"The resurrection is a fact better attested than any event recorded in any history, whether ancient or modern."--Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892)
****
John 19:30 reports that Jesus, just before His death, said, “It is finished,” and then “bowed his head and gave up the ghost.” The amazing reality is that up until this moment, His head was erect and had not bowed.
“All the suffering, all the pain, all the agony, all the discomfort, all of the torment—everything He’d been through and He’s still alert; mentally alert, His mind clicking off the Scripture verses, His head physically erect," says Richard Jordan.
“And now He dies as no one else ever did. He dismissed His
spirit--‘gave up the ghost.’ That’s a wonderful scene. He doesn’t die as a
helpless victim.
“If you remember back when they convicted Jack Kevorkian of
killing that fellow, the guy’s mouth was all just flopped opened and the
prosecutor argued, ‘He didn’t even care enough about the dignity of the man he
just murdered to close his mouth but just left him lying there in
terrible-looking condition.’
“But Christ didn’t die that way. He didn’t die as just a
helpless, hapless victim. He died with a majestic bearing of one who was in
control. In control to the end, dying purposefully for you and me.”
*****
In a book about destiny, the author writes, "As a
scientist, I've got two questions: Has anybody ever defeated death and, if so,
did he fix it so I could too?"
The obvious answer is there is someone who faced death,
defeated it and made a way for everyone else to do the same: Jesus Christ.
The historically proven reality of the resurrection is the foundation Christianity is built on. Christianity expects a person to believe certain indisputable facts:
*Jesus Christ was a real person who lived on earth
*He was charged by Jewish leaders and crucified at the
hands of Roman authorities
*He was buried in a known, accessible tomb and then
preached as risen
*The leaders of His nation tried to dispose of the message
that He was resurrected by persecuting those who preached it
*The empty tomb, though, belied all their efforts
"The empty tomb is the central fact of the Christian faith," says Jordan. "It's a fact that can be demonstrated to a historical certainty."
"People will tell you you can't prove the resurrection
scientifically, but there's a lot of things in life you can't prove
scientifically.
"The scientific method is a method of replicable
events. It's science if you have something you observe, and you make a
statement of it, and then others can come along and replicate the event. But
there are a lot of things where you don't do that."
"Felons convicted in courts of law for murder, for
example, are not convicted on science. They're convicted on historical
evidences—the evidences which demonstrate something happened historically, in
time, and jurors are pressed to a decision, or a conclusion.
"Individuals are forced to a conclusion based on the
evidence. Whether you want to make a conclusion or not, the evidence demands
that you come to a verdict.
"People who reject the resurrection do what's called 'circular reasoning.' They start off with their assumption, 'The resurrection can't happen. It's impossible because I know it is.'
"Their reasoning goes, 'It's impossible for someone to
be resurrected, therefore the resurrection didn't happen. How do I know that?
Because it's impossible for somebody to be raised. Therefore, since it didn't
happen, because it's impossible, it can't happen; it's just a myth. Anybody who
says it really did happen is a liar or a nut. Any book that says it did is just
to be dismissed out of hand and not even considered as being anything factual.
Why? Because the resurrection can't happen . . .'
"You see how you just go around? The problem is the
first statement you make is wrong and if you can demonstrate that statement is
invalid, what do you do with the rest of it? It invalidates the whole circular
reasoning.
"In an article appearing in Christianity Today magazine, one of the world's leading philosophical atheists of 50 years revealed that in the last four years he's become a Deist. While he says he doesn't know if the Christian God is God, the only God worth really believing in would be the God of the Christians based on the resurrection."
(new article tomorrow evening before midnight)