What Makes Jesus a Counterfeit?

The book, “The Art of Making Money” tells the story of Art Williams Jr a master counterfeiter.  As a teen, Art is taken under the wing of one of his mother’s boyfriends and trusted with the closely-held generational secrets of a counterfeiter.   After later being arrested and serving time for a more “low-brow” crime, Art is picked up by his girlfriend and determined to never make that mistake again, prison time has left him focused and determined to only focus on counterfeiting from now on.  It’s shortly after being picked that Art lays his hands on one of the new 1996 hundred dollar bills.  The bill is pack with security features focused on challenging counterfeiters like him: a security strip which responds to ultra-violet light, a watermark of Benjamin Franklin, micro-printing, acid free paper which reacts to counterfeit-bill-detecting pens, color changing ink which responds to the angle it’s being viewed.   

Art’s girlfriend asks, “How hard would it be to counterfeit one of these” and Art spends the next several months finding out.

At the end of the Civil war, Abraham Lincoln commissioned The Secret Service to protect the United States currency.  Some estimate that by the end of the war as much as half of the currency in the United States was counterfeit.  Years later, after doing such a good job with their sole mission of protecting the currency of the United States from counterfeiters, an additional mission of protecting the President was added to their responsibilities.  Art would eventually produce tens of millions of dollars of his bogus bills which The Secret Service would rate as 9 out of 10 for their near flawlessness.  As talented as he was there is one thing that sets real bills apart from the fake ones; let’s come back to that in a moment…

Israel at the time of Christ was crying out for redemption from the brutal Roman Empire who had occupied their nation for over 60 years.  The prophets told of an “anointed one” authorized by God to save Israel from their enemies.  Faced by the over-whelming power of their enemies, salvation could only come from someone authorized and empowered by God.

Central to the message of Christ is his claim to be the Christ or the Messiah, both Greek and Hebrew titles which mean “the anointed one” and refer back to the practice of anointing Kings with oil to symbolize that God called and authorized them alone to lead the people.  “Christ” was not Jesus’ last name; it was His claim that He alone had been authorized by God to be King.  The name “Jesus” means “The Lord is Salvation.”  Jesus is only able to offer salvation if He is in fact Lord.  No authority = no salvation.

There was one thing which Art was never able to fake on the $100 bills he took on spending sprees across the country.  Real bills are truly authorized by the United States Government.  Counterfeits bills fake the authority to plagiarize the spending power.  Real bills have real authority, and therefore authentic power.  Counterfeit bills are removed from circulation and destroyed as soon as they are discovered.

This is actually the reason that Jesus was executed.  The Jewish Elite did not believe Jesus had been authorized by God as He claimed.  From their perspective He was just one of many counterfeit Messiahs they had dealt with over the years.  For His followers, the death-defeating power of His resurrection from the dead proved His God-given authority was authentic.  The early church rallied around the creed, “Jesus is Lord” in direct opposition to the Roman test of allegiance, “Caesar is Lord.”  Caesar’s authority gave Him the power of death, but Jesus’ authority gave Him the greater power of resurrection.

Real authority = real power; no authority = no power.  Christ Jesus has real authority; he alone is the only authorized king.    Every national authority, along with the power of sin and death will be forced to kneel before His awesome majesty.  Maybe you’ve been offered salvation from a Jesus who does not require your complete and unconditional surrender to His authority.  Counterfeit Jesus is great at protecting our pride, but a word of warning: Counterfeit Jesus is powerless against sin and death.

Counterfeit Jesus runs around frantically asking the question "Where are you going?" but can only offer a mental concept of salvation.

Jesus Christ asks "Who are you serving?" and He alone has the death-defeating authority to offer the reality of salvation to anyone who surrenders the throne to Him alone.