Thursday, March 29, 2018

Evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus: Jesus Lives!



As we come to the Easter weekend Christians all over the world will  be celebrating the great sacrifice Jesus paid on Calvary to save sinners from their sins. The good news is that unlike every other religious leader, prophet, and teacher in history, while they all died and stayed dead, Jesus was raised from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is the divine vindication of all His claims. Jesus didn't just talk the talk, which is cheap and easy. Jesus made unique claims about Himself, but He backed them up with actions. He predicted that He would die by crucifixion and that He would rise again the third day. Jesus left behind an empty tomb and He lives forevermore. The resurrection of Jesus confirm the truth of Christianity. The Qur'an 4:157 on the other hand denies in a very vague passage that Jesus was not crucified or killed. This passage is not only vague but has produced a number of various interpretations. Every credible scholar and historian believes Jesus died on a Roman cross sometime between A.D. 30 - A.D. 33. At this Easter time we invite our Muslim friends to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Savior, and the only hope for their salvation.

5 comments:

Dan said...

Please remove the second commandment violations.

Stewart said...

The title of this article mentions evidence. I have long wrestled with the concept of evidence: What kind of evidence should be proffered in religious discussions? I have finally decided that the best evidence would be “Acceptable Evidence.” You ask, “Acceptable to whom?” I answer, “To you, the person offering the evidence. Acceptable evidence is evidence of the type that YOU WOULD ACCEPT, that you would accept from the other guy offering it to you in support of his own religious claim.” The evidence presented in your article seems to be statements from the New Testament. Is that Acceptable Evidence? A Muslim believer claims that Christ did not die on the cross and offers statements in the Koran as his evidence. Is that Acceptable Evidence? From a nonpartisan point of view, both proffers of evidence seem to be “of the same type.” Both are testimony from a religion’s sacred text. Is something really worthwhile evidence if accepting its veracity requires believing a whole lot of other religious dogma not accepted by both parties?

Anonymous said...

Stewart - The New Testament was written in the context of a community who lived during the times of the reported events. The Qur'an is far removed from the events.

To compare the New Testament with the Qur'an is to compare apples with oranges.

Suppose a crime were committed in the 1980's, and a court calls witnesses on both sides. One one side, you have people speaking who were living and present at the times of the event and on the other side you have some young children testifying who, during the time of the event had not even been born yet. Are you honestly going to tell me that they are on the same level?

Furthermore, it is curious that you would imply that a witness must not be a person whose testimony would later become scripture. You expect a witness to a supernatural event to be non-Christian. You would be very quick to argue - "If person X truly witnessed Jesus rising from the dead, he would have become Christian. But since he didn't, it's unlikely that this account is true. Yet when such an account is presented, you reject it because the person is a believer.

Out of interest, do you yourself believe in the existence of God. If so, please do tell which faith you follow. If not, then how does your atheistic world-view comport with the notion of evidence, when there is no account for the universal laws of logic?

Stewart said...

Royal Son, thanks for responding to my comment. The issue I wrote about is “evidence submitted to an interlocutor,” evidence that the speaker presumably proffers to convince the person he is talking to. That you and I and one of the interlocutors may consider the New Testament superior to the Koran is of no moment in the situation I wrote about. When someone is trying to CONVINCE another, he/she should present evidence/proof that is meaningful to the other person. I realize though that it is often hard to convince other people (especially regarding religion and politics) and difficult to find such “Acceptable Evidence.” The equating of New Testament and Koran is done by the discussion parties. Each believes his book was written by a Supreme Being. The Christian doesn’t accept the authority of the Koran, and the Muslim doesn’t accept the authority of the New Testament (as it is accepted by Christians. Islam teaches that the New Testament was corrupted by Christians).

Anonymous said...

Stewart, thanks for the response. I believe that the word of God must be the starting point for the Christian in His presenting the case for His faith. The reason for this is that faith is the substantiation of the unseen (Heb 11:1) - the evidence and faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17).

Taking the revelation of the word of God as our starting point affords the foundational bedrock upon which one may present his/her case. If we try to appeal to something else as our starting point, then we are essentially placing the unbeliever in the judge's seat, since one would be granting them the position to critique and judge the weight of veracity for the Christian position in his own mind. There is no neutral starting point. If one is not a Christian, then their worldview cannot account for the necessary preconditions to even make sense of the notion of evidence.

Take Islam as a case in point. Allah is said to be completely transcendent and incomparable to anything in creation in any sense. With such a presupposition, revelation becomes an impossibility, since Allah's speech would be completely unlike anything in creation in every sense. This would lead to the inevitable problem that Jibreel could not possibly have received revelation from Allah. Nor could Jibreel then have transmitted the Qur'an to Muhammad. There would be a complete disconnect.

At best, what Muslims have today is a translation, not the original language of Allah's speech. Not only would it be a translation from one language to another, but a complete mismatch, since Allah's speech is completely unlike anything in creation and cannot be compared in any way. As such, it would not be comprised of subjects and predicates, nor have rules of grammar that are applicable to created language.

With this in view, the Muslim has no basis, no foundation upon which to argue for the veracity of the tenets of Islam, which include the denial of the basic content of the gospel.

The bible on the other hand is the very word of God, which God has framed the universe as a reflection of His characteristics. Man specifically has been made in the image and likeness of God and the universe generally and broadly has been made in such a way that we can perceive the very characteristics of the God who made it. This God is knowable, and is revealed in the God-given scripture.

As a Christian, I see that God's word must be the starting point. There is no higher authority than the word spoken by God Himself. However, as I asked before - could you please tell me what your worldview is and subsequently your starting point to appeal to the very notion of evidence as a valid and applicable concept?