What if Jesus wasn’t Jesus?

Last updated on: May 12, 2025 at 3:37 pm by Mark Williams

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What if Jesus wasn’t Jesus? 2025-05-12T15:37:58-07:00 Mark Williams

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What if Jesus didn’t exist? Maybe he existed—since there is a historical record of him doing so, but what if he wasn’t the son of God or the Messiah? | Image courtesy of udi Steinwell Pikiwiki Israel, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

What if Jesus, as Jesus, didn’t exist?

What if Jesus didn’t exist? Maybe he existed—since there is a historical record of him doing so, but what if he wasn’t the son of God or the Messiah? The Muslim and Jewish faiths don’t believe he was either the Son or the Messiah. Jews believe he was a good guy. Muslims believe he, Yeshua, was a Messenger of Yahweh, but absolutely not the son of God.

So, what if it’s true? Apparently, there is a ‘Heaven.’ Both those faiths believe in that part. Christians, if included in our scenario, would be the third. Then you have all the Hindu, Buddhist beliefs. But take the Big Three, what if there is a Heaven, but Jesus was just a guy and had no divine reality?

How then, do we get to Heaven? As a Christian, that’s kind of an important element. Not to oversimplify it, but Muslims believe you get there by living a good life and some say living a good life and a faith there is a god. Jews are still waiting for the Messiah and follow the Torah and thus the Laws of Moses. Christians, if we took Jesus out, well, I’m not sure what or how we get there.

The question comes, can I live a good enough life—works, to get into Heaven? Can I get into Heaven with a belief in the God of Abraham or Ishmael only? Giving to the poor, feeding the homeless, living a good and clean life, never sinning every day, for the entire life span I might have to live?

What happens if I sin?

What happens if I sin? I guess I should ask, what happens when I sin? How do I get forgiven? Doesn’t my sin(s) have to be forgiven? The Hebrews made sacrifices, something else, to take their place.

How do I pay for the sin I have committed? We still have sinned; how do I pay for it? None of these faiths allow you just to walk away. There’s got to be a payment made for the sin(s) I’ve committed, have committed, and will commit tomorrow, next week, ten years from now.

How do I pay for the sins I have committed mentally? Do I have to make an animal sacrifice to atone for the bad things I do? And if I sinned today, atoned for it with whatever humanly deed I need to do, then sin again five minutes after that, do I have to pay for that one as well?

So, what if he wasn’t the Son of God, now what? I think I’m stuck, especially as a Christian-am I still a Christian, unless my works and a faith in the existence of God does it.

Or-

Just give it some thought—what if what history has documented about this rabi fella is true and he is who He said He was? What if that historical account was true? What if, as it was written in the books of the Old Testament, the same books the Jews and Muslims believe in, He was the Son of God. He came to Earth and was fully a man and fully God. Then He paid, one time, for all of it. All of us could do nothing about it except believe it was so.

We would have to….

We would have to relax and surrender, there was someone who loved us that much. Hard to do for all of us since, deep inside, we don’t believe that could happen because we aren’t worthy of it. We have trouble loving ourselves, let alone a spouse, or child or God!

Why would the so-called God of the Universe love me that much, care about me, be absolutely joyful about me, know my thoughts even before I do, and still—even through those times, still never leave me? It is simply easier to believe none of it can happen that well and I just need to trust my own skill set to see me through life and eventually, if found worthy by some roll of the dice, Heaven itself.

So, what if I could just let go? What if I could just get tired of being tired, and—let go? Simply tell God, maybe while you’re driving to work, coming home from a kid’s soccer game, going for a walk around the block after another fight with your spouse or holding their hand while they slowly died of a miserable disease, maybe after we’ve been misunderstood-again or worse-understood correctly, you have a conversation with God—if He was truly there with you, in the middle and thick of it, which you doubt, you simply say ‘Hey, if you exist, if you supposedly love me, then help me. I am so tired; can You just move my arms and legs? I don’t know what I am doing, and it is all a train wreck. Help me.’

Maybe it’s in bed in the middle of the night, a prime time for Evil to crawl into your brain. What if you asked out loud to get that piece of crap out of your head?

You tried being good.

You tried being good. How about now, you try being loved? Yes, you are loveable. What if you think about being created by something perfect, to be loved perfectly? Nope, you can’t do it—loving perfectly. But you can allow yourself to be loved perfectly.

‘Be still and know that I am God….’ was written thousands of years ago. It is a leap to trust.

But if you do, if you take that step, what if you don’t fall, but are caught and held tightly like a true Father would hold their child. Faith in grace. Faith in the gift of grace which is what it is about, will save you in that fall, being caught by the One who made you. You just have to have a little, tiny bit of faith.

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About Mark Williams

Mark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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