Is the life of Jesus and his ministry a lie? Look in to the fictional Da Vinci Code too much and you may think that. I personally believe and think not.
Millions have come to their faith in Jesus from people, factual evidence, dreams and by other miraculous means like watching Sunday morning televangelists or Kirk Cameron films. There are millions of testimonies about how Jesus has changed the lives of people, mine included. You need Jesus, this may come across as derogatory to people who claim to have their life together. However, I believe that we are all deep down seekers. There is something that we are missing that some may never put their finger on and some may come to find. What is missing could be a purpose, an assurance for a future or a hope. That thing I have found is Jesus. A historical figure that took my sins to the cross and died for us all and rose three days later. Sounds unbelievable and some outright do not believe he existed at all. Jesus, whether you believe in his death and resurrection or not was a significant man in history. He is historically believed to die on a cross by Jews, though there is no belief in his resurrection. In the Quran Jesus is mentioned about 187 times and he is known to have been a great prophet, however not their way to salvation. His life left a mark on these belief systems whether they believed in him as savior or not. No other birth has had such high expectation toward it and none will again. Not many births draw foreign wise men led by a star in the sky to a backwater manger. Even fewer births are delivered by a virgin and fewer still are prophesied about 700 years prior, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (God with us).” Isaiah 7:14. Not a very easy birth to believe but one that plenty of prophecy has given evidence to. Micah 5:2 lends to this, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” As a Jew at the time this would be something to really look forward to, a new king who they have been promised that will take away Roman authority. Jesus was born in to a time of high expectation and he would frustrate some who had been waiting for a messiah as they ended up not liking him. These people were self-righteous and did not like the fact Jesus was calling himself the Son of God, even if God declared it to him with all his Galilean mates around him. Luke 3:21-22, “Now when all the people were baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Here God basically says that Jesus is his son and that he is a good boy. His ministry begins and his following begins growing in disciples that learn and aim to be like him. Jesus however is perfect and his perfection could not be thwarted by the self-righteous or Satan himself. Believers in Jesus see the perfection he embodies and use this to try and live by, we stumble often and by grace we can try again. Eventually the Jewish religious leaders of the time get sick of Jesus and would like him to go away. Jesus lived out the scriptures that they spruiked perfectly and condemned them for their selfish and hypocritical ways. Jesus lived out the word of God and brought it to life, it was truth and they wanted this truth to die. For truth to die it must be seen as a lie which is
something they tried to make of his resurrection once he died and is why Jews believe differently to Christians. His resurrection was the fulfilment of prophecy with Jesus’s dying breath declaring, “It is finished.” This is the story told time and again of Jesus, four accounts of which are included in the Bible. His life was remarkable and he lived knowing what fate awaited him and still confronted it. Jesus has been branded as a liar by many and his life regarded as a farce. Let us ignore the resurrection fact and acknowledge his death. If you were to die for a cause you are committed to it, for whatever change or victory it may bring. Do you die for a cause if you have been living a lie? No, that is fruitless. What would Jesus have received from fooling so many people, he would of backed out of death than die for no reason. The reason for his death made so much more sense for him than a vane quest to create a following with no purpose. This argument can be applied to the martyrs of the Christian faith who have died for their faith of believing in the resurrection, why would anyone ever die for a lie? Jesus had 12 disciples, 10 of which died as martyrs. They died for the man that they saw resurrected from death who made a way for us all to be saved. They saw and believed and took that belief to the grave. A liar would not do this.
After his death Jesus was seen by many people, on their own or in groups. Upon seeing his healed wounds you would know it was him and his appearance would be shared. Critics give explanation to this as a hallucination. This can make sense however quite a lot of the visitations from Jesus were group visits. A group cannot have a joint hallucination, it is not a new or old phenomena. People can have hallucinations at the same time but not the exact same ones; we do not share the same mind and conscience. We do not stream our mind to someone else’s like we do a phone to a tv screen.
At the time of his death the word of women was disregarded as their opinions mattered little, the word of men could be relied on. God used women to spread the word of Jesus’s resurrection.[1] To most this would seem foolish to include women in the account as no one would believe it, the authors had time to remove women from the account and use men. This however did not happen and their account managed to be believed. The testimony of women in the ancient world was kept to record truth.
My Christian faith came to me from personal revelation through the word of God, the word of God transformed me. Would I die for this, yes I would. Would I be imprisoned, yes. Would I stand against lies even if it costs me everything, yes. Worthy is Jesus, the lamb that was slain. Jesus took my nothing to the cross and made it something, it is that something that I give back to Jesus. I cannot live for a lie.
Do some digging into Jesus for yourself and decide whether you would also live this way.
I pray you come away believing in the truth of Jesus.
[1] 5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” 8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
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