LIKE A SCIENTIST I SUBMIT MY IMAGINATION TO REALITY

What

Colossal

Arrogance!

How dare you say that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?

I say it out of humility because . . .

LIKE A SCIENTIST I SUBMIT MY

IMAGINATION TO REALITY.

Some scientists have been arrogant in their personal relationships, and so have some Christians. But when they are true to their callings, scientists and Christians share a common humility. They bow before the facts.

Albert Einstein was very distressed when a fellow mathematician discovered that his equations could support the theory of an expanding universe. An expanding universe suggests that long ago all matter was concentrated into a very small space, and therefore that the universe had a beginning. Since Einstein did not believe in a Creator, he preferred to think that the universe was static, but as the evidence mounted, he finally admitted that he had been wrong. Einstein was a humble man.

We ought to approach religious questions with the same kind of humility. If the facts indicate that Jesus Christ was significantly different from all other religious leaders, then only an arrogant man will insist on maintaining his theory that all religions are the same.

So what are the facts on which the Christian faith rests?

THE HISTORICITY OF CHRIST

A young man once said to me, "My parents taught me to believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and Jesus Christ. Now I know that the others are just fables, so why should I believe in Jesus?"

The basic reason is that Jesus is an historical figure. The heroes of Greek, Egyptian and Hindu mythology inhabit a distant and updateable past, but like Moses, Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed, Jesus lived in a specific time and place. The authors of the New Testament reveal an intimate knowledge of first-century customs and events that would have been very difficult to acquire even one hundred years later.

Jesus is uniquely historical because the validity of His message depends on specific events in His life. That is not true of any other religion except Judaism. The basic moral and philosophical insights of other major faiths are independent of the lives of their founders, but the astounding claims of Jesus Christ require extraordinary confirmation.

THE CLAIMS OF CHRIST

No other founder of a major religion has—

¨ claimed to live a morally blameless life (John 8:29, 46).

¨ claimed the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10)

¨ claimed that He would raise all people from the dead and judge them (John 5:19-29)

¨ praised His followers for acknowledging his deity (John 20:26-29)

¨ predicted His own death and resurrection (Mark 8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:33-34, 45)

Any mere man who made such claims would have to be a raving lunatic or a colossal fraud, but when we read the Gospels, Jesus impresses us as the sanest, most genuine man who ever lived. Still, with so much at stake we properly look for more evidence.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

Confucius (551-479 BC), Buddha (563?-483? BC) and Mohammed (AD 570-632) lived out a normal span of years, and no special significance is attributed to their deaths. Jesus and His apostles, however, insisted that He died to deliver lost men and women from the penalty of their sins. God the Father accepted His sacrifice and raised Jesus from the grave in the same body in which He died. I wish to make two points regarding the resurrection of Jesus.

1) The earliest disciples were absolutely certain that they saw Him alive in His body after His death.

Nothing else will explain why tradition-steeped Jews began worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday. Nothing else will explain their willingness to die, not for an ideal, but for preaching the resurrection.

By way of comparison, consider what happened when a group of French prophets in England predicted that one of their number (Dr. Emes) would rise from the dead. On the specified day, May 25, 1708, approximately twenty thousand people showed up to witness the miracle. When Dr. Emes refused to cooperate, the influence of the sect evaporated.

The early disciples did not just preach a code of ethics; they proclaimed the resurrection of Christ, who was seen by over 500 people at one time (1 Corinthians 15:1-6). Without this confirmation of their faith, Christianity would likewise have evaporated.

2) Modern faith in the resurrection is just like first-century faith.

When you read the New Testament, you are as close to the actual events as first-century believers were. They believed on the basis of eyewitness testimony, and the Bible makes that testimony available to you. Modern textual studies have clearly demonstrated that the major translations available to us today are based on reliable Greek manuscripts. In other words the Bible you hold in your hand has exactly the same message as the New Testament of the first century. Faith in Jesus Christ is not a leap into the dark. It is a step on the firm stone of history into the light.

THE PROMISES OF CHRIST

So far we have seen that the historicity, the claims and the resurrection of Christ place Him in a category all by Himself. So also do His promises. No other religion offers mankind a true Savior.

Hinduism holds out the hope of escape from this world of ignorance and illusion by passing progressively through many reincarnations.

Buddha taught his disciples to seek freedom from all desire. When desire is quenched, then the disciple has attained enlightenment. The pains of this life have no hold on him, and the weary cycle of rebirth is then broken. Buddha refused to speculate on whether life continues beyond the grave for one who has attained enlightenment.

Confucius taught the Chinese the importance of proper respect, courtesy and kindness, but he said little about God.

Mohammed believed in the existence of heaven and hell, but he taught that heaven is earned by obedience to the precepts of Islam.

Only Jesus Christ recognizes the awful depths of our sin and our helplessness. Only Jesus Christ offers God's mercy to the miserable and His grace for the guilty. Other religions tell us what to do if we are strong. Jesus rescues us when we are weak and then begins to make us strong. The Bible says,

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Romans 5:6-9).

A WORD ABOUT ARROGANCE

It is humility not arrogance to accept facts that force themselves upon us. The arrogant man tries to make the world conform to his prejudices, and one of the strongest prejudices of the modern era is the belief that all religions are created equal. (In the eyes of some they are equally good. In the eyes of others they are equally bad.) This is one way in which “the god of this world [Satan] blinds the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”

(2 Corinthians 4:4).

The good news, however, is that God, “who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

May God turn on the light in your mind so that you see the glory of God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. May He enable you humbly to repent of your sins and willingly to embrace Christ as your Savior and Lord.