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"Jesus changed everything -- from our system of justice to our concept of time."

He's one of history's greatest personalities. Standing at the very centre of human history, Jesus changed everything -- from our system of justice to our concept of time.

The Bible tells us that Jesus was born to a virgin, lived a sinless life and taught only a few years in Palestine before being crucified on a Roman cross. Three days after his burial, he rose from the dead, was seen by at least 500 different people and shortly after, ascended to heaven.

During his time on earth, Jesus claimed he had the power to forgive sins, cast out demons and determine people's eternal destiny. In short, he declared himself to be God.

Make no mistake, the story of Jesus is an incredible one. But for some people, it just seems too incredible to be true. Jesus may have been an important religious figure, or even a great moral teacher, they reason, but he could not have been God.

This position may seem like a valid one. But as former Cambridge university professor C.S. Lewis explained in his book, Mere Christianity, "A man who was merely a man and  said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he'd either be a lunatic -- on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg -- or else he'd 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."

Lewis went on to say, "You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Are His claims real?

"There is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament writings than any 10 pieces of classical literature put together."

Was Jesus' claim to be God nothing more than a figment of the early church's imagination? Something added to the Bible by Jesus' followers?

It's an interesting idea, but most scholars believe that at least three of the Bible's gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were written within a generation of Jesus. Many eyewitnesses would still have been alive to disagree with these first century writings. But there is no evidence of that occurring.

In fact, there is more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament writings than any 10 pieces of classical literature put together. Historians of ancient Greece, for example, have to rely on only eight manuscripts of Thucydide's History of the Peloponnesian War with the earliest one written some 1,300 years after the originals. Biblical scholars meanwhile, have more than 20,000 New Testament manuscripts at their disposal, with several copied less than 200 years after Jesus' birth.

Lastly, there is no question that the early Christians believed in and worshipped one of their own countrymen as God in human form. It's never been seriously disputed. Which leaves us to wonder at such behaviour. If, in fact, Jesus never claimed to be God, what were a bunch of monotheists (believers in only one god) doing falling at his feet?

Lord, liar or lunatic?

"He told people to be honest whatever the cost, promised them eternal life without sorrow or pain and said he could forgive sin."

So Jesus really did claim to be God. Now what?

Simply put, his claim can either be true or false. If it's false, then he was a liar, deliberately misleading people. Or, he was a lunatic -- a man who sincerely believed himself to be God when he wasn't.

If we accept Jesus as a liar, then we must also call him evil. Let's face it. He told people to be honest whatever the cost, promised them eternal life without sorrow or pain and said he could forgive sin. Meanwhile, he was living a colossal lie? Not likely.

As for the lunatic option, it too is out of the question. Jesus' words and actions just aren't consistent with those of a deluded or disturbed man. Even his harshest critics cannot find fault in his teaching. Instead, he is most often regarded as a man of penetrating insight.

Lord? It's the only option left. If Jesus wasn't a liar or lunatic, then he could only have been who he said he was -- God in human form. The principles of logic demand that conclusion. More than that, it explains why unprecedented and miraculous things happened in Jesus' presence.

Consider the man who'd been lame for 38 years and who, after one conversation with Jesus, was healed (John 5:1-13). Or the man who'd been born blind and started seeing after Jesus touched his eyes (John 9:1-15). Or Lazarus, who'd been dead for three days, but came back to life at Jesus' command (John 11:38-44).

It's hard to imagine what it would have been like to witness these amazing events, but nevertheless, they happened. Even Jesus' enemies said so. They saw the lame man walking (John 5:9-10) and questioned the blind man about his sight (John 9:8-34).

Not understanding who Jesus was, some people wondered: "How could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?" (John 9:16).

But the former blind man knew the true answer. "If this man were not from God, he couldn't do it" (John 9:33).