J.I. Packer: Be More Annoying for Jesus!

J.I. Packer: Be More Annoying for Jesus!

May 15, 2024 | The Gospel

Packer didn’t actually say this, but it can be inferred from his amazing little book, The Plan of God. What I took from this book is that the plan of God is so amazing that every human being alive should want to know about it, and how else will they come to know about it than through us.

If you were alive in the 1960s you’ll remember a song by Dionne Warwick called, What the World Needs Now. Even as I child I remember it. If you were, I’m sure the tune will pop right back into your head like it did mine, and it will be hard to get out. Written by Burt Bacharach, the chorus goes like this:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone

I recently finished this little book by Packer, and reading the passage below brought this vapid song to mind. As with The Beatles’ All You Need is Love, there is some truth, but that all depends by what we mean by love. The only love the world needs is that displayed by God in Christ for our sins. As the Apostle John says, “we love because he first loved us.” As Christians, we have the answer for what every single person in the world needs: Jesus! Every longing, every need, every frustration, every dream, every hope, the answer to every disappointment, every betrayal, every everything is found in Christ!

Why don’t we share it more? Possibly, if we really believed it, we would. We would become a little more annoying for Jesus.

And that’s all you have to be, just a little more annoying. That can take many different forms, and none of them have to be in the least confrontational. In fact, to do it you just have to get good at dropping hints. There are an infinite variety of ways to do it, and all it takes is practice. Sometimes I just drop God or the Lord in sentences, or say I’m a Christian, and tell them what it means for the circumstance we’re discussing. Ideally, I want them to ask me questions, but sometimes I ask them. I wrote a post a few years back about Greg Koukl’s wonderful book, Tactics. That book is worth its weight in apologetics gold because he teaches us how powerful simple questions are, and we don’t have to know much. As Christians, however, we should know more about not only what we believe but why we believe it. In fact, I’m quite convinced that we ought to know as much about our Christian faith as we do about our occupation of favorite hobby. But back to our heathens.

If there is nothing there, and their heart is currently dead to the things of God, they will either completely ignore me, or blow me off. Then I move on. Koukl in Tactics, though, says what we’re doing regardless is putting a pebble in their shoe. We never know when God might use that little pebble, which to us could have been a throw-away line, to annoy them into curiosity about the faith they’ve thus far rejected even thinking about. Sometimes, though, they want to engage, and we’re off to the races. There is nothing better than talking to someone about Jesus who doesn’t know him, but is curious about him.

Before you ever get there, though, you have to have the motivation to want to do it. If you believe you have the answer to every question of life, chances are you’ll want to share it. I encourage you to contemplate Packer’s eloquent words, and pray for God’s Holy Spirit to convict you of keeping Jesus to yourself.

And now we begin to see what the Bible really has to say to a generation like our own which feels itself lost and bedeviled in an inscrutably hostile order of things. There is a plan, says the Bible. There is a sense of things, but you have missed it. Turn to Christ; seek God; give yourself to the service of His plan, and you will have found the key to living in this world which has hitherto eluded you. “He that followeth me,” Christ promises,” shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Henceforth you will have a motive: God’s glory. You will have a rule: God’s law. You will have a Friend in life and death: God’s Son. You will have in yourself the answer to the doubting and despair called forth by the apparent meaninglessness, even malice, of circumstances: the knowledge that “the LORD reigneth,” and that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are  the called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). Thus, you will have peace.

How many people in our age are looking for peace, but looking in all the wrong places? Because we live in a secular age, that would be most people.

Circumstances or God in Christ
Even as Christians we are prone to this temptation because instead of seeing God alone as our fulfillment, we look to our circumstances. This is, of course, perfectly natural and nothing in and of itself is wrong with it. Everyone wants pleasant circumstances they like rather than horrible circumstances they hate. Where we get into trouble is thinking it is the circumstances that fulfill us and bring us peace. The problem is that even when we think we have everything we want, and things look just like we think we want them, something is still missing. We feel it, we know it.

A few years ago my son called me into his room to show me a video of an interview by a famous British musician. He had played a venue most musicians dream about, the iconic Wembley Stadium, and was asked in an interview what that felt like. He wasn’t at all excited, just blasé, and said something like it was great, but you know, just another gig.  You could tell the interviewer was perplexed. I imagined him thinking, what? Wembley, and you weren’t excited about it? I had taught my son nothing will fulfill us in any ultimate sense outside of Christ, and he explained this was a perfect example of that. It looks like he got the message.

What exactly is that blasé or empty feeling about things that we think should fulfill us? It is God telling us to not turn the good things he’s given us into ultimate things, blessings into a curse. That’s how idolatry happens, and it can be anything in our lives. Augustine called the correct approach to God’s good gifts right ordered loves. There are certain things we love more, others less, but our number one love is God himself in Christ, our Creator and Redeemer. When we’re feeling that nagging emptiness in spite of everything being great, it is God reminding us not to think anything other than Him will bring us true peace and happiness. Living life in a fallen world in a fallen body among fallen people will always be problematic, and our hope of the Resurrection is our ultimate hope. In the meantime we can learn from the Apostle Paul who knew horrific circumstances for much of his life (Philippians 4):

11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

The Greek word Paul uses for “secret” is interesting: to initiate into the mysteries, to instruct. The word was also used as part of a metaphor in “the initiatory rites of the pagan mysteries” for those having been initiated. This “secret” or mystery is Christ! In him we can be “content in any and every situation.” And Paul knew whereof he spoke.

Whenever anyone is going through hard times, I encourage them to read this passage in 2 Corinthians 11 where Paul gives us a powerful description of his suffering life:

Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

Because of the cross and the resurrection of the dead, our eternal destiny relativizes everything on earth. Modern secular people are looking for this eternal perspective that will finally put all the stuff of their life in perspective, only they don’t know it yet unless someone tells them. None of the stuff will ultimately fill the God shaped vacuum in their souls.

The Path to a Life of Meaning
Everyone we encounter is looking for meaning, hope, and purpose that somehow makes sense of this ridiculous thing we call life. If people stop and think about it for even two minutes, they will realize how bizarre it all is. The devil does not want them to ask the big questions, so he does his best to keep them focused on the petty and mundane so they ignore the profound and eternal. They need to be told that everything they are looking for is found in their Creator, the God who made and died for them that they might have a relationship for God’s glory and their ultimate good. Another quote by J.I. Packer says it typically well:

The only man in this world who enjoys a complete contentment is the man who knows for certain that there is no more significant life, than the life that he is living already; and the only man who knows this is the man who has learned that the way to be truly human is to be truly godly, and whose heart desires nothing more—and nothing less—than to be a means, however humble, to God’s chief end—his own glory and praise.

This is the mystery or secret Paul learned that not only allows contentment whatever the circumstances, but also how to live a life of ultimate significance, no matter what it is God has called us to. For most of us, that is a simple, mundane life of making a living, and if we have the blessing of raising a family,  teaching them that the Glory of God is our ultimate good. This is the only place where true meaning, and what comes with it, fulfillment is found.

Upwards of 50,000 people kill themselves in America every year, and many more try. Drugs, legal and illegal, are rampant among those trying to fill the emptiness of their lives. Distraction like sports and entertainment are what other people chase to give their lives meaning. Every one of these people is looking for Jesus, and when they encounter you, they encounter Jesus. Maybe they will meet him through you, so don’t be afraid to be just a little more annoying for Jesus.

 

Christianity and Our Generational Faith

Christianity and Our Generational Faith

May 8, 2024 | Parents and Family

Even as a young man without children at the time, one of the things that attracted me to Reformed theology was that it was specifically a generational faith. For the first five years of my Christian life I was by default a Baptist, as are most Evangelical or born-again Christians. When I was introduced to Calvinism at 24, the gentleman who did that also introduced me to infant baptism, something I couldn’t accept. I had been born and raised a Catholic, and after I prayed the sinners prayer, I soon rejected everything associated with my Catholic upbringing, including baptizing babies. As I learned about this new Presbyterian and Reformed understanding of how children fit into God’s covenant, I recoiled from it. I could accept predestination and the sovereignty of God over the salvation of His people, but each person having to make their own decision for Jesus, and then being baptized, seemed like the only logical way to look at baptism. And the New Testament seemed to affirm that. Then I went to a Reformed Baptist church service.

I’ll never forget that Sunday morning in 1985. I can see it like it was yesterday; apparently it was that momentous for me. As happens in thousands of churches around the country every Sunday morning, there was a baby dedication during the service. I have no idea why I responded like I did, or why a certain phrase came into my mind, but it did. I thought, “They are treating their children like strangers to the covenant!” I was actually offended, and I was instantly a paedobaptist.

That is an interesting phrase because even at that very early stage in my Reformed journey, I saw the Christian faith as fundamentally generational. It wasn’t just for me, an isolated individual who makes a decision for Jesus, and my children as their own isolated individuals who have to make their choices. I will discuss covenant theology below, but even before I knew the first thing about it, I intuitively knew my children were included in it. As my wife and I are Christians, we raised our children as Christians, not as little heathens who have to decide someday to become Christians. They will of course have to make their own decisions to follow Jesus, but as our children they receive the blessing of God’s covenant promises through us as their parents. The covenant is to them every bit as much as it is to us.

One verse that always comes to mind when I think of this is Deuteronomy 29:29:

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

These things revealed do not belong to our children as a result of them making the right choice and a public profession of Christ. No, they belong to our children specifically because they are our children. We are Christians, we have children, and they are part of God’s covenant promises to us as His people, therefore we raise them as little Christians and not strangers to God’s covenant.

Here is another wonderful passage from Psalm 103:

17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—
18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts. 

If you read these words carefully with no preconceived ideas, you can easily see in them the glorious gospel of Christ, that is, God’s love and righteousness given to His people. There is always a connection between God’s active relationship to His people, and their response. In other words, God doesn’t try to get a response from people out of loving them, but His loving activates an inevitable response in them toward Him. This can happen because in Christ He grants us His righteousness so we are no longer His enemies, but granted Sonship in the new birth. We have God’s promise here that His righteousness isn’t just for us, but for our children, and our children’s children—it is generational!

This isn’t just an Old Testament concept either. The first generation of Christians were all pious Jews, and what Peter declared in the first Christian sermon in Acts 2 would have made perfect sense to them, that “The promise is for you and your children.” Of course it is! I contend that if the Apostles had preached a New Covenant in which the children were not included, that would have been controversial to say the least. I can imagine the Jewish Christian families responding, that sure doesn’t sound like new and improved!

The Idea of Covenant in Redemptive History
Depending on your Christian or denominational environment, you are more or less familiar with the word covenant, and it’s importance or not for our faith. I don’t remember hearing it talked about at all during the first five plus years of my Christian journey, which is surprising given the centrality of the concept in Scripture. The word is used almost 300 times in the Old Testament, and almost 40 in the New. The reason the concept is almost invisible be can found in the history of fundamentalism, and especially the interpretive system known as dispensationalism, popularized in the 19th century. Biblical history, in this scheme, is God dealing with His people and the world in different ways in different ages, or dispensations. Thus there is little continuity in God’s dealings with humanity. Covenant theology, on the other hand, sees the unfolding of God’s covenant as the primary interpretive principle for all redemptive history. It is the universal in which all the particulars of redemptive history make sense, and unifies the teachings of the entire Bible.

The practice of covenants, usually by kings, was a common occurrence in the ancient Near East. Formal agreements between two parties, covenants brokered power and defined obligations. Covenants would have been as commonly understood as contracts are today. God’s covenant with His people had stipulations, specifically there were blessings for obedience, and curses for disobedience. Israel failed to succeed as the covenant representative for God’s people, so Jesus came to be the new Israel to fulfill all the stipulations of the covenant of redemption.

Reformed theologians typically argue that there are three biblical covenants: works, grace, and redemption. In the covenant of works God promised Adam and Eve the whole of creation if they would but obey the command to not eat from the tree. In the covenant of grace, God saves sinners by grace through faith in Christ (Old Testament saints were saved the same way, retro‑actively if you will). Daniel R. Hyde explains how the covenant of redemption is rooted in the relationship of the Triune God:

From all of eternity God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit covenanted to share their eternal love and fellowship with their creatures. In human terms, God the Father covenanted to create a people, whom He knew would sin; to choose from this fallen mass “a great multitude that no one could number” (Rev. 7:9); and to give them to Christ (John 17:24), whom He would “crush” on the cross according to His eternal will (Is. 53:10). The Son covenanted to accomplish their redemption: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4). The Holy Spirit covenanted to apply the work of the Son to those the Father chose, “until we acquire possession of it” (Eph. 1:14).

The covenant of redemption is the ultimate universal, which means everything in the Bible and in our lives needs to be seen in light of it, including baptism.

To understand generational faith, I need to go back to the Garden of Eden post Fall, and God’s promise that he would “put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” There we have the whole history of redemption in one verse. The promise of God is the foundation of our Faith. From Genesis 3 it is easy to trace the covenant throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 6, God established his covenant with Noah to save him and his family from God’s judgment and wrath in the flood. Then when the Lord calls Abram (Gen. 12) to go to the land he would show him, he promises to make him into a great nation. He confirms the covenant with Abram in one of the most amazing scenes in the Bible (Gen. 15:8‑21). The Lord tells him a second time that he will have a son, promises that his offspring will be like the stars in the sky (and before electricity that must have been an awe‑inspiring site), and shows him the land he will one day possess. Abram asks how he can know all this will happen. Then something very strange to our modern sensibilities happens. The Lord tells him to get some animals, cut them in two, and line up the halves opposite each other. Then this:

17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land . . . . 

What makes this covenant ceremony so strange is that normally both parties to the covenant would walk through the bloody sliced up animals, in effect saying if one of the parties doesn’t keep the covenant, they will end up like the animals. God was declaring to all of history that He would keep both sides of the covenant of redemption, His and ours. We can see here that the Old and New Covenant are intimately connected. Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology tells us how:

It is plain that Christ came to execute a work, that He was sent of the Father to fulfill a plan, or preconceived design. It is no less plan that special promises were made by the Father to the Son, suspended upon the accomplishment of the work assigned to him.

As we saw in the above quote from Daniel Hyde, that Jesus accomplished the work the Father gave him to do, which is why he was given his name (Matt. 1:21), “because he will save his people from their sins.”

Our salvation, then, is rooted in something so much bigger and more profound than our decision, and making a good choice when presented with the case for heaven or hell. In fact our faith, and the faith of our children is rooted in God’s eternal covenant promise with Himself, the covenant of redemption. Paul in Ephesians 1 is clear Jesus didn’t come to redeem every human being, but specifically His people:

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

We and our children are part of this amazing, eternal story worked out in history, in our lives, and in the lives of the generations to come from our bodies. It is an amazing, thrilling, wonderful faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).

Continuity versus Discontinuity in the Covenant
Here is where the covenantal rubber meets the road in the discussion of generational faith.  One of the reasons I am not a Baptist is because I am a Christian whose faith is a fulfillment of its Jewish heritage, not something completely different. Therefore, this means that my understanding of God’s covenant relationship to His people is one of continuity between Old and New, not discontinuity. Before we ever get to water, it is this question we must grapple with. Are children similarly part of the New Covenant as they were of the Old, and thus qualify for the sign of inclusion of the covenant: circumcision in the Old, baptism in the new?  My answer would be absolutely! Even Jeremiah, the prophet of the New Covenant agreed (Jeremiah 31:31-34). We read this is Jeremiah 32:38-40:

38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.

This was what Jewish people thought, not like individualistic post Enlightenment Westerners who default to thinking faith is primarily individual not familial. God’s covenant promises were always to them, and their children. The Lord through Isaiah 59:21 puts it bluntly:

“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

And not just our children, but our children’s children to get across the point.

 

Uninvented: I Corinthians 15, Either Paul is Telling the Truth or He is a Liar

Uninvented: I Corinthians 15, Either Paul is Telling the Truth or He is a Liar

May 1, 2024 | Apologetics, Uncategorized

I was recently making my way through I Corinthians and hit chapter 15. I had a hard time getting past it, so I parked there for a while. You may remember this chapter is Paul’s great declaration of resurrection, first of Christ’s, then ours. Having written a book about the impossibility of the Bible having been invented, merely a figment of human imagination, I can’t help seeing Scripture through that lens, all the time. This chapter is a perfect example of why. Let’s look at what to Paul says is the most important thing about the gospel:

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

What he received is the most important thing, as in for Christians nothing else is as important as this. It’s number 1, top of the list, everything else can’t compare with it in importance. The reason he says this is because it proves Christianity is true. Critics for 300 years have claimed it is not true, and if they are right those who claimed to be eyewitness of this most important thing were either liars or delusional, which parallels the arguments for and against the resurrection. There are no other options than these three, a resurrection trilemma that parallels the Jesus trilemma; Jesus is either Lord, lunatic, or liar.

Where Did Paul Get This Most Important Thing?
This raises a question: how and from whom did he receive it? Biblical scholars tell us the construction and the repetition of the word “that” tells us it was a memorized creed of the early church. How early? Almost all scholars agree that Paul “received” this teaching when he visited Jerusalem after his conversion (Galatians 1):

18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

And if Paul was in fact lying, they could have easily found out from Peter and James if he was, but he wasn’t—at least about visiting the Apostles soon after his conversion. The historical fact of his visit lends credibility to his assertion the risen Jesus appeared to him, “as one abnormally born.” Again we have only three options; either he was telling the truth, was lying, or it was an illusion. The latter is impossible because everyone who claims they encountered the risen Jesus would have had the same illusion or delusion, and those psychological and emotional states don’t work that way.

That leaves us only two options, truth or lies, and if the latter, that would make a remarkable number of liars agreeing on and keeping the lies, many of whom were willing to die for that lie—I’m going with truth.

Within three years the resurrection of Jesus was so accepted as a fact in Christianity that it became a memorized creed passed on to grow the faith. Critical scholars in the 19th century sought to undermine the credibility of Christianity by claiming the basic outline of Christianity grew over time among primarily pagan Christians throughout the Roman Empire. They seemed to have ignored this text that proved them wrong.

According to the Scriptures
The next thing we notice is the importance of the phrase, “according to the Scriptures.” Christianity wasn’t some new-fangled religion, but the fulfillment of the very old religion of Judaism. Jesus declared as much when he said in Luke 24 that the Scriptures, “the writings” in Greek, were all about him. He even rebuked the disciples because it should have been obvious: “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” In 20/20 hindsight it became so obvious to the Apostles and teachers of early Christianity that they quoted the Old Testament consistently in their writings and preaching:

The New Testament writers included approximately 250 express Old Testament quotations, and if one includes indirect or partial quotations, the number jumps to more than 1,000 (referring to all OT books except Obadiah).

In modern Evangelical Christianity the focus often becomes the New Testament, but Christianity was built and grew on the Old. That means we ought to give it as much attention as the New. The more we are steeped in the history of redemption from Genesis to Malachi, the fulfillment and implications of it from Matthew to Revelation become even more transformational, both for us individually and the nations of the earth.

The Resurrection of the Dead.
Then Paul moves from Jesus’ resurrection to ours. This brings up yet another realization I’ve had since my “conversion” to postmillennialism. For most of my Christian life I thought the goal of the Christian life was to go to heaven when we die. I knew very well the ultimate goal was the resurrection on a new heavens and earth, but heaven seemed the more immediate and important purpose of the Christian life. But it isn’t. Whatever happens to us between death and the resurrection, it’s just a way station, a place to get ready for the big show. God never had in mind a bodyless immaterial existence for His creatures or His people. One thing that distinguished God’s people from the pagans in the ancient world was their declaration that the material was inherently good, but disfigured. There was something beyond this fallen and broken material life, but it was still a material life.

But is it true? The only reason I believed in Christianity in the first place was because I believed it was true. I discovered early on there is plenty of evidence for its veracity, the most important being the resurrection. Reading the New Testament makes that abundantly clear; the church was built on the assertion that Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, was buried for three days, and returned to life, with more than 500 people claiming to be eyewitnesses of this fact. It is true or it is not, and we are forced to deal with the issues above, unless we think a man coming back to life claiming to be God is no big deal. As we see from this chapter, people claiming it was not true was something the church had to deal with from the beginning. Human beings don’t come back from the dead, and people in the first century had as difficult a time believing it as we do.

In verses 12-18 Paul directly deals with the skeptics, and tells us everything turns on whether Jesus really did come back from the dead. He and the other Apostles were so convinced of this they were willing to die for it, and nobody dies for what they know to be a lie. His argument is that if Jesus really did come back from the dead, so will we. Later in the chapter he tells us that was the reason Jesus came to earth, to conquer death, the last enemy (v. 26).

Jewish Conceptions of Resurrection
The concept of resurrection was nothing new to Jews; they believed it passionately, just not the resurrection of one man in the middle of history. That made no sense to them, which is one reason first century Jews don’t make up the resurrection of Jesus.

A good example of this is when Jesus was comforting Martha at the tomb of her brother Lazarus (John 11), and he tells her, her brother will rise again. She replied that she knows he will, “in the resurrection at the last day,” but Jesus was telling her something more profound. In response,

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The victory over death comes through the one who overcame death first, who paid the penalty of sin, death, for us. The general resurrection of God’s people to eternal life could not happen unless sin’s penalty is paid. That is the only way these beautiful verses in Isaiah 25 could come true:

On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8     he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken.

These verses are about Jesus. The mountain Isaiah speaks of was the mountain on which Jerusalem, the Holy City, was built. The city that had a temple of sacrifice and atonement for sin that was a type of the temple, Jesus, to come. Jesus the Messiah’s resurrection was the Jewish fulfillment of these prophetic words from the book of Daniel (chapter 12):

 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

Knowing it is true ought to compel us to “lead many to righteousness.”

If Christ Has Not been Raised Our Faith is Futile
So called “liberal” Christians of the 19th and early 20th centuries thought they could keep Christianity without a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Many scholars, like Rudolf Bultmann, said this historicity of any of it was irrelevant. The only thing that counted was what people believed. The heck with that! If the Apostles were lying or deluded, I’ll go find something else to do and believe. Those “liberal” Christians should have done what I would do if I was convinced Christianity wasn’t true: burn the Bible and move on. But they did something far worse. They changed the nature of Christianity and claimed it was the real deal.

Paul wouldn’t have none of this. Either Christ physically, bodily, materially, in space and time, actually came back to life after being dead three days, or as he says,

 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Everything turns on the resurrection; everything else is noise. If Jesus of Nazareth did not come back from the dead and is not alive at this moment, what we believe is a joke and a fraud. And we can all agree with Paul when he says,

19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Why should we be pitied if Jesus didn’t come back from the dead? Because we are basing our lives on a lie. Who wants to live a lie? If it is not true, in fact, we deserve to be mocked and scorned as delusional suckers.

In his book, Christianity & Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen declares that “Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event.” Either that event happened, or it did not. If there is not enough evidence that it did, don’t waste your time. Contrary to postmodernism, historical events can’t be true for one person, and not for another.

In defending the Christian faith, to yourself and others, this is critically important. The church was built on this specific claim, nothing else. There was nothing ambiguous about it. The Apostles and all who believed because of their message knew exactly what they meant, and decided to trust them that it was true. If you study the resurrection, you’ll quickly conclude, unless you have an anti-supernatural bias, that the resurrection is the only plausible explanation for the early explosive growth of Christianity.

As I often say, lies or delusions do not do that.