This devotional was adapted from John Maisel’s booklet “Is Jesus God?” .
Last week, we ended with three possibilities concerning the person of Jesus Christ: either He is a liar, or He is a lunatic, or He is the Lord. I believe this next issue of His statement is the key to the other two claims.
Jesus is the Life: His Own Words
Jesus said, “‘I am the way and the truth … (John 14:6).'” And then He said He is the life. This is the most important aspect of Jesus’ claims.
Jesus’ claim to be the life implies that He must live for eternity if He is to give eternal life. This claim had to do with His resurrection, the most important aspect of the credibility of Christianity.
If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, He is not the truth and He is not the way. The whole basis for the credibility of the life of Christ is found in the resurrection.
If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and conquer death, Christians would be the biggest fools in the world. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, I am communicating nothing but lies to you.
Proving Jesus is Our God
The whole focus of the life of Christ related to substantiating His claims was His statement that He must be rejected and “‘must be killed and after three days rise again (Mark 8:31).'”
Historian Philip Schaff, who wrote “The History of The Christian Church,” said, “The resurrection of Christ is therefore emphatically a test question upon which depends the truth or falsehood of the Christian religion.”
We are left with a question: Did Christ rise from the dead? If so, what proof, what evidence, exists to reach that conclusion with intellectual integrity?
Professor Thomas Arnold, the Lord Master of Rugby School for 14 years, author of “The History of Rome,” and holder of the Chair of Modern History at Oxford University, was well acquainted with evaluating evidence to determine historical fact. After carefully sifting the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ, this great scholar said, “I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort.”
John Capeley, a professor at Cambridge University who rose to the highest office in the judgeship in England and was recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, said, “I know pretty well what evidence is, and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never been broken down yet.”
Lord Darling, who was another chief justice of England said, “No intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the Resurrection Story is true.”
I have a friend who graduated first in his university class, a brilliant thinker. Somebody once asked him why he embraced Christianity. My friend replied, “For the simple reason that I cannot refute the resurrection.”
I wish everyone would try to refute the resurrection of Christ because that would mean that each would conduct his own investigation. Some skeptics in history started out to disprove the resurrection but when confronted with the evidence came to faith in Christ.
Frank Morison, a British lawyer who set out to write a book repudiating the resurrection of Christ, did write a book, but it was not the book he had meant to write. As he examined the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, this skeptical lawyer found it so overwhelming that he was forced to accept it and became a believer. The book he wrote, “Who Moved The Stone?” sets forth the evidence for the resurrection of Christ.
Lew Wallace also set out to write a book disproving the deity of Christ and His resurrection and ended, instead, defending it in his famous book, “Ben-Hur.”
It is clear that historical evidence points to the validity of Christ’s resurrection, begging us to acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
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