Given we live in an utterly secular age it is important for the sustenance of our faith that we learn to read biblical texts through apologetic lenses. The inspiration for my book Uninvented came from a growing conviction I developed as I studied apologetics that the Bible itself was a testimony to its own veracity. The question before us is always the same: could this be made up or invented. Remember that biblical critical scholars for several hundred years affirmed that it could be. In fact, they seemed to think making it up so easy they never saw the need to defend their position. To them their anti-supernatural bias wasn’t a bias at all but the obvious position of enlightened “scientific” scholars. Nope, it was bias plain and simple. Before they even got to the text they assumed miracles can’t happen and the biblical concepts of revelation and inspiration can’t be real. This apologetics orientation applies to the theology of the text as well.
I didn’t focus on how the theology did that, but I’m sure an entire book could be written just about that. I hadn’t even thought about such a thing when I initially had the idea for writing the book. I was going to call it Psychological Apologetics, because how the people portrayed thought and acted reflected how real people think and act. The text has verisimilitude in a way no ancient text could have had given there was no such thing as fiction in the ancient world. The Bible reads like straight ahead history and we have only two choices when we come to the text: Either it is true or it is not. In the history of scholarly biblical criticism I referenced, many scholars have wanted to have it both ways. They take some of what Jesus said and did as having actually happened, and some as made up depending on the whim of the scholar. If we don’t accept that the Bible is the inspired work of one Divine author, then on what basis do we accept any of it as authoritative? To me, such an approach is arbitrary and completely worthless. In the title of the great Frank Sinatra song, it’s either all or nothing at all.
The Problem of the Partial Jesus
In the book I call this a partial Jesus, and he’s a real big problem for those scholars, as well as anyone else who only wants a piece of Jesus. This would include Christian heresies like Islam and Mormonism, but also other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, not to mention Judaism from whence Christianity sprang. I quote Jewish historian Geza Vermes in the book, and he loves certain parts of Jesus, but ignores those parts, for example, where Jesus declares himself to be the divine Son of God who is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). Which brings me to the apologetics of the theology of the Bible. Jesus is the easiest and most obvious example of this, but we find this theological verisimilitude everywhere. I was again reminded of this when I read this passage in Luke 9:
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
The Greek word translated life, psuché- ψυχή, is where we get our word psychology. It’s often translated soul, and means the essence of who we are as persons, all that makes us specifically unique as us, you and me. Modern Christians tend to interpret these verses as Jesus referring to eternal life, what happens to our souls after death, but I think Jesus is referring to something much larger in scope. How many people throughout history have metaphorically gained the whole world, yet are empty and miserable. Such people often ask—Is that all there is? They thought the entire world, everything their hearts could have desired given to them, would be enough to finally satisfy the longing in their being. It wasn’t, and isn’t. I believe Jesus is speaking primarily to this, to life in this fallen world, with the heavenly life to come gravy on the turkey.
The theological genius of this passage and it’s apologetic power comes from its counter intuitive message. If we really want what the whole world could never give us, it’s in somehow denying ourselves, metaphorically taking up the worst instrument of death and torture ever devised by man, and following Jesus. Who says such things! Certainly not the great moral teacher so many of those scholars and religions have said He is. In the words of the great trilimma made famous by C.S. Lewis, Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord. There simply are no other choices. And there are myriad examples of Jesus saying things like this throughout the gospels. We are confronted with a stark, binary choice when we encounter the Jesus we find there: He is either who he said he was, the divine Son of God come from heaven to be the Savior of the world, or he was not. If it is in fact the latter, he has to have been the most diabolically evil person who ever lived. All of his life would then have been a fraud meant to deceive people into believing something that was not true.
Coming back to the passage, when we really grapple with what Jesus is declaring, it gets even crazier. The choice before us is more stark, more binary, and the implications profound beyond words to capture. He’s saying if you want true fulfillment and purpose and hope and joy and excitement and everything you think the world can give you, it’s all to be found in Him! The extra added bonus, the cherry on top if you will, is that we get to live forever in a resurrected body on a redeemed earth where there will be no more suffering, tears, and death. In light of this passage, we can better understand what Jesus is saying in the John 14 passage:
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
We Evangelicals are entirely too familiar with this passage to be as utterly blown away by it as we should be. Anyone who wants a partial Jesus needs to be confronted with this passage. If it is true, then He is Lord and Savior. If is not, burn the Bible and run away from it as fast as you can. It is simply either/or. Anything else is, as my father often said, BS.
Theological Apologetics in Redemptive History
The apologetics power of passages like this must not be seen in isolation, as if the argument begins and ends with the trilemma, or the binary choice we are all confronted with when encountering Jesus. What makes the theological apologetic so powerful is seeing it as a thread woven together from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation. The thread of the theological history of redemption weaves together a glorious tapestry of such stunning beauty it would be absolutely impossible to be the mere product of human imagination and ingenuity.
I often marvel at God’s revelation in creation where we sees God’s invisible qualities made visible in material reality (Rom. 1:20). The more science and knowledge advances, the more it is obvious the insane complexity could only be a product than of an Almighty personal God. The only proper response is doxology and dumbfounded silence in the face of such majesty. The inscripturated word of that same God in our Bibles is even more amazing to me than that! Written over 1500 years by 40 or so authors primarily in two languages into 66 so called books, and yet it has a continuity that is breathtaking. The only plausible explanation is one divine author.
The entirety of the history of redemption is found in the first three chapters of Genesis: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. In the words of that wonderful Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song written by Joni Mitchell, it’s all about getting “back to the garden.” And we’re not talking about Woodstock. God created everything good, very good, and he placed the apex of his creation man, in the center of the garden, paradise, which was then promptly ruined by that man. God of course knew this would happen and He had a plan, revealed to us in chapter 3. He’s letting Adam and Eve know they blew it big time, but that their rebellion, and ours, is not the end of the story. Outlining the curse that came as a result, He says to the serpent:
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
In this one verse is encapsulated all the ugliness in the entire history of the world, and the answer to that ugliness. It is this cosmic drama that plays out so compellingly in our Bibles, and makes it read so real. At the heart of the drama is conflict, one every human being knows exists. There is something profoundly wrong with this world, and us, and we all feel in the depths of our beings there must be an answer. And guess what? We know what it is! Why in the world do we mostly keep it to ourselves? Don’t do that! Be a little annoying for Jesus, and you my just find someone else who’s looking for the answer you’ve found.
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