Jesus, time for another look?
What do celebrities Russell Brand, Hulk Hogan, Justin and Hailey Bieber have in common with historians Tom Holland and Niall Ferguson and ex-muslim, ex-atheist Aayan Hirsi Ali? The surprising answer is that they have all recently converted to Christianity. What is it about Jesus of Nazareth, that after almost 2000 years he is still making followers in the unlikeliest of places and from the unlikeliest of people. Is it time to take another look at this man and the faith he propagated. Is he still relevant today?
Jesus – who’s he?
Christianity is the world’s largest religion with over 30% of the world’s population, roughly 2.3 billion people, claiming adherence in one form or another. In other countries such as China, India, Nigeria and Iran it is growing rapidly, yet here in the UK and the wider western world it has been in rapid decline for over a century. Jesus and the religion he inspired is the spiritual foundation of Europe but many now do not even know the basics of the faith or the outlines of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, the man who claimed to be God. So who is this man, what did he say and do and why does it matter? Is it time to take a second look?
How do we know what we know?
What we know about Jesus comes largely, but not solely from the collection of books and letters which is collectively known as ‘The New Testament.’ There are four biographies of Jesus, known as the Gospels (meaning Good News), a history of the first thirty years of the Church, twenty-one pastoral letters to various churches and individuals and one ‘apocalyptic’ work. Each of these writings is attributed to one of Jesus’ disciples or the innermost circle of leaders in the early Church. All of the works were written before the end of the first century, the last being the Book of Revelation which is dated to 95CE or earlier. The historicity of the books is well-attested by surviving literary fragments1, internal evidences2 or direct attribution by other contemporary sources.3 In addition to these approved or ‘canonical’ writings accepted as authentic by the Church, there are innumerable other writings and teachings about Jesus from unorthodox groups and also mentions by contemporary historians such as Josephus4 and Tacitus.5 As well as the evidence of the texts themselves, the abundance of archaeological evidence; buildings, coins, monuments and other artefacts, demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of the Gospel accounts of the life and times of Jesus. Taken together the textual and archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth is as strong, even stronger, than that of any other person from ancient times. No serous scholar denies the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.
Who is Jesus?
You could look at Jesus and conclude he was just a small time preacher from the equally small town of Nazareth in the north of the Roman province of Palestine, in the time of the Emperor Tiberius, ministering to the Jews of his day for a period of roughly three years. He had a powerful reputation as a healer and taught a radical, highly provocative and controversial message concerning the coming Kingdom of God. He managed to gather a small band of dedicated followers but alienated the powerful religious elite of the Jewish people. He was arrested, given a brief trial and condemned to death by the religious authorities and then handed over to the imperial Roman governor, who confirmed the sentence and executed him by crucifixion. That is what you would include if that was the end of the story. However, executed on the Friday he was seen alive by many on the following Sunday and for the following forty days. The story, so the church proclaims did not end on a bloodied cross on a hill outside Jerualem almost 2000 years ago. So really, who is Jesus?
Jesus claimed to be God
The claims made by Jesus and for Jesus are outrageous. For example, Jesus claimed God to be his father, not in some abstract, distant, theological manner but addressing him in the intimate way a small child would address his Daddy. Then he took the name of God for himself, many times applying to himself the name ‘I am’ (YHWH), the name which God had declared as His own name to the Prophet Moses, as recorded in the book of Exodus 6. ‘I am’; not so much a name as an existential statement. Jesus was declaring that he was the ‘I am’, that before Him, after Him and outside of Himself there is and could be nothing and no-one. Beyond this Jesus declared himself to be the ‘Son of Man’, the somewhat mysterious character described by the Prophet Daniel, the human yet divine person who would receive and rule the everlasting Kingdom of God7. Jesus also acknowledged Himself as ‘Son of David’, that is the expected Messiah (Saviour King) who would liberate and rule Israel and accepted the title of Lord, another name for God. He even received praise from the crowds who followed him in the Jerusalem Temple itself8! If this wasn’t enough Jesus declared that his own name, meaning ‘God saves’, was from now on the divine name in which his followers should pray9. He was giving God a new name – his own. It was Jesus’ claims of divinity and kingship that eventually drove the Jewish religious leaders to condemn him and Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, to execute him. Taken at face value these claims would make one think (as some contemporaries did) that Jesus was mad, or (as others, who were convinced he was in league with Devil, did), bad. If not mad or bad, the other options are that he was madly and badly mistaken or that he was telling the truth. There is no doubt that Jesus was assured of his own divinity but what proofs did he offer to support his claims?
Jesus, resurrected from the dead
According to the Gospel accounts Jesus performed many miracles of healing and demonstrated mastery over the elements and the demonic spiritual powers, even raising certain individuals from the dead. What use however is that if they all finished at his own death? The greatest proof of the truth of Jesus’ claims for himself is his resurrection from the dead, that is his return to life on the third day after his execution, as he had predicted10. It is on Christ’s resurrection from the dead that the whole of the Christian faith weighs, in the words of the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, ‘if Christ is not raised from the dead, then is our preaching vain and your faith is in vain.’11 The testimony of the Apostles and of the early church is that Christ did appear live to them over a period of 40 days: to women, to men, to individuals, couples and groups – once even to 500 people at the same time, ‘most of whom are still alive’12 according to the Apostle Paul writing some twenty or more years later. And not only did they see him they claimed that they spoke with him, touched him and ate with him; a physical resurrection, albeit in a body that could do remarkable things. Extraordinary numbers of these first witnesses went to terrible deaths for refusing to deny Christ’s physical resurrection from the dead.
Jesus, the giver of the Holy Spirit
The second proof of the claims of Christ to be the divine King of the new order was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the nascent church at the Feast of Pentecost13. Recorded in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, in Jerusalem on the Jewish festival of Pentecost, 50 days after Christ’s crucifixion and 10 days after his ascension into heaven, this extraordinary event was then repeated at other times and in other places as recorded later in the book. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is regarded as a fulfilment of the words of the prophet Joel,14 the ushering in of a new age in which the Spirit of God would be poured out upon all God’s people. That prophecy itself was also considered to be foretelling an answer to the prayer of Moses, that all God’s people would be prophets15. These outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Christ were accompanied by healings and other miracles, some even more extraordinary than those of Christ himself16 and brought huge numbers to faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour. Outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon the believers in Christ have continued down the centuries even to this day. From time to time, across the years and across the globe into modern times, to men and women of all nations and ranks, the Holy Spirit has been poured out in abundant measure, changing them, their community and the nation in which they reside. These events bear testimony to the on-going commitment of the living Christ to the salvation of all who would answer his call, across the world and throughout the centuries.
Jesus, the fulfilment of prophecy
The third proof for the divinity of Jesus is that of prophecy fulfilled. The Hebrew prophets and scriptures (the Old Testament), as they looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and the messianic kingdom gave numerous and specific prophecies of who the Messiah would be, how he would act, what would be his fate, how and when he would come and where. Among many other things it was prophesied that the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses16, of the tribe of Judah17 and family of King David18, born of a virgin19 in the town of Bethlehem20, ministering first in the region of Galilee21, healing the blind and the lame22, fulfilling the law23, full of zeal for the house of God24, suffering and sacrificing himself for the sins of others25, dying a cruel death26 and rising from the dead on the third day27. It has been calculated that 300 prophecies of the Messiah found in the Old Testament were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ (Prophecies of the coming Messiah). Some, for example that the Messiah would arise 483 years after the return of the Jews from Babylon28, if they were not fulfilled at the time of Christ can no longer be fulfilled by anyone. Teaching Christ, His death and resurrection was a foundational part of the mission of the early Church, as they went from town to town, from synagogue to synagogue, to convince the Jews across the empire that Messiah had come. So important is this knowledge, that Christ is the fulfilment of the Hebrew Bible, not just in prophecy but in perfect fulfilment of the Law, that eventually it was incorporated into the Creed of the Church universal, the basic statement of faith, that ‘Christ rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.’29
The testimony of the believers
The fourth proof offered for the divinity of Jesus is the experience of forgiveness of sin and new life in the Holy Spirit of the followers of Jesus Christ down to this day. Closely allied to the communal outpourings of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and subsequently is the experience of the new birth described by believers. Jesus declared that all those who followed him must be ‘born again’ of the Holy Spirit30. By turning from their past life of independence from God, characterised by inevitable moral and character failures (known collectively as sin) and putting their faith in Christ, believers would receive forgiveness for their sin and a new life in the Holy Spirit that would enable them to break free from the endless cycle of wrong-doing to which they had been chained. This is the fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezekiel, that God would make a new covenant, a covenant by which He would give the believer a soft heart of flesh in place of a hard heart of stone.31 A heart which would delight to do the will of God in place of one that continually rebelled against it. This is the experience of all truly ‘born again’ believers down the ages, an experience of forgiveness and a transformation in their nature that causes them to shake off old, toxic behaviours and live out a new and better way of living. A way of life characterised by love for God and for their neighbour. Down the centuries myriads of individuals have testified, and continue to testify, to the forgiveness of sin and new life received by faith from Jesus Christ. Men, women, young, old, from every nation under the sun, those who believe in Jesus and follow him receive new life – a life in tune with God.
Collectively these four proofs; the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the current and historical collective outpourings of the Holy Spirit, the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies and the individual’s experience of forgiveness and new life are what the Christian faith stands upon. Many arguments are put forward to dismiss the claims of Jesus to be ‘the Christ, the son of the living God’32; some are fanciful, some are irrelevant, some are serious – but if Christ is raised from the dead then all bets are off - to say ‘because dinosaurs existed, Christ cannot be raised from the dead’ or ‘because I am gay, Christ cannot be raised from the dead’ or even ‘the dead do not rise, therefore Christ is not raised from the dead’ - is clearly nonsense. If Christ is raised from the dead, our world view, whatever it may be is broken and needs to be re-evaluated. Many people have tested the evidence for Christ’s resurrection to destruction and eventually found themselves in the same place as the famous author, academic and one-time atheist C.S. Lewis, a ‘most reluctant convert.’33 If you wish to test the evidence yourself here are a couple of recommendations for further study:
References:
1 Some of the earliest fragments, dated to the second century, are held in the Papyrology Room at Oxford University and the John Rylands University Library in Manchester.
2 For example, the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in 70CE was a landmark event of the period. That its destruction is not mentioned in any of the letters of the Apostle Paul gives weight to the claim that these letters were written prior to Paul’s execution in 64CE.
3 Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (69 – 155CE) was a direct disciple of the Apostle John. In his letters Polycarp makes 48 direct quotes from 17 of the New Testament writings.
4 Flavius Josephus wrote his Antiquities of the Jews in 93 / 94CE. The book makes two mentions of Jesus and one mention each of two other New Testament characters, John the Baptist and James, the brother of Jesus.
5 The Roman Senator Tacitus, writing in his Annals in 116CE, mentions Christ as being executed by Pontius Pilate, in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius; all of which accords with the New Testament record.
6 Exodus chapter 3, verse 14
7 Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14
8 Matthew chapter 21, verses 15 and 16
9 John chapter 14, verse 13 and 14
10 Matthew chapter 17, verses 22 and 23; Mark chapter 9 verses 30 – 32
11 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 12 – 19
12 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 3 – 8
13 Acts chapter 2, verses 1 – 4
14 Joel chapter 2, verses 28 and 29
15 Numbers chapter 11, verse 29
16 Acts chapter 5, verses 12 – 16
17 Genesis, chapter 49 verse 10
18 2 Samuel, chapter 7, verses 11 – 13
19 Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14
20 Micah chapter 5, verse 2
21 Isaiah chapter 9, verses 1 and 2
22 Isaiah chapter 35, verse 5 and 6 (cf. Isaiah Chapter 26, verse 19; Isaiah chapter 29, verse 18 and Isaiah chapter 61 verse 1)
23 Isaiah chapter 42, verses 1 – 9
24 Psalm 69 verse 9
25 Isaiah chapter 53
26 Psalm 22
27 Hosea chapter 6, verse 1 and 2, Jonah chapter 1 verse 17 to chapter 2 verse 10
28 Daniel 9
29 The Nicene Creed
30 John chapter 3 verses 3 – 7
31 Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 26 and 27
32 Matthew 16, verses 13 – 17
33 ‘Surprised by Joy’, C. S Lewis
