, you got to make a decision.

[00:13:21]The Gospels compel it.

[00:13:23]And doesn't Jesus himself say it?

[00:13:26]You're either with me or you're against me.

[00:13:29]Now again, everybody, I'm not proposing you do this in some aggressive way.

[00:13:33]But it is indeed implicit in the logic of the Gospels. One of the main things that was so fascinating to me with what Bishop Barron was saying is this idea, this connection between the divinity of Jesus, his identity, and how that compels a choice.

[00:13:51]And I never made that connection, but it's so obvious. If Jesus is God, he has to be the exclusive way to obtain salvation, right?

[00:14:02]You know, Buddha can point you towards, you know, enlightenment. He can point you towards a path, but he can't actually be the way himself as Jesus says he is. It's so important that we understand that Jesus is God. It's so important as Bishop Barron is saying near the end here that we tell people that Jesus is God. It's like if you had to pinpoint one thing within Christianity that every person needs to know about Christianity, it's that Jesus is God. That's what the creeds declare.

[00:14:34]That's what we ultimately need to see because if Jesus is just one good man, man, a really good man among many really good men in history, uh he's not that impressive as C.S.

[00:14:46]Lewis said he would either be a liar or lunatic or Lord. And it's kind of that same choice that's being afforded you.

[00:14:55]There's just a few options you can choose from with Jesus.

[00:14:59]He's either a liar, meaning he's saying things that aren't true. He's a lunatic, he's saying things that aren't true, but he actually means it and he's just insane because who would claim that he is the bread of life or he um is the one that can bring about forgiveness of sins on this earth, for example, to provide two examples.

[00:15:20]It's either that or he is the Lord. And that's really the choice that you have to make, and I just think it's so important that we understand that that's what Christianity is all about. Do you understand that Jesus Christ is God, and in being God, it means that he is curios, he is Lord of your life?

[00:15:36]And will you submit to him and find salvation in his name or not? That's really what this comes down to.

[00:15:43]Um I've been thinking about this a lot, but it's so important that we pinpoint down on the things that are so important in our Christian faith. And if it really does come down to one question, it is this question. How can I be saved?

[00:15:59]The Christian worldview is a worldview of salvation. And as Bishop Barron is saying, the coming together of Christ and humanity and humanity and divinity is to basically explain the dynamics of salvation. What has been assumed has been saved. And if Jesus Christ is not uh the hypostatic union, then we cannot be saved. And that's what's so important. Like, do you even care that you're saved? Do you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you need to be saved? So then you begin to see like salvation, sin, uh this world, the kingdom of God, all of those things matter greatly if we're talking about something that is of infinite importance. And I think that connects well to our mission. Like, the people around you, um eternity is hanging in the balance with every person that you love.

[00:16:48]And have you knowing that you know revealed to them the truth that they need to know to find salvation in Jesus?

[00:16:55]This is like the most pressing thing in the world that we all need to be living into. All right, that's all I have this video. God bless and peace.