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.

"Jesus Has a Fat Wife" or "Jesus Muscle"

On a recent trip to the doctor, you step on the scale and discover you have gained 20 pounds since your last visit.  Is this a reason to celebrate?  It depends, maybe you have been weight training and have put on 20 pounds of lean muscle and you are in the best shape of your life, or maybe you recently got a job at Krispy Kreme and have been doing too much “quality control.”

Few people would celebrate gaining weight indiscriminately; this is why a host of products have given us the ability to check our Body Fat Percentage.  From calibers to scales, these products shift our focus from our overall weight to the percentage of fat on our body.  A scale alone does not offer enough information about our overall health. 

Why are pastors who are entrusted with the care of the church, also known as both the “body of Christ” and the “bride of Christ”, often only focused on church attendance, which is simply a measurement of the overall weight of the church?  Our only goals are often focused on simply gaining weight at any cost!

The church has been packing on the pounds for years and we now stand huffing and puffing at a crossroad.  As we look around, the 30 and under crowd is largely missing from our ranks.  Is this because they want nothing to do with the real Mission of Jesus or because they don’t want to join the holy fat rolls of attendance? 

Often those outside the bulge are more aware of how unhealthy and ineffective the get fat at all cost mission  They desire a lean & mean mission for the church and they are waiting for someone to lead the way.  They cringe at any discussion of church growth or church attendance because they know that a fatter church is not going to solve any of the real problems our world is facing.  While they aren’t interested in just sitting around, they would jump at the chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus ministering to the needs around them. has been to the church.

The essential question of the Fat Gospel is “where are you going?”  In making the focus of the Gospel heaven or hell we have distorted the die to yourself invitation of Jesus into a dead-end movement of self-centeredness.  The authentic question of the Gospel and the power behind real Jesus muscle is “who are you serving?”  Jesus is building His Kingdom and the only way to join is to acknowledge that He alone is King, by dying daily to your will and power as you live every moment for His work of redemption to bring the “Father’s will to earth as it in heaven.” 

When we look around at the problems our world is facing, will we recognize that the church of Jesus Christ remains the world’s greatest hope and do whatever it takes to get healthy?  More of the same is not going to help in this case; we have to be willing to move in a completely different direction.  How can we trim the fat from the church?  We have to get off that padded pew and start sweating!  We have to stop trying to get people to come to church, and start inspiring people to be the church.  When we raise the bar high above attendance we will watch the fat peel away while the ripped and bulging muscles of the Body of Christ emerge to serve the broken humanity around us with all of the power and love of Almighty God.