EQUIP Church of Turlock
Myth 1
Jesus
Christ was only a great moral teacher.
What are we to make of this man? The
joys and hardships of two thousand years of western history have been pinned on
him. Controversy has constantly
surrounded his claims. Religious life in
the West has been dominated by allusions to his teachings. No self aware. Intelligent person dare avoid
this intriguing individual and his impact on society.
No one doubts any more that Jesus actually existed. Most people also believe that he was a great
moral teacher. Religious and polit6ical
leaders throughout the world, including many of the great opponents of
Christianity, hail the moral superiority of his life. Mohandas Gandhi aspired to the ideals of the
Sermon on the Mount. The philosopher
John Stuart Mill though Jesus a genius and probably the greatest moral reformer
who ever existed. Even Napoleon
Bonaparte considered him a superior leader of men.
The New Testament documents record the radical servant –like attitude
which lend power and credibility to Jesus’ teachings. He has truly led humanity in the expression
of compassion and humility, as well as in anger against evil and
hypocrisy. Jesus combined a realistic
understanding of human nature with an idealism for what human beings could
become. His words have tested and
challenged the minds and hearts of millions for centuries.
Of course, this is not the whole story.
When we begin to consider Jesus’ claims about his identity, the
controversy begins. This is where people
(including the world’s religious leaders) have problems. This is where the label “moral teacher” is
put to the test. It begins to seem
inadequate, if not naïve.
A thirty year old peasant carpenter turned itinerant teacher, Jesus laid
claim both by word and action to be more than a mere man. He operated on the assumption that he was God
himself.
How do we know this? From his
explicit statements and the very way he lived.
His self disclosures are interwoven in the very fabric of the New
Testament. He claimed equality with
God. He said he had lived before
Abraham. He assumed the right to forgive
sins. He accepted worship. There seems to be no escaping it.
Jesus of
It was never an option of his own day.
Some of his contemporaries thought him mad, others loved him. He was regarded with disdain and sometimes
even hatred, or alternately with amazement and adoration. But he never received mild approval.
Neither is it an option for today.
We have to shut him up or hear him out.
What are we to make of this man?
What of his moral integrity? His
fulfillment of centuries of aspirations?
His prediction of death and resurrection? What are we to make of his claims to be the
one and only God-man of history? What
are we to do with this great moral teacher who makes such impossible claims?
Myth 2
Christianity stifles personal freedom.
Christians are often accused of having a negative religion. Many people think that Christians are boxed
in by an extensive list of “do’s” and “don’ts”
They seem to be opposed to life and freedom. Both their personality and behavior are
constricted. Theirs is an “uptight”,
boring religion.
Unfortunately, this kind of legalism is often too true of many
Christians. But this does not
characterize the biblical perspective on Christian life and values.
Is there an alternative to the legalistic box? Is it the open-ended permissiveness of modern
society? Many have felt pressured to
take this position. However, this total
rejection of traditional Christian values is often tragically based on a
misunderstanding of the genuine item.
The Christian ethic is distinctive on both personal and social
levels. It is a positive alternative to
both legalism and permissiveness.
The basic Christian conviction on values is that God’s norms result in
freedom. We are not forced into a
straitjacket. Rather, God’s standards
act as a skeletal structure which gives life form and meaning. Jesus said, “if you hold to my teaching, you
are really my disciples. Then you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31, 32)
The Christian ethic is structured, but it is also deeply personal. It is based on and motivated by a personal
relationship with God himself. It is not
arbitrary, chaotic, or irresponsible. It
is discovered in living richly within the parameters God has set out.
By living within these parameters, we find our identity and
fulfillment. Christians don’t have to
fit into a mold: they are not meant to
be clones. Instead, the guidelines God
has given for living unleash creativity.
Christians are motivated to express themselves in fresh ways, thereby
bringing life and vitality to others.
But God’s norms also orient us towards our neighbor. They move us in the direction of a positive,
constructive, and caring lifestyle. At
the same times they move us away from a selfish, bigoted, and destructive
one. These norms, based in the very
character of a perfect God, provide a foundation upon which we can build our
lives and discern right from wrong. They
also provide an objective reference point to resolve relational conflicts. The Christian ought to be oriented to make a
free and unselfish contribution to humanity.
Thus, the Christian ethic has form and freedom to prevent the extremes
of irresponsibility and legalism.
Moreover, Christian norms go beyond individual relationships. Christians are mandated to be concerned about
such matters as social justice, the poor, the environment, and the sanctity of
life. While they do not have ready-made
answers to all moral problems, Christians at least have a firm starting point
and a framework within which to work and think.
They are challenged with God’s perspective on life and are called to
love God and all humanity with all they are and have.
Far from stifling freedom, Christian values are challenging and liberating. They provide what is, in fact, an very strong
affirmation of life.
Christianity is just a crutch for the weak and helpless.
Some people see Christianity as a hospital religion, irrelevant to the
healthy majority of society. They
consider it something of an out-patient clinic or a periodic religious fix for
those who can’t cope with real life.
It’s a crutch for the weak.
Perhaps we have grown accustomed to crutches. Contemporary men and women are prolific in
production of a wide variety of artificial support systems. We see all around us a desperate search for
emotional and economic security or a mad quest for intimacy and pleasure,
attained only at the expense of a resultant alcohol and drug addition, crime,
workaholism, sexual promiscuity, religious faddism, and regular visits to the
psychiatrist. There seems to be no end
to the superficial props people use-while they go limping through life.
But not all props are so obvious.
Many people rely on a good job, a house in the suburbs, or even romantic
relationships for their security. Others
turn to social activism or the power of positive thinking. In ways such as these, people try to meet
their basic needs for meaning and fulfillment, or to neutralize the ineffectualness
of their lives.
Some see Christianity as just another way to prop up a broken life. But the healing Jesus provides goes beyond
superficial treatment. Christianity is a
restorative religion. It is not a crutch
at a ll. Its aim is healing, renewal and
wholeness, not simply the ability to cope.
The Christian faith challenges its adherents with a whole fresh approach
to life. Character is improved;
relationships develop depth; community flourishes; self-understanding
increases. Nothing less than a vibrant
relationship with the living God is offered through Jesus Christ.
Many of the best minds and strongest contributors to society are found
in the Christian community. These people
are not limited to any single walk of life.
The Christian faith promotes excellence in men and women of all ages,
races, classes, and educational backgrounds.
But this does not mean that Christians are perfect. Far from it.
They know they are needy people.
In fact, the recognition of brokenness is the first step to genuine
healing.
But most of us don’t even see our injuries. Or we won’t admit them. But unless we face the reality of our wounds,
we are condemned to hobble painfully through life. Our makeshift crutches don’t really
help. We desperately need radical
healing. And that is what Christ offers.
Is Christianity a crutch for the weak and helpless? Or is the accusation itself a cop-out, a
smokescreen raised in denial of one’s own needs? It can be intimidating to face the
possibility that the living God has an abso9lute claim on one’s life. And it challenges our delusions to think that
we cannot be healed without him. But we
must honestly confront that option. The
issue cannot be simp0ly our own comfort or security. It is precisely when we shed our concern for
our comfort that we begin to see ourselves for who we really are.
Myth 4
Conversion and religious experience are the result of social
conditioning.
There is much truth to this statement.
No one decides or acts in total isolation. Many social factors influence our choices and
our practice of religion. We are
continually affected by both our past upbringing and our present environment. Yet this sort of social conditioning does not
preclude genuine freedom of choice in religion, or in anything else. We are never simply bound by our influences;
we live in dynamic interaction with them.
There are many people, however, who hold to their religion (or
irreligion) simply because they were brought up in it or because they have
succumbed to the pressure of a peer group.
Others come to a specific faith through manipulative, “mind-bending”
techniques that violate personal integrity.
But these factors do not account for all cases of conversion or religious
experience.
There are also authentic religious choices. People often consciously and intelligently
choose to go against their upbringing or peer group. Many are personally convinced of the truth of
their own religion and have committed themselves wholeheartedly to it.
This is the Christian ideal.
Genuine Christian conversion depends neither on the suddenness of the
commitment nor on the intensity of accompanying emotion. Authentic faith is as distinct from the
passive acceptance of tradition as it is from the eager grasping at passing
fads. While it is often initially
hesitant and full of doubts, it grows and matures into a sustained, reasoned
trust in God, with life-changing results.
This last point is crucial.
Without a transformed life, faith is useless. Religious experience without a growing change
in behavior and character is simply not Christian experience. “By their fruits you shall know them,” said
Jesus (Matt. 7:16). He emphasized
repentance, the radical turning from evil to good, the renunciation of
falsehood and the embracing of truth.
This is a stringent demand. By
this criterion, many who call themselves Christian would be excluded. Socialization and conditioning are simply not
enough. Radical commitment is required.
But commitment cannot stand alone.
In the final analysis Christianity is concerned with the issue of
truth. And this is the test for every
commitment. Is God there or is he
not? Does he have a demand on our
lives? Who is Jesus Christ? What is the significance of his death? Did he rise from the dead? Does the Christian answer to the question of
life’s meaning really make the best sense of our experience? And there are many other important questions
that invite serious investigation.
The challenge to each of us, then, is not to passively acquiesce in our
own social conditioning, but to actively seek to know the truth about the
universe and act accordingly.
Myth 5
Christian are other-worldly and irrelevant to life in the 20th
century.
This accusation often rings true.
Many Christians certainly seem other-worldly and even irrelevant. But they do not reflect the main emphasis of
the Bible, upon which Christian teaching is founded. Far from being other-worldly, biblical Christianity
emphasizes the importance of this world in three main ways.
First of all, the bible claims that the entire universe is created by
God and is therefore good and important.
Far from negating or devaluing the world, the Bible teaches that god
loves his creation and sustains it’s continued structure and existence. The world exists to manifest god’s glory, and
he rejoices in what he has made.
But the importance of the world is supported also by the doctrine of the
incarnation, the Christian teaching that god became man in Jesus Christ. The authentic humanity of Jesus is constantly
affirmed by the Bible. He was not some
spiritual manifestation or temporary avatar, but a real life, flesh and blood
person.
But why the incarnation? Because creation
went wrong. Humanity has chosen evil in
rebellion against its Creator, and the world is no long totally good. Yet God has not given up on us. This is the tremendous message of
Christianity. God loves us to the point
of becoming a human being to free us from evil, to bring salvation.
The salvation God offers constitutes the third way in which biblical
Christianity affirms the importance of this world. Though Christianity is often characterized as
a pie-in-the-sky religion, concerned with a hereafter of disembodied existence
in an ethereal heaven, this is a gross distortion of its message. There is certainly a future hope of the “kingdom
of God.” But the Bible describes this
kingdom in the most concrete terms. It
promises the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the entire
creation. Salvation is holistic. Christianity’s final vision is of the
eradication of evil from the universe.
Christ came to restore the creation to what it was meant to be, and that
includes every aspect of human (and non-human) life.
This means that there is an important sense in which Christians must be
other-worldly. Precisely because they
envision a world free of evil, both at the beginning and at the end of history,
they cannot accept this world at face value.
They are other-worldly in that they look beyond the distortions and
pretensions of this world to the one which is to come. They know there is something better.
But that means that they are fundamentally this-worldly Christians are
called upon to oppose evil in all of its individual and socio-cultural
manifestations. They work toward
healing, love, and justice in this world.
In the context of our modern 20th century civilization of
violence, oppression, and narcissism, this call is neither other-worldly nor
irrelevant.
Myth 6
Science is in conflict with the Christian faith.
Many people perceive a major conflict between certain scientific
theories and Christian belief. Science
is often associated with the realm of facts, while Christianity is linked with
faith or emotion,. This has led many to
question the rational integrity of the Christian faith.
But this is not good reasoning.
Both science and Christianity deal with facts. And both involve faith. Both are interpretations of facts from a
certain perspective. They both involve
certain fundamental assumptions about reality.
There is simply no such thing as total objectivity in science or any
other realm of knowledge. Subjectivity
is always present. Science is always
value-laden.
The key issue is the nature of the values or assumptions-the world
view-with which one approaches data. In
Western society there have been two basic ways of thinking about the
universe. In one view, the universe is a
closed system of cause and effect with God ruled out from the start. Therefore, what one studies scientifically is
all that exists. The universe is a
complex product of chance with no known purpose. By definition, miracles and impossible.
In the other view, the universe has been created by a personal God on whom
it presently depends for its ongoing existence.
Man finds his purpose in relation ot God. These two world views, Naturalism and
Christian theism, respectively, are radically incompatible at the most basic
level. The question remains as to which
one is most compatible with the scientific enterprise.
It is a well-known fact that science in the West was historically based
on the Christian assumption of a patterned creation. Indeed, Newton’s laws have been influenced by
a Christian view of the universe. And
many of the great scientists of history, such as Boyle, Pasteur, Pascal and
Francis Bacon, saw no intellectual conflict between science and Christian
faith. Bacon, who invented the
scientific method in the sixteenth century, reasoned that the universe was
orderly and worthy of investigation because it was the work of an intelligent
Creator. These men saw God as the “why”: the purpose behind the “how” of their studies
in the physical sciences. Belief in a
Creator god, therefore, does not necessarily restrict the scientific
exploration of the world. On the
contrary, it may offer a high motivation for such exploration.
It is the naturalistic view which as to answer some really tough questions. If we accept Jacques Monod’s universe of
absolute chance and randomness, we have no reason to believe anything to be
true or worthwhile-not even scientific inquiry.
Hence a number of noted physical scientists are coming to regard the
naturalistic explanation as an inadequate model of reality. One such individual is Nobel laureate Robert
Jastrow. He honestly admits the
limitations of scientific knowledge, noting that “scientists have nothing ot
say on the basic issues of man’s purpose and existence.”(1) He admits that he
is not a Christian, yet he stresses that we need other sources of knowledge to
discover the “why” of existence. At
precisely this point, Christianity has a right to raise some key questions.
One important question concerns naturalism’s presumptuous exclusion of
miracles. To say that miracles are
impossible because they contravene the scientific method simply doesn’t
work. So-called “laws,” discovered by
science, do not proscribe what can or cannot happen. They are merely descriptions of regular patterns
in the universe. Science can say that
miracles do not usually occur in the ordinary course of nature. But it cannot legitimately claim that they
are impossible. That claim is strictly
outside the limits of science.
The real conflict is not between Christianity and science, but between
Christianity and scientism. Scientism is
a philosophical stance, a committed belief that science and the scientific
method are the only valid route to knowledge.
Scientism is a presumptuous and closed-minded creed which defies science
and natural laws. Yet it is a popular
view among many scientist today.
In the light of this, Christians call for a more humble and honest
stance on the part of all scientists.
They believe that science is one avenue or method for the discovery of
truth about material things. But Christians
hold that there are other, nonmaterial realities and other means of attaining
truth,. Scientism is not science. It is an abuse of science. A clearer understanding of both science and Christianity
reveals that they are not in opposition.
The Christian world view is actually more consistent that is scientism
or naturalism with the genuine pursuit of scientific knowledge.
Myth 7
The Bible is an unreliable set of documents and cannot be
trusted.
This allegation has long been the subject of hundreds of books and
articles and we certainly cannot expect to respond to it fully here. However, here are a few points that need
consideration:
First of all, recent scholarship has dated the writing of the entire New
Testament at between 50 and 100 A.D. or only 20 to 70 years after the events it
records. This means it is quite probable
that the new Testament was written either by eyewitnesses to the events
recorded or by their close acquaintances – thus preserving an acceptable degree
of accuracy.
Secondly, we have better and more ancient manuscripts of the New
Testament than of any other piece of ancient literature. The oldest complete New Testament we possess
(the Codex Sinaiticus) was copied in about 350 A.D. or about 250 years after
the original was written. By contrast,
the earliest copy of the writings of the historian Pliny the Younger dates to
850 A.D. or 750- years after Pliny actually wrote. The earliest available copies of Aristotle’s
writings were made in 1,100 A.D., or about 1,400 years after they were
originally composed. It doesn’t make
sense to think we have an accurate copy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics but an
inacutrate copy of the New Testament.
Thirdly, there are more than 13,000 surviving copies of various portions
of the New Testament (including several thousand complete New Testaments)
dating from ancient and medieval times. Close
to 5,000 of these are in the original Greek language. There is thus a high probability of
approximating the original documents.
The best of modern translations of the Bible are carefully based on
these originals.
Turning now to the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered
in 1947. Dated between 150 B.C. and 150
A.D., these Scrolls contained large portions of the Old Testament. They are 700-1,000 years older than the
earliest manuscripts we had previously possessed. Except for minor variations (usually of
things such as spelling), the text of the Scrolls is identical with the text of
the more recent manuscripts. This is a
strong evidence of accurate textual transmission. It indicates that we possess reliable
manuscripts of the Old Testament.
Finally, Archaeological evidence tends to confirm rather than disprove
the biblical narratives. William F.
Albright, one of the world’s outstanding archaeologists, writes, “There can be
no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old
Testament tradition . . . Archaeology makes it increasingly possible to
interpret each religious phenomenon and movement in the Old Testament in light
of its true background and real sources.”(1)
To say, then, that the bible is unreliable or untrustworthy is a dogma
not based on the evidence. The bible is
among the most trustworthy of ancient documents.
1.
William F. Albright,
Archaeology and the Religion of Israel.
(Baltimore: The John Hopkins
Press 1968) pp. 176, 177.
Myth 8
There is no evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
If this statement is true, there is no evidence for the most
central Christian belief next to the existence of God. As the Apostle Paul wrote to one of the first
Christian churches, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless,
and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
But a thinking person needs evidence.
It is common historical knowledge that Jesus died on a Roman cross and
was buried. And the biblical records
indicate both that his tomb was found empty shortly afterwards and that a large
number of people claimed to have spoken, walked and eaten with him after his
death. These claims are startling. They need to be explained. We must decide whether there is a better
explanation than an actual resurrection.
Alternate explanations are: 1) that thieves stole the body of Jesus; 2)
that the Roman or Jewish authorities stole it; 3) that Jesus’ disciples stole
it; and 4) that Jesus was not actually dead when buried and left the tomb on
his own. Let us deal with each.
1)
We are told (for example in Matthew 27:62-28:4) that the
authorities placed a guard at the tomb to prevent the body from being
stolen. And when the body was discovered
to be missing, it was noted that the grave clothes-loaded with spices to preserve
the body-were still present. They would
be strange grave robbers who would fight Roman soldiers to steal a naked
corpse, when the only thing of value in the tomb would have been the spice-laden
grave clothes.
2)
The authorities posted the guard to keep the body
buried. We must ask why they would
subsequently remove it. When
Christianity was first proclaimed, it was seen as a threat to the powers of the
day. Because the new teaching was
explicitly based upon belief in the resurrection, it would have been a simple
matter for the authorities to squash it by producing the body of Jesus. The fact that they did not do so indicates
that they did not have the body.
3)
Because Roman discipline provided punishments ranging from
beatings to death for sleeping on duty, we may assume that the soldiers were
alert. This means that the disciples (a
discouraged, frightened group of fishermen, tax collectors, and one political
activist) would have had to fight the soldiers to get the body – a fight they
stood a poor chance of winning. But it
was not just the disciples who claimed to have seen Jesus alive again. They would, in other words, have had to
convince others to join them in their deception-a deception these others would
have no motive for maintaining.
Furthermore, 11 out of the original 12 disciples were martyred for their
belief that Jesus rose from the dead.
Now people might die for what they believe to be true, even if they are
wrong. But few will die for a known lie. The fact that the disciples died saying that
Jesus was alive, and therefore Lord and God, means that they certainly did not
have his body.
4)
If no one stole the body, then perhaps Jesus did not quite
die on the cross, but was buried alive and revived in the tomb. This may be.
However, this position reduces to absurdity when we are asked to believe
that, half dead due to blood loss, a beating and no medical attention after his
crucifixion, Jesus struggled free from his shroud, pushed aside a stone that
three healthy women were not sure they could move (see Mark 16:3), and walked
several miles on wounded feet. Then he
met his disciples, claimed to be risen, victorious over the power of death, and
was so convincing that Thomas called him “My Lord and my God” (John
20:28). After about a month he wandered
off and died in solitude. No one every
found his body.
This is a theory of
last resort. A supernatural resurrection
is certainly not less probable than this, unless we reject it from the outset.
In conclusion,
there is considerable weight behind the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. If this is true, it is tremendously
significant. We must then ask why it
happened. And we must deal with the
Christian claim that this is the supreme act of God intervening in history to
restore the world to himself.
Myth 9
The presence of evil and suffering in the world proves there
is no God.
Some people think that the problem of evil, with the suffering it
brings, is a barrier to belief in God.
The argument goes like this:
1.
A God who is good and loving would not want evil to exist.
2.
A God who is all-powerful could remove all evil if he so
desired.
3.
Therefore, if God is both good and all-powerful, there would
be no evil.
4.
But evil continues in the world.
5.
Therefore, God (at least a good and all-powerful God) does
not exist.
This argument is
superficially convincing. But it has one
basic flaw. The third point does not
follow from the first two. All that is
required, if God were both good and all-powerful, is that evil would not exist
forever. God would at some point deal
with evil and remove it from his creation.
The argument does
not reckon with the grace of God. It
fails to take into account the love and compassion God has extended to us, his
creatures, in delaying the removal of evil from the world.
Suppose God were to
immediately wipe out all evil. Where
would we stand? Would not all humanity
be destroyed? For which one of us is
free from evil? Far from remaining an
intellectual problem “out there”, evil is a moral existential problem within
each of us. We ourselves are the problem
of evil. And if simple eradication were
the only answer, we would have no hope.
But the choice is
not so stark: between inescapable evil
and immediate eradication. There is a third
alternative, and this is the heart of the Christian message. God became man in Jesus Christ and took upon
himself the total, cumulative weight of all the world’s evil and
suffering. Jesus died to solve the
problem of evil. And when on the cross
he cried in anguish, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew
27:46), something happened that is beyond human understanding. God himself experienced the depths of the
problem of evil more intensely than any of us could possible know, that he
might free us from the problem of evil.
God was not
interested in simply eliminating evil if that meant getting rid of his creation
in the process. Instead he offers us a
way out-the way of forgiveness of our guilt, and the renewal and transformation
of our broken lives and suffering world.
How evil will finally end is just as mysterious as its origin. Perhaps no adequate human account can ever be
given. Nevertheless, the Bible envisions
the ultimate triumph of good in the universe because God has acted on our
behalf. He both desires and is able to
solve the problem of evil.
Now the onus is on
us. We must start with ourselves if we
are not to further contribute to the problem.
We each need radical change, and this is what Christianity offers. The ball is in our court. God has already acted. Now it is our turn.
There
is no evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
If this statement is
true, there is no evidence for the most central Christian belief next to the
existence of God. As the Apostle Paul
wrote to one of the first Christian churches, “:If Christ has not been raised,
our preaching is useless, and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
But a thinking
person needs evidence. It is common
historical knowledge that Jesus died on a Roman cross and was buried. And the biblical records indicate both that
his tomb was found empty shortly afterwards and that a large number of people
claimed to have spoken, walked and eaten with him after his death. These claims are startling. They need to be explained. We must decide whether there is a better
explanation than an actual resurrection.
Alternate
explanations are: 1_ that thieves stole
the body of Jesus; 2) that the Roman or Jewish authorities stole it; 3) that
Jesus’ disciples stole it; and 4) that Jesus was not actually dead when buried
and left the tomb on his own,. Let us
deal with each.
1)
We are told (for
example in Matthew 27:62-28:4) that the authorities placed a guard at the tomb
to prevent the body from being stolen.
And when the body was discovered to be missing, it was noted that the
grave clothes-loaded with spices to preserve the body-were still present. They would be strange grave robbers who would
fight Roman soldiers to steal a naked corpse, when the only thing of value in
the tomb would have been the spice-laden grave clothes.
2)
The authorities posted the guard to keep the body
buried. We must ask why they would
subsequently remove it. When
Christianity was first proclaimed, it was seen as a threat to the powers of the
day. Because the new teaching was explicitly
based upon belief in the resurrection, it would have been a simple matter for
the authorities to squash it by producing the body of Jesus. The fact that they did not do so indicates
that they did not have the body.
3)
Because Roman discipline provided punishments ranging from
beatings to death for sleeping on duty, we may assume that the soldiers were
alert. This means that the disciples (a
discouraged, frightened group of fishermen, tax collectors, and one political
activist) would have had to fight the soldiers to get the body – a fight they
stood a poor chance of winning. But it
was not just the disciples who claimed to have seen Jesus alive again. They would, in other words, have had to
convince others to join them in their deception-a deception these others would
have no motive for maintaining.
Furthermore, 11 out of the original 12 disciples were martyred for their
belief that Jesus rose from the dead.
Now people might die for what they believe to be true, even if they are wrong. But few will die for a known lie. The fact that the disciples died saying that
Jesus was alive, and therefore Lord and God, means that they certainly did not
have his body.
4)
If no one stole the body, then perhaps Jesus did not quite
die on the cross, but was buried alive and revived in the tomb. This may be.
However, this position reduces to absurdity when we are asked to believe
that, half dead due to blood loss, a beating and no medical attention after his
crucifixion, Jesus struggled free from his shroud, pushed aside a stone that
three healthy women were not sure they could move (see Mark 16:3), and walked
several miles on wounded feet. Then he
met his disciples, claimed to be risen, victorious over the power of death, and
was so convincing that Thomas called him “My Lord and my God” (John
20:28). After about a month he wandered
off and died in solitude. No one ever
found his body.
This is a theory of last resort. A supernatural resurrection is certainly not
less probable than this, unless we reject it from the outset.
In conclusion,
there is considerable weight behind the claim that Jesus rose from the
dead. If this is true, it is tremendously
significant. We must then ask why it
happened. And we must deal with the
Christian claim that this is the supreme act of God intervening in history to
restore the world to himself.
Copyright 1984, Gordon Carkner, Herbert Gruning, J. Richard Middleton, and Bruce Toombs.