 |
 |
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
|
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
May, 2024 (Vol.58-No.5) |
 |
 |
|
|
Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on April 2, 1989 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Acts 2:32 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day… 1st Corinthians 15:3-4 MY SUBJECT TODAY IS THE RESURRECTION of Jesus Christ. In previous messages, I laid down a simple challenge: if you are going to have an opinion about Christ, base it on facts. I do not know why some people think they are born experts on religion. If you have never thought about religion in a disciplined way, do not assume that it cannot be done or that no one else has ever done it. You can apply the same analytical mindset to studying Christianity as you would to studying any other historical fact. The claim of Christianity is that God was in Christ. He moved about on the state of history, He said and did specific things, and He proved who He was by the astounding event of the Resurrection. The intellectual world wants us to think of Jesus as just another “good and wise” teacher, but there is no such Jesus to be found in history. In any historical source of information about what Jesus said and did, He will be found making impossible or even ridiculous claims about Himself that preclude His being called “good and wise.” I suppose that Jesus could still be called “good” if He were crazy and believed impossible things about Himself; but in that case, He would not be wise. He could be “wise” if He were a fake who was smart enough to deceive others, but He would not be good. But Jesus cannot be called both good and wise, because no mortal man can make the claims He made about Himself. An encounter with the only Christ to be found in history forces you to a crossroads, which C.S. Lewis called “the shocking alternative.” You must either conclude that Jesus is as crazy as a man who believes he is a poached egg or you must accept Him for what He claims to be. If the claims Jesus made are indeed true, then you do not need a better starting point for a definition of God. He seated all authority in Himself. That is part of any working definition of God: He is the Boss. He claimed to be perfect. I am not saying that Jesus’ perfection can be proved from the existing records, but I cannot find any record of His imperfection. However, if He were not perfect, then His claim of being perfect would in itself be an imperfection. What kind of God could He be if He were not perfect? Jesus also spoke of heaven as though He had been there. If heaven exists and He is the One who created it, then it is probably true that He was there. And Jesus made Himself the center of the religious universe. He made your response to Him determine your eternal destiny. If He is God, then that is also true. You do not have to labor with a complex definition of God. I have studied the history of the church councils with their convoluted discussions about the nature of God. I have no need for an abstract definition that has no application to our everyday lives. If Jesus is God, the claims He made about Himself make perfect sense. Whatever God may be in His fullness and wherever He may dwell, the Christian claim is He moved into a tent of human flesh and walked ordinary streets where ordinary people live. Jesus led God’s invisible nature out from behind the curtain of eternity and put Him on display. God revealed Himself in Christ, as though God was saying, “This is what I am like.” What a ridiculous claim for a mere man to make! But if any man made such a claim and also said, “Slay me and I will rise again after three days and three nights,” and he actually did rise from the dead and later ascend into heaven, I would take another look at that man. For years, the church has been asking people to take a look at Christ. The Resurrection has been the fundamental message of the church from its beginning. When the church was born on the day of Pentecost, the disciples did not present an abstract philosophical argument. The apostle Peter proclaimed, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.” The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day…” Paul unfolded the pattern and purpose for Christ’s life and death according to the Scriptures and then He catalogued the witnesses who saw Him, including about five hundred at one time. Paul went on to say, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ…” There is no basis for Christianity apart from the fact of the Resurrection. Many Christians love to sing the song at Eastertime: “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!” That statement might be subjectively true to the person singing the song; but unfortunately, it does not prove anything to anyone else. It is only a description of someone’s personal feelings. Christianity is not based on feelings. Christianity starts with a historical fact. In previous messages, I pointed out that certain facts must be assumed in order to have an intelligent discussion about the Resurrection. Most people in the modern intellectual world do not believe in miracles, so they have conceived all kinds of theories to explain away the preaching that Christ has risen. When we objectively analyzed each of those theories with respect to the assumed facts, we were left with only two possibilities. This brought us to a second “shocking alternative:” the disciples either knowingly lied or they honestly told what they had seen and experienced. If the disciples lied, then they were frauds. When Jesus was crucified, they must have realized they had been wrong about Him and they were disappointed with their own failure. So they hid out for seven weeks to concoct their story. Then they peddled their story in order to save face and establish their position of spiritual leadership. They knew it was all a lie, but they told it well enough to convince others it was true. If the disciples told the truth, then they simply reported the facts exactly as they had experienced them. They were unable to understand everything Jesus had taught them, so they were surprised by His death and were emotionally broken and disillusioned. But then, to their amazement, Christ came forth from the tomb and later ascended into heaven. They waited seven weeks as they had been instructed, and then they preached on the day of Pentecost and the church was born. Those are the only plausible alternatives, and there is nothing in between. The entire issue of Christianity, like any other fact of history, boils down to the veracity of the witnesses. It is like sitting on a jury: you want to determine who is telling the truth. The purpose of my message today is to tell you why, having come to that crossroads, I concluded that the disciples were honest reporters. There are four reasons why I believe these men were telling the truth. Number 1: There was a dramatic change in the personalities of each of the reporters. They were not merely changed; they were changed for the better. Now, I can believe that telling a lie might change a person, but seldom for the better. They all changed at a certain point in time after a certain event occurred. They still had weaknesses, but they became completely different people. There are personality sketches of these men woven into the Gospels that allow us to see that they did not start out as very good people. Let’s start with Peter. Prior to whatever event changed him, he is consistently portrayed as being unstable and unpredictable. He was impetuous; his mouth was often running before his brain was engaged. When Jesus told the disciples that He was going to go to the cross, Peter foolishly took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Be if far from thee, Lord.” Jesus had to rebuke Peter, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Peter was asked to join his Master on the Mount of Transfiguration, but he could not stay awake once they got there. Then, Peter woke up bleary-eyed and heard a conversation going on, allegedly between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Peter put Christ on the same level as Elijah and Moses, saying, “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.” If you are a skeptic, you might think that Peter was merely having a dream. Whether he was or not, the record does not make Peter look very good, nor does it make a case for the claims Jesus made about Himself. Peter himself had not yet embraced Christ’s claims. Peter is also portrayed as a coward. While Jesus was on trial, Peter could not even stand up to a young lady at the high priest’s house who ask him, “Art not thou also one of this man’s disciples?” Peter denied his Lord three times before the cock crowed, and then he fled the scene. Peter was not as strong as the women who stood by Jesus at His crucifixion. These are not very complimentary pictures of Peter, but they fit into a consistent though not necessarily obvious pattern. They are woven into the record in such a way that you have to look for them to find them. Then suddenly, some event changed Peter. Before this event, he could not courageously stand as part of the crowd that followed Jesus. But after this event, Peter became the man who boldly confronted a mocking mob on the day of Pentecost and outlined the proofs in Scripture that Christ is indeed the Messiah. Later, Peter addressed another crowd and accused them, saying, “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.” More than once, the priest and Sadducees grabbed Peter and the other disciples and threw them into prison, ordering them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus. Peter and the other disciples responded, “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” This former coward, who was unstable in all of his ways, fulfilled the prophecy that Jesus had made about his name: Peter became “a rock.” He still needed further instruction to deliver him from his traditional Jewish viewpoints, but he was no longer anything like the man we encountered earlier in the record. After Peter’s transformation, he wrote an epistle to instruct the saints on what to do when they face persecution. Peter tells us we are different from the rest of the world: we are citizens of a heavenly kingdom, children of a heavenly Father, and pilgrims in an alien land on a journey toward our true home in heaven. Therefore, we should act like it. The things Peter said and wrote do not sound like the words of a liar; they sound like the words of a man who was suddenly changed by some traumatic event. Peter is not the only one who was changed. Look at James and John. I am referring to James the brother of John, not James the brother of Jesus. Jesus referred to James and John as “The sons of thunder.” If someone opposed them, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on them. They were not very loving. They were also very selfish: those lousy scoundrels sent their mother to ask Jesus for the best seats in the kingdom. But something changed them. They became the epitome of love and selflessness. John became known as the apostle of love, and his brother James was the first disciple to be martyred: Herod killed him with a sword. Thomas was also changed. There is a thumbnail sketch of his personality woven subtly into the record. He was always a doubter. Some people will naïvely believe just about anything, but not Thomas; he was a hardheaded realist. When Jesus told the disciples He intended to go to Judea, Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” We can give him credit for his courage. It was a dangerous trip; Thomas expected Jesus to be killed by human hands and was ready to die alongside Him. But he totally missed the fact that Jesus had said, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” Thomsas had a humanistic view of Christ. On another occasion, Jesus was talking about heaven and said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” I can imagine the other disciples were rejoicing over the mansions, but not Thomas. When Jesus added, “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know,” Thomsas interrupted Him, saying, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going; how can we know the way?” Thomas’ problem was his logical mind. I can identify with people like Thomas. The picture of his personality traits becomes clear as you study the record: he was not easily persuaded about the reality of things he could not see. Three days after the crucifixion, the disciples heard the report of the Resurrection. That evening, Christ appeared in their midst and spoke to them, but Thomas was not present. When he arrived later, the other disciples told him what had happened, but Thomas doubted them. I can imagine his reacting, “I don’t believe any of this story! Jesus was crucified and His side was pierced with a spear, and now you’re telling me He is alive and well and moving around?” The Gospels record Thomas saying, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Thomas would not let anyone get away with faking such a claim. Then suddenly, Thomas was changed. The change is obvious if you study the missionary journeys of the disciples. He ended up being the farthest removed from the rest of the disciples. He crossed the Himalayas into India, the most philosophical region in the world and the seedbed of the Vedanta faith out of which Buddhism grew. That made it one of the most difficult mission fields. This man who had previously questioned everything went to a place where people spent more time philosophizing about ultimate reality than they did anywhere else in the world. Thomas would die a martyr’s death in that land, pierced with a Brahman’s sword. There is no record of his faith ever faltering. That is a profound change. We even see a change in Jesus’ half-brother, James. There is no record that James was ever a disciple of Jesus prior to the crucifixion. Indeed, Jesus’ family sought to lay hands on Him when He made ridiculous claims about Himself, in their view. But suddenly, James was changed. He became the pastor of the church at Jerusalem. James was never able to extricate himself from his Jewish frame of mind, and he never fully accepted the gospel message. But even with all of his faults and his unbending Judaistic ways, some dramatic event changed this man. This brother of the Lord was respected by the Jews throughout Jerusalem, including those who had accused Jesus of blasphemy before the Romans and brought about His crucifixion. Years later, when the Jewish leaders wanted to put a stop to the spread of Christianity, they asked James to set the people straight about Jesus. They were sure he would declare that Jesus was not the Messiah, but to their surprise, James proclaimed to the crowd the truth of Jesus’ Messiahship and Resurrection. The scribes and Pharisees then cast James from the pinnacle of the temple and he died a martyr’s death. All of these men were changed by some event. They had particular personality traits before that event, and they were different people after it. That event was their preaching of the Resurrection! They went from instability to stability, from a “son of thunder” to the apostle of love, from a doubter to a man of faith. By any standard, I think we can agree that these were changes for the better: faith is better than doubt, and anyone who lives in constant uncertainty is less positive than someone who can hang his life on something and act with courage. So the question remains, “Were these men liars?” Usually, once a person starts lying, it becomes easier to lie. And if they were lying, their behavior would have become less respectable. Instead, people find it difficult to call them liars, which is why so many theories have been concocted to explain away their preaching. Someone once said in jest, “If I didn’t worship Jesus, I might worship the genius of the ones who wove the fabric of the gospel story!” Number 2: There are internal evidences of truth in all of the disciples’ accounts. Usually, you can tell if you are reading or listening to the testimony of a liar. If a liar talks long enough, he will give himself away. By contrast, honest witnesses might be nervous or confused and might even have poor memories at times; but there are little glimmers of light that tell you they are basically being truthful. You can tell they are not conniving storytellers making up lies, exaggerating, or distorting the truth. Throughout the Gospel records, there are little ways in which the honesty of the witnesses comes through. Let’s start with the Gospel of Mark. Mark is probably the young man who lost his garment and fled naked in the darkness on the night Jesus was arrested. According to tradition, the disciples were in the upper room of Mark’s mother’s house when the Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost and the church was born. The book of Acts says that Mark accompanied Paul on his missionary journey toward the Armenian plateau. Mark became frightened and Paul did not think Mark was tough enough, so Paul sent him back. Barnabas, Mark’s relative, came to his rescue and helped get him back on track. All church history and tradition agree that Peter became Mark’s tutor and restored him to the point where Paul would later ask specifically for Mark to come and help him. Paul wrote, “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.” Mark would carry the gospel message into Egypt, where he would ultimately die a martyr’s death, dragged to death in the streets of Alexandria. His faith remained firm unto death. Mark wrote the first Gospel. Most scholars agree that he wrote to Gentile readers, whereas Matthew wrote to Jewish readers. Luke wrote to the world in general in his effort to set the historical record straight. There is some debate as to whether Mark wrote his Gospel to Egyptians or to Romans; but in either case, he was writing to a non-Jewish audience. His purpose was to prove that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, if Mark were a liar and part of a conspiracy to convince people that Jesus is the Son of God, he would have tried to write in a way that would convince Gentiles. If the disciples were genius enough to concoct this story, they would have figured out upon their first proofreading that there was a problem: if they were trying to prove that Jesus is the Son of God, why would Mark have Jesus refer to Himself as the “Son of man?” One of the disciples should have caught the “mistake” and said, “We are trying to present Jesus to the word as the Son of God, but He keeps sabotaging our plan by calling Himself ‘Son of Man!’ Let’s just rewrite this story and make Him call Himself ‘Son of God’ instead.” If they were liars, why would they care about what Jesus actually said? They could have simply made the story say whatever they wanted it to say. Why would Jesus call Himself the “Son of Man?!” He was speaking to a Jewish audience who would have been familiar with the apocalyptic literature, including the book of Daniel and the apocryphal book of Enoch. To the Jews, the term “Son of man” portrayed the Messiah as coming in clouds of glory to establish His righteous kingdom forevermore. It portrayed the divinity of the Messiah. But to a Gentile audience, the words “Son of man” would simply mean “the son of a man.” It would have connoted humanity, not divinity. The intrinsic evidence suggest that Mark recorded what Jesus actually said, even though it hurt his case. Another illustration of the disciples’ honesty is found in John’s account of Jesus’ miraculously feeding a multitude in the wilderness. If John were a liar who wanted gullible people to believe his story, he would have simply stated that Jesus worked a miracle; he would not have included what Jesus said prior to working the miracle. John records that Jesus first asked Philip, “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Why would Jesus ask that question, and why did He specifically ask Philip, and not Thomas or James? You have to go to another Gospel to find the answer. Luke’s Gospel says that this event happened near Bethsaida. Then you have to compare this account to an earlier chapter of John’s Gospel to find out that Philp was born in Bethsaida. You need all three passages to understand this incident. It makes perfect sense that Jesus would ask Philip where to buy bread: they were near Philip’s hometown. He would have known exactly where to buy bread in Bethsaida. The Gospels were written by different people in different places that were widely separated. They were circulated for many years before everyone knew that four Gospels existed. Yet, like different pieces of fabric in the pattern of a quilt, they can be pieced together to form a coherent whole. If the writers were making up a story and telling it to people far from Palestine who had no knowledge of the details, why would they feel a need to stay so true to the record? The writers appear to be honest people adhering to the portion of the facts they were aware of. When you put the puzzle together, the pieces fit. They do not sound like liars who could tell a story any way they wanted to tell it. There were in fact a number of fake “gospels” that were never included in the canon of Scripture because it was immediately obvious to any reader that they were ludicrous fabrications. Another indicator that the disciples were telling the truth is the fact that they waited seven weeks before they started preaching in Jerusalem. Critics say the disciples might have been hiding out and scheming after Jesus was crucified, and it took them seven weeks to conspire and concoct a story that would help them to save face. But the written account simply does not come across that way. Furthermore, if the disciples were smart enough to concoct this story, they would have known that the seven-week wait would hurt their credibility. Rather, the disciples sound like simple men who were surprised by their Master’s Resurrection and were transformed from traumatized disbelievers into believers. They followed Jesus’ instructions to go to Jerusalem and wait there until they were endued with power from on high. Then a monumental event occurred on the day of Pentecost: God poured out His Spirit upon the disciples and they began to preach. Why wait seven weeks if they were just making up a lie? I am convinced that they would have waited seventy weeks if that was how long they had to wait. Another indicator of honesty is found in Mark’s account of Peter. Mark was a student of both Peter and Paul. Although Mark was an eyewitness to some of the events recorded in his Gospel, most scholars agree that Peter was Mark’s primary resource. Yet Peter looks the worst in Mark’s Gospel. But Mark did not present his account as a disgruntled ex-employee. Mark was indebted to Peter and told Peter’s story as a devoted spiritual son. Most people are familiar with the idea of unauthorized versus authorized biographies. The unauthorized biographies are usually the ones that contain all the “dirt,” while the authorized ones make the person look like a saint. If the disciples were liars, Peter could have said, “Mark, I think you can make me look better than I really was!” But just the opposite occurred: Mark exposed him more than the other Gospel writers did. It sounds like Peter told the truth about himself, and Mark honestly reported it. I have speculated that Mark might have been burdened down with his own sense of failure. He had run away the night before the crucifixion, and he had run back home from persecution in Turkey. I personally believe that the reason Mark could tell the story of Peter’s failures so well is that Peter must have said to him, “Mark, you’re letting your guilt weigh on you too much. Let me tell you how I failed, and how my Master forgave me.” Peter must have told his story repeatedly. Any major failure such as Peter’s would weigh on an honest man. It is no surprise that he would have included it in his account to Mark. According to the best traditions, Peter ultimately died a martyr’s death. When he was crucified, he reportedly asked to be turned upside down, saying that he was not worthy to be crucified in the same position as his Lord was crucified. Peter must have carried a sense of failure, along with the knowledge of the Lord’s forgiveness, and he communicated the same to Mark. The point is that the details in the Gospels paint a picture of honest reporting. Number 3: The disciples paid a terrible price for preaching this message. Bartholomew was skinned alive with a whip in Armenia. James, the brother of John, was beheaded by Herod. Thomas was pierced with a Brahman’s sword near Madras, India. Andrew was crucified on the X-shaped cross that now bears his name, “Saint Andrew’s cross.” Peter was crucified upside down. Every one of these disciples suffered a martyr’s death, except for John, who suffered horrible persecution but survived. Liars are not usually noted for having courage. It is unreasonable to think that these people would have laid down their lives for their story if it were a lie. And that brings us to the last and greatest proof. Number 4: The disciples suffered and died alone. For the sake of argument, let’s imagine for a moment that we are the disciples, and we are all a bunch of liars. We spent seven weeks concocting our story. Then, we went our separate ways to see if we could peddle our story effectively. Imagine I am Bartholomew. I end up in the interior of the Turkish Peninsula, in the Armenian plateau. None of the other disciples know I am there. There is no television, radio, or satellite. Remember, we are all liars; we don’t believe in miracles. We made up this story to save face. Imagine that you are Peter in Rome, or you are Thomas, who crossed the Himalayas and made it all the way to India. None of us know where the others are. Now the pagans tie me to a stake and are about to skin me alive with a whip. All I have to do to stop the torture is say, “It isn’t true! We made up the whole story!” The other disciples would never know. I could flee Armenia and catch a ride on a ship to Rome. If I ran into you in Rome, I could say that I stuck to the story. You would have no way of knowing whether I had recanted. Likewise, you and the other disciples could do the same thing to escape your own martyrdoms. I could believe that if you kept the three of us together, we might stick to our story. There is a certain kind of psychological pressure, even among liars, to not be the first one to break and rat on the others. But we are separated, thousands of miles apart in heathen lands. We are confronted with persecution and a martyr’s death because of the story we are telling. We can easily recant. If these men were liars, it is inconceivable to me that not one of them would crack under that horrible pressure. Yet there is no record anywhere in the pages of history that any of these disciples, in any of the places where they proclaimed the gospel, ever wavered in the telling of their story. These disciples believed what they were saying. I remember presenting these proofs of the Resurrection to my major professor at Stanford University. When I was finished, he said to me, “I’m convinced. Those disciples believed what they were preaching. Therefore, one of your factual assumptions must be wrong!” And I thought to myself, “Okay, fine! Those facts are much easier to demonstrate than the Resurrection!” Jesus came out of that tomb. That is why I am hooked on Jesus. That is why every other matter of faith that I have had to wrestle with throughout my lifetime has been subordinate to this central fact: He lives! You ask me how I know He lives? I know He lives in my heart, because I have come to believe in and have faith in His promises, whether I feel anything or not. But as I have preached in these three messages, I know He lives because it can be demonstrated. If you confront the impact of the facts, you are brought to this crossroads. If Jesus is who He said He is, that is all the definition of God I need. I don’t need some fundamentalist preacher’s definition; I only need the one Jesus gave of Himself. He lives, and because He lives, I can preach grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins. That is the rock foundation of my faith, and I offer it to you this year as I do every year. Why does this matter? Jesus said your eternal destiny is dependent upon your relationship with Him, not with any priest or preacher or anyone else. It is for you to decide; and those who call themselves Christians have made that decision. He is our Lord and Master, and His approval is the most important thing in this world for us. Therefore, I can say what Paul said: “He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott PRAYER REQUEST: We’re asking everyone to please pray for Shirley. About 10 days ago she took a nasty fall down the steps on her front deck. She broke 8 ribs and fractured her lower spine, and also suffered a bruised lung. She’s been moved to a rehabilitation hospital and the plan is for her to come home on the 26th. She will need a lot of in-home therapy and care. Jay is moving in to help take care of her. Something like this will often be fatal to someone her age; but Shirley has done remarkedly well and the doctors and therapists are amazed that she’s going to be able to come home soon. | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
||
 |
 |
