Defending Your Faith #4

Truth has been dying a slow death for years. Stephen Colbert picked up on this and coined the term "truthiness," which was Merriam-Webster's word of the year in 2006. 

It’s like the truth, only not quite true. But like Pilate said to Jesus, “What is truth?”

Not even children believe in the Truth Fairy anymore.

Jad Abumrad is the host of Radiolab, one of public radio’s most popular shows—he’s the son of a scientist and a doctor. 

He’s done hundreds of science-y, neuroscience-y, very heady, brainy stories that always resolve into a feeling of wonder. 

In 2012 he interviewed a guy who described chemical weapons being used against him and his fellow villagers in Southeast Asia. Western scientists went there, (tested) for chemical weapons, (but) didn't find any. In the interview, the man said the scientists were wrong. Jad said, “But they tested. The science says you're wrong.” He said, “I don't care, I know what happened to me.” They went back and forth and the interview ended in tears.

He said he felt horrible. Like, hammering at a scientific truth, when someone has suffered, wasn't going to heal anything. He said maybe he was relying too much on science to know what truth is.

A lot of people think there’s an inherent conflict between faith and science. But there’s not really a conflict between faith and science, unless we forget which one is in charge. 

To understand anything, we have to start with God. All science can do is observe, measure and name what God has already created. You know who the first scientist was? It was Adam. God put him in a garden with a bunch of creatures and told him to name them. That’s all science really does.

We get in trouble when we mix faith and science—or actually what I mean is—when we put our faith in science, instead of letting faith inform our scientific understanding. True objective science wants to limit itself to observable facts, it doesn’t make pronouncements about the origin of reality—it’s not interested in things it can’t prove, it doesn’t make statements that require faith. 

I watched the Vice Presidential debate the other night and a couple times Harris said, “I believe in science.” What a strange thing to say. Why would science require belief? Why would facts require faith?

Here’s the definition of science: “The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” Christians have nothing to fear from science because we know God created the natural world that science is observing. We know if they look long enough, and careful enough, they’re going to come to that place of mystery that will lead them to wonder and to faith. The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows His handiwork. Someone made all of this and holds it together.

Scientism But modern man has traded his worship of the ancient false gods for the modern false gods of sci-fi and fantasy—where scientists are the wizards and high priests of their empty religion. 

They say they only believe what they can see with their eyes, well, unless one of those wizard scientists tells them about subatomic particles and quantum anomalies or dark matter and black holes. Theories of macroevolution, origin of the species, big bang—all these guesses they make for how the world came into existence and how life began. When they remove God from the picture and start making stuff up—that’s not science. That’s a new religion. Scientism. That’s a make-believe world of pure imagination. Truthiness.

It requires the kind of blind faith that simply believing in the God who created all this doesn’t. Faith should be reserved for God. Science needs to stay in its lane. Observable facts don’t require faith, proper science is observing and measuring and naming things. It only goes bad when they come up with theories that attempt to leave the Creator out of the equation.

So many people trust in scientific observations, which are constantly becoming outdated, that they fail to see God’s eternal truth. As Romans says,

“professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:19)

It’s a blurry line between trusting scientists for science and following them into wild speculations. When the same scientist who confidently explains the structure of an atom having protons, electrons, and neutrons goes on to teach how the universe began with every speck of its energy jammed into a very tiny point that exploded with unimaginable force, creating matter and propelling it outward to make billions of galaxies—we move from science to faith, from truth to truthiness. From scientific fact to science fiction.

But that’s what people do. We’ll go to ridiculous measures to ignore the blatantly obvious truth that God created the world, that He’s holy and we’re not, and that we need to change our behavior and trust Him. Repent and believe.

Romans 1:18 says

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” … “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” Romans 1:25

There is a God who made the universe. His ancient name is YAHWEH. He is triune, Trinity, three persons, one God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son into the world that He created and named Him Jesus. Jesus lived, taught about the kingdom of God, died on a cross, rose from the grave, ascended into heaven where He returned to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in all the baptized believers on earth to make them holy and give them the promise of eternal life. Believe in Jesus and you will be saved. That’s the Christian faith in a nutshell.

But Frank, that doesn’t sound very scientific. How can I believe in Jesus? How can I believe all those supernatural things about Him? How do I know He ever even existed?

The Science of History If I told you Abraham Lincoln never existed, that he was made up, you’d think I was crazy, right? But you never met him. You just believe what you’ve been told. Same goes for any historical person. The further back we go, the less evidence we have that they really existed at all. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Nero, Shakespeare—why do we believe these people really existed? History isn’t like other sciences because we can’t observe it and do experiments that are repeatable.

We have to look for evidence. Did they write anything? Did other people know them and write about them?

We have photos of Honest Abe, lots of people wrote about him and knew him, he wrote things. We have copies of his writings. We feel pretty confident he really existed.

But with Shakespeare there’s not a single manuscript that exists. Not one couplet or sonnet. There is no hard evidence that the person most people think is the greatest author in the English language could even write a complete sentence. Most people still believe in Shakespeare, though.

And nobody doubts whether Plato or Aristotle really existed, even though we only have a few manuscript fragments of their writings and all of them are copies from several hundred years after they died. But other people claimed to have met them, so we consider it fact that they were real people.

This is how history works, we have to go by the evidence.

Here’s the thing: Jesus is easily the most historically validated person of the ancient world. No historian would dare say otherwise, unless they wanted to be thought of as a crackpot with an ax to grind.

I read a book a couple years ago called “Did Jesus Really Exist? The Historical Argument For Jesus of Nazareth.” It was written by Dr Bart Ehrman,  Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina. He’s not a Christian or a person of faith, but he argues that anyone who is skeptical of Jesus, the historical person from Nazareth who started a religion called Christianity, is simply ignoring clear evidence.

There are too many ancient writings from quality sources to have historical doubts about whether Jesus existed or not.

The Roman historian Flavius Josephus is one of the most important Jewish historians of the ancient world. He lived in Jerusalem right after Christ’s crucifixion. He wasn’t a Christian but he wrote about the death of James being killed by the Jewish high priest. He says James was the brother of “Jesus who was called Christ.” 

Another Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus, who also lived just after the time of the Gospels, wrote about Tiberius Caesar and Pilate being in power when Jesus was crucified. He talks about the growth of Christianity in the short years after Jesus died, and the remarkable resolve of the believers in the early church.

The testimonies of ancient historians show that even those outside the early church recognized Jesus to have been a historical person. There’s no good reason to deny the historical existence of Jesus.

This is all the more amazing when you think of who Jesus was from a human perspective—a poor Jewish man from a nothing town. He shouldn’t have even been a blip on the radar from a natural perspective. He has clearly been more than a blip.

And then there’s the various letters and books of the New Testament. 

Paul was a Jewish radical who hated Jesus and wanted to destroy the church. He was making it his life’s work to kill Christians but then he says Jesus appeared to him and changed his mind. Instead of opposing the church, he became the main missionary taking the Gospel to the Roman world. In the New Testament we have thirteen surviving letters that he wrote to some of the churches he planted. Paul personally knew Peter, James and others who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus. All of his writings say that Jesus existed as a real person—but that He was also the Messiah, the Christ. That He was the divine Son of God and was crucified.

Professor Ehrman says “You can’t explain the crucified messiah as something that was made up. It’s hard to imagine Jews inventing the idea of a crucified messiah, so where did the idea come from? It came from historical realities. There really was a man Jesus who was killed for claiming He was God…. no Jew would have invented him.”

Then there’s the book of James and the book of Jude, both written by half-brothers of Jesus. They knew Him really well.

Then there’s the four Gospels, which are like biographies of Jesus’ life and samples of His teaching—these were written and distributed, along with the letters of Paul and Peter—they were being read out loud in Christian worship services while most of the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and death AND RESURRECTION were still alive. Paul talks about more than 500 people who had seen Jesus after He rose from the grave. 

And you know what there isn’t a single written word of evidence for? Any of those eyewitnesses saying, “No. That’s not the way it happened.” No one disputed it. 

At least not in the ancient world. A lot of people over the years have set out to disprove and tear down the Christian faith—but like the Apostle Paul, and Saint Augustine, and C.S. Lewis, and Josh McDowll, and so many others—a lot of them end up finding Jesus is real instead.

The comedian Louis C.K. said he teaches his kids that there are many religions in the world, and they’re all equal, but the Christians are the main one. The Christians won. They’re the winners, so act accordingly. Congratulate Christians when you meet them. Because they won the world. And it’s true. The Christians won a long time ago. If you don’t believe me, let me ask you a question, “What year is it? According to the entire human race? And why? It’s two thousand and twenty. And we’re counting the years, since—what? Since there were people? Since the sun did something? No. Not at all. It’s been two thousand and twenty years since CHRIST was here. Everyone. Scientists, historians, count this way. One, two, come on Africa, three, four, Asia, India—two thousand eighteen, two thousand nineteen, It’s been two thousand and twenty years since Jesus was here.” Jesus reset the clock. The years before that. They go backwards. They count down to when He came.

But Frank, science. History! How can I believe in Jesus? How can I believe all these things about Him? How can I know He ever existed?

Ok.

How about this, you do know. You might not want to deal with the ramifications, but you know.

You got a lot of denying to do if you’re going to pretend like Jesus didn’t exist. And if He did exist, well then you got a whole bunch of other things you’re going to have to deal with. He said He was LORD and God and everything in the world rides on whether you believe that or not. 

“Everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life...But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.” John 3:16, 18.

So if He existed and He’s who He said He was—then we have to take Him at His Word. 

All of His teachings that were passed down by the disciples. We have to believe the New Testament because it tells us about Jesus. We have to believe the Old Testament because Jesus told us it testify to Him, that it’s fulfilled in Him. It’s all about Him.

I hear people say they don’t trust the Bible because it’s just a book that was written by men. How do we know it really tells us what Jesus said and did?

Remember how there are no copies of Shakespeare's manuscripts? Only a couple hundred copies of Plato and Aristotle? The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. There are more than 5,800 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and over 9,300 in various other ancient languages like Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. All copies of the New Testament, they all say the same thing.

They all point to the historical authenticity of the Christian faith.

Pastor Voddie Baucham defended his faith when he was studying at Oxford by saying:

“The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in the fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.”

That’s just a rewording of the text we read earlier, 2 Peter 1:18-21

“We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”

“The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in the fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.”

It all points to Jesus. The Bible is 66 different books written on three continents in three languages by more than 40 authors, most of them never met one another, written over a period of about 1,500 years. Yet it tells one story of redemption through Jesus Christ.

“Pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts.”

Jesus really existed. He is who He says He is. The Christian faith is true. Truth exists.

You have to be ready to defend your faith.

“In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” 1 Peter 3:15. 

You share with me the special favor of God because of Jesus, both in ... defending and confirming the truth of the Gospel … I have been appointed to defend the faith. So have you.  AMEN