I took oil painting lessons from my mother-in-law, Rae, who was a former Disney artist. (The painting displayed in this post is her work. Sadly, we lost my paintings in a move.) Each week she critiqued my progress and told me what to work on next. One week I added complementary under layers to my canvas. Because the butter leaf green background needed red for depth, I squirted red ochre onto my palette and swirled it with dabs of other pigments. The odors of linseed oil and turpentine permeated the air as I leaned close to my aluminum easel so I could meticulously merge the muddy maroon into the mossy background.
Close-up of Rae’s painting shows colors used in sky
As I carefully brushed and delicately blended, my husband walked in the door, stopped, and declared, “You gave the painting measles!”
“No, I didn’t,” I said, frowning. “It’s depth.”
“Come over here and look at it,” he said, laughing.
None too pleased over his lack of appreciation for my artistic enhancements, I walked over to where he stood and looked back at the painting. Sure enough: measles. What up close looked like subtle gradations of color, at a distance looked like leopard skin.
When I took my polka dotted canvas to Rae, she showed me how to meld undertones by standing back to see what the painting as a whole needed, coming in close for precise brush strokes, and then stepping back again to view the overall affect. It didn’t take long before the reds and greens not only looked as if they belonged together, but showed they needed each other for depth and balance.
The Need for Big Picture Bible Studies
Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament
Reading the Bible is like painting a picture in our minds and souls. While it’s important to come in close to study passages and books, it’s also important to step back and see how the individual parts explain and deepen our understanding of the whole. Then we can see how all the parts of the Bible belong together and how they need each other for depth and balance—for the whole picture.
In the Bible studies I write with Pam Farrel and Karla Dornacher, the book Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament gives the big picture. Every chapter starts with Genesis and ends with Revelation as it displays an aspect of what the Old Testament promises, prophecies, and types tell us about Jesus. For instance, the chapter “Jesus the King Forever” starts with God’s mandate to humankind to reign over the earth, looks at God’s promise to King David of a descendant whose throne will last forever, sees how the prophets say David was a type of a future righteous King who will reign forever, notices what the New Testament says about Jesus fulfilling these OT passages, and rejoices in what is to come: Jesus reigns forever and humankind reigns under him in the new heavens and earth.
The Need for Close-up Bible Studies
Discovering Joy in Philippians
Just as Rae taught me to come in close when painting detail, so we do best when we alternate stepping back for the big picture and moving in for the detail in studying the Bible. That’s why we also write books that move in close, too. For instance, Discovering Joy in Philippians looks with great detail at the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It starts in Acts with Paul preaching the gospel in Philippi and being thrown in prison. But we see that wonderful things happen when he and Silas sing praises to God. Then the Discovering book delves deeply into Philippians and all Paul says about discovering joy in any circumstance.
Discovering Hope in the Psalmsis a close-up look, too. It examines ten psalms about the hopes God’s people share. These psalms show us how to pray in a way that helps our hope in God soar, even–or especially–when we encounter disappointment or evil. The psalms point us to the One who gives us hope for now and eternity.
What Are You Looking For?
If you haven’t studied the Bible’s big picture for some time, consider Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament. If you’ve recently finished a big picture study, one of our close-up studies may be a fit for you.
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It’s no surprise that when I was a child, I didn’t know the word omnipresence. In fact, I pictured God as a bald man with just a fringe of short dark hair behind his ears. I thought he lived above the sky and occasionally poked his head through the clouds to peek at what was happening in the world.
That’s far from what the Bible teaches us about God! Instead, God is Spirit and innately invisible to human eyes (John 4:24; Romans 1:20). He’s able to “see” everywhere in the universe at once. His ability to do that is what we call omnipresence. But omnipresence is often misunderstood. Therefore, here are 5 things Christians should know about God’s omnipresence.
1) Omnipresence means God’s presence fills the universe.
Orion
The word omnipresence isn’t in the Bible. But it describes something we do see in the Bible: God is present everywhere. For example, the prophet Jeremiah wrote, “Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:24).
Similarly, David described God’s presence everywhere like
this:
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
Psalm 139:7-12
God is Spirit
Jesus said, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). So he doesn’t have a physical body like we do. Therefore, according to theologian Millard Erickson,
he does not have the limitations involved with a physical body. For one thing, he is not limited to a particular geographical or spatial location.
Scholars sometimes debate whether omnipresence has more to
do with God’s ability to know everything that happens everywhere or with his
power to hold all things together (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). What matters,
though, is what God’s ability to be everywhere means for us.
Serpens Nebula HBC 672. Credits: NASA, ESA, STSci. Public domain.
What this means for us
God’s omnipresence is frightful for wrongdoers, for the Judgment will miss nothing. In fact, God even knows thoughts and intentions (Psalm 139:2; Hebrews 4:12-13).
But for his worshipers, God’s omnipresence means that he is
never out of reach. When those who belong to him pray, he hears. When those who
want to know him seek him, he responds. When we suffer, he knows. When we try
to please him, he rewards.
2) Creation is not God.
Sometimes people think that if God’s presence is everywhere,
creation must be God. In fact, those involved with the new spirituality (or New
Age movement) hold this view. Alisa Childers explains:
One of the core principles of the new spirituality is that everything in the universe (including you and me) is made up of the same substance and reality. In other words, there is no separation between you, your dog, and the tree outside that your dog just peed on. This worldview is called pantheism and believes that “God” is a type of divine consciousness or energy that is one and the same with the universe, something we can tap into as we become more “enlightened.”
While creation reflects God, creation is not the Creator. Rather, the Creator made the heavens and earth from nothing (Genesis 1:1; Acts 17:24-25). Moreover, God “is never identical to those created things” (Vern S. Poythress, Theophany: A Biblical Theology of God’s Appearing, 167).
Even though many today embrace pantheism as new
spirituality, it is an old idea, as C.S. Lewis pointed out:
Pantheism is congenial to our minds not because it is the final stage in a slow process of enlightenment, but because it is almost as old as we are. It may even be the most primitive of all religions.
That’s not the only reason people find pantheism attractive. The apostle Paul wrote that when humans abandoned God, they “worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25).
What this means for us
God’s omnipresence does not mean he is identical to creation.
Therefore, we worship the Creator, not creation.
3) God has sometimes made his presence known via theophanies.
At certain significant times in history, God revealed his
presence in a special way that humans could sense. For example, a cloud descended
on the tabernacle and first temple at their dedications (Numbers 9:15; 1 Kings
8:10). These temporary manifestations are called theophanies.
God and two angels visit Abraham in “Abraham and the Angels” by Aert de Gelder, 1680-1685 [public domain]
But here’s the thing. A theophany doesn’t mean that God is present in just the place and time of the theophany. He’s still present everywhere even though he’s manifesting his presence in a special, intense way at a certain time and place (A.H. Leitch, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Merrill C. Tenney, gen. ed., vol. 4, s.v. “omnipresence”).
Theophanies serve specific purposes. For example, the cloud
theophanies at the dedications of the tabernacle and first temple showed people
they had a place they could go to meet with God in a special way.
Dr. Poythress puts it this way:
According to biblical teaching, God is present as ruler and Lord in all places and at all times (Jer. 23:24; Rev. 1:8). This universal presence of God goes together with his special presence with the people that are his.
Additionally, the Holy Spirit now indwells all those who
belong to God, and their bodies are his temple (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19).
What this means for us
While God is omnipresent, he is present with his people in
special ways.
4) God limits how much his presence is experienced by humans.
C.S. Lewis described why God doesn’t make his presence known more often in his novel, The Screwtape Letters. There, a senior devil named Screwtape writes to his nephew Wormwood to teach him about their Enemy, God.
You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat his cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little over-riding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
We can trust God’s promise to never leave us or forsake us
(Hebrews 13:5) even when we can’t sense his presence.
5) God will one day dwell with humans in a greater way.
God is omnipresent and has at times demonstrated a special presence with his people. Now the Holy Spirit indwells his people. But something more is coming. God will resurrect his people so that they can dwell with him in the new heaven and earth in a fuller, more immediate, and more palpable sense:
Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Revelation 21:3
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Revelation 22:4
What this means for us
Those belonging to God’s kingdom will dwell with him
forevermore, his presence with them in a glorious way. Hallelujah!
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Would you like to know more about Jesus in the OT (Old
Testament)? Have you looked up a passage that the New Testament says Jesus
fulfilled, but found it confusing? Does understanding the Old Testament seem
daunting?
If so, you’re not alone!
Here are three things every Christian should know about Jesus in the OT, including timelines.
1. God Planned to Send Jesus Before He Created People
For my seventeenth birthday, my then-boyfriend Clay gave me
a white leather Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments. Until then,
I’d had only a paperback New Testament. Not having been raised in a Christian
home, I was excited to finally be able to read the rest of the Bible and see
what it said.
As I read through Genesis, I thought, So that’s what happened!
God created people good, and that was Plan A. But they blew it and disobeyed,
so God had to go with Plan B, a flood. Later, I read about God calling
Israel to be a nation and giving them commandments. But the Israelites blew it
and disobeyed God too. I thought, Israel was Plan C, and Jesus was Plan D!
God had to keep starting over because people kept messing up his plans.
Wrong!
I had missed the significance of these verses:
Christ…was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times.
1 Peter 1:19-20
… the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world
Revelation 13:8
God…saved us and called us…because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 1:8-10
In other words, the never-changing God of love knew before
he created the world and the first humans that Jesus would one day die for the
sins of the world. He knew Satan would deceive Adam and Eve, and he had a plan
in place to rescue humankind. There was always just one plan. God revealed that
plan over time, beginning in Eve’s lifetime.
2. The Old Testament Points to Jesus in Three Ways
Many people think that the only way the Old Testament points
to Jesus is through direct prophecy. But that’s not true. The New Testament
tells us of three ways.
Promises about Jesus in the OT
In 2 Samuel 7:11-13, God promised King David an offspring whose rule would last forever. The angel Gabriel told Mary that this promise pointed to Jesus (Luke 1:31-33). The Old Testament contains many such promises, some of which take the form of covenants.
“The Prophet Jeremiah” from the Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo (public domain)
Prophecies about Jesus in the OT
In the Bible, God sometimes revealed things to people that
they could not see or understand through natural means. These revelations are prophecies.
Most prophecies called people to repent to avoid judgment. But sometimes they
predicted a significant future event. That is the case in Isaiah 53, which
prophesies the coming of a suffering servant who would die and whose soul would
make “an offering for guilt” (Isaiah 53:9-10). First Peter 3:22 cites this
passage and tells us it refers to Jesus Christ.
Portents of Jesus in the OT
Portents foreshadow something in the future. Some Old
Testament people, institutions, and events foreshadow either Jesus or something
significant in Jesus’s service or life. Bible translations use a variety of
words to describe people and things that foreshadow the future, including portents,
patterns, copies, shadows, and types. Jesus and the apostles
frequently identified Old Testament types that Jesus fulfilled. They show us
the amazing way that God directed history so that people could see his
redemptive plan unfolding throughout the ages.
For example, 1 Corinthians 5:7 reads, “Christ, our Passover
lamb, has been sacrificed.” Here Paul is saying that the sacrificed Passover
lamb that saved the Israelites’ lives in Exodus 12 was a type of Jesus
Christ, who now saves our lives through his sacrifice.
3. God Revealed His Plan at Significant Points in History
God revealed his plan to rescue people from slavery to sin
and from death gradually. But at crucial historical events, he revealed large
parts of the plan all at once. These revelations related to what was happening
at the time.
Eve’s Day
Eve’s Day
After Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, the
Lord God promised her a deliverer who would crush the head of the serpent who
deceived her.
Abraham’s Day
Abraham’s Day
At a time when most people had forgotten God, the Lord called
Abraham to journey to a foreign land. There God promised to give that land to
Abraham’s descendants so that they could be his people and he would be their
God. He promised that Abraham’s barren, post-menopausal wife would bear a
child—and she did! Abraham and his son Isaac were both prophets to whom God
spoke. The New Testament tells us which of God’s promises to Abraham referred
to Jesus. God also instructed Abraham and Isaac to act out an event that foreshadowed
something monumental in Jesus’s life. In fact, Paul tells us that “Scripture…preached
the gospel beforehand to Abraham” (Galatians 3:8).
Moses’s Day
Moses’s Day
After Egypt enslaved Abraham’s descendants, God sent Moses
to deliver the Israelites from slavery and take them to the land God promised
to Abraham’s descendants. Through Moses, God made a covenant with the
Israelites so they could be his people. They built a tabernacle where God’s
presence could dwell in a special way. God gave them commandments so they could
have blessed relationships with him and others. Moses told the people that one
day a prophet like him would arrive, and the people must listen to him. The New
Testament tells us that many of the institutions and events in Moses’s day
foreshadowed Jesus.
David’s Day
David’s Day
Eventually, a king arose who had a heart after God. His name
was David. The Lord promised David a descendant whose throne would last
forever. David was also a prophet to whom God revealed other things about this future
king, some of which David turned into psalms.
Major Prophets’ Day
The Major Prophets’ Day
Many of the kings that followed David weren’t good.
Eventually, kings led the people so far from God that he sent prophets to warn
them to come back lest he remove them from the land. For example, the prophet
Isaiah told a wayward king about coming judgment and restoration. But Isaiah
also spoke of a future righteous king and a suffering servant. Later, God spoke
through Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel during tumultuous times that included the
people being exiled and the temple destroyed. They talked of a new covenant and
a mysterious “one like a son of man” who came “with the clouds of heaven” to be
presented before “the Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7:13).
2nd Temple’s Day
The 2nd Temple’s Day
After a 70-year exile, several groups of people returned to
Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. They remained under foreign rule, though. Yet
prophets encouraged them to build a new temple and await the future righteous king.
Jesus’s Day
When Jesus came, he explained how the Scriptures spoke of
him. The Jews had trouble understanding at first, partly because they didn’t
realize that the prophet like Moses, the suffering servant, and the future
righteous king were all the same person. They also hadn’t understood how the
institutions that Moses put in place pointed to Jesus too.
Today
Today
After Jesus’s death and resurrection, his apostles
proclaimed what Jesus taught them. They explained how Jesus wants us to live
today, and they told us to look forward to eternity.
Forever
Forever
The New Testament writers urged Jesus’s followers to always
remember that eternity in Jesus’s Kingdom awaits. He’ll resurrect our bodies
into glorious bodies. There will be no more sorrow or pain. We’ll be in God’s
loving presence forever.
I’ve created timelines for you to download and print on the Free Resources and Subscriber Specials pages. They’ll help you see at a glance the events surrounding God’s amazing revelations about Jesus in the OT. They go with chapters in our book, Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament.
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In my last post, we began to look at evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. We covered three key facts that ancient primary source documents tell us regarding Jesus and the events surrounding his death. They were:
Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.
Jesus’s tomb was found empty.
Soon after the crucifixion, people said they saw Jesus alive. This included the apostle Peter, the church persecutor Paul, and the skeptic James the brother of Jesus.
Today, we’ll look at one more key fact, and then we’ll
consider what conclusions we can draw.
4) Jesus’s followers were willing to die for their belief in the resurrection.
After Jesus’s crucifixion, his scared and confused followers
scattered and hid. But then something amazing happened: they claimed they had
seen Jesus alive again! Suddenly, they were transformed. They spoke boldly and
publicly about Jesus being raised from the dead. Even after Jewish leaders and
Roman officials threatened them with punishment, torture, and death, they
refused to recant their testimony about seeing Jesus alive.
Many early Christians lost everything (Konstantin Flavitsky, 1862, public domain)
Peter went from denying he knew Jesus to boldly proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection. Rome crucified Peter.
Paul transformed from persecuting Jewish Christians to claiming he saw Jesus alive. He boldly spread news of the resurrection throughout the Roman empire. Rome beheaded him.
James the brother of Jesus changed from thinking his brother was crazy before the crucifixion to claiming the resurrected Jesus appeared to him. He became a leader of the Christian church (Acts 15:13; 21:18; Galatians 2:9). Jewish leaders executed him.
The disciples’ willingness to testify that they saw Jesus alive after he died despite threats against them is evidence that the disciples had experiences that they sincerely believed were appearances of the resurrected Jesus.
Don’t people die for lies?
But don’t people die for lies they believe are true? Yes, but there’s a crucial difference between them and those who claimed to see Jesus alive. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona explain:
No one questions the sincerity of the Muslim terrorist who blows himself up in a public place or the Buddhist monk who burns himself alive as a political protest. Extreme acts do not validate the truth of their beliefs, but willingness to die indicates that they regarded their beliefs as true. Moreover, there is an important difference between the apostle martyrs and those who die for their beliefs today. Modern martyrs act solely out of their trust in beliefs that others have taught them. The apostles died for holding to their own testimony that they had personally seen the risen Jesus. Contemporary martyrs die for what they believe to be true. The disciples of Jesus died for what they knew to be either true or false.
Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since this is a matter of public record. For it is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death.
Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 231 (emphasis mine).
Rembrandt: The Ascension of Christ
It is also why atheist Gerd Lüdemann writes,
It is certain that something must have happened after Jesus’ death which led his followers to speak of Jesus as the risen Christ.
Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? An Historical Approach to the Resurrection, trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 26.
Scholarly consensus
In fact, Gary Habermas surveyed more that 1,400 sources on the resurrection since 1975 and concluded this:
Perhaps no fact is more widely recognized than that early Christian believers had real experiences that they thought were appearances of the risen Jesus. A critic may claim that what they saw were hallucinations or visions, but he does not deny that they actually experienced something.
Here are some of the options that skeptics put forth.
The resurrection is a legend?
The claims about the resurrection occurred too soon after
the crucifixion for a legend to arise, and the disciples’ willingness to die
shows they believed they saw the risen Jesus.
Jesus swooned?
A team of medical experts examined what we now know about scourging, crucifixion, and the account of Jesus’s death. Scourging resulted in severe blood loss. The crucified victim sometimes lived for days in tremendous pain. To exhale, he had to push up on his nail-pierced feet and wrists. Thus, when the soldiers wanted to hasten the death of the two men crucified with Jesus, they broke their legs. When they saw that Jesus was already dead, they pierced his side with a sword, causing a flow of blood and water. Here is what the medical team concluded:
Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear, thrust between his right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung but also the pericardium and heart and thereby ensured his death… Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.
William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 1986, 255:1463.
More problems with the swoon theory
“The Three Crosses,” by Rembrandt, 1653
Even if Jesus had somehow survived, he could not have rolled
away the heavy stone, made it past the guards, and walked on injured feet to
find the disciples. And if he had, the disciples would have thought that he
survived, not that he was resurrected. They would have had to get him medical
care and nurse him back to health. A weak and wounded Jesus would not have
inspired the disciples to risk their lives proclaiming Jesus was raised from
the dead.
Finally, this theory can’t account for the radical transformation
of James and Paul.
The disciples hallucinated?
By far the most popular theory today among skeptics today is
that the disciples only hallucinated what they thought were actual appearances
of the resurrected Jesus.
But the hallucination theory doesn’t work because hallucinations
are individual experiences of the mind, like dreams. Therefore, they cannot be
shared. Yet, many of the testimonies about Jesus’s appearances were to more
than one person at a time. Jesus appeared more than once to the eleven (John
20:19,26; 21:1), to two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-31), and on
one occasion to more than 500 people (1 Corinthians 15:6). Interestingly, when Paul writes about the appearance
to the 500, he claims “most of whom are still alive,” implying, “You can go ask
them yourselves.”
Indeed, for their experiences to be hallucinations, John
would have had to have hallucinated Peter talking to Jesus while Peter
hallucinated talking to Jesus when John passed by, both hearing the same words.
While Thomas hallucinated Jesus telling him to put his hands in his wound, the
other ten disciples would have had to have hallucinated watching the
conversation.
Hallucinations aren’t shared
In fact, when U.S. Navy SEALS train, hallucinations are common due to extreme fatigue and sleep deprivation. But no two hallucinations are alike:
Most hallucinations occur while the candidates, as a team, paddle in a raft out in the ocean. One believed that he saw an octopus come out of the water and wave at him! Another thought he saw a train coming across the water headed straight toward the raft. Another believed that he saw a large wall, which the raft would crash into if the team persisted in paddling. When the octopus, train, and wall were pointed out by the candidates to the rest of the team, no one else saw them, even though they were all in the same frame of mind. Most of them hallucinated at some point, but none of them participated in the hallucination of another.
Then they died for what they knew was a lie, and no one does
that. People die for what they think is true that turns out to be false. But if
they stole the dead body, then they were proclaiming a resurrection they knew
didn’t happen. No one dies for what they know
is a lie.
“The Resurrection” ~ woodcut by Dore
In addition, this doesn’t account for the conversion of the
two skeptics, James and Paul. Neither believed Jesus was the Messiah before the
crucifixion. Both had experiences that they thought were appearances of Jesus.
Both were willing to die rather than recant their testimony that they saw Jesus
alive after the crucifixion.
Habermas and Licona write,
If the direct witnesses really believed that he rose from the dead, we can dismiss contentions that they stole the body and made up the story. In fact, virtually all scholars agree on that point, whatever their own theological positions.
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Is there evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Or is Christianity simply a matter of blind faith?
It claims not to be. According to the Gospels, Jesus said
his being “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” would be the “sign”
that he came from God in fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures (Matthew
12:39-40). This is an obvious reference to his death, burial, and resurrection
on the third day. Paul said that God “has given proof…to everyone” that he
would judge the world by Jesus “by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). He
also wrote, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain
and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
If the resurrection is supposed to prove so much, what
evidence do we have today that it really happened?
Quite a bit.
The Testimony of Ancient Documents
The Crucifixion (Rembrandt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
We possess many ancient documents that tell us about the
beginnings of Christianity. Scholars call these primary source documents. A
primary source document is a first-hand account of a topic. Some of the primary
source documents are extra-biblical (outside of the Bible).
The four Gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians are also primary
source documents. They record Jesus’s death as well as eyewitness testimonies
of Jesus’s subsequent resurrection.
A few skeptics object that these documents have not been
accurately transmitted. That is, they claim the biblical sources must have been
altered over time. But this is not true. Scholars use what’s called the
bibliographical test to gauge how accurately ancient documents have been
transmitted.
The bibliographical test examines the reliability of ancient manuscripts.
This test compares the number of surviving manuscripts of
ancient documents and how much time elapsed between the earliest surviving copy
and the date the original manuscript was handwritten.
Clay Jones explains:
The bibliographical test examines manuscript reliability, and for more than a generation Christian apologists have employed it to substantiate the transmissional reliability of the New Testament. The bibliographical test compares the closeness of the New Testament’s oldest extant manuscripts to the date of its autographs (the original handwritten documents) and the sheer number of the New Testament’s extant manuscripts with the number and earliness of extant manuscripts of other ancient documents such as Homer, Aristotle, and Herodotus.
Since the New Testament manuscripts outstrip every other ancient manuscript in sheer number and proximity to the autographs, the New Testament should be regarded as having been accurately transmitted.
In other words, the bibliographical test shows that the
biblical texts were accurately copied.
Ancient Documents Establish Key Facts
Now let’s move on to key facts that the primary source documents
establish. Even skeptical and atheist scholars agree on a surprising number of
basic facts.
1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.
“The Three Crosses,” by Rembrandt, 1653
That Jesus was crucified around AD 30 is a fact of history
attested to in multiple primary source documents, including documents written
by those who didn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead.
For example, the Roman historian Tacitus (56–120) wrote,
Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. 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.
Skeptic and co-chair of the Jesus Seminar John Dominic Crossan writes,
That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.
John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987), 179 .
The biblical sources also record the crucifixion: Matthew 27:32-31; Mark 15:21-47; Luke 23:18-54; John 19; Acts 2:23, 36; 4:10; and 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2; 2:8. Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. Michael Licona write that the evidence for this and other data we’ll look at
are so strongly evidenced historically that nearly every scholar regards them as reliable facts.
The four Gospels record that Jesus’s dead body was laid in a
tomb, but the tomb was found empty days later. Here’s what else they record.
A Jewish leader placed Jesus’s dead body in a tomb.
“The Resurrection” ~ woodcut by Dore
All four Gospels record that a member of the Jewish ruling
council named Joseph of Arimathea removed Jesus’s dead body from the cross and
laid it in his own tomb (Matthew 27:57-60; Mark 15:42-46; Luke 23:50-53; John
19:38-42). This is significant because it is highly unlikely that the Gospel
authors would fabricate this detail since it would have been easily verifiable
by people alive at the time. Additionally, the early Christians blamed the
Jewish leaders for the crucifixion, which makes it incredulous that they would
invent a story about one of them attending to Jesus’s body.
Details like these are why cofounder and president emeritus of Internet Infidels, Jeffrey Jay Lowder, writes,
The burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea has a high final probability.
Jeffrey Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig,” in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, ed. Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005), 265–66.
The tomb was found empty.
Next, the four Gospels report that on the third day after
burial, women found the tomb empty (Matthew 28:1-15; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12;
John 20:1-10). Clay Jones explains the significance:
That the Gospels record women as being the first to discover the empty tomb makes it likely because of what is called the “criterion of embarrassment.” The criterion of embarrassment is a type of critical analysis where authors are presumed to be telling the truth if they record something that might be embarrassing to them or their cause. In short, no one in first-century Palestine would concoct a story with women taking the lead in the most vital discovery of Christianity!
They record that after that, two disciples found the tomb empty (Luke
24:12; John 20:2-7).
The Jews claimed the disciples stole the body.
Matthew wrote that the Jewish leaders paid the guards who
were watching the tomb to say that the disciples came at night while the guards
slept and stole the body (Matthew 28:11-15). Extra-biblical documents attest to
this report too. Justin Martyr (100–165) in his dialog with the Jew Trypho wrote:
You have sent chosen and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilaean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven.
Justin Martyr, “Dialog with Trypho,” in Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers, vol. 2, Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, trans. Marcus Dods, George Reith, and B.P. Pratten, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1879), 235.
Why would the Jewish leaders claim Jesus’s body was stolen
unless the tomb was empty? Additionally, if the Jewish leaders weren’t saying
this, why would Matthew report this embarrassing detail?
Without an empty tomb, Christianity wouldn’t have begun.
Finally, if the tomb wasn’t empty, all the Jewish and Roman leaders had to do to quell Christianity was to produce Jesus’s body. Habermas and Licona note,
In the arid climate of Jerusalem, a corpse’s hair, stature, and distinctive wounds would have been identifiable even after fifty days.
3) Soon after the crucifixion, people said they saw Jesus alive.
The primary source documents tell us that Jesus’s followers
and two former skeptics all saw Jesus alive.
Rembrandt: The Ascension of Christ
Jesus’s followers claimed to see Jesus alive.
After Jesus’s crucifixion and burial, his confused and scared
followers scattered and hid. But something happened that emboldened them.
Matthew recorded that he and the other ten disciples
saw and spoke to the resurrected Jesus as a group (Matthew 28:16-20).
John wrote that the risen Jesus appeared to him, the
other ten disciples, a woman, and others, often in groups (John 20:11-31).
Peter proclaimed to thousands that he was a witness
to the fact that God had raised Jesus from the dead, as the non-Jewish
historian Luke recorded (Acts 2; Acts 3:15; 4:10; etc.). Peter also wrote about
the resurrection (1 Peter 1:21).
Former skeptic James saw Jesus alive.
Before the crucifixion, Jesus’s brother thought Jesus was “out
of his mind” and tried to stop him from teaching publicly (Mark 3:21; John 7:5).
According to an early Christian creed, the resurrected Jesus appeared to James
(1 Corinthians 15:7).
Former Christian persecutor Paul claimed to see Jesus alive.
Paul (also known as Saul) was a devout Jew and a member of
the strict Pharisee sect. He persecuted Jews who became Christians (Acts 8:3).
Then one day he had an experience which he described as an encounter with the
resurrected Jesus (Acts 9:1-9).
Jesus’s followers proclaimed the resurrection soon after the crucifixion.
I mentioned an early Christian creed. Paul quoted it here:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around AD 55 (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 52). He wrote that he had earlier “delivered” to them what he had “received.” That means Paul received the creed before his earlier visit to Corinth.
Based on this, skeptic Gerd Lüdemann writes,
We can assume that all the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus.
Likewise, atheist Michael Goulder notes that Paul’s testimony
…goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.
Michael Goulder, “The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 48.
To Be Continued
We’ve looked at key three facts that primary source documents support. That’s all we have room for in this post. So I’ll continue with the last one and the conclusions we can make from them in my next post.
Why Do You Believe That? by Mary Jo Sharp is a women’s Bible study that explains how to present evidence for Christianity
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona is a detailed look at how to present the evidence for the resurrection and how to answer arguments skeptics might raise
https://i0.wp.com/www.jeanejones.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/512px-Rembrandt_The_Three_Crosses_1653.jpg?fit=512%2C445&ssl=1445512Jean E. Joneshttps://www.jeanejones.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Logo-340x340-1.gifJean E. Jones2019-09-05 10:11:062019-10-29 20:36:34Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Part 1
Mama Bear Apologetics:
Empowering Your Kids to Challenge Cultural Lies
Hillary Morgan Ferrer, general editor
In a word: Outstanding!
Mama Bear Apologetics deftly describes where culture departs from Scripture. It shows how to recognize cultural lies and how to defeat them logically and compassionately. Humor abounds, such as their “refined art of the chew and spit” method of discerning where progressivism, feminism, socialism, and more agree with or stray from biblical teaching. Moreover, the authors maintain a kind, compassionate demeanor toward those who cling to cultural lies.
Best of all, it’s readable. Not only are the chapter titles funny, but the writing is outstanding. So that you can see for yourself, I’ve added an excerpt and the table of contents below.
The Book’s Heart
Part 2, “Lies You’ve Probably Heard but Didn’t Know What They Were Called,” is the heart of the book. Here, each chapter begins by describing the cultural lie with spot-on analogies and the history behind it. Then chapters move to a “ROAR like a Mother!” section consisting of four parts:
RECOGNIZE the Message gives modern examples of the lie.
OFFER Discernment shows what’s good about the movement so readers can find common ground with proponents. It also shows where the movement goes astray from biblical teaching.
ARGUE for a Healthier Approach explains how to effectively argue for a more biblical view.
REINFORCE Through Discussion, Discipleship, and Prayer lists specific ways to teach children about the cultural lies. It also offers a prayer addressing the issues and asking for help. Then, it gives discussion questions that can be used in small groups.
Finally, the book ends with a list of recommended reading for those who want to learn more about any chapter’s subject.
Conclusion
In summary, Mama Bear Apologetics is intelligent, insightful, and witty. The authors’ suggestions for engaging in conversations with adults and children are both doable and helpful. In fact, many of the authors explain creative teaching methods they used with their own children.
I highly recommend Mama Bear Apologetics to anyone wanting to know more about what’s happening in our culture and how to address it. And I do mean anyone: you do not need children to benefit from this book.
Excerpt from Mama Bear Apologetics
So you can see the clear reading style, here’s an excerpt featuring a current presidential candidate. Written by Alisa Childers, it’s from one of my favorite chapters, “I’m Not Religious; I’m Spiritual!—New Spirituality.”
NAM [New Age Mysticism] is typically a hodgepodge of Eastern religious ideas, psychology, modern philosophy, pseudoscience, and Christianity. Let’s zoom in to see a practical example of NAM teachings in action.
In January 2008, the “Oprah & Friends” satellite radio channel launched a year-long class with daily lessons and affirmations from the book A Course in Miracles. The teacher of the class, Marianne Williamson, described it as a “self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy” that seeks to take certain “principles” and apply them in practical ways.
The book upon which the class is based, A Course in Miracles, was published in 1975, and is a collection of spiritual revelations recorded by Columbia University professor Helen Schucman. Schucman received the messages from an entity she called “the Voice,” which she later identified as “Jesus Christ.” If you are wondering what kind of “dictations” she received from this supposed “Jesus,” here are a few examples. They sum up the ideas of the new spirituality perfectly:
“Do not make the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross.’ The only message of the crucifixion is that you can overcome the cross.”
“The name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. But it stands for love that is not of this world. It is a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods to which you pray.”
…
Lesson 259 asks the reader to affirm “there is no sin.”
Mama Bear Apologetics
Table of Contents
Part 1: Rise Up, Mama Bears
Calling all Mama Bears—My kid has a cheerio
shoved up his nose. Why am I reading this book? Hillary Morgan Ferrer and Julie Loos
How to Be a Mama Bear—Is this code for being
the weirdest mom on the playground? Hillary Short
The Discerning Mama Bear—The refined art of “chew
and spit” Hillary Morgan Ferrer
Linguistic Theft—Redefining words to get your
way and avoid reality Hillary Morgan Ferrer
Part 2: Lies You’ve Probably Heard but Didn’t Know What They Were Called
God Helps Those Who Help Themselves—Self-Helpism Teasi Cannon
My Brain Is Trustworthy…According to My Brain—Naturalism Hillary Morgan Ferrer
I’d Believe in God If There Were Any Shred of Evidence—Skepticism Hillary Morgan Ferrer and Rebekah Valerius
The Truth Is, There Is No Truth—Postmodernism Rebekah Valerius and Hillary Morgan Ferrer
You’re Wrong to Tell Me that I’m Wrong!—Moral Relativism Hillary Morgan Ferrer and Rebekah Valerius
Follow Your Heart—It Never Lies!—Emotionalism Teasi Cannon, Hillary Morgan Ferrer, and Hillary Short
Just Worship Something—Pluralism Cathryn S. Buse
I’m Not Religious; I’m Spiritual!—New Spirituality Alisa Childers
Communism Failed Because Nobody Did It Right—Marxism Hillary Morgan Ferrer
The Future Is Female—Feminism Rebekah Valerius, Alisa Childers, and Hillary Morgan Ferrer
Christianity Needs a Makover—Progressive Christianity Alisa Childers
Final Words of Encouragement
How to Take All This Information and #RoarLikeAMother—The Mama Bears
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