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THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
Did Jesus Christ ever really exist?
Was He really God?
Did He rise from the Dead?
Let
me start with a short story.
I'd
been good natured-ly putting up with a fellow engineer who had been teasing me
about
being
a Christian. So seeing the opportunity to witness to him, I asked him if he
knew why I
conversation
that started at 7 PM on the stairs on our way home after work, gradually edged
out
towards the parking lot, and then drifted back into the building because it was
cold and
ended
at 9:30 PM with us sitting next to the door waving at others exiting the
building. Now in
the
course of the conversation he said this.
He
said: "it makes no difference whether Jesus Christ or Krishna really
existed or
not,
it makes no difference whether the events happened as they are depicted in
anyone’s
holy books, it's the concepts and the teachings of Jesus Christ that
count."
He
was saying that it’s the ideas that come from Christianity that count, not the
historical or
physical
events.
Now
some of us might have no problem with this statement. And to tell the
truth, I wouldn't
have
had any problem with this statement a few years ago.
But
now I do. Because now I know that:
Christianity
isn’t a blind faith, it's a rational faith built on a solid historical and
logical
foundation.
That
is so important that I’ll say it again.
Christianity isn’t a blind faith, it's a rational faith
built on a solid historical and logical
foundation.
Let
me paraphrase something I read in the Christian Research Institute Journal.
Douglas
Groothius
says
"Christianity
has always been a historical religion
and
any serious challenge to it's legitimacy must attend to that fact.
Its
central claims are rooted in EVENTS, not ideas;
in
PEOPLE, not principles;
in
revelation, not speculation;
in
incarnation, not abstraction,
in
FACTS and not concepts."
Let
me ask you this: Is Christianity based ONLY on the teachings of Jesus?
If
you said No!. You are absolutely correct.
Did
Jesus come to only teach us the way? No?
If
Jesus had not died would we be saved? No.
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Christ’s
blood has to be shed to forgive us of our sins. Jesus had to die to save us:
You
see Christianity is based not only on the teachings of Jesus, but on the blood
of Jesus, if
there
was no blood, there is no redemption of sin, if there is no redemption of sin,
there is no
salvation,
if there is no Salvation, there is no Christianity.
Christianity
isn’t a blind faith, it's a rational faith built on a solid historical and
logical
foundation.
Almost
every other religion in the world would still survive if you take away
the central figure.
It is
not important if Buddha really existed, his teachings are what counts. It is
not important if
Krishna
really existed, it's his theology that counts. It is not important if
Joseph Smith really
existed,
it's the fact that the Mormons have a burning in their bosom that counts.
But
in Christianity,
if
you take away Christ, we have no religion.
if
you take away Christ, we have no faith
if
you take away Christ, we have no hope.
if
you take away Christ, we have no salvation,
if
you take away Christ we have nothing.
Let
me ask you this: Did Jesus come only to show us the way?
No he
absolutely didn’t.
You
see, Jesus didn’t come to SHOW the way, He came to BE the way.
Now
I’ve been claiming that Christianity shouldn’t be a blind faith but a logical
and rational
faith,
and you may ask me, Good Grief Neil how can you say that? Doesn't the Bible
say,
without
faith it is impossible to please God. Isn't Christianity based on faith and
faith alone?
Let
me ask you this: If someone were to prove that Jesus never existed or never
rose from
the
dead should you still be a Christian?
The
answer is a resounding NO! You should not be a Christian if Christianity is
false.
Now I
can't say that authoritatively, but Paul can and he did, he
says it in I Corr 15 vs 12
onward:
He says:
If
there is no resurrection of the dead and
if
Christ did not rise from the dead
then
our faith is in vain
and
we of all people are to be pitied.
But
this causes us a huge dilemma. I mean if we're supposed to believe in Jesus
because he
really
existed, then we'd better be able to prove he really existed, and what's more,
we'd
better
be able to prove he really was God as he claimed.
Or
does the Bible ask us to have Blind Faith?
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NO! the Bible never asks us
to have blind faith!
Jesus
says in Matt 22:37 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul and
with
all your blind faith!"
No
wait that's not it.
He
says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and
with all your
feelings!"
No
wait that's not it either.
He
says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and
with all your
sincerity!"
No!
He
says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and
with all your
mind!"
ALL
YOUR MIND! He expects us to use our minds. God never said, become a Christian
and
put
your intelligence on the shelf! God never said, become a Christian and toss
away all logic!
He
said use your mind! There is none of this Blind Faith business! The Bible says:
Without
faith
it is impossible to please God! But it never said BLIND Unsubstantiated FAITH.
Jesus
says: You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!!! Key words
here: Know
the
Truth: Knowledge of truth!!. Truth has to do with Facts. You faith must be
based on Truth.
Bernard
Shaw a very active Atheist said: Christians would rather die than think, in fact
many
do.
Is
that really you and me?
So
today if an atheist were to ask you to defend your faith, would you be able to
do it? If today
the
Pastor who led you to Christ, who was your role model was to be caught in an
adulterous
affair
would you decide that your faith had no basis? If today you were to get real
sick and
everything
in your life was to go wrong, would you decide that your faith was just wishful
thinking?
If your parents were to divorce would you decide that God doesn’t exist because
nothing
is going right?
Or do
you have something solid to run to?
And
that's what we are here to talk about today.
But
maybe you are here today and you are not a Christ Follower, maybe you are a
seeker, or
maybe
you've always wondered if Christianity was just a bunch of legends and fairy
tales?
Perhaps
you are here today and thing that Christianity is just like any other religion.
Are
you an earnest seeker, not afraid to face the truth? If I could prove to you in
the next few
weeks,
that there is actual historical and physical evidence that proves with a high
degree of
confidence
that Christ is God and that he really rose from the dead, would you be willing
to
accept
that fact, despite the consequences of that decision?
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Let
me ask that question again. If I could prove to you that there is a high degree
of
confidence
that Jesus actually rose from the dead, would you be willing to accept his
claims
despite
the consequences of that decision?
Remember:
Never let the consequences of your logic force you to abandon the logic. If the
logic
and the facts are right you are forced to face them and deal with them.
Would
you be willing to make that commitment to yourself today?
Because
that's what we are here to talk about.
Was
there ever really a man named Jesus? And if there was, why should I believe in
him?
Why
should anyone believe in him?
And
most of all if there was a man named Jesus, was he God?
In this series we are going to cover
1.
Why is Jesus different from all the other good teachers. (already done)
2.
Did Jesus really Exist?
3.
Who did Jesus say He was?
4.
Did he really rise from the dead?
5.
Why Christ had to die, why Christ had to be God and other things (see the associated
paper
on this where we discuss the necessity of Christ having to be God to be able to
save
us)?
What the Critics Say!
First,
let's look at what the critics say!
1.
Joseph Campbell, a famous dead author said: Jesus is just a metaphor.
2.
Some say Jesus never really existed.
3.
Others say He was a legend that arose from the combination of good qualities of
various
people.
4.
The Mercury News had an article about an Atheist who said, Jesus, Santa Claus,
and the
tooth
fairy are all fairy tales!
5.
Others say: Jesus is a legend started by the Church to oppress the masses and
keep them
in
subjection.
6.
But overall most people say: He was just a good man. A wise teacher. A sage.
3. My Proposal
I am
going to propose something very shocking! I am going to propose that you do not
need
any faith at all to
believe that Jesus existed. Let me repeat that: you do not need any faith at
all
to believe that Jesus existed.
Not a
single bit! Shocking?
Not
really. Because I am about to show you evidence that Jesus existed! And I'm not
going to
use
the Bible at all! In fact I am going to show you that you can believe Jesus
existed even if
you'd
never heard of the Bible.
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First,
how many people here believe that Julius Caesar existed? Everyone believes that
he
existed
right. But you've never seen him, have you?
Now
let me ask you a question...Do you need faith to believe that Julius Caesar
existed? No
of
course not. But wait you've never seen the man? So how do you know he existed?
One-
You see you believe he existed because he is in your history books.
Two -
You believe he existed because people around his time wrote about him.
And
three - You believe in him because he left his mark on the world.
Do
you believe Napoleon Bonaparte existed? You've never seen him?
Why
do you believe he existed?
One -
You believe he existed because he is in your history books.
Two -
You believe he existed because people around his time wrote about him.
And
three - You believe in him because he left his mark on the world.
Cornelius
Tacitus was a historian.
So
the question we should ask is: Did anyone other than a Christian write about
Jesus. Or is
Jesus
only talked about in the Bible?
So I
went to the San Jose Public Library, the one down on Market Street and went
into the
History
Section. And there in the Library, surrounded by centuries and centuries of
historical
and
proven accounts, accounts that almost everybody agrees with. I picked up a book
by
Cornelius
Tacitus and I flipped through the pages of it. And as I turned the page looking
for
the
reference my eyes fell upon the paragraph, and in that instant, my skin crawled
and I got
chills
down my spine. Because right there for the first time in my life I was seeing
the physical
evidence
in something other than the Bible, that JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVED AND
WALKED
ON THIS EARTH!
Cornelius
Tacitus wrote: and this is an original quote from the book!
“Christus,
from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the
reign of
Tiberius
at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus...”
The
Annals and the Histories by P. Cornelius Tacitus 44.
Jesus
Christ really lived, he really lived, do you understand that, he walked on this
earth, he
talked
to real physical people, he had legs, he had hair, he had blood and flesh, he
was like
me
and you in that way!! He really lived!
Josephus
was a Jewish Historian who defected over to the Romans when he saw that
Jerusalem
was about to be trashed. He was born in AD 37. He writes about the High Priest
Ananias
who took advantage of the death of the Roman Governor Festus, also mentioned in
the
Bible, in order to have James the brother of Jesus killed. Josephus writes in
his Historical
work
called Antiquities;
He (meaning Ananias the
High Priest) convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought
before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who
was called the Christ, and
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certain others. He accused them of having transgressed
the law and delivered them up to be
stoned.
Josephus,
Antiquities, 20.2100
There
is a second passage from Josephus, though some critics claim that this was
added
later
and not really written by Josephus. However in either case the James passage
above is
not
disputed.
Christianity
isn’t a blind faith! It's a rational faith built on a solid historical and
logical
foundation.
And
here were non-Christians, unbiased historians telling us this!
But
these aren't the only occurrences.
Suetoneous
wrote about Jesus, Plinius Secundus wrote about Jesus, Thallus wrote about
Jesus,
and the Jewish Talmud wrote about Jesus.
You
see Christianity isn’t a blind faith! It's a rational faith built on a solid
historical and logical
foundation.
Now
without once touching the Bible, we have proved that not only did Jesus exist
but also
that
he was crucified by Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and there were
a group of
crazy
people running around claiming that he came back to life!1
And
isn't that is exactly what the Bible has been saying for the last 2000 years!
And
those are just the skeptics.
Somebody
once asked me, how come there aren't lots more documents?
I
said there are. But those were all written by people who believed his claim
that He was God
and
most people immediately assume those who believed him are wacko. You see we
haven't
even
touched the myriad of documents written by people who believed in Christ. The
apostles,
the elders, the early church fathers, the disciples of the apostles and so on.
You
see the Church as we know it, did not suddenly pop into existence; we have
writings of
its
growth, from the Biblical writings of the Apostles to the extra biblical
writings of the
disciples
of the apostles. You see after Christ arose, the disciples started teaching
others,
their
students became leaders of the church after the original disciples and all of
these
students
wrote letters and kept documents that we have today. So the early church is
documented.
In fact even the New Testament is “re” documented. In otherwords, you can go
through
the sermons of the early church and recreate the entire New Testament from
their
quotes
except for about 9 verses.
So
there it is, there's the proof that Jesus was a real man, not a metaphor, not a
legend, not a
fairy
tale. He was a real man, real flesh and blood, real as you and me.
1
At this point there are NO reputable scholars
(atheists and agnostics and Christians and scholars of other religions) who
dispute the existence of a man named Jesus. There are some fringe elements
however that refuse to accept this despite
the evidence to the contrary.
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Christianity
isn’t a blind faith! It's a rational faith built on a solid historical and
logical
foundation.
Let
me ask you this:
Why
do you believe Jesus existed?
One -
You believe he existed because he is in your history books.
Two -
You believe he existed because people around his time wrote about him.
And
three - You believe he existed because .............if you pull out a
coin and look at it, it says
1990...something
You
see this man not only left his mark on history
but
he single handedly changed the history of the world so completely
that
he has left his mark everywhere and on everything and makes his changes felt every...
single... day!!!
Our
dates are based on him,
our
country was founded because of his persecuted followers.
Our
weekends were affected by him,
Our
names were influenced by him,
our
laws were mandated by his Word.
Jesus
Christ has left his mark on every aspect of our lives!
Can anyone
have any doubt that Jesus really existed?
Rational faith…
What
kind of faith are we supposed to have? Why? What could happen if you have a
blind
faith?
What are some of the problems with a blind faith?
What
do you think happens if you have a faith that is based purely on feelings or
emotions or
gut
wrenching belief with no foundation?
OK
let me give you some answers here:
Faith
is similar to the word trust. You trust someone. But should you trust someone
blindly?
Not
good. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are walking down the street and
suddenly
a guy in a minivan shows up and you’ve never seen him before. He then says to
you:
Hey, your mom/husband/friend just told me to give you a ride home. Or he says:
Hey, do
you
want to go for a ride?
Should
you get into his minivan?
Why
not?
Because
you could end up DEAD or worse.
But
aren’t you supposed to have faith? Why is this a bad idea? Because this would
be an
example
of stupidity or blind faith. So blind faith is what? Stupid.
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Why
should you not have faith in this guy? Exactly because he has done nothing to
earn your
trust.
Nor has he done anything to earn your faith. So you should NOT have faith in
him. You
should
scream very loudly and then run. Oh and memorize his license plate while you
are at
it,
so you can tell the cops.
So as
you can see blind faith is a very bad idea. Never have faith in something you
can’t trust.
Never
trust something you can’t verify. You can’t verify anything until you have
facts and
experience.
So faith must be built on facts and experience.
But
on the other hand let’s say you are walking down the street and someone you’ve
known
for
years and has babysat you when you were young, drives by in his truck and he
says: Hey
do
you want a ride home? is it safe to jump in his truck? Of course it is. Why?
Because he has
earned
your trust and your faith. So that is a rational faith. Faith that is based on
experience
and
verification. You know from experience that this person would give up his own
life to save
your
life. These are facts. So your faith and trust in this person is based on what?
It’s based
on
Facts. So any faith that is based on facts is a good faith, it’s a rational and
logical faith. Any
faith
based on no facts or any blind faith is what? Stupid.
Trust
and faith are things that are to be earned. Giving someone blind trust is very
stupid and
very
dangerous.
Now I
asked what are some things that can happen if other people have blind faith.
This
is what could happen.
9-11-2001
You
see every one of the men who were involved in 9-11 had blind faith. Blind faith
that they
were
doing the will of some God they’d never questioned, never proved and what’s
worse
never
questioned what his will was. Yet they blindly believed that if they died in a
suicide
attack
killing Americans, they would go to some heaven that they had no validation of
and
have
70 virgins to attend to their needs.
Did
they have blind faith?
Absolutely!
Let
me ask you this. Is blind faith a good idea? Absolutely not!
You
see when you have blind faith, you have no idea if you are following God or
Satan,
because
you have decided precisely not to test it. You must test your faith, or like
Paul said in
the
Bible, you may be one of the biggest fools around. If you have blind faith you
may even be
following
a God who doesn’t even exist.
Now
let me ask you this, can you decide your faith based on feelings?
No.
Why?
Exactly
because your feelings aren’t always based on facts and your feelings can fool
you.
For
instance, how many times have you felt that you could trust a friend only to be
betrayed?
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How
many times have you seen people fall in love with someone and feel they are the
“one”
only
to find out that they were wrong? So can you always trust your feelings?
Absolutely not.
So
you should only worry about your feelings after you have checked the facts. You
could feel
that
you are in love with someone only to find out that you fell in love with
someone that you
can’t
stand and can’t live with. So don’t pay attention to your feelings until AFTER
you check
the
facts. Remember this whatever you do: You CAN fall in love with the wrong
person. So
guard
your heart. I’ve known too many girls who fell in love with idiots who made
their lives
miserable.
But is He God?
OK we
talked about how Jesus really existed, how you can prove that he existed
without ever
using
the Bible. We showed how there evidence that Jesus really existed from
historians
around
his time who wrote about him who were NOT Christians. In fact people like the
Roman
Tacitus
and Pliny reported about Jesus and they hated the Christians.
But
now let's get into the meat of things. There are some of you here that will
say,
well
just because he existed - it doesn't mean he was God.
Just
because he existed - it doesn't mean he rose from the dead!
Just
because he existed - it doesn't mean he was telling the truth!
Just
because he existed - it doesn't mean he is the way to eternal life!
Just
because he existed - it doesn't mean that he is God.
Maybe
he was just a good man, a wise teacher.
And
how right you are!
You
see if Jesus was just a man,
if he
isn't God and
if he
didn't rise from the Dead
then
our faith is in vain and we Christians are all fools!
So we
have to study the claims that Jesus is God if we are going to do our
"Historical
Foundation"
any justice.
Now
if we had time, I would first go into the details of why we can trust the
historical accuracy
of
the Bible. But for now if you need information on the accuracy of the Bible, I recommend
you
check out my web page.
So
for now accepting that the Bible records are accurate we will now discuss the
contents of
those
records and the historicity of the Resurrection and the claims of Jesus.
First
we have realize that according to these Biblical records and let me remind you
the other
writings
of the early church pastors and priests, Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to
be
the
Son of God, he claimed to be the eternal judge who would judge all mankind, he
claimed
to be
the one who could forgive sins. He claimed to be a King.
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We
also at this point have to understand Jewish Culture a bit. According to the
Jews, God
created
Man, so man is created and God is not. God cannot be created or he wouldn't be
God.
Now if the created Man begets a son. That son is also a created being, that son
would
be a
man. But if the everlasting God were to beget a son.
That
Son would NOT be a created being. That son would be God. A God being. He would
be
of
the same substance as God.
Men
beget men, God begets God. The offspring of God is of the same essence, being
equal
in
ability and rights as God Himself. Now note that he would not be “begat” in the
same sense
that
humans are born.
So
when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and claimed to be the same as the
Father,
people
were incensed. And in fact as we'll see later, this is the very excuse the
Jewish
Leaders
used to condemn him and have him executed.
But
wait you say, let's see some proof of that.
First
I’ll show you some early church fathers who quoted this. These are the people
who led
the
church right after the apostles were killed.
Polycarp
(AD70-155). Bishop of Smyrna. Disciple of John the Apostle.
"O
Lord God almighty...I bless you and glorify you through the eternal and
heavenly high
priest
Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom be glory to you, with Him and the
Holy
Spirit, both now and forever"
(n.
14, ed. Funk; PG 5.1040).
Note
how he includes Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Father together.
Ignatius
of Antioch (died ~AD98). Bishop of Antioch.
"We
have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten
Son
and Word…”(Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The ante-Nicene
Fathers,
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975 rpt., Vol. 1, p. 52, Ephesians 7.)
Now
here is where Jesus himself claims to be God or equal to God.
John 10:30-39 – [Jesus
said] I and the Father are one." Again the Jews picked up stones to
stone
him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from
the Father.
For
which of these do you stone me?"
"We
are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for
blasphemy, because you,
a
mere man, claim to be God."
John 20:28-29 -- Thomas
said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him,
Don't call me God, you idiot. No- in fact he said:
"Because
you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and
yet
have believed.
Matthew 16:13-17 -- When
Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples,
"Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say
John the Baptist;
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others
say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." What
were other people
calling Jesus? A wise man, a good teacher, a prophet. "But what about you?" he asked.
"Who
do you say I am?"
Simon
Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied,
"Blessed
are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my
Father
in heaven.
This
next verse is from a scene where Jesus has been taken to the Jewish High
Priests
and
he is being tried.
Matthew 26:63-66 The high
priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God:
Tell
us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." "Yes, it is as you
say," Jesus replied. "But I say
to
all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand
of the Mighty
One
and coming on the clouds of heaven." Then the high priest tore his clothes
and said, "He
has
spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard
the
blasphemy.
What do you think?"
"He
is worthy of death," they answered (see also Mark 14:61- 63; Luke
22:67-71).
And so they condemned him to death. Note that the only
reason they would condemn him to
death is because he claimed to be of the same substance
as God, to be the same as God.
Now
remember how we said that Jesus never said the words: I am God. And that’s
true.
But
what did he say instead of that? He said something much more powerful.
OK
now I want to tell you a story.
Anybody
here see the animated movie “The Prince of Egypt”?
Great
movie by the way. Go rent if it you haven’t seen it already.
Well
there is a scene in it taken from the Old Testament. It’s when Moses hears God
in the
Burning
bush.
God
tells Moses to do what? Exactly to go to Pharaoh and say: Let my people go.
But
then Moses gets scared. He starts to whine:
Exodus 3:13 And Moses
said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and
shall
say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall
say to me,
What
is his name? what shall I say unto them?
Moses
what’s to know when the Israelites ask me, who sent you? What do I tell them?
Who
do I
say sent me? In otherwords, Moses asks God: What is your name?
What
does God say?
Exodus 3:14 And God said
unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say
unto
the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Moses
asks God: What is your name and God says: My name is I AM. The name of God is I
AM.
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Only
God was I AM. Note that years later the Hindu’s confused this and thought that
the name
was
pronounced Om. (Just kidding, God said it in Hebrew not English, in Hebrew it
sounds
more
like “Ani Asher” and in Greek it is “Ego emi”).
Now I
want you to fast forward about 2000 years to the time of Christ. Jesus is in a
crowd of
people
and they are arguing with him.
Jesus
says in John 8:56 "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and
he saw it and
was
glad."
57 The Jews therefore said
to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen
Abraham?"
58 Jesus said to them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, --WHAT?-- I
AM."
59 Therefore they picked up
stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of
the
temple.
Note
that he didn’t say before Abraham was born I was. He said before Abraham
existed I
AM. Wait, what was the
name of God? It was I AM. So yes Jesus never said I am God. He
said
something much more powerful. He named himself the name of God.
Let
me explain why this is so powerful. Now some hate the current president and
some love
him,
but regardless, a few months ago he flew into the middle of the war in Iraq and
met
personally
with the troops. OK let’s say that just before he got out there to talk to the
troops
he
was standing around waiting to be introduced and someone walked up to him and
asked:
Excuse
me who are you? Well he could of said: I am the President. But then he could
have
been
an old President, right? He could have also been the President of another
country right?
Or he
could have been the President of a company correct? So you could be confused.
But if
you’d
asked him who he was and he said, I’m President George Walker Bush you’d
know
immediately
that he was claiming to be the President of the USA himself. The only current
president
of the USA. There would be no doubt would there. Now you may doubt that he
really
was GW Bush, but you couldn’t have any doubt about WHO he claimed to be.
So in
the same way, when Jesus claimed to be God, he didn’t just say I am god.
Because
then
he could have been any old god. Or that he was part of God, or that he was
godly, or
that
he had essence of god or whatever. But he instead using the name of the
ONLY
SUPREME
GOD, made it very clear that he was the “I AM.” He said in those few words, OK
Folks
remember Moses out there in the wilderness? Remember the Burning Bush?
Remember
that God? Remember the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob? Remember the God
who
brought you out of Egypt out of slavery? Remember the God who gave you this
land and
destroyed
all your enemies. Remember the God who you think created the entire universe?
Remember
the God who says He’s the ONLY God. Well guess what, THAT is the GOD I AM.
That
is the God I am claiming to be. No doubts, no questions, no confusion. I AM.
And
what did the Jews do? Where they confused? Were they puzzled? Not at all, they
understood
immediately what he had claimed to be and they tried to what? Stone him. Why?
For
blasphemy.
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Anyone
know what Blasphemy is?
Blasphemy
is claiming to be God when you aren’t.
John 8:59 Therefore
they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and
went
out of the temple.
So if
anyone ever says: Well Jesus never said he was God, you can say, well actually
he did
one
better, he not only claimed to be God but he explained exactly which God he
was. To be
sure
there was no confusion he named the God that he was.
Many
years ago by the grace of God, I was fortunate enough to have to fly to Israel
to help
some
customers debug their Video Encoder boards. So as a result I got an all expense
paid
trip
to the Holy Land. Do you guys know where Israel is? The company was based just
outside
of Tel Aviv, which by the way at the time I though it was the most hideously
ugliest
cities
in the world. Anyway after a few days of work, I was very eager to figure out
how I was
going
to get to see Jerusalem. On the map it was all the way across the country.
Well
one night, the guy I was working with, said, let's go for dinner in Jerusalem.
I said that
sounds
like a long drive. Oh no he said, it’s only 30 miles away. Jerusalem was the
most
“beautifullest”
cities I've ever seen. They have a law saying that you can only use stone to
build
any buildings there. So it is a gorgeous city and has in addition it has the
best weather
ever.
It's
also a very very tiny city inside the walls, barely ¾ of a mile across. Which
means that you
can
walk across the entire old city of Jerusalem in less than 8 minutes.
When
I finally got the opportunity to do some sight seeing, it was their festival of
Yom Kippur.
Yom
means day, Kippur means Atonement. One of the places I visited was interesting.
It was
just
near the city walls. They wouldn't let you enter there unless you had your head
covered.
Well
I don't usually wear a hat, so they gave me a piece of cardboard cut out in the
shape of a
cap
that I could wear. I went in, and there in front of me was a large mound
decorated and
revered.
There were a lot of tourists there, but there were also a lot of Jews visiting
from all
over
the world. I turned to our guide and I asked him. What is this place? “Why” he
said “this
is
the tomb of King David.”
In
the last section we talked about how Jesus not only claimed to be God but he
also claimed
to be
one specific God. He used the specific name of the God of Moses. The God of
Abraham
Issac
and Jacob. By claiming that his name was the same name as the God of Moses, he
was
claiming to have created the entire world and the universe and if you remember
he is
basically
claiming to be the God who was responsible for the singularity and the big bang
at
the
beginning of the Universe and Time and Space.
So if
anyone ever says: Well Jesus never said he was God, you can say, well actually
he did
one
better, he not only claimed to be God but he explained exactly which God he
was. Just in
case
there was any confusion.
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Let
me further explain why that is so important. You see some people claim that we
are ALL
small
gods. So if you tell them that Jesus claimed to be God they will say: Well
that’s OK we
are
all gods too. You are also a god, just like Jesus. . He meant that we all have
the nature of
God.
Or
they may say Jesus just meant that he was god in his soul or some thing like
that.
But
that is all nonsense because Jesus didn’t say he was just another God. He
didn’t say he
was
God-like. He didn’t say he was a servant of God. He didn’t say he was God
because we
all
had the nature of God. He called himself by the name of a God who said he was
the
ONLY
God. Jesus claimed that he was the ONLY GOD, the same GOD who created
everything.
Some
people may say well Jesus just called himself the Son of God and sometimes he
calls
himself the Son of Man. They may say this means he’s not really God. But that
is also
nonsense.
Because as we showed, when he called himself the son of God he was implying
he
was a God Being and the Jews understood this and tried to kill him. And when he
called
himself
the Son of Man did that mean he was only a man? Absolutely not. When he calls
himself
the Son of Man he is referring to a vision that Daniel a prophet about a 1000
years
before
Jesus had.
Daniel
Chapter 7 verses 13-14.
Daniel
7
13 "In my vision at night I looked, and there before
me was one like a son of man,
coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the
Ancient of Days and was led
into his presence.
(Note that the Jews knew that The Ancient of Days is God
the Father).
14 He (the son of man) was given authority, glory and
sovereign power; all peoples,
nations and men of every language worshiped him. His
dominion is an everlasting
dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one
that will never be destroyed.
So
when Jesus called himself the Son of Man, what is he saying about himself?
He
was saying that He was the who? The very same as the person in Daniel’s
Vision. And
who
was that person? The one who will get all authority, glory and sovereign power;
and all
peoples,
nations and men of every language will worship Him. His dominion will be an
everlasting
dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be
destroyed.
And what’s more, the Jews understood this!
You
see Daniel had seen in that Vision that God was going to come to earth as a
man. So
Daniel
says he saw God as a Son of Man. And so when Jesus calls himself the son of Man
he’s
really saying he’s the same person that Daniel saw 1000 years earlier.
These
are some more of the verses where Jesus or people around him claimed that he
was
God
had the powers of God.
Matthew 9:6
Matthew 11:28-30
Matthew 12:8
Matthew 13:40-41
Matthew 16:13-17
Matthew 16:27
Matthew 18:20
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Matthew 19:28
Matthew 24:30-31
Matthew 25:31-34, 41
Matthew 26:63-66
Mark 3:11-12
Mark 8:38
John 1:1
John 3:13-15
John 5:26-29
John 6:53-55
John 9:35-38
John 10:30-39
John 11:25-26
John 20:26-29
John 4:25-26
John 6:33, 35
John 6:51
John 8:12
John 8:23-24
John 8:58-59
John 10:9
John 10:11
John 14:1-10
Matthew 9:11-13
Matthew 20:28
Matthew 28:18-20
Luke 4:16-21
Luke 19:10
Luke 11:31-32
John 1:47-51
John 3:16-18
John 10:10
John 12:27
John 12:46
John 12:47-48
John 18:37
But
even without these verses that show very clearly that Jesus claimed to be equal
to God
and
in fact God, if we were to say that Jesus never claimed to be divine we'd have
a technical
problem.
You
see: Why would anyone publicly execute a good teacher? Think about that.
Secretly plot
and
then assassinate yes, like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, but publicly execute
with the
masses'
approval. No, he had to have done some thing a lot more serious than teach good
things.
There were many crimes for which the Jews could kill a man, blasphemy was one,
but
teaching
love and peace was not. There were many crimes for which the Romans would
publicly
execute men, sedition, revolt, political issues like Socrates, etc, but again
teaching
love
and peace was not any of them. Jesus did far more than teach love and peace he
taught
a
complete change of life. He challenged the entire paradigm of the Romans and
the Jews.
Why
would anyone crucify an innocuous innocent sage telling nice little parables, how
did he
end
up on the cross especially at a Passover season when no Jew wants any Jew to be
executed?
There
also had to be a reason why when he was crucified the sign above his head said,
"This
is
the King of the Jews."
You
see they thought he claimed to be King of the Jews. The sign put above his
cross said it
in 3
languages. “The King of the Jews,” The Pharisees saw that and complained.
"Take it
down"
they said to Pilate, Pilate said No. The Pharisees said: Then put He claimed
to be King
of
the Jews. But Pilate said: "I have written what I have written."
The
Pharisees said that Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews. So
either Jesus had made
that
verbal claim or someone clearly thought he did.
Christianity isn’t a blind faith, it's a rational faith
built on a solid historical and logical
foundation.
So
that brings us to the million-dollar question.
Is Jesus God? Or was he just a very wise and good man.
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Many
people I talk to say: Oh Jesus, he was a very wise and good teacher. He was a
great
man,
like Martin Luther King, like Mother Teresa (who was by the way a woman).
But
after looking at all those verses we have to realize is that we cannot tolerate
any garbage
about
Jesus being only a Good Man.
As CS
Lewis says:
"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."
Think
about it Jesus claimed that He was God-
And
this leaves us with only 3 alternatives.
1. He
was coo-coo,---- mad as a hatter, he was a lunatic who actually thought he was
God,
like
Charles Manson who by the way seems to think he is Jesus Christ, or
2. He
was a con man, a liar, a cheat, a hustler, who fooled all these people or
3.
Jesus was really God.
There
is no in between, there is no happy medium.
As I
said earlier I will later prove the accuracy of the testimony of the Bible to
you, but for now
taking
what we know about Jesus from what we’ve read and heard, let us go through the
options
we are presented with.
1. LUNATIC
So
maybe Jesus was just a bit off his rocker! Maybe he had illusions
of Grandeur and just
thought
that he was God. I mean let’s say that tomorrow you meet someone and he says to
you:
Hi, I am God. Would you think he was sane? Or would you think he was what?
Insane.
A
little bit touched.
Well
Jesus couldn't have been just a bit off his rocker, he had to be totally
insane! Remember
what
Blasphemy is? It’s when you claim to be God. Do you guys remember what the Jews
would
do to people if they claimed to be God? What would they do?
Exactly
they’d kill him.
So
claiming that you are God in a fiercely monotheistic culture like the Jews in
30 AD, would
be as
stupid as a chicken seeking refuge in a Kentucky Fried Chicken hen house.Both
will get
you
killed without fail!
But
if we study the Christ’s life, you'd be hard pressed to find that madness.
Do
you detect any madness in the calm authority of his sayings?
Do
you detect any madness in his total knowledge and understanding of human
nature?
Do
you detect any madness in how he knew exactly what people of all walks of life
needed?
Do
you detect any madness in the way he acted?
He
never went off on wild fantasies, he was never anything but sane, kind, humane,
wise and
self
controlled, ...even in the clearing of the temple.
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And
remember, this is the man that has singularly affected the entire world for
good more
than
any other man living or dead!
Even
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte said, "I know men, and I tell you that Jesus
Christ was
not a
man... I search in vain in history to find a man that can compare with Jesus
Christ, and
there
is none!"
No,
Jesus Christ was anything but Mad! I know of no one who has studied the man who
even
considers
the possibility that he was mad. Psychologists will attest to the fact that he
was
anything
but mad or deluded. Everybody says he was a wise teacher, or a prophet, or as
the
New
Agers would put it "an enlightened master".
2. LIAR So that
brings us to 2. Maybe He was a liar.
Well,
if he was a liar then he was also a fool because if you look at the historical
account you’ll
see
that he was asked repeatedly by Pilate and the High Priest to say that he
wasn’t God. But
he
didn’t. Do you think that Jesus having grown up in Israel would know what the
penalty of
Blasphemy
was? Of course he knew, but he still claimed to be God. He didn't have to die,
all
he
had to say was: Whoops, you guys are serious about killing me. Never mind, I
was just
joking
about that God thing. Can I go now?
And
if he was a liar then he was a con man, and what a useless con man he was, he
died
penniless
& powerless. What’s the use of being a thief or a liar if you never get to
steal or
gain
anything?
He
didn't get rich like many fake teacher.
He
didn't amass an army around him like Hitler.
He
didn't gain anything for himself and he didn't try! What sort of con man is
that?
Finally,
even critics of the man upon studying the evidence have to admit that this was
a good
man,
a moral man --------
And
so I ask you
how
in the name of logic, common sense and experience could an imposter
-
that is a deceitful, selfish, depraved liar -
have
invented, and consistently maintained from the beginning to end of his life,
the purest
and
noblest character known in history with the most ….perfect… air of truth and
reality?
The
man who even today changes lives of the most hardened criminals into the most
kindest
of
people.
Almost
everybody here would have to agree that the concept of Jesus being a big con
man
and a
liar is just ridiculous.
No, it
seems everybody agrees that he was a very good man.
So he
was certainly not a liar, unless he was really convinced that he was God, which
would
mean
that he was mad -wait a minute we already eliminated that option.
3. LORD
And
so if he wasn’t a Lunatic, and he wasn’t a Liar that leaves only one option -
He really was
Lord
God! Can you think of any other option given that the historical evidence is
true?
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Remember
when we started this series we talked about what the Critics said? Well there
was
one
item we did not cover, but now we’ve covered that. Jeus could NOT have been
just a
good
and wise teacher.
And
that is a decision you have to make! If you are here today and you are not a
Christ
follower
you can't just ignore it, and pretend that he is a great moral teacher or a
good and
wise
man! And if you are a Christian, in your discussions with non Christians, you
HAVE to
bring
up this point. They have to be faced with this decision. This dilemma…because
it is a
real
problem, because…
You
see Christianity isn’t a blind faith! It's a rational faith built on a solid
historical and logical
foundation.
You
have to decide was Jesus what he said or was he a liar or a madman?
The Empty Grave!
Now
the facts we talked about earlier in themselves would have been pretty good
evidence
for
the Uniqueness and perhaps the Deity of Jesus Christ. But that's all
philosophical! I
wanted
to know more. I wanted something physical. Something logical, something
historical.
And
there was something.
You
see something happened 2000 years ago that changed the entire course of
history.
Some
inexplicable occurrence took place and mankind has never been the same since!
Something
so unusual happened that it motivated a handful of scared fishermen to leave
everything
that was familiar to them and go out to the most dangerous corners of the world
and
change the entire world!
There ..was..... an..... empty grave! And after
2000 years mankind has still not been able to
explain
how the grave became empty! Christianity isn’t a blind faith!
But
first you may ask - how do you know the grave was empty?
Well
let me turn that question around. If the grave wasn't empty, and if the body of
Christ was
still
in the grave.
How
long would the story of Jesus' resurrection have lasted?
Let
me ask you this: What is the fundamental crux of Christianity?
The
fundamental crux of Christianity was not the teachings of Jesus but the fact
that he was
God
and that he rose from the dead. Remember this verse that we talked about?
I Corinthians 15:12
If there is no resurrection of the dead and
if Christ did not rise from the dead
then our faith is in vain
and we of all people are to be pitied.
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In
other words the Bible says:
If
Jesus did not rise from the dead: Christians are idiots, dolts, fools,
dunkophs,
ignoramuses,
pinheads….
So
let me ask you this. Let’s say that it was AD29, about 3 months after Jesus had
been
crucified
and you want to stop this religion of Christianity. What’s would be the easiest
thing in
the
world for you to do to kill this whole stupid religion?
Exactly,
go find the dead body of Jesus and show it to everybody.
In
light of that the Jewish Pharisees who would have given their eye teeth to end
the
Christian
movement if they could, would have just produced the dead body of Jesus paraded
it
down main street Jerusalem and put an end to the whole stupid thing.
And
the apostles weren't preaching the story in Rome a few thousand miles away from
Israel,
Where
were they preaching this story? They started preaching the story 8 mins away in
downtown
Jerusalem! Remember how big Jerusalem is? It’s very small. You can walk across
it in
8 mins.
But
if we read in the Bible we find the Apostle Peter's first Evangelistic talk in
Acts II. I Here’s
what
happens. It’s the Passover feast and Jews from all over the world are visiting
Jerusalem.
Jerusalem
is packed with Jewish tourists. Most of them don’t speak Hebrew, they speak
whatever
language was spoken from where they live. Then suddenly the disciples are
overcome
by the Holy Spirit and they find they can suddenly speak in the languages that
these
foreign Jews speak. So Peter the disciple of Jesus preaches the worlds first
evangelisting
message. He preaches to these masses and masses of people who were in
Jerusalem
for the feast.
What
does he say to them: He says:
Acts II. God raised
Jesus from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death. …for God
would not allow the Holy One to undergo decay… I can tell
you confidently that the patriarch
David died and was buried and his tomb is here to this
day
(what
tomb is he talking about? Exactly! The same tomb that I visited 2000 years
later)
Then
he goes on:
But Christ was not abandoned to the Grave, nor did his
body see Decay. God has raised this
Jesus to life, and we are witnesses of the fact….
What
did Peter just say: He said: Jesus died but rose again and is not in his Grave.
David is,
but
Jesus is not. And do you see the importance of this. Those people that Peter
was talking
to,
many of them were from out of town and had probably gone and visited David's
tomb that
very
morning, just like I did 2000 years later. That’s the same grave that Peter was
talking
about
2000 years ago. And when Peter said that, he was a 8 min walk away from where
the
equivalent
Grave that Jesus was buried in. He was comparing a full grave to an empty
grave.
A
physically full grave to a physically empty grave.
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You
see it was an empty grave that a 8 min walk from downtown Jerusalem could have
proved
or disproved!
It
was an empty grave that a casual observer could have disproved.
It
was an empty grave that a Roman official could have disproved.
It
was an empty grave that a child could have disproved.
It
was an empty grave that the entire town could have disproved.
The
entire religion of Christianity would have stopped right then and there.
Now
let me ask you this. If I told you that some famous person had die a few months
ago and
had
come back to life and his grave was empty. Would you be curious to go check out
the
grave
8 mins away? Of course you would. How fascinating. So imagine how everybody
then
rushed
to the grave. I’d drive 2 days to check it out because I’m such a skeptic.
All
it would have taken was one historian, or one eyewitness, or even one local
Jewish guy
visiting
from India to say: What I am telling you. These people are only scamming you
and
lying
to you. I am going to the grave that my esteemed apostle is telling and I am
not believing
my
nose, because this man is not only being very dead, he is also being very
stinky.
No,
nobody said that, because the grave was empty, believe me lots of people did go
to the
tomb
just to check it out- wouldn't you. Hey Jesus rose, here's David's tomb, it's
not empty.
But
Jesus' tomb is only 8 mins away. Well- we'll just see about that shan't we. And
you walk
over.
The very first declaration of Christianity to everybody included the claim that
the grave
was
empty. How stupid would it have been if they claimed that this grave next door
was
empty
when it wasn’t?
And
further proof that the grave was empty was that the Jewish leaders who hated
the
Christians
claimed that the disciples had stolen the bodyNow why would they do a silly
thing
like
that if the body of Jesus was still in the grave?
You
see for the religion of Christianity to survive, the key fact was that Jesus
had to have
physically
risen from the dead. The Jews weren't into buying any sort of metaphysical
hogwash
about symbolic resurrections.
Without
that physical resurrection, Christianity would not have anything to stand on.
Because
Christianity
IS based on facts and not concepts. Because Christianity isn’t a blind
faith, it's a
rational
faith built on a solid historical and logical foundation. A dead body would
have ended
the
entire Christian movement in one swell foop.
Both
the Christians, and their opponents claimed that the tomb was empty. Which
anyone can
see
is pretty conclusive evidence that the tomb, really was empty. No one in
history doubts
that
the grave was empty! They are all too busy trying to explain it was empty!
What
are we saying? We are saying that:
Christianity isn’t a blind faith, it's a rational faith
built on a solid historical and logical
foundation.
How did the grave come to be empty?
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Now
if the grave was empty it could have become empty by Natural Means or by
Supernatural
Means. And we as detectives are going to try and solve this 2000 year old
mystery.
So
now we are going to look at all the possible ways that Grave could have become
empty?
DISCIPLES STOLE THE BODY
The
first and most obvious way the grave could have become empty is as some people
have
suggested,
the disciples stole the body of Jesus and then claimed that he had risen.
Well
this is the easiest claim to disprove. You see God knew all these things would
come up
so he
prepared ahead of time.
1st
of all, the tomb was guarded by the Roman Guards.
Now
the Roman Guards were not exactly the sort you'd like to meet in a dark alley.
Polybius,
a
Greek historian tells us that a Roman guard unit was 16 men. They were
professional killers
trained
to protect whatever they had from an entire battalion and the penalty for their
failure
was
quite simple. They were killed.
So
whatever they were guarding they were guarding with their lives, because they
were put to
death
one way or another if they lost their keep!
Now,
the guards watched over their keep in 4 shifts, the 1st shift of 4 would guard
the tomb
over
here while the rest of the 12 slept in a semi-circle in front of them with their
heads
pointing
in.
Then
every 4 hours another shift of four was awakened and the 4 who had been
guarding
went
to sleep.
So to
get to the tomb the disciples would have to pass over the sleeping row of 12
killers and
then
dispatch with the 4 guards who by now will have awakened the sleeping 12.
So
now the 11 disciples who were mostly fishermen, instead of only having four
Romans to
deal
with, would now be surrounded by 16 trained professional killers....who if you
recall
weren't
exactly very fond of the Jews. Then they'd have to move away that great big
stone,
grab
the body of Jesus and fight their way back out again.
I
know….I have trouble with it too.
But
the death knell for this whole theory is quite simple,
every
single one of the disciples of Jesus but one, died gruesome, agonizing deaths
and they
all
died alone.
Peter
was crucified upside down,
Andrew
was also crucified,
Simon
was crucified too,
the
first James was beheaded,
the
second James was sawed alive in pieces,
Bartholomew
was flayed alive with knives,
Thomas
was speared in India,
Jude
was killed by arrows,
Matthew
was killed in Ethiopia,
and Phillip.... was killed
........in Hieropolis.
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Now
what sort of an imbecilic idiot would concoct a lie and then die gruesomely for
it, all the
while
maintaining that it was true? In fact the fundamental basis for most all of
their death
sentences
was precisely because they claimed Jesus was God and rose from the dead
to prove it. Nobody was out to kill them because they claimed that
Jesus said we should love
everybody.
They were killed by the Jews for claiming Jesus was God, they were killed by
the
Romans
for claiming Caesar was not God, they were killed by other people for claiming
that
Jesus
was the only way.
Not
one of the disciples ever recanted their story and all of them could have lived
if they had
just
been willing to say -
Noooo
I was just kidding - he really didn't rise from the dead, we actually stole the
body, I
admit
it I admit it. I won't talk about this whole religion thing anymore. Please
don't kill me!
Please
please Don't kill me. I think I’ll go fish now.
NO,
every one of them died for their beliefs, believing that they had not only seen
the empty
tomb,
but that they had actually seen Jesus Christ risen from the dead, and he was
living,
breathing
and eating!!! They believed they’d touched Him, they believed they’d talked to
Him,
they
believed they’d felt Him.
Now
if you recall I said last week that I have no doubts about that the Bible's
documentation of
what
Jesus said is accurate. I said that because it was written by these same men
who went
to
their gruesome deaths claiming the same thing. In other words, John and Mathew
and the
rest
of them wrote what they thought Jesus said. Then they wrote that they saw him
alive, and
this
proved to them, that what they thought he said was what He said. Then they went
to their
deaths
still claiming that what they wrote and what they said was the truth. Their
witness
stands
the test of time and accuracy. They were willing to die because they personally
believed
that they'd seen the physically resurrected Christ.
WRONG TOMB
So
maybe they didn't steal the body, but maybe they just were mistaken and went to
the
wrong
tomb. You know: they go to the wrong tomb and there's no dead body and they
say:
Oh
he's alive let's tell everybody.
So
not only did the women go to the wrong tomb,
but
later John and Peter went to the wrong tomb,
and
then the Pharisees also went to the wrong tomb,
followed
by the Romans who also went to the wrong tomb
and
of course Joseph of Arimethia who owned the tomb and actually helped put Jesus
in the
tomb,
went to the wrong tomb, because he was confused and did not know his own and
probably
only tomb in his own backyard?
Of
course too the Roman guard must have been guarding the wrong tomb. Unless they
were
guarding
the right tomb and were wondering why all these people were running in and out
of
the
wrong tomb next door.
And
of-course nobody noticed the Roman guard guarding the right tomb? The whole
concept
gets
even more ludicrous as we continue.
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So
much for the wrong tomb theory. Nobody could have mistaken the tomb, it was way
too
important!!
Besides if the stupid Christians were running around pointing to the wrong
tomb,
don't
you think the Pharisees and the Romans would have only been too happy to point
out
the
RIGHT tomb with the very very very dead body of Jesus and that would have been
the
end
of that and we wouldn't be wasting our time here today.
MOVED BY THE JEWS OR ROMANS
Well,
maybe the body was moved by the Jews or the Romans. But, as we’ve already said:
if
the
Jews had the body of Jesus they'd have been the first ones to bring it out and
put an end
to
the Christian movement with one swell fooop!
But
nobody did that! Why not? Because they couldn’t, they didn't have the body of
Jesus,
nobody
seemed to know what had happened to it! Everybody was running around blaming
everybody
else.
HALLUCINATION
Now
some people have suggested that everybody hallucinated. Peter hallucinated,
John
hallucinated,
the rest of the 12 hallucinated, all the Mary's hallucinated. Makes you think
they
were
back in the 60's. The problem is that more than 500 people saw Jesus after he
had
risen.
And psychologists tell us that if even 2 people see the exact same thing, it
isn’t a
hallucination,
forget about 500 eyewitnesses. And this wasn’t some strange bright light in the
sky
or mold on a water tower that resembled Jesus. Many of these folks claimed
they’d seen
Him,
talked to Him and then touched Him then they went out and died for those
claims.
You
see Christianity isn’t a blind faith! It's a rational faith built on a solid
historical and logical
foundation.
THE DAVE THEORY
I
just recently learned of a new theory. It’s been mockingly called the “Dave
Theory” by the
great
debater William Lane Craig after the movie Dave,
you
know where the President of the US is replaced by this ordinary guy named Dave
who
just
happens to look exactly like him. It was proposed by a European theologian who
is an
expert
in history but he’s not a Christian. This theologian says that when Jesus was
born, he
was
actually born to another couple and he was a twin. Somehow in the confusion of
the
manger
scene, Jesus was swapped with the baby who was the real son of Mary and Joseph.
So
Jesus grew up not knowing that he had a identical twin brother out there.
Don’t
laugh, it gets more ludicrous. Well one day the twin brother decides to visit
Jerusalem
and
he sees his identical twin dead on the cross. He immediately realizes that
Jesus was his
unknown
twin and gets this great idea. He will steal his twin’s body and then pretend
to be
Jesus
risen from the dead. Since nobody even knows the twin exists, everybody
including
Mary
and all the Disciples are fooled by this.
OK
well that’s a bit far fetched and requires so many things to work a specific
way. For
instance.
Could no one have figured out that this twin was not Jesus. The twin would not
have
known
the disciples very well, the twin would not have been able to walk through
walls, the
twin
would not have been able to ascend into heaven. It’s sort of silly plus there
is no physical
evidence
for this theory at all. If you are interested, there’s a Video of the debate
available
between
Professor William Lane Craig and this theologian where Craig the good guy
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demolishes
the Dave argument completely. Any we won’t waste anymore time on the Dave
theory.
Is 53 written some 400 years before Christ
Is 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces he was
despised, and we esteemed him not. 4
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for
our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment
that made us whole, and by his
stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone
astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the sin of us
all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened
not his mouth; like a lamb that is
led to the slaughter, …9 And they made his grave with the
wicked and with a rich man in
his death, although he had done no violence, and there
was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet
it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him
to grief; when he makes himself
an offering for sin.
Ps 22 written about 1200 years before Christ.
Ps 22:1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why
art thou so far from helping
me, and from the words of my cry?..7. All those who see
me laugh at me and scorn me..,
they shake their head, saying, 8 He trusted on the LORD
to deliver him: let Him deliver
him, …
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out
of joint: my heart is like wax; it is
melted in the midst of my bowels. 15 My strength is dried
up like a potsherd; and my
tongue cleaves to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into
the dust of death.
16 For dogs have encircled me: the assembly of the wicked
have enclosed around me:
they pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I may tell all my
bones: they look and stare upon
me. 18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots
for my robe.
SWOONED
Now
some people have another theory. They say, "maybe Jesus was not dead,
maybe he just
fainted
or someone gave him a drug so everybody thought he was dead. Like in Romeo and
Juliet.
I mean, the Romans didn't really know enough about medicine, may be Jesus was
in a
coma."
Some guy even wrote a book claiming this was what happened, he calls it
"The
Passover
Plot".
I
call this the Monty Python Plot or the "I'm not dead yet - I'm getting
bettah',----I want to go for
a
walk -- I feel happeeeee", or "it's just a flesh wound".
The
amazing thing as I said earlier is that we must realize is that God knew that
all these
theories
were going to be proposed so He set the stage so that no doubts could come
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through.
He knew the Monty Python theory even before they met and created the movie. The
sad
thing is that most people never bother to learn the details about what could
have
happened
and what couldn't have happened.
First,
we really need to understand what crucifixion was all about.
Crucifixion: the details
It
all starts on the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemene. If you recall
Jesus went
there
to pray the night before he was crucified. He was in great anguish anticipating
the
events
and the pain that was to come. The gospels say:
Luke 22:44
And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat
was like drops of blood
falling to the ground.
Now
right away some of us might be predisposed to assume that's just creative
language. But
not
if you are a doctor and know about hema-tie-drosis. Can you say that:
Hematidrosis. I am
not a
doctor which is why I have no idea how it is pronounced.
Very
good, I can't pronounce it, but I do know what it is. It's an affliction
associated with high
psychological
stress. You see what happens is that severe anxiety causes the release of
internal
chemicals that break down the capillaries in the sweat glands, and as a result
they
bleed
into the glands, and when you sweat, the sweat comes out tinged with blood.
It's not
like
you would dripping with blood all over, but you would indeed literally sweat blood.
It
also has the unfortunate side effect of making the skin extremely fragile so
that the skin
becomes
very sensitive and tender, at times even painful to the touch.
Jesus
was in great mental anguish and at that moment he suffered from
Hema-tie-drosis.
This
is even more heartbreaking in that the next day Jesus was to experience 39
lashes with
his
skin already in this tender ready to bleed state.
History
tells us that the Roman 39 lashes were from a
whip
of braided leather thongs, with metal balls and bone
woven
into them. When the whip would strike the flesh,
these
balls would cause deep bruises and the bone
would
cut the flesh severely.
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If
the soldier doing the whipping
was
in an extra foul mood, the cuts
and
intensity of the whipping could
shred
the back so much that the
spine
of the victim was sometimes
exposed.
The whipping would
have
gone all the way down the
shoulders
to the back, the butt and
the back
of the legs. It was just
terrible.
One
physician who has studied
Roman
beatings said: As the
flogging
continued the lacerations
would
tear into the underlying
skeletal
muscles and produce
quivering
ribbons of bleeding flesh. Eusebius, a
3rd
century historian says: The sufferer's veins
were
laid bare and the very muscles sinews and
bowels
of the victim were open to exposure.
Is 53:5 He was beaten for our transgressions,
and by His stripes we are healed.
The
result of all these means that Jesus would go
into
Hypovolemic shock.
Hypovolemic
shock is what happens when you
lose
large amounts of blood. This does 4 things.
First
the heart races to try to pump blood that isn't
there,
second,
the blood pressure drops causing
fainting
or collapsing,
third
the kidney stops producing urine to try and maintain what liquid is left in the
body and
fourth
the person becomes extremely thirsty as the body craves fluids to replace the
lost
blood
volume.
Ps 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my
tongue sticks to the roof of my
mouth;
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Do
recall what happened on the way to the crucifixion? Jesus stumbles with his
cross and
faints
and Simon the Cyrene is forced to carry the cross. Then later as he is hanging
on the
cross
Jesus says: I thirst. [John 19:28 After this Jesus…said, I thirst.] He was in
Hypovolemic
shock.
He was in pain and he was in serious critical condition. For you and me.
When
Jesus got to Golgotha the place where he was to be crucified, then soldiers
tied his
arms
and legs to the cross and then nailed them. But they weren't nailed in the
palms as so
many
paintings show. Jesus was nailed to the cross right here, in his wrists, right
through the
median
nerve between the two bones. I want you to push right there with your index
finger. In
Greek
like my mother tongue, the word for Hand and Wrist are the same. This would
allow the
nail
to hold up the body otherwise if the nails had been through the palms, the
nails with the
force
of the body would rip right through the palms.
Nailing
through the wrist did one other thing. Remember your funny bone? How does it
feel
when
you hit it? Well the median nerve right here in your wrist is an even more
sensitive
nerve.
The
Romans knew how to create great pain.
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So
they'd use the median nerve, and nail right through it, which would be
equivalent to taking
a
pair of pliers and squeezing your ulna nerve which is the nerve that causes the
pain when
you
hit your funny bone. And this pain would last until the nerve was torn to
shreds.
They
pain was so unbearable that they created a brand new word for this pain. The
word is
excruciating.
It means "out of the Cross."
He
suffered for our transgressions.
And
then they do the same with the other hand and then his feet.
Ps 22:16 They have
pierced my hands and my
feet.
Did
you know that
Crucifixion
had not yet
been
invented when that
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Psalm
was written almost 1500 years earlier.
People
didn't die easily from
crucifixion,
they weren't meant to.
They
were meant to suffer terribly
first
then die. They were meant to
be an
example to others. So that
no
one else would ever dare to
oppose
the Romans.
When
Jesus' wrists were nailed,
as we
know from archeological
finds
of crucifixion victims, his
arms
would have been pulled
back
so that the shoulders
become
dislocated.
Ps 22:14 My bones are out of
joint.
Then
they'd raise the cross and it
would
have been dropped into its
stand.
Once Jesus was hanging
vertically
the weight of his body
and
the position of the arms put
great
stress on the diaphragm
and
would put his chest in an
inhaled
position. So in order to
exhale,
Jesus would have had to
push
up on his feet and take a
breath.
But each time he did this
he'd
be pushing on the nail in his
feet
tearing the muscle until it
locked
against the tarsal bones in
his
feet.
Finally
with the pressure on his chest eased he'd be able to exhale. But then the
strain and
pain
of holding himself up would tire him out and he'd have to relax down again. And
so would
begin
the torturous task of exhaling again. This would go on until Jesus would
literally be
beyond
the point of exhaustion and would not have enough strength to breathe.
In
fact if you recall, the soldiers came by and broke the legs of the two thieves
next to Jesus.
Why
do you think they did that? Because then the victims wouldn't be able to push
themselves
up to breathe, and would suffocate to death. They did this because the Jewish
people
had asked that no one would be hanging there over the Shabbat, the Sabbath. But
when
they came to Jesus, he was already dead. So they didn't break his legs. They
didn't
need
to.
But
then how did he die? Or did he just swoon and they thought he was dead? Well
for one, if
you
were not dead, you couldn't breath without lifting yourself up to breath. They
could see
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that.
But more over, as his breathing slowed down, our Lord would have gone into
respiratory
acidosis,
which means that the carbon dioxide that he couldn’t exhale would have
dissolved
back
into his blood causing the acidity of his blood to increase. This would lead to
an irregular
heartbeat.
Jesus would have felt his heart become erratic and would have known the moment
of
his death was near - at which point he said: Father, into your hands, I commend
my spirit.
And
then he died of cardiac arrest.
For
God so loved the World that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believes in
Him,
shall not perish but have eternal life.
Is 53:6 All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the
LORD has laid on him the sin of us all.
Roman
historians tell us that no less than 4 executioners had to confirm the death of
a
crucified
criminal. And as we have just seen, the Romans were very intimate with every
form
of
death, they were experts in torturing and prolonging death and they were
experts in killing.
Furthermore,
if a crucified person were to show up alive a few days later, the Roman
executioner
would be executed himself. I don't think they were in the habit of making
mistakes.
Second,
John tells us that the Roman centurion pierced Jesus' side with a spear, and
blood
and
water gushed out.Not knowing anything else but this fact, a doctor can tell you
immediately
that not only was the victim dead, but he can tell you what the victim died of.
"Heart
failure, due to shock and constriction of the heart detected by the presence of
fluid in
the
pericardium." Some years ago I went to a class reunion, one of my old
class mates, who I
don't
think is a Christian had completed medical school and was in his final year of
internship.
I was
witnessing to about 4 of them and when I got to this point, I turned to him and
asked
"what
does it mean if blood and water flowed out of the cut?" without a moment's
hesitation he
blurted
out "he died of Heart failure"
and
then continued to explain it to us, much to the amazement of the rest of my
classmates.
Just
knowing that fact, 2000 years later a medical student can tell you that Jesus
was dead!
The technical
reason? The heart has stopped which results in the collection of fluid in the
membrane
around the heart, called pericardial effusion; as well as the collection of
fluid
around
the lungs, which is called pleural effusion. This can't happen if the heart is
still beating.
So if
you see the pericardial effusion you know the person is dead.
My
heart is like wax…..
And
remember John the Apostle couldn't have easily known this fact. He was a
fisherman not
a
doctor, all he knew is that when the Roman soldier pierced Jesus' heart, blood
and
something
clear like water flowed out.
But
even given all that, the death blow to this theory that Jesus didn't die but
swooned was
delivered
strangely enough by an opponent of Christianity:
Dr David Strauss says:
"
It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre,
who
crept about weak and ill,
wanting
medical treatment; who required bandaging strengthening and indulgence,
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and
who at last had died
could
have given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death
and the
grave,
how
could this weak and dying person convince them that he had triumphantly risen
and was
the
Prince of Life,
an
impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry."
If
the disciples had seen Jesus in that condition, they'd have known he didn't die
and the last
thing
they'd think is "He is God". No they'd probably have said " oh
poor man - he's not dead
yet!"
Christianity
isn’t a blind faith! It's a rational faith built on a solid historical and
logical
foundation.
SUPERNATURAL
Well
that leaves us with only one option doesn't it? We have studied the case, we
have
investigated
the options and now have come to the conclusion that the likely is impossible.
Therefore
the unlikely is the only possibility.
There
are no more normal natural explanations left.
The
historical documentation of this case leads us to one conclusion. There are far
stranger
things
happening here than we can understand. The supernatural!
It
would take us more faith to believe in some weird combination of plots and
coincidences
than
it does to believe in the fact that Jesus actually rose from the dead.
The
fact remains, after all the study of all the possibilities, the only
probability is the
Supernatural.
Oh sure I can’t prove it 100%. But I believe that I’ve shown you enough
evidence
to make it a very rational and probably event at the least. And what’s more
important,
it is the most cohesive answer available today.
If
you go listen to some of the debates by the scholars in this area. Scholars who
believe
Jesus
didn’t rise from the dead and scholars who do. You will see that first of all,
none of them
dispute
the fact that the grave was empty. Secondly none of them dispute that the
disciples
thought
Jesus had risen. What they debate is about how the disciples may have been
mistaken.
See
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/debates.html and lookup debates
by
William
Lane Craig.
The
Grave was empty because Jesus Christ really rose from the dead. He is
RISEN!!!!!
And
not only did the disciples claim that He had risen, but over 500 people
saw him.
Including
a Pharisee who at first was trying to kill all the Christians, his name was
Paul. That
would
be like Hitler meeting God and then becoming the sanest and most humanitarian
Jew
for
the rest of his life. You see something happened that day in 30 AD, that has
changed the
world
and anyone who has studied the evidence .........forever.
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SUPERNATURAL
MEANS
THE
RESURRECTION
HE IS
RISEN!!
TOMB
EMPTY BY
NATURAL
MEANS
STOLEN
BY
DISCIPLES
WRONG
TOMB
MOVED
BY THE
JEWS
OR ROMANS
HALLUCINATION
SWOONED
DAVE
THEORY
Conclusion
Now
when I started this, I told you that you don't need any faith to believe that
Jesus existed.
And
I've shown you that. Then using the Bible I showed you how you need some faith
to
believe
that Jesus is God. In fact I am convinced it would actually take more faith in
the
improbable
and the absurd to believe that Jesus WAS NOT God than it takes to believe that
He is
God.
If
you are not a Christian, as I said, you need no faith to believe Jesus existed
and you need
some
faith to believe He is God. But let me tell you where you are going to need lots
of faith.
You
are going to need lots of faith to take that step, to accept Christ as your
personal Savior if
you
haven't.
To
believe that He will take care of you on a day to day basis.
To
believe that when you become a Christian, you don't get bored or lose out on
all the fun. In
fact
life becomes better.
To
believe that when you become a Christian, life starts to have meaning and a
purpose.
To
believe that Jesus really does love you.
If
you haven't believed in Jesus until now, are there reasons left?
Is
there any reason why you shouldn't accept him now?
If
you are still not convinced, study the issues again for yourself! There are
lots more facts
than
I can give you in 45 minutes. There is an excellent book that every skeptic and
every
Christian
should buy on this. It's called the CASE FOR CHRIST. It will go through all
this in
much
more detail than we can do justice here.
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If
you are a Christian, you need to get involved with studying this more,
so that you can
defend
your faith in front of others. So that you can have the confidence in times of
doubt
about
your purpose and reason for existence. So that your faith is not built on some
vague
feeling
that you had one day, but on facts. Make a commitment with me today, that you
WILL
make
apologetics one of the focuses of your studies. That you WILL study the Bible
as a tool
to
witness to other.
An important point to remember:
Many people may say that Jesus did not rise physically
he only rose spiritually. Or
they may say: Jesus rose as a symbolic concept and not in
reality. Or that He is alive in
our minds and not physically.
We immediately
see that this is all nonsense. The grave was physically empty. The disciples
were
comparing David’s physically full tomb with Jesus’ physically empty tomb right
from their
very
first Sermon. So they thought the resurrection was physical and not spiritual.
Jesus did
not
rise only in the spirit. He rose in the flesh. This was an important part of
the creed of the
early Church.
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