Every person has a worldview. Everyone has a given set of presuppositions he or she holds to be so, a series of assumptions by which he or she understands, adjudicates, assesses, and considers the world and all that it is.
Since the starting point for any belief system is always a set of such assumptions, it is therefore generally a vain effort to try to pit your set of assumptions against the assumptions of another party. Two parties engaged in such an exchange will never come to agreement unless one or the other surrenders his or her assumptions. Such disagreements are ultimately at loggerheads over the fundamentals.
Rather, the best one can hope for, within the limits of human reason, is to see which set of assumptions does best in passing two key tests for truth – coherence and correspondence. The rational check and the reality check. Does the belief system resulting from the assumptions cohere as a system; are there any serious contradictions within the system itself that would reveal its inherent weakness(es)? And how well does the given belief system correspond to observable reality?
My set of assumptions begins with the historical figure of Jesus Christ. For the few reasons I will outline here, along with many others that can be brought to the table, I believe that anyone who approaches the big questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny must deal with Jesus Christ. And this is so because of the starkly bold claims of Christianity as a system. It is not reasonable to mockingly and ignorantly dismiss biblical Christianity out of hand.
Jesus Christ is the One who vindicates the authority of the Bible. Another way of saying this is, because of Jesus, I know the Bible is true. Jesus Christ is the central figure in the hierarchy of truth. All the truth claims of this system hinge upon Him.
Now it’s true that what we know of Jesus comes from the Bible. So this may appear at first to be circular reasoning. But there are foundational elements of this belief system which step outside of simply looping around two interdependent intellectual pivot points. Biblical Christianity is a system grounded in history. It is not a mere collection of ideas, it is not just an esoteric ideology. Biblical Christianity demands to be dealt with in the realm of reality.
Clearly, history demonstrates that something significant occurred in the first century. A person who never wrote anything that we know of or have record of, a person who lived in an obscure location of virtually no impact or influence, a person who never traveled much beyond a 25 mile radius of His hometown, a teacher who only taught for about three years, a person who never visited any major metropolitan or cosmopolitan centers of His day, managed to turn the course of human history. How is that possible unless that individual was an incredibly remarkable person?
Jesus made some incredibly remarkable claims about Himself. Jesus claimed to be much more than just a teacher of good moral behavior. He had to have been more than that to have had the level of influence He exhibited during His short and relatively simple life. And the epicenter of Jesus’ life was actually His death – and what happened immediately following.
The death-burial-resurrection of Jesus Christ, taken together as a singularity, is the most important event of human history. And, historically, the most telling evidence of Jesus’ resurrection is the dramatic turnaround demonstrated in His followers. Just seven weeks after Jesus’ death, they went from hiding in fear of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem to boldly stepping out into the streets of the same city, proclaiming that Jesus had risen bodily from the dead. Many of them willingly gave their lives because they purposefully chose to publically testify that Jesus rose from the dead. This is the strongest indication that they believed what they were saying. People do not die for something they know is a lie.
And, please note, these men were not saying that they took it as a matter of faith that Jesus rose from the dead. They didn’t believe it because someone told them or because they read it in a book. They claimed to be eyewitnesses that Jesus was physically alive from the dead, and they laid their own lives on the line for making that claim. The apostle John made it clear that this was a physical reality to him….
1 John 1:1 – That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
John said that they saw Jesus, they observed Him, and they touched Him. Peter also reported the same….
2 Peter 1:16 – We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
1 Peter 1:21 – Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
In point of fact, Peter boldly professed this truth of Christ’s bodily resurrection right from the very start….
Acts 2:22-24,32 – Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him…. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.
These are not the statements of crazed religious fanatics. These statements are the testimony of credible men in a historical setting where, if anything they were saying was false, it could have thus been demonstrated right on the spot. They would have been stopped cold. And we would know nothing of Jesus of Nazareth today.
But that didn’t happen. Those who sought most for this message to be squelched at the time were incapable of stopping it because they had no good testimony to bring to the contrary. They could not show any evidence at all that Jesus had not risen from the dead bodily. All they would have needed to do was to have produced the corpse of the crucified Jesus and, as horrid and shocking as such a display would have been, it would have crushed the movement being generated by Jesus’ followers. But they could not do so, for there was no body to produce! The tomb where Jesus’ body had been laid, belonging to one of their own number, Joseph of Arimithea, was empty!
The final advice of one of their leaders was simply to leave this new movement alone. As they responded to the Jewish leaders, Peter and the apostles were the provocateurs that elicited this advice….
Acts 5:29-32 – Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel
No other response among the Jewish leadership was to be had other than putting these men to death….
Acts 5:33-39 – When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed them: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
Gamaliel’s test was straightforward and simple. If the apostles’ testimony and purpose was of human origin, it would fail of its own accord. But, if it was truly of God, then there was nothing the Sanhedrin could do to stop it.
Eventually, most of the apostles did indeed die at the hands of others who tried to stop them. But they knew they were dying for something that was real and tangible. They were eyewitnesses of Christ’s majesty! They had seen the resurrected Lord!
And they gave their very lives for what they had seen. Why? Because what they had seen authenticated what they believed. Jesus’ physical death and subsequent physical resurrection from the dead vindicated everything He had taught and said. They saw this Gospel, this Jesus, as something and Someone worth living – and worth dying – for.
Thus I can believe and say with authority today that Jesus Christ is the One who vindicates the message of the Bible. Because of Jesus, I know the Bible is true.
No comments:
Post a Comment