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The Best Kind of Love

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

Question:

Dear Dr. Stratton,

In your interview with Jorge Gil on Cross Examined’s Hope One, you attempted to answer “all the problems of evil” by appealing to love. In fact, you said that “the best kind of love requires libertarian free will.” Surely this is false, for I can think of a counter-example that clearly shows this to be false.

After all, the members of the Trinity are the epitome of perfect love and they do not have libertarian free will. They cannot do otherwise. They must love by necessity. So how can “the best kind of love” require libertarian free will?

– Phillip

Tim’s Response

I am thankful for your question, Phillip! When I read it I could have kicked myself for not providing this vital clarification in my interview with Jorge Gil. Your question provides this opportunity.

Contrary to your assertion, the members of the Trinity (God) do possess libertarian freedom. This is easy to demonstrate when considering creation. The vast majority of theologians agree that God possessed the ability — the power — to create the universe or to refrain from creation. This is the epitome of libertarian freedom. Moreover, if nothing other than God causally determined Him to create the universe, then God possesses libertarian freedom. In fact, this conclusion can be reached by merely thinking about the rational implications of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. The cause and creator of the universe must possess libertarian freedom.

If God possesses the libertarian freedom, for example, to create the universe or not to create the universe, then this is an “ability to do otherwise” kind of freedom. With that said, however, we are not discussing the creation of the universe, but something different. We are discussing the “best kind of love,” or the “kind of love worth wanting.” You aptly pointed out that God does not possess the “ability to do otherwise” when it comes to love — namely the love between the Trinity which you noted is the epitome of the “best kind of love.”

I agree that each member of the Trinity does not possess the ability to NOT love the other members. For example, it is impossible for the Holy Spirit not to love the Son, and it is impossible for the Son, not to love the Father. Does this not “destroy” my claim — that the best kind of love requires libertarian freedom?

Not at all!

Just because God might not have the ability to do otherwise when it comes to love, it does not follow that God does not possess the libertarian freedom to love. This is the case because NOTHING other than God causally determines God to love. Moreover, nothing other than the Father causally determines His love for the Son and the Spirit.

It is vital to remember that there are basically two definitions of libertarian freedom:
1- The PAP/”ability to do otherwise” version.

2- The source-hood version (which simply means that a person is not causally determined by something other than the person).

When it comes to love, God possesses the source-hood version of libertarian freedom. God is not causally determined by something other than Him to love. As 1 John 4:8 makes clear: “God IS love.”

So, with all the data in mind, the best kind of love still requires libertarian freedom to be possessed by each person in the relationship. The best kind of love is when persons are not causally determined to love the other. In fact, it is simply oxymoronic to refer to a relationship where at least one person in the union was causally determined to enter the relationship as a “love relationship.” It is not love at all, rather, it is simply an incoherent combination of words.

Since it would be impossible for God to create a contingent being whose nature is necessarily loving (like God is), without causally determining the nature of the creature, God creates humans with an “ability to do otherwise” kind of libertarian freedom so that a true love relationship with humanity can be attained. Humans, then, unlike God, possess both the source-hood version and the PAP version of the libertarian freedom to love. God only has the source-hood version.

Robots have neither!

Bottom line: The best kind of love, or the kind of love worth wanting, requires libertarian freedom.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Tim Stratton

What, Me Worry?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

Alfred E. Neumann, the famous face of Mad Magazine for many decades, popularized this slogan. While he wasn’t referring to the question of salvation, this saying does seem to describe the way many people view that question today. Yes, there may be a God; they will concede. But “I’m not worried,” they say. “I’m a good person, after all, and God will judge me accordingly.”

In my last post, I considered one of the ways to address this modern mindset, by making the point that expecting God to grade on a curve may not be a smart bet. This time, I’d like to explore a different approach, by examining what people mean when they say they are “good” and why a God they never bothered to get to know should care.

We can be “good” at things that do not involve others. For instance, we can be good at building sandcastles or doing crossword puzzles. But usually, when we say we are good at something, we mean that our performance is meeting or surpassing expectations. While we might not be aware of it, we are sneaking in a standard against which we judge what we have done. For instance, if we’re talking about sports, we mean we possess the skillset, discipline, and experience necessary to play effectively and to win. If we’re dealing with academics, we mean that we are sufficiently bright, hardworking, and knowledgeable to demonstrate our mastery of the subject on the test or in the class we have taken. If we’re thinking about the work environment, we mean that we know what is expected in our role, and we have the skills, experience, and dedication to accomplish our goals.

In each of these scenarios, we are buying into a game that we know we did not ourselves create. Someone who came before us outlined the parameters of what was expected and set the rules. While new games, new challenges, develop over time, we seem to be built to intuitively look for the rules of the “game” and seek to compete. And while often there is a specific reward we have a mind, a moment’s reflection should demonstrate that we seem to be, by nature, hardwired to try to surpass a standard we know is there.

Pursuing this line of thought to the next step, what else do these ways of “doing good,” of surpassing expectations, have in common? In addition to measuring up to a standard deriving from some preceding standard-setter, they all involve some form of relationship with the one, or the group, that sets the standard. We measure the good based on what performance is expected of us by someone who is in charge and who, in the end, will measure the performance. Whether the ref, the teacher or the boss, if we really want to stand out as good – no, as truly excellent and worthy of praise and a reward – we’d be well advised to find out what the particular judge thinks qualifies as good. An Olympic skater waiting for the judges’ score has in mind a clear understanding of exactly what performance is being measured, and what gaffs or missteps would qualify as a failure. And, the more powerful the judge and the more important the competition or event, the more crucial it is to understand the standard and to get it right. After all, it’s more important for the employee or the prison inmate to understand what good means than the person who is trying to finish a crossword puzzle.

Now, of course, for any particular event or competition we have in mind, the only sure way we can know with certainty what qualifies as good is to get to know the one who will be judging the performance. However, successful in other areas of their lives, the modern secularist simply does not see the point in doing this with the ultimate question – why am I here and who or what put me here? They are not troubled by the apparent disconnect – why does it matter in every other pursuit in life but not to the central pursuit, the most basic and ultimate one regarding origins…and the ultimate destination. The modern secularist doesn’t know anything about the One who, in the end, will judge his performance, the One who is going to say whether all these so-called good works amounted to anything of value. More importantly, they don’t even care. How odd this seems, to be so concerned about being “good” at lesser things and not put any effort into asking the right question about the “whole thing.” No doubt if pressed, they would say that God hasn’t bothered to communicate the standard to them, hasn’t made Himself known in the right way. Perhaps they think that justifies not trying harder to see if this is true.

I suspect most nonbelievers expect that God if he is actually there, will appreciate all the “good deeds” they did over the years and be happy with them. Perhaps they are picturing a sort of cosmic subway station; their many good deeds over the years will act like coins in the gate, allowing it to swing open for them if they’ve guessed wrongly and there really is a judge awaiting their arrival.

Christians, by contrast, know that our good works don’t earn us admission into heaven. But the secularist isn’t thinking that way. When he tells you he is good, he means he expects God to see this as well. You should remind him that by his own standard, he may be in a bit more trouble than he thinks. The coins he is depositing are from a different realm, and they don’t work with the guardian of the gate. It’s actually the wrong currency.

Think of it this way: can I ask the teacher of a different class to give me an A based on the good work I am doing in my class? Can I ask your employer to pay me for the good work I am doing for my employer? Should I expect my friend to give my son an allowance for the chores he performs at my home? If you weren’t doing the work for someone you knew, the way you knew he wanted it, why would you expect to be compensated, let alone rewarded?

Why then should the secularist who knows nothing about God, and cares even less, expect God to recognize any of his works as good?

When Is “Good” Good Enough?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

Your son walks in test paper in hand. You glance over and wince, seeing the big “60” in red ink at the top.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “I did good on this test.”

You ignore the faulty grammar. One problem at a time, you think, mulling over in your mind just how long you will ground him.

“No, really,” he persists, “you should have seen the other scores. Mine was really good!”

“Good,” you think out loud, “how can you call a sixty good?”

“Check it out,” he calls out over his shoulder as he walks away, “you’ll see.”

He’s seems confident, and he may have a point, so you call the teacher. After all, without knowing more about the class and the test, how can you really know?

After the call, you head to the family room, where you find your son on the couch, legs propped up while he’s staring at the tube.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” you begin. “The good news is that you did, indeed, get the highest score in the class. Congratulations. The bad news is that you all flunked!”

What does this little parent’s nightmare have to do with apologetics? Well, the young man in this story bears a pretty strong resemblance to many of the secularists you will encounter today. They have a pretty strong intuitive notion that they’re doing pretty “good” on this little test called life, so if there is a God – and they’re not granting there is, mind you – well, they’re just not that worried about it. After all, they think they’re not doing anything really bad, like killing people or stealing, and more importantly, they’re just like the rest of the “class” – all of their role models, their friends, their acquaintances. Each of them can think of a gazillion others who would be much worse than themselves.

If you are trying to present the Good News of salvation to such a person, you might find them a bit less than interested in hearing what you have to say. Even if you are presenting an intellectually solid case, you may not get much traction. After all, you are in essence offering to tutor him when he thinks he’s already getting an A. Or, more precisely, you’re asking him to study harder, maybe do some extra credit homework, when he thinks he is simply auditing the class, or that everyone passes. He doesn’t need your answers, your solution to the problem, until he first begins to realize that he may well be “flunking” the class. This analogy, and others like it, can be a starting point to get the modern-day secularist thinking about what he may not have thought about before:

Just where did you get this notion that you will be graded on a curve?

The answer, no doubt, is that grading on a curve is particularly common in today’s culture. If it works for school – indeed, if it forms a part of the upbringing of most young people today – then why wouldn’t it also apply to life generally, and to the consideration of not just the next test but life’s ultimate test?

Let’s consider for a moment what lies behind such thinking. Generally, a teacher who grades on a curve is taking into consideration the difficulty of the subject matter and adjusting downward the grading scale. If most of the class gets a 60 on the test, and if the test is particularly difficult, then what would otherwise be an F might, in fact, become an A. This downward adjustment in grading seems to be increasingly common these days; it’s called “grade inflation.” We can also see it in children’s sports, where an increasing number of kids receive trophies simply for showing up; where games that can only be won or lost by totaling up the points earned are no longer being scored; where, in short, young people are given the impression that holding themselves to a standard of excellence is not only unimportant, it isn’t even necessary. The focus has shifted from building skills and judging outcomes to shoring up what are believed to be fragile egos always in need of enhanced self-esteem.

But on a deeper level, this readjustment of what constitutes a “good” outcome has an intuitive appeal to most people. After all, we are not perfect, so why should we expect ourselves to live up to perfect expectations? Isn’t that just a recipe for disappointment, depression, and despair? Isn’t it better instead to just be happy with ourselves regardless of what we actually accomplish with our time here on Earth?

Now I’m not saying that this way of thinking is always wrong. Being overly focused on success can be detrimental, both to the person who sets unrealistic goals of perfection for himself and for those with whom he collides in his effort to “be the best.” The issue, really, is to figure out which situation is which.

Consider: there are indeed some settings in life in which grade inflation makes no sense, in which a moment’s reflection should make us thankful that it does not. The Navy runs a nuclear power school for its next generation of officers who will handle one of the most dangerous activities known to man. If a particular class of students just isn’t up to snuff, flunking them and starting fresh with a new class makes perfect sense. Similarly, would anyone want to fly with a pilot, or be operated upon by a surgeon, who really didn’t master the subject matter but got an A anyway? In these areas, even if no one in the class can perform up to what is required, wouldn’t common sense still dictate that grading on a curve would be a very bad idea?

So what kind of class, then, is this thing we call human life, what test will we be taking, and what exactly does the “teacher” expect of us? The “bad news” of Christianity, of course, is that a perfect God has some pretty high standards. Far from grading on a curve, we are told that though many are invited, few are chosen. In short, God is not adjusting downward when we fall short but is instead expecting – no, requiring – us to have a perfect score. That’s why standing before God trying to impress him with your accomplishments and trumpeting your “goodness” is such a bad idea. We’re dealing with a schoolmaster who not only is perfection; he also demands it. Any deviation, however trivial in our view, is an eternal offense against Him.

These reflections may make God seem… well, rather horrible. Does he take delight in catching each of our transgressions, like some sadistic teacher who, with rod in hand, is looking for any excuse to beat his students? That’s how the message of Christianity comes across to an increasing percentage of the population today.

But it is not that way. To understand why, one must consider the underlying philosophy that helps us make sense of God and his attributes of love, justice, and mercy. God maintains all three despite the fact that, to us, these virtues seem to be irreconcilably in conflict. To maintain perfect justice, God cannot simply ignore our transgressions. These transgressions are not “mistakes” on our part; they are instead the use of our wills to think and act in ways that violate His laws. What we call “sin” are not those occasions in which we lack the skills or abilities to do a particular job, or to pass a particular test. No, they are those instances in which we intentionally do wrong, knowing that we are doing wrong because of the conscience that God imbedded within us. The punishment we face – the prospect of eternal separation from God – is a necessary consequence of his justice. He cannot simply accept us “just as we are,” because allowing lawbreakers to escape accountability and punishment for their misdeeds is unjust.

But we need not insist on having things our way. The good news of Christianity is that God, in His perfect love and mercy, provided us a solution. By taking the form of Man, He arranged a method through which justice and mercy could both be satisfied. Jesus, as both God and man, was the only being who could stand before God and not be in need of forgiveness, as he lived a perfect life. He then traded his righteousness for our sin, balancing the books in an eternal transaction that allows us to become pure again. More precisely, by accepting Christ into our hearts and lives, we ask God to do what he will not otherwise do and what we lack the capacity to do – fix the corruption of our will so that we can live in harmony with Him. God will not take away our free will, so he awaits our response to his gift of renewed life in His presence. He will do a transforming work in us, making us ready and able to reunite with Him. Or, we can continue to shake our fist at God, die in our rebellion, and face eternal separation from him.

Either way, he will respect our choice.

Thankfully for us, we need not fear the final exam. We need not worry about the grading curve. God, the Son, has already taken the test for us and passed with a perfect score. It is simply for us to place our trust in Him.

What Is Salvation All About?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Jason Jimenez

Ever wish you had a backup plan? Well, God did. Of course, that doesn’t imply God made a mistake. God is perfect, and everything He created was perfect (Gen. 1-2).

He perfectly and freely made Adam and Eve perfect in His image. And yet, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God’s commands and eat from the forbidden tree (Gen. 3).

But God knew Adam and Eve would sin, and so, in His infinite love and mercy, He set the plan of salvation in motion to redeem His people from their sin (Jon. 2:9; Jn. 1:13; Rom. 9:16; Eph. 1:5).

But God didn’t need to do this. He is perfectly just to condemn sinners in their disobedience. Yet, instead, God predetermined to send Jesus to become the ultimate atonement for the sins of the whole world (Rom. 1:16; Acts 4:12).

Read the beautiful picture that Paul the Apostle paints in Romans 3:21-25 of the grace of God and our faith:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it–the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

According to Paul, the two conditions for salvation are God’s grace and our faith.

Think of it like this: God is the Giver (by grace-freely), and we are the receiver (through faith-freely). Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

There is nothing we can do to earn or gain salvation. All that is required of each one of us is to humbly admit that we are sinners, and receive (in faith) the free gift of salvation that God decrees. The Bible makes clear that Jesus is the atonement for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2). He became sin for us that we might “become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Therefore, it’s very important that Christians realize that we are not saved by good works, but are saved for good works. In 2 Timothy 1:9, Paul writes, “[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”

Therefore, good works are the evidence of salvation, not a condition for it (Phil. 2:13-14; Js. 2).

Listed below are the three stages of salvation that we need to appreciate and fully understand.

The Three Stages of Salvation

Justification: Salvation from the penalty of sin (Rom. 3-4).
Sanctification: Salvation from the power of sin (Rom. 6)

Victory over the world (1 Jn. 5:4)

Victory over the flesh (Rom. 7:24, 25)

Victory over the devil (James 4:7)

Glorification: Salvation from the presence of sin (Rom. 8:18-23)

One final thought, the Christian can have total faith that the free gift of salvation comes with absolute assurance and security. Peter puts it like this:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Pet. 1:3-5

(Additional Bible References: 2 Cor. 5:1-8; 13:5; 2 Pet. 1:10; John 3:18; 5:24; 6:37, 39-40; 10:27, 28; 17:9-24; Rom. 8:33-39; 11:29; Eph. 1:4-13; Phil. 1:6).

Is the Historical Jesus Fact or Fiction?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Tim Stratton

As a pastor who spends a lot of time on the college campus, I hear the following challenges quite often from young skeptics: “There is no good evidence to think that Jesus ever existed,” or “Christianity has pagan roots!” One might put these common challenges as two questions: (1) Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? (2) Are the gospel records of this man merely fictional mythology?

In this essay, I want to explore several lines of evidence that will show that the answer to the first question is a clear “Yes!” and to the second “No!”

i. Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist?

Though there are many “street atheists,” or “internet infidels” who espouse their unqualified views and who in the process influence many impressionable young minds, it should be pointed out that there are very few (if any) scholars and historians who would argue that Jesus never existed. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.

Space does not permit a thorough list of primary sources for Jesus’ historical existence outside of the New Testament, but the following will demonstrate that Jesus indeed lived. Further, the evidence cited will show that extra-biblical sources do not contradict the historical accounts in the Gospels. Indeed, they complement that history.[1]

The ancient sources[2] will be arranged in two ways: (1) Sources that specifically use the name “Jesus” or “Christ;” and (2) Sources that specifically reference events associated with Jesus.

Sources that specifically use the name “Jesus” or “Christ.”

a) Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion

This letter—written sometime later than A.D. 73—was sent by a Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion to his son Serapion to encourage him in the pursuit of wisdom and pointed out that those who persecuted wise men were overtaken by misfortune.

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished…. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching which He had given.[3]

This ancient document corroborates Jesus’ death, death by the Jews, and that His teaching obviously had continued on (i.e., He had followers who were spreading His teachings).

b) Flavius Josephus

Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote toward the end of the first century AD. There are three valuable references for the historicity of Jesus. One (Antiquities xviii. 5) describes John the Baptist just as the New Testament Gospels do. The second (Antiquities xx. 9) describes the death of James:

(Ananus [Ananias]) convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.

The reference to Jesus being the brother of James fits the New Testament data, but that Jesus is further identified as the Christ is remarkable in light of the following quotation from Josephus.[4]

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.” (Antiquities xviii. 33)[5]

The value of these words of Josephus—though some words are controversial—can not be overstated. The Jesus of the New Testament documents is called a wise “man,” did wonderful works, was a great teacher, was the Messiah, was condemned and crucified by Pilate, reportedly arose from dead on the third day (in fulfillment of the Old Testament), and a movement of “Christians” continued at the time of Josephus’ writing.

c) Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Younger: Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (A.D. 112)

The following is a letter he wrote to the emperor Trajan seeking counsel as to how to treat Christians:

In the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed…. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image… and moreover cursed Christ—none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do—these I thought should be discharged…. They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn[6], and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition…. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. (Epistles X. 96)

The governor identifies Jesus as “Christ” and says his followers consider him “a god.” Their fault in his judgment is their “superstition” (Jesus’ resurrection?).

d) Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120)

But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate,[7] procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition,[8] repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.” (Annals XV. 44)

These are the chief references to Jesus outside of the 27 individual accounts comprised in the New Testament. A number of other sources are cited (here) on the FreeThinking Ministries website.

Sources that specifically reference events associated with Jesus.

a) Thallus, the Samaritan-born historian (A.D. 52)

Thallus wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean from the time of the Trojan War to his own time. Though his writings have disappeared, we only know of them from fragments cited by other writers. The citation below is from Julius Africanus, who is alluding to Thallus’ reference to the darkness that covered the earth from noon to 3:00 p.m. during Jesus’ crucifixion:

Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun-unreasonably, as it seems to me….[9]

It was “unreasonable,” of course because a solar eclipse could not take place at the time of the full moon, and it was at the season of the Paschal full moon that Christ died.

b) Phlegon of Tralles, Chronicles (2nd century).

Though he is known to have written several works, his history—Chronicles—has disappeared. He, however, is quoted by several ancient writers.

During the time of Tiberius Caesar, an eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth occurred during the full moon.[10]

Phlegon is also noted by Origen:

“But,” continues Celsus… “although we are able to show the striking and miraculous character of the events which befell Him, yet from what other source can we furnish an answer than from the Gospel narratives, which state that “there was an earthquake, and that the rocks were split asunder, and the tombs opened, and the veil of the temple rent in twain from top to bottom, and that darkness prevailed in the day-time, the sun failing to give light?”

Answer: “With regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place, Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his Chronicles” (Origen, Against Celsus, 2.33)…. He (Celsus) imagines also that both the earthquake and the darkness were an invention; but regarding these, we have in the preceding pages, made our defense, according to our ability, adducing the testimony of Phlegon, who relates that these events took place at the time when our Saviour suffered. (Origen, Against Celsus 2.59)[11]

From these references to Phelgon’s history, we see that the gospel account of the darkness (three hours long), which fell upon the land during Christ’s crucifixion and very possibly the earthquake were well-known. Origen’s account is especially helpful because he is responding to an antagonist who questions the New Testament record.

There are numerous other sources that corroborate events associated with Jesus’ life and death, some of which can be found by clicking here.

No reference in the above citations has been made to the New Testament documents, though we must not dismiss them as merely “religious books.” They are primary documents[12] and should be viewed as reliable history unless they fail to meet the muster of other ancient documents. Further, it is apparent in other places in the New Testament that the history of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, was commonly affirmed. The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the church at Corinth (15:3-5) gives a creed current in his day (prior to his death in AD 64) which states that Jesus was crucified to pay for our sins; that He died, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day; and that He was seen by eyewitnesses.

Click here for more information regarding this creed.

ii. Are the gospel records of this man merely fictional mythology?

Though a strong case can be and has been made for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, this has not stopped many young skeptics from espousing popular bumper sticker slogans like “Christianity has pagan roots.” I personally have been challenged with the accusation that the story of Jesus being the Son of God and rising from the dead is plagiarism from Egyptian mythological pagan “gods” such as Adonis, Mithras, Osiris, Attis, and Horus, to name a few.

But careful analysis shows that such charges fail for several reasons. First of all, there are far more differences between Christianity and these mysterious stories of pagan religions than any similarities offered. For instance, it is purported that the pagan god Osiris was a dying and rising god, and that Christianity is a “copy cat” religion based on Osiris’ resurrection from the dead.[13] At first glance this appears to be troublesome, but when examining these stories with more scrutiny, the differences become glaring.

Osiris, so the account states, was murdered by his brother, and then his body was torn into fourteen pieces and scattered all across Egypt. Then his wife, Isis, found thirteen of the fourteen pieces of his body, revived him (quite different than a resurrection), and then went on to make him “god of the underworld.” This is nothing like the historical story that Jesus voluntarily went to the cross, which defeated and destroyed sin so that through His atonement we as humans could be reconciled with the Creator of the universe, and then three days later, Jesus rose from the dead in whole, and in a powerful, glorified body that we as Christians can also look forward to one day. The story the Bible teaches as historical fact seems quite different when compared to these mythical pagan stories.

Sean McDowell in an article entitled “Is Christianity a Copycat Religion?” says that “Parallels prove nothing.” He gives an interesting parallel: a British ocean liner that could carry 3,000 passengers, had a top cruising speed of twenty-four knots, had an inadequate number of lifeboats hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage, tore a hole in the side of the ship, and sank along with the 2,000 passengers on board. What ship was that? Most of us immediately conclude that this must be the account of the Titanic, but we are mistaken. Sean was describing the Titan, a fictional ship described in Morgan Robertson’s book, Wreck of the Titan, a fictional story written fourteen years before the sinking of the Titanic actually occurred. While the resemblance between the two accounts is eye-opening, the fictional “Titan” is irrelevant to the historical evidence that the Titanic was, in fact, a real ocean liner that sank in the Atlantic after colliding with an iceberg.

Similarly, even if pagan myths did exist that were comparable to the Gospel records and before the time of Christ, it would not undermine the historical evidence for Jesus’ miraculous life, death, and resurrection. “Parallels alone are inconclusive.”[14]

Up to this point, I have intentionally avoided using the Gospel records as historical evidence of the historicity of Jesus because many skeptics disregard anything the Bible says just because it’s in the Bible! However, just because the Bible reports something as a historical event, doesn’t mean we should immediately disregard it. In fact, the Bible is filled with outstanding historical documents. The “search for the historic Jesus” has been going on for well over a century. During this search, there has not been any “new evidence” supporting the idea that the miracle-working Son of God evolved from pagan myths over time. Conversely, modern discoveries have given more reliability to the content of the Gospel accounts in the New Testament. Greg Koukl’s summary states it well:

We know the Apostle Paul died during the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64. Paul was still alive at the close of Acts, so that writing came some time before A.D. 64. Acts was a continuation of Luke’s Gospel, which must have been written earlier still. The book of Mark predates Luke, even by the Jesus Seminar’s reckoning. This pushes Mark’s Gospel into the 50s, just over twenty years after the crucifixion. It is undisputed that Paul wrote Romans in the mid-50s, yet he proclaims Jesus as the resurrected Son of God in the opening lines of that epistle. Galatians, another uncontested Pauline epistle of the mid-50s, records Paul’s interaction with the principle disciples (Peter and James) at least 14 years earlier (Gal 1:18, cf. 2:1). The Jesus Seminar claims that the humble sage of Nazareth was transformed into a wonder-working Son of God in the late first and early second century. The epistles, though, record a high Christology within 10 to 20 years of the crucifixion. That simply is not enough time for myth and legend to take hold, especially when so many were still alive to contradict the alleged errors of the events they personally witnessed. There is no good reason to assume the Gospels were fabricated or seriously distorted in the retelling. Time and again the New Testament writers claim to be eyewitnesses to the facts. And their accounts were written early on while they’re memories were clear and other witnesses could vouch for their accounts. The Gospels are early accounts of Jesus’ life and deeds.[15]

In sum, the contentions that Jesus never existed or that He was a plagiarized version of mythical pagan deities does not pass the muster of historical research, and, therefore, skepticism regarding the reality of the historical person of Jesus is completely unwarranted. Jesus of Nazareth was a real person of history!

Interestingly, Bart Ehrman, one of the harshest and most critical voices regarding Jesus’ resurrection agrees and concludes,

“Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed.”[16]

Notes

[1] A fuller list can be found at our website and the folder “Historical References to Christ from Non-biblical Sources.”

[2] Much of this material and bibliography can be found—often with further discussion—in Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus; Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands A Verdict; also the updated (by his son, Sean McDowell) Evidence That Demands A Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World. See also Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson; He Walked Among Us. Some dating is based on J. N. D. Anderson Christianity: The Witness of History (pages 13-37, especially).

[3] The manuscript in the British Museum, preserving the text of this letter is quoted from F. F. Bruce in The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

[4] Relatively little question is raised about the authenticity of this quotation.

[5] There has been much debate over this quotation, primarily because it is such a strong defense of the New Testament accounts of Jesus. All extant manuscripts of Josephus, however, contain it, which is a strong defense of its authenticity. For all the arguments, see McDowell and Wilson, He Walked among Us, 41-45. Though some have said that this quotation has been “edited” by Christians, the Arabic version still has the explicit reference to the resurrection. The Arabic version: “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” (Arabic summary, presumably of Antiquities 18.63. From Agapios’ Kitab al-‘Unwan (“Book of the Title,” 10th c.). See also James H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism, (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/JewishJesus/josephus.html). See also Habermas’ discussion of this and his reference to the Arabic translation of Josephus’ work.

[6] The time was the early morning on the first day of the week, thus celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. By this time, worship had moved from the Sabbath to Sunday.

[7] This is one of four references to Pilate outside the New Testament.

[8] Anderson: [This reference] “is bearing indirect and unconscious testimony to the conviction of the early church that the Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave.”

[9] Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18.1.

[10] Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18.1.

[11] Phlegon is also noted by a six-century writer named Philopon: And about this darkness…Phlegon recalls it in his Olympiads….

[12] Especially F. F. Bruce, Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? In a Biola Christian Apologetics Program audio lecture (Craig Hazen, “Evidence for the Resurrection”), Hazen states “When these gospel accounts are scrutinized under the accepted principles of textual and historical analysis, they are found to be trustworthy historical documents and primary source accounts concerning the life, death, and resurrection of the man Jesus of Nazareth.”

[13] Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 163.

[14] Sean McDowell, “Is Christianity a Copycat Religion?” quoted in The Apologetics Study Bible for Students, 1366.

[15] Greg Koukl, http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6760, accessed February 11, 2017.

[16] Bart Ehrman, “Did Jesus Exist?”, Huffington Post (March 29, 2012); http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html, accessed February 11, 2017.

Infinite Punishment for Finite Crimes?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

Trying to explain how a good God created Hell can be a daunting task for the Christian apologist. In my last post, I considered the challenge that God could not be “good” if he created a place of “torture.” I tried to make the case that there is a difference between torture – which implies intentional infliction of punishment for the pleasure of doing so – and torment, which is the necessary byproduct of God’s legitimate act of separating Himself from those who have rejected Him, who died while still in rebellion against Him. A related challenge often encountered when discussing the doctrine of Hell is the seeming unfairness in endless punishment for what appears to be brief – in some cases, extremely brief – temporal actions. This challenge can put the Christian apologist on the defensive, trying to justify what seems on its face to be wildly excessive punishment. As I suggested in my last post, providing an intellectual response to such challenges may have limited effectiveness when dealing with someone who is approaching the issue from an emotional standpoint; logical answers don’t often make someone feel better about what is bothering them. But, in my experience, at any rate, I have found that some people insist that no intellectually satisfying answer is possible to a challenge such as this. So here goes…

The assumption underlying the challenge here is that there should be some correlation between how long the offending act took to commit and the punishment that is attached to it. The first step in responding is to recognize that from even a human, temporal perspective, the amount of time a crime takes to commit bears very little relationship to the length of punishment it merits. After all, a person’s life can be snuffed out in the wink of an eye, an act which, if committed with premeditation and deliberation, rightly merits a sentence of life in prison. If a person, consequently, spends 80 years in prison for a shot that took three seconds beginning to end, the math could appear a bit excessive. But, obviously, there is more at play when we consider this issue a bit more deeply. Focusing on the time the act took does not capture the essence or quality of the act that made it worthy of punishment.

Consider for a moment two men, each firing a single shot at his intended victim. The first uses a high powered handgun; the second, a plastic air pistol. Each involves a similar action – expelling a projectile from a pistol – and each takes no more than a few seconds. But the one-act, in that instant, stops a vibrant, beating heart, while the other only momentarily stings. We punish these acts differently because the harm of murder has nothing to do with the time it took to commit. No, while the trial may focus on proving what the shooter did, the reason we pursue the matter so earnestly is based entirely on the harm that was inflicted. The murder victim remains dead, after all, despite the fact that a moment earlier, he had every right to live until the point of his natural death, which may have been decades away. The sting of the pellet, on the other hand, causes no lasting harm and is soon forgotten. In a very real sense, every day of living, of planning, of enjoying the company of loved ones, that was ripped from the deceased amounts to a re-infliction of the harm. Moreover, the agony that is inflicted upon the victim’s family and friends will also last for decades. Indeed, many survivors of violent crime are never the same again, daily suffering from the mental trauma that takes root in the moments after the crime. From the killer’s perspective, the criminal conduct for which he suffers punishment may seem quite limited; he merely pulled a trigger and never felt the pain, physical or emotional, that ensued. But, the harm is anything but limited when viewed from the perspective of the victim or the victim’s family.

But, the challenger will respond, how does this possibly apply to God, and to the question of eternal punishment? God, of course, cannot be victimized. We cannot really harm Him, and I am not suggesting here that He suffers as a result of our conduct. But this misses the point. Christians believe that God provides a path to salvation. We do not need to suffer eternal torment in Hell. We are not chosen at random for such punishment. The issue of fairness is answered by the understanding that God has the right to separate Himself from people who have rejected Him.

That this punishment is eternal is the result of the fact that God is eternal, and he made us for eternity as well. Though our bodies will die, our souls live on. Let’s consider for a moment what this means: while we may have forgotten many, or even most, of the times that we erred, the times that we hurt others, the times that we did not live up to what was expected; He has not. Each of our sins, each of the times that we chose to act or think in a way we knew violated His perfect will, each of those instances may seem to be the distant past to us, but God is not limited by time. As an eternal being, He perceives every moment of our past as an endless, eternal present. Consequently, each of our offenses against Him, however incapable they are of injuring Him, is nonetheless eternally present to Him. How does He maintain the attribute of perfect justice if he does not attach a consequence to wrongdoing? A human judge would not be fair if she did nothing in response to crime; how does a perfectly just God ignore what we have all done?

These are harsh realities, and intellectual understanding does not make them easier to embrace. That is why Christians for 2000 years have also provided the good news. While we merit the separation that follows a life of rebellion, there is a means for salvation, through the life and death of Jesus, a means by which we can obtain forgiveness for our sins. In short, Hell awaits only those who persist in their rebellion, who “die in their sins.” And what does this phrase mean? Well, at the very least, it means that rather than seek the forgiveness offered by Jesus, we have instead chosen to ask God for a trial as to our lives. We have chosen to stand before God, unapologetic, demanding that He accept us just as we are, proud of our lives and our choices. Judge us and find us worthy, we demand. What choice does this leave to a perfectly just judge?

Seeing the issue from a non-temporal perspective places the issue in a different light: what else is there for beings who were created for eternity but who have rejected God’s offer of salvation? Thank God, then, that the eternal Son stands in the gap for us, with the power and the love and the eternal will to receive the punishment that would otherwise await us.

El Apologista

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Terrell Clemmons

Jorge Gil: Next Gen Apologist to the World

Jorge Gil was born in 1982 to a single mother in Costa Rica. When he was one year old, she left him in the care of his grandparents and moved to the United States, where she died ten years later. In the wake of her death, with a grandfather who was away most of the time, a grandmother who showed love by giving him whatever he wanted, and adolescence approaching, young Jorge started exploring. With no father figure and no boundaries, he soon discovered he liked liquor and pot, and both became regular pastimes. As in much of Latin America, the culture around him was nominally Catholic, and he could easily party all night and go to Mass the next day, no qualms. He never doubted the existence of God. He just never cared about him.

Still, he was a smart student. He graduated high school at sixteen, and by age eighteen had completed three semesters of college. However, with expanded freedom had come expanded carousing. When the aunts footing the bill for his education saw how he was wasting the opportunity, they cut off the funds. At that point, his Aunt Shirley invited him to America, where she lived, and where he could work and earn his own funds to finish school. He arrived in North Carolina two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

But a change of setting does not a change of lifestyle make. A steady income of his own simply freed him up to do whatever he pleased, and life settled into a steady cycle of hard work followed by hard-partying. Who needed school?

Being musically and technologically inclined, he also built a recording studio in his apartment. This attracted friends, including women, and before long, he’d taken up with one in particular. Neither of them had any plan or ambition for life, and they drifted along carelessly and recklessly before and after children entered the picture. Jorge’s daughter Leda was born in 2007, followed by his son Aiden in 2008. With both Jorge and his baby-mama stuck in codependency, Aunt Shirley next door picked up a lot of the slack for everyone.

Stopped

In 2012, several years of irresponsible living caught up with Jorge. It started with a routine traffic stop while he was driving home from a friend’s house. Although he’d had some drinks, his breathalyzer test registered under the legal limit, so that wasn’t a problem. But his driver’s license was expired. So he was taken to the police station, where, by some mysterious misfortune, a second breathalyzer test showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1% over the limit. Jorge was detained overnight in the Sampson County jail, and now he had a DUI charge to contend with.

The next morning, he woke up to an ICE officer waiting for him. The reason his driver’s license was expired was that he’d let his immigration permit lapse, and now he was being placed on immigration hold. Driving with an expired license was a minor offense, and the DUI arguably stood on shaky ground. But this immigration situation was a more complicated matter. In counsel with his lawyers, Jorge decided he would plead not guilty to the DUI charge and remain in the county jail while they prepared his immigration case.

Detention: Part One

“Do you have anything to read?” he asked his Mexican bunkmate on the first day in jail. His bunkmate had two books, a Colombian classic called One Hundred Years of Solitude and a Bible. Jorge had no interest in reading the Bible, but after finishing the novel in two days, the Bible was the only book around, and prison days were long. He read the Gospels.

To his surprise, he found himself intrigued. As if in response to some nascent prayer, the following week, a black man named Cortez was transferred into his pod. (A pod is a large communal cell.) Cortez had what he called “jail preacher syndrome,” meaning that he would drift in and out of jail and while in jail he would preach the gospel and teach Bible studies. Jorge took it all in, and when another preacher visited two weeks later and laid out the gospel with all his country-preacher fire, Jorge surrendered his life to Jesus on the spot. At that moment, all the urges and desires of his old life—a pack or two of cigarettes a day, drinks every night, and pot here and there for good measure—up and left, never to return.

Cortez went to work discipling him right away. He told Jorge to stop using profanity, both the Spanish words and the English ones. Jorge did, and the two studied the Bible together every day until Cortez was transferred out a few weeks later. With Cortez gone, Jorge took it upon himself to become the new in loco preacher. Still new to the Bible himself, he used whatever he could find. He asked Aunt Shirley to get him some resources, and though he hardly knew what to ask for, he soon had a study Bible, some Our Daily Bread devotionals, a few InTouch magazines, and a stash of commentaries, all of which he devoured and disseminated as best he could like there was no tomorrow. He reached out to contacts in the community and asked for Bibles to be donated, and soon every new inmate received from him a good welcome and his own Bible. Inmates started calling him Preacher and coming to him for counsel, and between the providence of God and the flame driving his regenerated heart, Jorge grew into the preacher-teacher role with a passion.

Detention: Part Two

Six months to the day after Jorge entered the Sampson County jail, he was transferred to a federal ICE detention facility in Georgia. The DUI charge had been dismissed, and by the time he left, in addition to becoming Preacher, he’d become friends with all the guards, served as their on-call translator, read some sixty books, and accumulated a pile of yellow pads filled with notes, ideas, and sermon outlines.

Although he’d pretty much put himself through “preacher school,” as he now puts it, the ICE facility presented a whole new set of challenges. These weren’t people who were in for crimes per se, but like him were being detained and processed for either deportation or reinstatement as a resident. In North Carolina, most of the inmates had come from some kind of Christianized background and had a reasonable context by which to relate to the gospel. Here, he encountered Buddhism, Islam, Rasta, Hinduism, Bahá’í, and other world belief systems. He would start preaching or talking as he’d done before, and men would challenge him with questions he’d never encountered: “How can you say Jesus is the only way?” and “Hasn’t the Bible been corrupted?” and the like. How was he to respond to these?

He prayed, and his answer came in the form of an AM-FM radio a Mexican man who was being deported gave him. By holding the antenna up to the window just so, Jorge found a radio teacher who flat-out blew him away. The man had a funny accent, and Jorge thought he was some kind of Messianic Jew because his name was Ravi, which he assumed was a mispronunciation of Rabbi. Jorge sat by that window every single day, wrote down everything this man said and asked Aunt Shirley to send him every book she could find related to Ravi Zacharias.

The books and notepads continued to accumulate until November when Jorge received a full pardon and was released. He returned home 110 pounds lighter, nine months drug-free, insatiably thirsty for knowledge of this Jesus he loved, and with a heart set on sharing him with the world. He started looking for apologetics programs online as soon as he could get his hands on a smartphone.

El Director

Life since that pivotal year has brought a lot of twists and turns. His employer had held his job for him, and he was welcomed back wholeheartedly, but his relationship with the mother of his children deteriorated rapidly. Not only had she not changed, she was not happy about these changes in him. She left a few months later in a violent fury, never to return.

His Aunt Shirley, who had been like a mother to him all these years, died in 2014 in a horrible murder-suicide shooting, and following that, he discovered in a new way the richness of the body of Christ, as his small rural church stepped in to help him with his kids. He went to every weekend apologetics conference he could find within driving distance, and he sought out mentors who could help him grow as an apologist and man of God. He met Frank Turek of Cross-Examined and in 2015 was hired on as Cross-Examined’s social media director. He also met Angelia (“Lia”) in 2015, and in 2017, she became his wife and accepted the mantle of mother to his children.

Today, he serves as the Executive Director for Cross-Examined. He oversees all projects, including the translation and publication of apologetics resources into world languages, including Chinese and Russian. He oversees Cross-Examined’s social media operations and, techno-whiz Millennial that he is, keeps them ever on the leading edges of technologies, in order to reach younger generations on their grounds and terms.

He speaks and conducts seminars overseas on a wide range of topics—postmodernism, same-sex marriage, the problem of evil—contextualizing the content as much as possible for local audiences, and he creates and hosts online communities, the goal always being to advance the gospel and deliver sound apologetics to the world.

Hombre de Dios

He’s one busy hombre who loves what he does. “I certainly didn’t plan this,” he says. “God gave me this opportunity, and it’s a joy to be able to allow him to use me to connect the North American movement in apologetics and actually create one in Latin America.”

He finds his greatest joy, though, in his family.

To see that family unity that I never had—I never met my biological father, I was raised by my grandmother, my biological mom died (I barely knew her), and my grandfather who was supposed to be the role model in the house was always gone working, and when he came around he was drunk—to see the relationships I have with my children and with my wife, and that my children have with her is incredible. I think that’s the thing I enjoy the most.

Scripture speaks about God calling his people, establishing them, and then making them flourish. I think Jorge Gil is just getting started at that flourishing part.

Out of the Trenches

How Jorge Gil Grew into His Calling

“One of the things people don’t know about me,” Jorge says, “is my struggle with not having a degree.”

He was in a business meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society one day, when the president, Angus Menuge, asked him what his area of expertise was. “Bro,” he said, “I’m riding on a high-school diploma.”

In addition to multi degreed Christian academics like Dr. Menuge, Jorge’s circle of colleagues includes such apologetics giants as J. Warner Wallace, Greg Koukl, and the late Dr. Norman Geisler, so it’s understandable if he feels intimidated at times. But the way he’s going about his Christian life is hardly “riding.” Consider the following:

Diligence: For one thing, ever since his Christian conversion seven years ago, Jorge has invested himself in learning everything he can that’s related to the Christian faith. Although he was not deported in 2012, his temporary residential status meant he would have to enroll in school as a foreign student, which carried a much higher tuition cost.

As a single parent, formal education was simply not an option for him for some time. So Jorge studied on his own -theology, apologetics, philosophy-whatever would make him a more suitable vessel for sharing the gospel.

Humility: Second, having never had a father figure to speak of, he intentionally sought out learned, godly men for help and advice. He met Richard Howe, who was director of the Ph.D. program in philosophy at Southern Evangelical Seminary, at an apologetics conference and asked Dr. Howe if he would be his philosophy mentor. He built relationships with people he saw as role models, not because of their “star status,” but in order to learn from them. One of the many questions he would ask is, “What would you tell your thirty-year-old self that you would want him to know?” He also offered his services as a translator to them-to subtitle their videos, for example, or to re-post their biogs in Spanish. No charge; it was all about offering what he had to give in service to the cause.

Faith: And third, Jorge never let intimidation or lack of a degree hinder him from doing what he believed God was calling him to do. He’s currently pursuing his Associate, Bachelor, and Masters degrees, all in one swoop. At the same time, he insists it’s not the degrees or the seminary that prepares you for the work, but the God who calls you to it.

“If you want it and you think God has called you to something,” he tells people,

then go for it, and things will fall into place. Don’t think, “I’ll get my degree and then I’ll do apologetics.” No, get into the trenches. If you have to get your degree while you’re in the trenches, do it. But don’t be intimidated by all of these people who have big letters in front of or behind their names. Remember, God just grabbed a handful of fishermen and turned the world upside down. I think he’s still operating the same way today.

Indeed. I think the rest of us can learn from Jorge’s example. The Christian life is never about what we have or don’t have. It’s about the God we know and what we do with what we have. By those lights, Jorge “graduated” a long time ago.

Top Ten Ways to Advance the Gospel

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Are you dreading those awkward family dinners this Christmas season? Unsure about how to tactfully bring up the real reason for Christmas? Join Frank as he reveals the Top Ten Ways to Advance the Gospel, not only at Holiday dinners but at any event. These are some very practical ideas and can be used at any time during the year.

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December 24, 2019/by Guest

Was the Deity of Christ A Legendary Development?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

Skeptics of all stripes vehemently deny the deity of Christ. Besides their a priori commitment to philosophical naturalism, a major argument they put forth is that the earliest Christians didn’t believe Jesus was divine. Rather, this belief in his deity was a legendary development, as evidenced by the four Gospels.

It’s the skeptics’ contention that the earliest Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) don’t teach a divine Jesus at all. Instead, they portray a very human Jesus. It’s not until the Gospel of John, written some sixty years after Jesus’ death, that we find a clear reference to Jesus’ divinity.

The argument goes; these Gospels reflect what the earliest communities believed about Jesus. Thus, the earlier Gospels, which don’t portray the deity of Christ, suggest that the earliest communities didn’t believe in the deity of Christ. Once we get to John, however, legends of Jesus’ divine nature have had time to spread throughout the Christian community, hence the high Christology in John.

Bart Erhman, Of Course, Agrees

Bart Ehrman sums up this view in this article:

The problem is that the only Gospel of the New Testament, where Jesus makes divine claims about himself is the Gospel of John. In the three earlier Gospels, you do not find Jesus saying things like “I and the Father are One,” or “Before Abraham was, I am,” or “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” These sayings are found only in the Fourth Gospel, as are all the other “I am” sayings, in which Jesus identifies himself as the one who has come from heaven to earth for the salvation of all who believe in him.

He goes on to say:

The most common way that scholars have explained this almost inexplicable omission in the Synoptic Gospels is simply that their authors did not think of Jesus as a divine being who was equal with God and pre-existed his birth, who became incarnate as the God-Man…

And the ultimate payoff is that this view of the Fourth Gospel is not the view of the historical Jesus himself. It is a later view put on his lips by the author of John or his sources.

Is Ehrman right? Was the deity of Christ a legendary development as he suggests? I don’t think so for at least two reasons.

Paul Writes Earlier Than the Gospels

First, hardly anyone disputes the fact that Paul wrote his letters before the Synoptic Gospels. And interestingly enough, Paul has an incredibly high Christology. Consider these two texts:

Romans 9:5

To them (the Jews) belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Writing sometime in the mid-fifties, here’s a clear reference to the deity of Christ. The legendary hypothesis doesn’t seem to work here. Nor does it with the next text.

Philippians 2:5-11

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There’s little doubt this text proclaims Jesus as the pre-existent God of the universe. Paul gives us at least two reasons for reaching this conclusion.

First, he states that Jesus was “in the form of God.” The word for “form” in the Greek is morphe, which denotes the exact substance or nature of something.

Second, Paul suggests that Jesus was equal with God when he wrote that Jesus “did not count equality with God something to be grasped.”

What is especially interesting is that even though Paul penned these words, scholars agree that this portion of Philippians was an early Christian hymn dating much earlier than Paul’s letter itself.

In other words, the pre-Pauline Christian community sang these words in their corporate gatherings and collectively worshipped Jesus as God.

Larry Hurtado highlights this truth:

The singing/chanting of such odes is one of several phenomena that demonstrate the remarkable and innovative nature of early Christian worship, in which Jesus was programmatically included in the “devotional pattern” of early Christian circles along with God, and in ways otherwise reserved for God.1

While Ehrman and other skeptics try to persuade the masses that nobody believed in the deity of Christ until the end of the first century, Paul’s writings seem to indicate otherwise.

The Synoptic Gospels Highlight the Deity Of Christ Too

The second reason we should reject the legendary hypothesis is that the Synoptics, though not as explicit as John, still portray a divine Jesus. Let me give you a few examples:

Matthew 1:23

Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.

From the very beginning, Matthew seems to indicate that this baby Jesus would be pretty special. Divine actually. His very name would mean “God with us” — a clear expression of the incarnation.

Mark 2:5-7

After the men had lowered the paralytic man down through the roof, Mark reports:

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

The scribes ask a crucial question. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Of course, the answer is no one. Yet, we have Jesus pronouncing forgiveness upon this paralytic man, and backing up his pronouncement with a healing miracle.

Luke 1:16-17

As the forerunner of Jesus, Luke speaks of John the Baptist:

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

John’s prophetic role was to prepare the people of Israel for the coming Lord. And we know, based on the rest of the text, that coming Lord was Jesus himself.

Matthew 28:18-19

Jesus proclaims in the famous Great Commission:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Here at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus lumps himself in with the Trinity — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Notice he uses the singular for “name” not plural “names.” In other words, Jesus understood himself as one with the Father and Spirit.

Mark 14:62

As Jesus stood on trial, the Jewish leaders asked if he was the Son of God. He unashamedly affirmed:

“I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One coming on the clouds of heaven”

It’s a common misconception to think that Jesus’ favorite title for himself — Son of Man — refers to his humanness. The exact opposite, however, is the case.

Jesus’ self-claim is actually a reference to a prophesy about a divine figure found in Daniel 7:13-14. That text reads:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

It’s not hard to see the parallels between Jesus’ statement in Mark 14 and the prophesy in Daniel 7. Jesus claimed to be this apocalyptic figure who would come down from the clouds of heaven to judge the earth. He had all authority, glory, and power. All the nations would worship him, and his dominion would last forever. How could anyone think these qualities belonged to anyone other than God?

I could give several other examples, but this should suffice for now.

A Final Verdict

Skeptics have gotten a lot of mileage out of the claim that the deity of Christ was a legendary development. Yet, the data seems to suggest otherwise.

Despite not being as explicit as John, the synoptic Gospels still present a divine Jesus. They present him as the second person of the Trinity, the apocalyptic Son of Man from Daniel 7, and the one who has the authority to forgive sins.

Additionally, Paul — who wrote before any of the Gospels — presents an even higher Christology. Not only does he say things like Christ is God (Rom. 9:5), he quotes from pre-Pauline hymns that exalt the divinity of Jesus, demonstrating that the early Church believed in the deity of Christ from the very beginning.

It’s time we dispel the myth that the early Christians didn’t believe in the deity of Christ. As Richard Bauckham succinctly puts it, “The earliest Christology was already the highest Christology.”2 And who could argue based on the evidence?

What a Non-Christian Taught Me about the Gospel

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Dr. Dave Oldham

A number of years ago, a young woman came to our church for counseling and talked to me. She poured out her story of disappointment with her husband’s unfaithfulness, his unwillingness to change, and the mess her life had become, not only because of him but also because of her own unwise choices. She felt she was in a hole and wanted to know how to get out and begin afresh. While she was sharing and I looked into her searching eyes, I was asking myself and God how he and the healing he alone could bring might fit into her life. I knew she needed Jesus and the forgiveness and hope he would give, but I struggled with how to tell her she needed him. How did “accepting Jesus as her Savior” fit into the prospects that her past life would not continue to make her its slave? In short, how did the Gospel offer a new light to her path?

As I continued to think about what to say to her—though this was only a brief few minutes in the counseling session—it seemed that immediately inviting her to ask God for his forgiveness wasn’t the solution to her problems. Indeed, as I thought and prayed about what counsel to give her, it didn’t seem like the typical “altar call” invitation to accept Christ would be understood by her because of her lack of background in the Christian faith. She had not come for “religion” but for a solution to her life that she considered a mess.

Yet, I was a pastor and a Christian counselor. The struggle in my mind as I listened to her difficult story forced me to ask some of the hardest questions about my understanding of the gospel and Christianity. I think in those moments, God was doing something in me, something that would radically change my thinking from that time on. It is easy to say, “Jesus is the answer!” but the question that was pulsating in my mind was “How does God—especially, the message of salvation—fit into this young lady’s mess (damage, brokenness) and offer a future and a hope?”

I had been reading a book by Scott McKnight (The Gospel of the Kingdom)[1] in which he was debating where a person ought to begin in explaining the Gospel, the good news about God’s transformation in the lives of his people. He noted that far too often, Christians begin with the account of Jesus’ death as our substitute and the forgiveness that he made possible. But as I sat there with this young lady in my office, my mind said that was not the place to begin to guide her and help her find a new direction, new hope, a new chapter in her life. Then, I remembered McKnight’s words: The Gospel must begin with Adam and Eve’s fall in the garden. The perfect—sinless couple, undamaged, “innocent” as they came from the creative hand of God—became, like all of us, rebels. They freely chose to spurn God’s recipe for living in the paradise in which God had placed them. But from eternity past, God had a plan. He knew that his creatures (then and ever since then) would need a way of restoration, a restoration that was a path of healing for disobedience and the consequent damages. His plan begins with their (and our) acknowledgement that they had gone their own way, that they had chosen a way to live “better” than God’s. This rejection of the Creator’s design was and is a personal affront to God. This the Bible calls “sin.” And such choices have consequences; sometimes as the shipwreck, it makes in our lives, but—beyond that—our rebellion has put us in serious jeopardy with God. Though he loves us, his creatures as no one else does or ever will—he is a God of justice and must punish our sins. Punishment doesn’t sound like love, but here is where the good news begins.[2] He will be our judge, but he also wants to be our benefactor, offering us forgiveness because his beloved Son took on himself our punishment, the consequences of our sin. His forgiveness is a gift he offers for all.

Thus, the beginning of our restoration is seeking, asking for the forgiveness Jesus died to make possible, resting in God’s punishment of his Son for a restored standing with him. But God does something beyond forgiveness. He makes us his children; he adopts into his family, and though we (sadly) will and do disobey again, he has committed himself by his Spirit to take our brokenness and lead us to restoration and healing, a healing that follows the path Jesus taught. Jesus said his teachings were not “new,” but were in the Old Testament Scriptures. What in particular? A scribe asked that very question:

“What is the Greatest Commandment?” His response: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22).

Our mission statement as new children of God is to do these two: to love God with our whole being (to love what he loves; to think how he thinks—which is discovered by reading and reflecting on the Scriptures; to be what he is: “holy,” set apart for God’s use; and to do what Jesus did.), and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Restoration for this young lady—and for us—(1) begins with a brokenness because she/we have rejected God’s way (even if we did not do it knowingly); (2) progresses with asking God for his forgiveness; and (3) continues by depending on God’s power (the Holy Spirit) to restore her/our life to God’s ideal. The following illustration pictorially summarizes McKnight’s concept:

This is the new way, and it can be best lived in a “new community” with other children of God who are committed to the same mission: God’s mission. Dieter Zander put it well when describing his mission, he said:

This…work…[is] to form communities of people that produce apprentices of Jesus who live in the gospel and communicate and draw others in a matter of course to the way they live…. [Far too often, echoing Dallas Willard] the gospel is informing how we die. Instead, the gospel ought to be about how we live! A lot of church people don’t know the relationship between the gospel of Jesus and how we are to live…. Their belief is that they try to believe in Jesus so that when they die, they get to go to heaven. Populating heaven is the main part of the gospel. Instead, the gospel is about being increasingly alive to God in the world. It is concerned with bringing heaven to earth.

God’s plan, then, is not only for people to find forgiveness (the beginning) but for wholeness and restoration to God’s image. This gives broken people hope. Because of Jesus, they can be forgiven. Because of the Spirit, there can be transformation. And because of the relationship with other children of God, she/they can be inspired to live out their commitment to God before a watching world.

Notes

[1] Two other seminal resources are Dallas Willard’s, The Divine Conspiracy and N. T. Wright’s, Jesus and the Victory of God and The Challenge of Jesus: Discovering Who Jesus Was and Is.

[2] Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches, 44: “Clearly, the gospel is not restricted to a message giving an individual assurance about eternal destiny. It is minimally that, but it is much more, being concerned as much with life before death as with life after death. When people are reconciled to God through Christ, they become a ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5:17). They first experience God’s reconciliation, often in community, which results in a life of radical transformation. The primary reference point is no longer their former alienation but their present and future identification as part of God’s new order, which was inaugurated with the first coming of Christ.”

Tag Archive for: Gospel

Question:

Tim’s Response

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The Three Stages of Salvation

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ii. Are the gospel records of this man merely fictional mythology?

Notes

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Stopped

Detention: Part One

Detention: Part Two

El Director

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Out of the Trenches

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Matthew 1:23

Mark 2:5-7

Luke 1:16-17

Matthew 28:18-19

Mark 14:62

A Final Verdict

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Notes

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