f course, one could say that if a person called
Jesus Christ never existed, lived, was crucified and rose again from death, then all of the above can be disregarded. How one explains the prophecies in the Old Testament becomes a problem for such
a theory, however, perhaps some verification about Jesus is in order.Over the past 200 years, the New Testament part of the Bible has been subjected to intense scholarly research in order to ascertain the truth of its claims. Many various literary tools such as textual and form criticism have been used to study the authenticity of New Testament texts. Researchers also study nonbiblical writings of people who were not Christians, such as Josephus the famous Jewish historian, letters to Roman Emperors and the like. What all of these indicate is that there was most definitely a person called Jesus who was crucified by Pontius Pilate around the year 32AD. The more important question relates to who Jesus really was. If He was simply a good teacher, or a moral example with some new and radical ideas, then we can take Him or leave Him, we can choose to follow any such teacher and there are many available.
On the other hand, if He was the only Son of God and equal to God, and the one through whom God created the universe as the Bible claims1, then His words about what we must do become extremely important. The Old Testament prophesies that the Christ will be God, equal to the Father God.2 Jesus claimed that He was this person. According to the records of His life in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Jesus claimed that He was God’s Son, equal to God and He pointed to the things that He did as proof of His claims.
In theology and everyday life we use certain logical criteria to determine the nature of a thing. We can know its nature by what it does. A dog is a dog if it barks, wets your tires and smells bad when wet. A bird is a bird if it has feathers and lays eggs. We determine the nature of these creatures by their functions. When we use this formula to determine the nature of Jesus Christ, we can come to only one conclusion. Yes, He was a human being who became tired, hungry, felt pain and could be tempted, but on the other hand, only God can raise the dead, heal a man with leprosy and walk on water. The human part of this equation is easy enough to accept, but what about the miraculous part? Is there any evidence that Jesus did the miracles He is claimed to have done? What if His disciples made up these stories as some have claimed?
Let’s begin with the disciples. Israel is an occupied territory at this time. Jewish people are expecting that God will send them a Messiah who will defeat the Romans and Israel will become the ruling nation of the world. Over the past 100 years there have been many claiming to be this messiah. They have raised armies and been defeated, and another has taken their place. The proof that these claimants were the true Messiah would be their success, but none have been successful.
Furthermore, Jewish people knew the Law of Moses. They would not make an image or carve a sculpture of an animal or created object; they knew that they were forbidden to worship idols or demonic gods. To worship a human being was absolutely forbidden, to claim that one was equal to God was blasphemy, a crime punishable by being stoned to death. Jesus disciples were godly Jews. Some of them had been disciples of John the Baptist. To suggest that such men would create false stories to create a Messiah is ridiculous in the extreme and shows a total lack of understanding about the attitudes of such men. There was no reason to create lies and every reason to tell the truth. If Jesus wasn’t the true Messiah, then why not simply wait for the right one to come along, as many orthodox Jews who misunderstood Jesus are still doing today? Jews had been taught from birth that to do something totally against God’s will would only bring His wrath upon you and your plans would ultimately fail.
The gospels record the embarrassing fact that even though they were with Him for three years, Jesus’ disciples still didn’t really understand His mission until after He was crucified and resurrected. They still had the earthly kingdom mentality, they expected Him to overthrow the Romans.3 When He was arrested and tried by the Jews and Pontius Pilate they deserted Him, and when Mary Magdalene told them He had resurrected they didn’t believe her. Some of them went back to their fishing, no doubt very confused about what had happened. It was the risen Christ and their recognizing a right understanding of the Old Testament prophecies and then the coming of the Holy Spirit who brought absolute clarity of understanding, that changed these men into the leaders of the Church.
Over three years Jesus disciples saw and experienced things which made them incredibly excited about who He was. The miracles themselves were absolute proof that God was with Him in a way that was greater even than Moses. Imagine their confusion when Jesus was crucified. How could their Messiah King, a man who seemed to have unlimited power, be crucified as a common criminal? These were not men who wanted to make up lies, they were men who had preconceived ideas which changed through the power of their experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit and seeing the risen Christ.
And what of the miracles? It is actually very easy to verify Jesus’ miracles through his enemies rather than His disciples. Throughout the gospels we read about Jesus’ opposition to the ruling Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees. To them, Jesus was a law breaker and blasphemer. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and when they confronted Him He would ask them embarrassing questions and make them look foolish. On one occasion when He was in a synagogue, Jesus asked the Pharisees if they would pull their child out of a well on a Sabbath if the child had fallen in. The answer was obviously yes. He then proceeded to heal a person in front of them. The Pharisees never denied that Jesus had incredible powers. They saw the miracles themselves, even miracles which they themselves had claimed only God could do, but they accused Jesus of using demonic power, they said He healed and exorcised people with the power of Satan.
After the Church began to grow and be persecuted, many pieces of literature appeared which were written to discredit Jesus. One such document is reasonably well known and called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. In this gospel is a story about Jesus when He was a little boy. On a Sabbath day Jesus is playing at a little stream with another boy. Jesus makes a dam to stop the flow of water and He also makes twelve sparrows out of clay. A person fetches Joseph and confronts him about letting his son break the Laws of Moses. As Joseph approaches Jesus says ‘be off with you’ and the clay sparrows come alive and fly away. The other boy then breaks Jesus’ dam releasing the water, and according to this gospel the following happens.
When Jesus saw what he had done he was enraged and said to him: “You insolent, godless dunderhead, what harm did the pools and the water do to you? See, now you also shall wither like a tree and shall bear neither leaves nor root nor fruit.” And immediately that lad withered up completely; and Jesus departed and went into Joseph’s house. But the parents of he who was withered took him away, bewailing his youth, and brought him to Joseph and reproached him: “what a child you have, who does such things.”4
The writer of this story is trying to make this account appear true by using the well known accusations of the Pharisees. The Pharisees had claimed Jesus was a lawbreaker and in this story Jesus breaks three of the Ten Commandments. He works on the Sabbath, He makes clay sculptures, and He murders a little boy. But notice the section about the tree. In Matthew 21:18 we read the story about Jesus cursing a fig tree which had no fruit. This was the only miracle that He did which could be considered to be negative in its outcome. All other miracles helped people, but this one was done to show the issue of the destruction of faithless people on judgment day, the role Jesus will fulfill as judge in the future. The writer of Thomas has used this miracle to suggest an evil side to Jesus, and the wording is extremely similar to the gospel account, however, notice the mistake. He writes that the boy Jesus says “see now you ALSO shall wither like a tree…” But the withered tree was later when Jesus was about 30 years old. The boy Jesus is supposed to be saying that the boy will wither as well asthe fig tree, and in writing this way this person shows that he knew the story of the fig tree but made a silly mistake because that was a future event for the boy Jesus, not something which had already happened.
This is only one example and yet it shows some important points.1. That Jesus’ enemies recognised that He had incredible power to do miraculous things.
2. That Jesus’ enemies knew about His life well and tried to use the one negative miracle to prove He was not from God, as God’s Son would never break God’s laws.
So what is a miracle? One definition is that a miracle is something which happens that cannot be explained by our usual understanding of the laws of nature. Philosophers like Baruch Spinoza suggested that since the laws of nature are unchangeable, then miracles do not exist. It was also suggested that
everything can be explained in scientific terms, and if miracles are unexplainable by nature, then they do not exist. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it places the laws of nature and science as gods. It makes them the judge and jury of what is true or false. If nature was its own creator, and science its only evidence, then perhaps this argument would work. However, if nature was created by some being outside of it, then that Creator is not bound by the laws of nature, rather He created them for His own purposes. If God creates laws by which nature remains to a certain degree orderly, does this mean that He can never do something outside of those laws, even to make a point?
This particular argument also applies to humanity as a whole. Human beings are part of the created order. We are not ‘supernatural’ beings, indeed our bodies are made of the same stuff as the natural world around us. If a human being can supposedly do things which are outside of the natural order, then it is a logical assumption that the power to do such things is not natural to the person, but coming from another source. In this sense, those who advocate that people have some kind of hidden powers which can be developed make such claims in contradiction to the natural order. Human beings as part of the natural order are bound to the laws of nature.
Another definition then suggests that a miracle is when God intervenes and temporarily breaks the laws of nature. However true this may be, it is still
too narrow a definition. The Bible is quite clear about the fact of other beings, namely demons, performing miracles through human agents such as the magicians of Egypt. A miracle, then, is an event which generally at least appears to happen outside of the normal understanding of the laws of nature, and the power to perform the miracle comes from a source which is also outside of nature, a force which is supernatural.
Let’s examine one more example. In a well known story in the gospels5 Jesus feeds a crowd of about 15,000 people. He has already healed their sick, and upon seeing these miracles the people, and disciples, are convinced that He is the Messiah King and they try to force Him to announce Himself as Israel’s earthly monarch. Jesus sends the crowd away and orders the disciples to cross the lake in the boat. He then retires into the hills to pray. Sometime between midnight and morning He comes down from the mountain and walks out to the disciples on the water. They are struggling to row against a strong wind. When they see Him coming they think He is a ghost as He is most likely glowing with God’s glory. Even though they had seen Him just a few hours earlier they don’t recognize Him. The gospel writers tell us they were basically screaming with terror, they thought they were going to die.
Jesus tells them not to be afraid and Peter asks if he can walk to Jesus. After Jesus gets into the boat the disciples do something that no Jewish man would ever do. They get down on their knees before Him and worship Him as God. Their reaction was due to what they had witnessed. He had healed the sick, He had fed thousands of people, He had walked on top of the water, and therefore, His actions confirmed to them that His nature was Divine. At this moment the only appropriate response was to worship Him as the Creator of the world for He had proven to them that He was in some mysterious way outside of the created order.