True or False? Doubters Welcome
Written by Power to Change Ministries
Jesus Christ is touching and transforming people worldwide. He has opened and continues to open the window to people’s hearts, and they are moved to respond to God.
Some have had an intellectual response. They are motivated to investigate the evidence and the claims of Christ.
Is Jesus the Son of God? Is he the way to God? Did he die for me? Is he alive?
If you find yourself asking intellectual or even skeptical questions, you are in good company. It is okay to have doubts. God isn’t afraid of your questions. He welcomes your search for truth. When John the Baptist asked if Jesus was the Messiah and when “Doubting” Thomas was skeptical about Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus gave them evidence and proof, not just a response that required blind faith.
Evidence - a lot of evidence - exists for Christ. You don’t have to leave your mind behind to have faith in Jesus. Many scientists, lawyers, professors, engineers, philosophers, and intellectuals believe in Jesus. This online booklet provides just a start in your exploration of separating what is true from what is false.
“Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - Oxfordand Cambridge Professor, C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 56
Jesus is the Son of God - true or false?
Have you ever heard from family, friends, or professors that Jesus never claimed to be God? They say He was just a good moral teacher. Some say His followers created a myth that Jesus claimed He was the Son of God. What is true and what is false?
Before the crucifixion, Jesus is on trial and the chief priest asks Jesus to answer - under oath - if He is the Son of God. You can read this scene in the Bible: The high priest said to Him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God:‘Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied.” (Matthew 26:63-64).
It is true that Jesus claimed divinity. This is just one example of many in the Bible. This was the reason they put Him on trial and put Him to death. They didn’t do it because He was going around saying, “Be nice to each other.” That doesn’t get you a death sentence.
But, just because Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, doesn’t necessarily make it true. If someone you knew claimed to be the Son of God, would you think it was true? No, you would probably think that person had a serious mental problem. But when Jesus claims it, hardly anyone laughs.
Why is Jesus believable?
There are many reasons. Here are three:
- His life - People believed Jesus’ claim to be God because He was so absolutely trustworthy. He lived a perfect life - He was sinless. And He had more insight into life and people than anyone. It would be inconsistent that He wouldn’t know His own identity.
- His prophesies - Hundreds of years before Jesus came to earth, many predictions were given about the identity of the Messiah. Jesus matched every prediction. It was like one-of-a-kind divine DNA. (Read Isaiah 53:3-12 for just one example.)
- His miracles - Jesus referred to His miracles as signs. These signs pointed to Jesus’ divinity. Of the hundreds of miracles, one was especially important - He rose from the dead, never to die again.
How can Jesus’ life be explained unless He is the Son of God?
Jesus is the only way to God? true or false?
Don’t all the major religions basically say the same thing? The truth is they do ask similar questions: Who is God? Why is the world such a mess? How do we solve this problem? The fallacy is that they all come up with the same answers.
Of the world’s major religions, Jesus is the only leader who claimed to be God in the flesh. Moses didn’t. Mohammed didn’t. Buddha didn’t. But Jesus made another claim many people find even more controversial. Jesus claimed that He was the only way to God: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ “ (John 14:6).
In the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus is betrayed and arrested, Jesus fervently prays in agony, because he knows what is going to happen to him. He must suffer for the sins of humankind. Jesus is praying that God reveal another way for people to be reconciled to Him. He prays, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42).
God’s answer was there is no other way. In fact if there were another way to God, Jesus’ death would have been unnecessary.
There could be many solutions or ways to God if the world’s problem was ignorance, or desire or just being bad. But God’s diagnosis was different, and it had just one solution. Our problem is our sin that separates us from God, and Jesus’ death is our only cure.
How good do you have to be to go to heaven?
The common wisdom is that if you are 51% good or obey most of the commandments, then you’ve made the grade for getting into heaven. That is a false belief.
The truth is we all make mistakes; we know we need to be forgiven. Do you live up to your own expectations? If you don’t even live up to your own, how do you think you live up to God’s?
The problem isn’t that we are bad and that the cure is to be better. Rather, Jesus diagnosed that our sin is a symptom of a diseased and dead heart, and what we need is a new heart from a donor.
Think of it this way. Imagine God said to you, “I want to give you the gift of healing. You can heal anybody of any fatal disease.” Would you take this gift? Now, what if God said, “There’s just one catch. Whoever you heal, you will get what they had.” Now would you accept this gift? You might for someone you loved more than yourself. This is the deal Jesus was offered - and He accepted.
The Bible says it like this: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
In the movie there is a scene where Jesus reveals that He knows the meaning of His death. During the crucifixion there is a flashback to a meal He had with His disciples. He takes bread and breaks it. He gives it to his disciples and says,
‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matthew 26:26-28).
For Jesus, dying was His reason for the living. He died for you so that you might live forgiven.
“If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a god.” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher (1712 - 1778
Jesus is alive - true or false?
Jesus dies on the cross. But it isn’t over yet. Jesus appears to many after - resurrected, flawless, glorious.
Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is this just a Hollywood ending or is it history? There is good evidence to show that it is the most amazing fact in history. Here are four arguments:
- Jesus predicted it. The resurrection wasn’t a myth made up after His death. Jesus predicted He would rise from the dead. (Matthew 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:18-19; 26:32)
- Eyewitnesses saw it. Jesus was seen alive over a 40-day period after His crucifixion by men, women, skeptics, believers, individuals and simultaneously by a group of over 500 people. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)
- History supports it. Within a generation of Jesus’ life, documents were written about His death and resurrection. If treated without prejudice, the historical records are as plentiful and as reliable as any ancient event we know of.
- Other theories are feeble. Not only is the evidence for the resurrection strong, the evidence for alternative explanations (e.g. some-one else was crucified; they forgot where His tomb was; He simply survived the crucifixion) are flimsy. They are weak attempts to avoid the facts.
Why does if matter that Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again? Jesus’ resurrection sets Him apart from all other religious leaders and everyone else who ever lived. All other religious leaders were powerless over death, proving their humanity. Jesus had power over death, proving His divinity.
The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith. All of what Jesus said and did falls if the resurrection is false. All of what Jesus said and did stands if the resurrection is fact.
You don’t have to have all your questions answered and all your doubts cleared to make a thoughtful decision and claim that you believe in Jesus.
Where do you stand right now? Do you think it makes more sense to believe or not believe in Jesus? Are you ready to respond to Jesus? If so, everyone - including intellectuals - comes to God the same way. Begin here in your journey with Jesus.
Pray. “God, thank you for what You have done for me. I believe You sent Jesus to die for my sins instead of me. I believe Jesus rose again to give me a new and clean heart. I invite You into my life. Teach me to do everything You want me to do and to follow You all the days of my life. I pray this believing in what Jesus did for me. Amen.”
Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? If it does, pray this prayer right now, and Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.
6 Comments
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May 24th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Hello
I do not have any formulated doubts concerning Jesus Christ. However, I am prone to having doubts concerning today’s definition of Christianity. I see as much error in denominational religiosity, as I do in the Hollywood confusion. As I said before. I subscribe to faith in God, not religion. So, much talk and rhetorical fancy in today’s Christianity. So much so, that we cannot seperate it much of the time, from many world secular views. Jesus outlines dispensationally what the Church will look like near the end times. Take a long hard look at your Church. Because, I am not sure if I want to attend some of these so called sanctuary’s or see Tom Hank’s new movie, “Angel’s and Demon’s. Read Revalation Chapter Three and take another long, hard look at what Jesus say’s about his endtime Church. How their eye’s and ear’s are in need of salve. How they need nothing, including Him– save they have their materialism/riches. How they need His “white robes” of righteousness in place of their “filthy” rags and garments. I think before we attempt to seperate ourselves from the world. We may want to define just what this seperation be constructed of in the first place. Because if we are pointing a finger at the “outsiders”, then perhaps we may need to remove the “Hollywood” from our own eye’s. We have a long way to go for a people saved by grace. Because we all should know what “faith without works” should really mean? Lest we abuse the one-time propitiation? I am beleiveing more and more, that we need to live our faith. Walk more and talk less. St. Francis said many centuries ago; “Go out today and preach the gospel, and if you must–use words”! Talk is cheap–so c’mon Church–start loving the unloved–and living your faith–in action?
Marc Wildman
June 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Thankyou for the invitation to doubters!
This site is using similar arguments along the lines of Lee Strobels book, “The case for Christ”. I read that book and felt the arguments were fairly strong, but there’s more to the story. A true skeptic will not be convinced by these arguments alone, which have been advanced by Christian writers such as C.S. Lewis. The flaw in Lewis’ reasoning is that he predicates his claim , “Jesus was either a lunatic, a liar or the Lord” on the assumption that the historical Jesus actually himself claimed to be God. There is good reason to suggest that Jesus was an apocalytical prophet who did not claim such status, but it had been attributed to him by his later followers. A good book for reviewing this argument is “Jesus interrupted” by Bart d. Ehrman.
The first thing that most skeptics (like myself) realized is that the Bible is not inerrant. It has plenty of errors, some insignificant, others not. Also, the Bible’s writings are not in perfect agreement on doctrine either. We often believe they are because of how ministers interpret different passages and harmonize concepts. Think about how differently a Calvinist interprets John 3:16 compared with an Arminianist interpretation. The Calvinist awkwardly attempts to reconcile it with Romans 8:29-30. The Arminian believes all can be saved, due to verses such as 1 Timothy 2:4 and has no difficulty with John 3:16 but struggles to explain predestination of the elect.
The evidence against a spirit-led church and a holy inspired Bible is too great to simply accept the argument presented above. There cannot be an argument for Christianity based on sound reason or historical facts. It can only be accepted by faith and an uncritical devotion to church dogma.
Thanks again for letting me share my views.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Henry, thank you for your thoughtful and respectful comments! We’re glad to have you here. And I think you’re entirely correct: Lewis’ argument presupposes that the biblical text is, if not inerrant or infallible, at least generally reliable.
There’s two resources that I might suggest for you or others who are interested in these issues. I don’t come to this subject as an uninterested observer: I was an atheist/agnostic for most of my life until I started investigating religion for myself. The first resource I’ll suggest is Dr Gary Habermas’ “Minimal Facts” approach. This approach attempts to use only facts which are nearly universally agreed upon regarding the biblical texts, by both Christians and non-Christians. It doesn’t assume the Bible is inerrant, inspired, or even generally accurate:
http://www.growthtrac.com/artman/publish/1the-facts-concerning-the-resurrection-815.php
A second resource, and I hope this isn’t considered shameless self-promotion, is a free little ebook I wrote called “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament”. It’s available here:
http://www.whyfaith.com/nt/
Since you’re familiar with Case for Christ some of the arguments won’t be new to you, but hopefully it will be interesting nonetheless. (I do briefly mention Ehrman’s previous book Misquoting Jesus.)
While I don’t think the Christian faith can be argued for based on reason & facts alone (if only because the barriers we have towards it are often also not based on reason & facts, I know some of my barriers weren’t) I do think they certainly have a central a role to play.
Thanks again for adding constructively to the discussion!
June 19th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Hi Darren,
I read your booklet and Dr. Gary’s page. You seem to have had a similar experience to Lee Strobel because you were an “atheist” before converting. I just wonder though, why were you an atheist? Like you mention, it was not based on heavy scrutiny or investigation. It was probably based on some negative experiences of religious people. In that regard, you probably weren’t a very informed atheist. If you had been told your whole life that the Bible was the inspired, inerrant word of God, you would be angry (like I was) to discover that this is not so.
Another point I’d like to make is; even if we can agree that the early followers of Jesus did meet (or believed they met) the risen Christ. What does that mean for us? There are so many different views in the Bible of what his death accomplished. Was it to satisfy the wrath of an angry God who demands blood and sacrifice to appease him? Was it a ransom payment to the forces of evil? Was it Christ’s death and resurrection that actually defeated the forces of evil? Was Christ simply demonstrating a moral life and God’s love for humanity that we should follow?
Who did his death atone for? Was it for all who believe? Was it only for the predestined elect regenerated by the spirit? Is it an atoning sacrifice for the whole world? All these view have support in scripture. Now we can harmonize and compare and interpret and make hundreds of different theologies but the independant verses can’t be reconciled.
So in effect, we have a contradictory puzzle of theologies that we can’t agree on. What better way to determine that there’s something very wrong here? Also, if you research almost any “prophesy” of Jesus, you find that they don’t stem from the true messianic texts. All the prophesies suffer from these problems:
1. They are too vague to be referring to Jesus.
2. They are not a messianic prophesy
3. They are taken out of context
Let’s use your example of the “indisputable” Isaiah 53. It appears to refer to Jesus at first glance but there are deeper issues. Most importantly, there is no mention of any messianic terminology such as “king” or “annointed one”. The “servant” referred to is identified several times in Isaiah as being Israel, often referred to as a singular entity, or as “Jacob, whom I have chosen”. The Jews have made a convincing argument that this refers the “righteous remnant” of Israel who must suffer because of the “sins” of others. Any referrences to “pierced” and “stripes” are simply translations slanted towards the crucifixion narratives. Any other links to Jesus’ life are because the gospel writers did their utmost to have Jesus conform to suffering servant profile.
I don’t mean to disregard your arguments but these problems are evident upon further study. Many translations, especially in the Psalms, use language to hint at crucifixion where the allusion never existed. I don’t have time to list other points, but I know that some of the problems occurred because of the inferior Septuagint translation which was used by the gospel writers. This is also why “young woman” was translated as “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14.
Thanks, I hope that helps bring some pith to the discussion.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:17 am
This site appears not to have any discussion, which is sad. However, I just watched a great debate on this issue of the resurrection by Bart Ehrman v.s. William Craig Lane on YouTube. Lane deals with the minimal facts approach to determine the best explaination for the resurrection. I don’t know who won the debate but definitely listen to how both sides argue the issue. It’s very interesting. Just a side note Darren. Did you know we both went to Guelph University? I actually graduated in 2000 with an Ag. Diploma. You likely won’t believe this, but I attended IVCF as well. It’s just that my faith went through the wringer when I discovered the Calvinist God that our church espouses. Anyhow, it’s a small world.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Henry, thanks for your comments. Unfortunately this page doesn’t get a lot of traffic so we can’t expect too many replies but I’ll continue to check back here to see if anyone else comments. :)
Incidentally, I don’t spend much time on the prophecies re Jesus in my ebook because, on one hand, the topic isn’t strictly related to the reliability of the texts of the NT themselves (and would also require a defense of OT reliability which I wasn’t interested in doing) and also on the other hand because I don’t think the prophecies are as strong evidence as other people claim. I did include Isaiah 53 because (along with another Isaiah passage I can’t recall right now) it seems to be the strongest one. (Well there is an argument for Daniel 9:24-26 also mentioned in CforC which may be stronger.)
That said, since you’ve read Case for Christ you may remember the story of Louis Lapides, a Jewish man who, when he read the Isaiah 53 passage, was so taken aback by it that he thought it must be a Christian fraud and so he got a Jewish Bible to verify the text hadn’t been changed by Christians! So I would be hesitant to dismiss it entirely.
It is a small world, since I started at Guelph in Sept 1999 we probably would’ve passed eachother on campus at one time or another! :) I don’t think William Lane Craig has ever debated in Guelph, though he actually had a couple debates in Ontario universities lately, I know one was in Waterloo and another was in Toronto, unfortunately I couldn’t make it to any of them. And of course there was his big “debate” with Christopher Hitchens, which wasn’t much of a debate at all unfortunately but probably pretty entertaining: http://www.doesgodexistdebate.com I’d much rather he debated Richard Dawkins, at least Dawkins is knowledgeable and would present proper arguments. (Yes, I have read The God Delusion!)