The Sufficiency of Christ

Let me talk to you about my Messiah, Jesus Christ. Let me open quite controversially. If Christ is just a great moral teacher, He failed, and failed miserably. For all His altruism, His selflessness in serving others, for all His concern for the disenfranchised, for His formidable moral standards, His end is not one that I would consider a glowing endorsement for emulating His life. He was crucified; He died a death quite gruesome and, in death, was associated with criminals. If such is the potential end for emulating Christ the Teacher, then I want nothing of it. If we consider Christ only a moral example, then I cannot endorse Him above the Buddha. I cannot endorse Him above Gandhi. I cannot endorse Him above an Old Testament patriarch. They differ not in kind, but only in degree. His death carries no greater meaning and import than that of Martin Luther King’s. However, if Christ is more than a teacher, if He is who He and His followers claim Him to be, the Son of God whose death on the cross precedes something greater, His physical resurrection, I then must consider Him in an altogether different light.

I read, in the New Testament canon and in early church history, stories of martyrdom. I read, too, of multitudes abandoning the very foundations of their life to turn and follow, often at great personal, and sometimes ultimate, cost, the One whom they believed to be something greater than a teacher. These 1st century Palestinian Jews, the first followers of Christ, had no great need of a Messiah as a life coach, a minister to their finances and marriages. Their lives were, I believe, even if in a time of political tension, quite predictable for the most part. They were tied to the rhythms of the land, of harvest. They were, for the most part, farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen. They were embedded in the life of the synagogue. Too, the individualism, the obsessive focus on self, of contemporary western culture would be, I believe, quite alien to them.

The Messiah that many were expecting and the Messiah that they received were quite different from one another. Again, there was political tension in that time and place. Judea was under Roman rule and before the first century closed, the 2nd Temple would be, as predicted by the Messiah, in ruins. The expected Messiah would be a King, a strong Man who would break the shackles of Roman oppression and return to the Jews self-rule, and Jerusalem, the city of God, would take her place as the beacon of light to all the nations. This did not happen, though. They instead received a Child who would grow up to divide rather than conquer, to turn child against parent, neighbor against neighbor. He would upset the status quo. He would be, for a time, a pauper King, having, as He said to would-be disciples, no place to lay his head. The Messiah was homeless. His family, for the most part, before witnessing the resurrected Christ, did not, I believe, consider Jesus to be anything but perhaps a bit mad. Even his inner circle of disciples could not wrap their minds around Christ’s proclamations about Himself. Rather, they still anticipated a political King who would establish a theocracy. The pre-Easter Jesus, on the cross, left his followers discouraged and defeated. The post-Easter Jesus revolutionized his adopted ones. Easter changed everything.

How can I talk coherently about Easter and find words worthy to address our risen King, words not compromised by cliché? I am humbled by the task. First, Easter is not a metaphysical event having no concrete reality. The resurrection was not just merely a spiritual event; it is more than metaphor. The resurrection actually occurred in time and space. The Creator, the One through whom all things hold together, was willingly brutalized and murdered by His creation. He willingly became our Scapegoat, our blood sacrifice once for all. He is the new Covenant. Everything changed on Easter.

I can give coherent reasons and evidence to help illuminate the reality of the Easter event. It does not, contrary to what most would imagine, require a giant leap of blind faith. I can affirm with as much clarity the physical resurrection of Christ as I can most any event in ancient (and not so ancient) history. Where does this leave me, though? What do I do with this formidable knowledge? What does it mean and to where does it lead? Before we can even begin to address these questions, we must inquire as to the why of the Easter event.

Why did the Word that created cosmos, created humanity, deem it necessary to take on, from the Christmas event to eternity forward, a sinless human nature, and after taking on flesh, have it brutalized and nailed to that tree? Only in the context of that question can we begin to understand the Easter event. Here we find truths both simple and daunting, both compelling and repulsive.

We, as disciples of Christ, are beholden to our Messiah to apprehend these difficult truths to the best of our ability. Because of complacency that often permeates American Christianity, I believe that, as a church, we often worship more a pre-Easter Jesus rather than the post-Easter Jesus. The pre-Easter crowds gathered to the Messiah to receive from Him. The post-Easter Messiah drew to Him those who were willing to die for Him. The followers of the pre-Easter Jesus fell away from Him at the cross. The post-Easter disciples of Christ followed Him to the ends of the earth; they looked to give themselves away, to serve the Messiah, to die to self. I ask myself, which Christ am I following?

From An Ecclesiastical Journey

(After a quick read prior to posting the following, I feel compelled to briefly qualify the opening statement. I am not, in any way, shape, or fashion, intending to marginalize the import of the death of the Messiah on the cross. Without Christ’s death, without His sacrifice, I affirm there is no atonement for sin. )

Let us open with a controversial statement: it may be argued that the cross is not central to the Christian faith. Not only is it not central to the Christian faith, the impact of the symbol has been diminished by popular American culture to the point that it is almost meaningless. If this symbol, long revered by Christians as evidenced by all the church steeples capped by the obligatory cross, is not central to the Christian faith, then what is? It is the event that proceeds from the cross, the physical resurrection of the Messiah. The cross symbolizes death – the Roman cross was a horrific death, torture, and punishment machine; the resurrection event shouts life, shouts boldly victory over death. However, the resurrection event of Christ does not lend itself to simple forms or images; it cannot be apprehended by a simple symbol. It can hardly be comprehended by the most supple of minds. Without the physical resurrection of Christ, though, our faith, as the Apostle Paul wrote, is in vain and we, the followers of Christ, are to be the most pitied of all people.

The question that should follow the aforementioned statement is thus: did the resurrection of the Christ actually occur in time and space, and if so, how can we know? Many sincere followers of Christ, though, may ask why one needs evidence? Is not this religion thing about faith, the belief in things unseen? Is not asking for evidence counter to the need for faith?

Let us answer the second question first and begin the answer with a question or two. What kind of faith is required of a Christ follower? What do we mean by faith? First, I assert that the word ‘trust’ is perhaps a more accurate term for our relationship with Christ than the word ‘faith’. If I have more than adequate evidence to believe that Christ exists and that He did rise from the tomb, can I trust Him? Does what I know of His character and power lend credence to His claims even when, at times, my immediate personal circumstances are painful? Do I have a solid foundation for the times when God seems distant? If I can reasonably validate that Christ is who He and his followers say He is, then I have an objective foundation that is independent of malleable, subjective, and emotional experience.

When I was a child, I believed certain things unconditionally that brought joy and excitement to my life for a time, but upon later investigation, I found them to be false. I had been easily mislead because I did not, nor could not at my young age, critically examine the evidence. Needless to say (and said with tongue in cheek), I can no longer believe in Santa Claus. Many are brought up in a ‘church-going family’, but upon leaving the safe, cloistered confines of home and entering into and increasingly post-Christian world, they find their belief system questioned. Because they may not be equipped with answers, because they may have never had their faith challenged, they may be left with limited options: they may they must either sacrifice their intellectual integrity and continue to believe blindly or they may feel they must abandon their faith. Even worse, they cannot answer sincere questions about our hope. Their ability to carry out of the Great Commission may be compromised.

Moving on to the first question, is there evidence for the resurrection? The short answer is yes. What, then, is the nature of this evidence and can the resurrection be proved? The nature of the evidence is circumstantial and, no, the resurrection cannot be proved. Proof lies only in the realm of mathematics. Neither can the scrutiny and verifiability of the scientific method be applied to the resurrection event due to the non-repeatable nature of history. What we can do, however, is apply the standards of historical analysis to the evidence regarding the resurrection of Christ.

Let us look at the consequence of claiming faith in Christ in the early years of the church. Indeed, it is the bold commitment of the first evangelists that speaks loudly to the veracity of the resurrection claims made for the Messiah. To be intellectually honest, we must admit that we do not have complete historical knowledge of the lives and deaths of all the apostles. Much is based on early church traditions, some of which is admittedly a bit ambiguous and fanciful in the details of, for example, martyrdom, though it seldom contains outright fabrication. We do know with reasonable certainty that Peter, for example, was crucified, upside down at his request, in . He did not think himself worthy to be crucified in the manner of his Savior. In the New Testament (Acts 12:2), the death of James is recorded. Herod has James killed by the sword, most likely beheaded. Matthew was martyred by in Ethiopia; he died from a sword wound. Bartholomew, known also as Nathanael, was martyred for his preaching in Armenia. He was flayed to death under the whip. Thomas, the doubter, was killed by a spear in India . He was on a missionary trip to establish a church. The great apostle Paul was tortured and beheaded by Nero in Rome in A.D. 67. Mark was dragged to his death behind horses on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt.
How did these men, finding, at the foot of the cross, their grand cause crushed, in ruins, summon the courage to die horrible deaths rather than recant their bold proclamation? The remarkable transformation was the result of something the happened in time, in history. They did not die for a story they knew to fabricated. They did not die over a cleverly devised myth. They were eyewitness to the risen Savior.

I do not think it is hyperbolic to assert that there is as much evidence for the resurrection of Christ as there is for most any event in ancient, and not so ancient, history. I have only scratched the surface of the supporting evidence the historicity of the resurrection of Christ Jesus with this modest essay. Given the weight of evidence available for the resurrection for those who wish to examine it, I believe the resistance to the supporting evidence is more one of presuppositions and personal bias than one of absolute intellectual tension. I believe the cross is an offense to the world in that the cross convicts the world of its sin. The crux of the matter is this: what do we do with this undeniable Easter Event?

• 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)
  but 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 Corinthians 15:12-20 (ESV)
  Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Within our confession of faith as followers of the Messiah, there are truths, necessary, profound, and most often apprehended with some measure of difficulty, without which the redeeming work of Christ on the cross has no coherency. While natural revelation, the revealing His divine attributes and His power through His created order, holds the world accountable to God in the world’s falleness and suppression of truth, there comes a point, as our Father calls us to Him, where we reach the limits of usefulness of natural revelation.

Our Father calls us by His Holy Spirit to step onto revelations found in the words of the authoritative and inspired Old and New Testament canon. Though, as aforementioned, God reveals some of His characteristics and truths in nature, foundational doctrines, the doctrine of the trinity of the Godhead, for example, cannot be found in observations of nature, in natural theology. Even common analogies used to illuminate the concept of the triune nature of the Godhead are often, at best, vague, and sometimes, at worst, may unintentionally lead to heretical concepts of the trinity such as that of modalism. However, the triune nature of God is revealed clearly in the New Testament, and though I may not be able to fully grasp and understand this truth, I accept it, one, because I hold the Bible as authoritative, and two, as previously mentioned, without it, the Gospel looses coherency and effectiveness. I hold to the truth of the trinity, in all its mystery, without much tension. Too, the concept of the trinity seems almost impossible to have been born in the minds of men.

The historicity of the physical resurrection of Christ, unlike the concept of the trinity, is a doctrine that can be reasonably validated by accepted methods of historical inquiry. I do not intend to construct an apologetic defending the physical resurrection of Christ. Others have done so far more convincingly than I am able. I affirm, however, that it requires no giant leap of blind faith to validate the physical resurrection of the Messiah. What I do with this formidable knowledge is another matter. I think of the early followers of Christ finding at the foot of the cross their grand cause crushed, in ruins. How did they summon the courage to die horrible deaths rather than recant their bold proclamation of a risen Messiah? After the cross and before Easter, they succumbed to fear. Post Easter, they left the paralysis of fear behind. Their remarkable transformation was the result of something the happened in time, in history. They were eyewitness to the risen Savior. We, two millennia later, marvel at what they beheld with their eyes. We read of Thomas, after he touched the wounds of the risen Christ, giving words to his wonder: “My Lord and My God!“

As profound and foundational are the doctrines of the trinity and the physical resurrection of the Messiah, and absolutely in no means do I intend to diminish their import, it is the incarnation of our Savior that leaves me most breathtakingly at a loss for words. That Christ, fully almighty God, immutable and fully in transcendence over creation, Who spoke into existence, ex nihilo, the natural order, should step out of eternity and condescend to take on flesh, a sinless human nature, and, out of love, subject Himself to a fallen creation, leaves me wanting for words. Christ, God almighty, His incarnation realized by His conception and virgin birth to Mary, was obedient to Father God to the point of death on the cross to provide propitiation for sin and, after defeating death, will for eternity forward, walk with us as we behold His cross-scarred body. Here we find incomprehensible truths that followers of the Messiah will feast on for eons.

• Romans 1:18-21

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

• John 20:27-29

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

• Ephesians 1:16-23

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.