The Christian Faith
Jesus - true, mad or liar?
Christianity is a statement which, if
false, is of no importance and,
if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it
cannot be is moderately important.
C.S. Lewis
The Christian faith is founded on a God of love who so loved
mankind that he sent his son - Jesus, into our sinful world
to bear the death penalty for our sin and thereby provide
a way for us to enjoy a personal relationship with the Holy
God as our Father.
The authenticity of Jesus of Nazareth - who's birth, life,
death and resurrection are recorded in the Bible, is therefore
all important to the validity of the Christian faith. Put
simply, was Jesus true, a liar or a mad man?
Jesus claimed to be the unique Son of God; God in human flesh.
There seems to be three only possible answers to this claim,
either:
- Jesus
was a LIAR. He was an impostor and an evil one at that.
- Jesus
was MAD. He was extremely deluded and off his rocker!
- Jesus
was TRUE. He was, as he claimed to be, the Son of God.
What do you think?
In order to answer these questions, we have to look at the
following facts.
Jesus' teaching
Jesus' works
Jesus' character
Fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy
Jesus' resurrection
Evidence that seeks a verdict
Jesus' teaching
It is a widely acknowledged fact that the teaching Jesus
gave was the greatest that has ever fallen from anyone's lips.
His teaching forms the foundations of the entire civilisation
in the West.
In our world today, we are making progress in virtually every
field of science and technology. We are travelling faster
and knowing more every day, yet in nearly 2,000 years no one
has improved on the moral teachings of Jesus Christ. In all
reality, could such teaching have come from a con man or mad
man?
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Jesus' works
The
miracles that Jesus Christ performed were in themselves evidence
that "the Father is in me, and I in the father"
(John's Gospel, chapter 10, verse 38).
Jesus was an extraordinary man to have around. He certainly
wasn't boring! He turned water into wine (John, chapter 2,
verses 1-11), received one young man's picnic and multiplied
it out so that it could be used to feed thousands (Mark, chapter
6, verses 30-44). He even had the power to speak to the elements,
being able to command the wind and waves and stopping a storm
(Mark, chapter 4:verses 35-41).
Jesus also performed many remarkable healings, opening blind
eyes, causing the deaf and dumb to hear and speak. He was
able to set people free from evil forces which had controlled
them for much of their lives. On occasions, he was able to
bring the dead back to life again! (John, chapter 11, verses
38-44).
He had a love for people in all that He did, going out of
his way to help and befriend all people, from lepers to prostitutes.
He even showed love to those who tried to kill him. As he
was tortured and nailed to a cross of wood, he said "Father,
forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"
(Luke, chapter 22, verse 34).
Surely these are not the actions of a mad or deluded man?
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Jesus' character
Jesus' character has impressed millions who would not call
themselves Christian.
He was a perfect example of supreme unselfishness, but never
self-pity; humility but not weakness; joy but never at another's
expense; kindness but not indulgence. Even his enemies reached
a point that they could find no fault in him.
With character like that, you couldn't say Jesus was evil
or unbalanced.
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Fulfilment of Old Testament Prophecy
Wilbur
Smith, an American writer on theological topics, in his book
"The Incomparable Book", has said that despite the
ancient world having many different devices, often known as
divination, to determine the future, there can be found no
specific prophecy of a great historic event coming to pass.
This is despite the words 'prophet' and 'prophecy' being used
throughout many works.
Jesus Christ however fulfilled over 300 prophecies (spoken
by many different people over 500 years) including 29 on the
day that he died!
Some have tried to argue that Jesus was a very clever and
skilled con man who consciously set out to fulfil all these
prophecies so that he could supposedly convince that he was
the Messiah foretold of in the Old Testament. The only problem
with such an argument is that due to the sheer number of prophecies,
it would have been very difficult to fulfil every single one.
What's more, from a human perspective, he didn't have any
control over many of the events that he was involved in and
yet the exact manner of his death, for example, was laid out
in the book of Isaiah, chapter 53 and even his place of birth,
in Micah, chapter 5, verse 2.
If Jesus had been a con man, it would have been rather late
by the time he worked out where he was supposed to have been
born!
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Jesus' resurrection
The physical resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ is
the foundation of the Christian faith. But what is the evidence?
"Jesus' body was actually absent from the tomb"
A number of explanations have been put forward to explain
how Jesus' body was absent from the tomb.
Dr Trevor Lloyd Davies claimed in a UK newspaper that Jesus
didn't actually die on the cross; he was simply taken off
the cross and then recovered later.
Now,
let's think about this for a moment. Jesus had just undergone
a Roman flogging, which was particularly vicious and something
that many have died from. He had also been nailed to a cross
for six hours. Could a man who had undergone all of that be
able to push a boulder (which probably weighed a ton and a
half) away from the entrance of his tomb and escape?!?
The Roman soldiers must have been convinced that Jesus was
dead; otherwise they would have faced the death penalty for
allowing a prisoner to escape.
In the book of John, chapter 19, verse 34, we read that a
soldier, having discovered Jesus was dead still hanging on
the cross, drove a spear into Jesus' side, with the result
that blood and water flowed out. This showed the separation
of clot and serum that we know today as sound medical evidence
that someone is dead. At the time that John was writing though,
such medical knowledge was not known. Therefore, reading the
account today, such detail makes strong medical evidence for
the case of Jesus' death.
"The disciples stole the body"
Some people have suggested that Jesus' disciples stole the
body and began a rumour that Jesus was alive. Now, putting
aside the fact that the tomb was closely guarded, psychologically
this doesn't add up.
The disciples were depressed and disillusioned at the time
of Jesus' death. Something extraordinary would have therefore
needed to have happened for many of them to suffer for what
they believed. They were flogged, tortured and some even experienced
death for believing in the resurrection of Jesus.
It doesn't sound logical for people to endure all of that
if they knew something was actually untrue.
"The authorities stole the body"
If the authorities had stolen the body, why didn't they bring
the body out to show everyone, thereby putting a final stop
to all the rumours that the "mad" disciples were
making of Jesus rising from the dead?
"The disciples hallucinated and that's how they
saw Jesus"
Some
say the disciples were hallucinating - that Jesus wasn't actually
seen by with them alive again after his death.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes a hallucination as
an "apparent perception of an external object not actually
present". Hallucinations are known to occur in very stressed
out, highly-strung and nervous people, or those who are unfortunately
very sick and on strong medication.
The disciples were fishermen and tax collectors, people who
were probably unlikely to hallucinate.
It is recorded that Jesus appeared on 11 different occasions
over a period of 11 weeks and over 550 people saw the risen
Jesus. Now let's think about this, it's probable for one,
maybe 2 even 3 people to hallucinate but 550 people, all hallucinating
and seeing the same hallucination!? This sounds like a world
record!
Hallucinations are also subjective, they're not actually
real. They're like a ghost. Jesus touched, ate food and even
cooked breakfast (Luke 24:42-45; John 21:1-14). That's pretty
good going for a ghost!
The immediate effect
Jesus rising from the dead had an immediate dramatic impact
on the world with the Church growing at a rapid rate despite
physical persecution and even martyrdom.
A legal opinion
A former Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, has said
"In its favour, as living truth there exists such
overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and
circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world cannot
fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is
true".
Evidence that seeks a verdict
So
was Jesus, the Son of God, a mad man or a fool?
When looking at the evidence, it doesn't make sense to say
he was mad or evil. His teaching, character, fulfilment of
Old Testament prophecy would all point to the fact that such
a conclusion is unfounded.
On the contrary, all the evidence lends the strongest support
to the claim that Jesus was a man whose identity was God,
who came to save sinners, like you and me, and to give us
a reason for living and an eternal security beyond the grave.
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The
information used on this page has drawn upon several useful
books which you may like to read yourself. They are:
All
photos used on this page are taken from Mel Gibsons' movie
The Passion of the Christ. They were obtained and
can be downloaded from the Icon
Movies website.
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