The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

I know of no fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better evidence of every sort, to the mind of the fair inquirer, then that Christ died and rose again from the dead.

– Thomas Arnold

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important aspect in the entirety of the Christian faith. Christianity is not based upon the miracles that Jesus performed, nor his teaching while here on earth. Christianity is not based on the life of Jesus, nor the church body. Christianity is based solely on the fact of the resurrection of Christ. The knowledge that Jesus Christ died and then rose again defines the Christian faith and it is the only religion in the world to be founded on a man who returned from death. It is also, perhaps one of the most contentious points amongst skeptics and atheists. Over the years they have created a slew of incredulous and preposterous accusations leveled at the church concerning this topic of the resurrection of Christ. Throughout the course of this paper I will show the absolute importance of the resurrection to the Christian faith. In addition, I will show that the resurrection was God’s intention for the plan of salvation all along and that the inevitable death of Christ came as no surprise to any serious scholar of the Bible; least of all to Christ, himself. I will attempt to show proofs concerning the death of Jesus and his triumphant return. I will also bring up claims that have been brought against the church concerning the resurrection and I will categorically address them. I firmly believe that the claim for the resurrection of Christ can be addressed from a logical standpoint as long as one will concede that the Bible is a book of important historical facts and that, while someone does not have to believe in its inerrancy, they do have to take into account its validity as a collection of historical documents. I think that the case for the resurrection is one that has been extremely well documented and discussed and while I make no claims to offer anything original in the presentation of its defense, it is my hope that I will provide a comprehensive and conclusive series of arguments that even the most ardent skeptic will not be able to easily dismiss.

The first topic to address is the importance of the resurrection to the Christian religion. While those who remain largely ignorant of the inner workings of Christianity may say that the most important aspect of our faith are the teachings of Jesus, it pales in comparison to his coming back from death. First off, we can look to the Bible and see that the death and resurrection of Jesus was something prophesied about centuries prior to the coming of Jesus. Isaiah said in chapter 53 verse 5, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” This passage spells out the death of the coming messiah. Other verses in this chapter intimate other aspects of prophecy that would be fulfilled upon the day of the death of Christ. Jesus, himself, told his disciples that it was in his future to die and be raised again. There are several instances of this in the book of Mark. Mark 8:31 says, “And [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” In Mark 9:31, Jesus tells his disciples, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” Again in Mark, 10:33-34, Jesus tells his disciples a third time about his inevitable death and resurrection saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” Christ was trying to make it as clear as possible to his disciples that a time was fast approaching during which he was to die and then rise again.

It would be all too convenient for a person to examine the teaching of Jesus and to look at all that he said and to then only focus on his teachings, especially the ones that have deeply humanitarian undertones. We all like the notion of doing unto others as others do unto you, but the problem is that there is more to the teachings of Christ and to simply ignore his other teachings is to invalidate all of his teaching put together. C.S. Lewis, a famous Christian author and theologian, addresses this notion directly when he wrote in his book Mere Christianity:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. 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 his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

To believe anything that Jesus says about any topic, person, or situation, we have to take in the whole picture of the man called Christ. Jesus, himself, was convinced that not only would he die, but that after three literal days he was going to rise again. So, now it can be understood that the resurrection is important to the Christian faith because without Christ raising from the dead it makes him out to be a liar and cancels out the prophecies foretold about him. This would make the foundation of our faith null and void. Therefore, the resurrection is essential to the foundational make-up of the Christian faith.

There are proofs that can be used to help support the validity of the resurrection of Christ, with the first among them being the execution of Jesus. This is, by far and away, one of the most undisputed facts in history. There are no serious academic scholars who can disagree on this point, either Christian or secular. The Romans were masters of death and when they ended a life, that person was incontrovertibly dead. Christ, the man, was executed in front of a jeering crowd, hung on a cross for at least nine hours and this was after being whipped, beaten, and attacked by his fellow countrymen. When the spear pierced his side, blood and water gushed out. This was a sign that his lungs had filled up with water and that he had drowned while hanging on that cross. Also when the spear went into his side it would have pierced the heart, so even if he was somehow alive at that point, piercing his heart would have finished the job. The centurions who stood watch had seen the face of death a multitude of times and knew, with certitude that the man hanging on the cross before them was indeed, dead.

The next arena of proof comes from the fact that the tomb was empty on the third day, after his death. There are a number of factors that support this truth, both logical and historical. First is something that Lee Strobel calls the Jerusalem Factor. This is the fact that sight of the empty tomb would have been instantaneously recognizable to all the people in the region of Jerusalem. The sight of this empty tomb helped to spur the growth of Christianity. Had that tomb not been empty, then the opponents of this burgeoning religion would have simply been able to point to the tomb that still encased the body of Christ dissuaded believers. Also, the tomb itself did not become enshrined nor marked as a resting place of a wise teacher and miracle worker. The reason that this did not happen was because Jesus came out of that tomb. The location itself no longer held anything of value, Jesus has risen and walked away, leaving the tomb just a hole in the ground and no longer the final resting place of a respected teacher. Lee Strobel also identifies something called the Criterion of Embarrassment. This simply means that if someone were to fabricate history then they would do it in such a way that it did not cause embarrassment for the writer. In every single one of the Gospel accounts the tomb was first discovered by women. Women, in the culture of this time, were not considered credible witnesses. In fact women were not even permitted to be witnesses in a court case because their testimony would have been considered unreliable. The male authors of the Gospel accounts certainly would not have credited the initial discovery to women if this had simply not been the case. Women were reported as being the ones to make that first discovery because the discovery of the empty tomb was true; and for no other reason. One can also look at the reaction of the disciples when they were told about the empty tomb. They ran to it to confirm for themselves, and they marveled at what they saw. This is not the attitude of devious body thieves. The last bit of proof that points to the fact that the tomb was empty is that the Roman government said it was empty. They tried, in vain, to blame the disciples for stealing the body. The problem was that the governor had put guards in front of the tomb to prevent this very issue. The probability that the body would be stolen was brought to the Governor’s attention after the death of Christ by the Pharisees. It is not logical to assume that a bunch of blue collar fishermen could have somehow overcome Roman centurions, knocked them senseless, rolled away a massive stone covering the tomb, and made off with a heavy body through the streets of Jerusalem, unseen. That position is illogical in the extreme. The issue then, is not whether or not the tomb was actually empty; the issue is how the tomb got to be that way.

The next bit of proof that helps to solidify the fact of the resurrection is usually how early we have the writings of this event. If a legend is going to be founded it takes time for it to gain a solid foundation and following. However, although the first scholars note that the first time the apostle’s creed was formally written down was in the late third century, it is acknowledged that this creed had been a verbal tradition of the early Christian community. Aspects of the creed appear in writings just 25 years after the death of Jesus. Evidence points to the fact that the creed was created and in existence in the early church within a one-to-six year period of the purported resurrection of Jesus. This is not indicative of how legends begin and the gap from event to tradition is far less than in any classic mythos. There is also a large number of accounts written by people who were contemporaries of Jesus; not documents that were written far after the fact by third parties. The Gospel of Mark was the first of the Gospels to be written. Mark is widely believed to have been John Mark, a friend of Peter, and his book is full of personal stories taken from the apostle Peter, himself. Matthew came next onto the scene and some believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written by the disciple of Jesus of the same name. Although some dispute this claim, there is no doubt that when the book was written it was done at the time where many of the contemporaries of Jesus were still alive and had many unique stories and accounts that are indicative of personal knowledge of Jesus.

Luke’s Gospel was next, chronologically, and written by a companion of the Apostle Paul. Luke was a medical doctor and a man of science. He personally interviewed men and women who knew Jesus directly. He wrote his books based somewhat off the account of Mark while the rest of the content comes from firsthand eyewitnesses. The last of the four synoptic gospels to be written was John’s. No one really doubts the authorship of the Gospel of John; he was best friends with Jesus and someone who knew Christ intimately. This last gospel appears a mere 65 years after the death of Christ and by any historian’s standards, this is a credible period of time for a work to be considered valid. Dr. Gary Habermas stated that if you were to go forward 65 years after the death of Christ you could find over 13 non-Biblical sources that speak of the resurrection of Christ. By comparison, the very first literary work of history to write about the life and times of Alexander the Great appears about 350 years after his death. The resurrection of Christ was recorded so early in history and by such a wide variety of people who were alive at the same time of Jesus that it seems acceptable to say that the resurrection was remarkably well documented by a series of trustworthy sources.

This brings me to the last arena of proof that lends integrity to the argument in favor of the resurrection – the abundant source of eyewitnesses. The sheer number of men and women who observed the physical reappearance of Jesus Christ is staggering. The documentation of the Apostle’s Creed, mentioned above, also points to a group of people who personally encountered the risen Christ. There is also the account of the Apostle Paul who wrote about the resurrection of Jesus after spending copious amounts of time with those that walked with Jesus. The Book of Acts depicts the disciples preaching about the resurrection to crowds of people, just months after the ascension of Jesus into heaven. The aforementioned Gospels, themselves, were written either by those who were eyewitnesses or were written based on the testimony of eyewitnesses. Then, there is the testimony of those that sat under the teachings of the apostles who verified that they had witnessed the resurrection. Often times in history there will be one source of a particular event, or works of history, that was written by people who did not observe it firsthand. With the resurrection, there is an overabundance of men and women, around 515 of them, who saw these events transpire with their own eyes and who then wrote credible accounts of what they saw. There seems very little doubt that Jesus Christ was walking and talking with his followers after he was crucified and buried for three days.

Now that I’ve offered both historical and logical proofs, I am going to address some of the more popular objections to the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. The first one is perhaps one of the easiest to dismiss, and that is that Christ never really died; he simply passed out. As I mentioned before, the Romans knew what they were doing when it came to executions and killings. To say that a centurion did not know what a corpse looked like is akin to saying that a doctor does not know what a sick person looks like. It is a weak argument at best. Take into consideration that prior to his crucifixion, Jesus was scourged with a whip 39 times as a precursor of him being brought to trial. Not everyone survived this brutal form of torture; it alone killed many. After that he was beaten, forced to carry a heavy cross on his bloodied back, and then nailed and left to die, for nine hours. Crucifixion is an effective death sentence due to the fact that a victim’s arms are raised at that angle for prolonged periods of time, filling the lungs up with water, thus drowning the victim on dry land. If the Roman guard on duty wanted to speed up the process and ensure the swift death of a person hanging on the cross, he would have broken the legs of said person. This was done in order to make sure that the person hanging there could not use their legs to push themselves up in order to take a breath, prolonging the inevitable. When they came to Jesus to break his legs and expedite the process the guards discovered that he was already dead. To confirm this, they pierced his side with a spear which would have reached into his heart. Out came both blood and water, blood from nicking the heart, and water from the inside of the lungs. To the guards on duty this meant, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the victim was indeed dead. Suppose for a moment, however, that somehow a person was able to survive up until this point. They were able to survive the flogging, the beating, and the time on the cross, in addition to the spear piercing his side. Then let us examine the fact that Jesus was taken down off of the cross, wrapped in roughly 100 pounds of linens, and then placed in a dark cave with no food or water for three days. It strains credulity to think that a person could simply walk out of that tomb on his own power and manifest himself to his followers just days later. That person would, at the very best, spend months recovering if they had survived at all, which is so unlikely as to simply not even be a respected theory. The idea that Jesus somehow faked his own death does not imply a conspiracy theory, because if Jesus never died in the first place, he then must have been supernatural to survive all of that torment.

Another objection to the resurrection is that Jesus did not come back bodily, but rather his resurrection was one of a spiritual nature. This is disproved by the very accounts of the return of Christ. In Luke 24 Jesus eats food before the disciples, a feat not easily accomplished by a spirit. Thomas said that he would not believe unless he actually put his finger in the holes in Jesus’ hand and feel the wound in Jesus’ side where he was pierced by the spear. Thomas, much to his shame, got his wish and touched the physical body of Christ and then he proclaimed Jesus as Lord. This, again, is not something that is indicative of a purely spiritual being. Jesus physically embraced his followers and sat with them at meals. If Jesus were a ghost then at some point his disciples would have known it and recorded it, thus putting to bed the notion of anything shy of a physical resurrection.

Some have claimed that the disciples just hallucinated about seeing the resurrected Lord and that this vision was brought on by grief and despair. This, however, is simply not indicative of how hallucinations work. By its very nature a hallucination is something that is private and personal to the individual experiencing it. The thought that a shared vision could be had by over 515 people over the course of 40 days is ridiculous. From what we know about hallucinations there is no possible way that that many people could have shared the same psychotic episode. One psychologist was noted as saying that 500 people sharing the same hallucination would, in in of itself, be a bigger miracle that the resurrection itself.

There are a few more ludicrous opinions that people have tossed about over the years to which I will not give special attention on the basis that they are absurd in the extreme. One says that Jesus had a twin brother that took his place after the death of Jesus. Some claim that the disciples simply went to the wrong tomb and found the imposter tomb empty, which merely means that if that were the case then Jesus just resurrected out of another tomb. One idea which has gained some credence is the notion that Christians borrowed the idea of a resurrected Lord from other works of literature. This is not a sound idea because outside of Judaism at that time, there was virtually no concept of a resurrection at all. The idea that someone could physically die and then come back to life was outright rejected and there is no literature that gives stock to that concept.

What I perceive to be the single largest objection to the resurrection is that it was simply a hoax that the disciples fabricated in order to create a religion in which they were the leaders and to trick the populace into falsely believing. This seems to be an incredibly weak argument and I will explain why. First of all, we know from the gospels that the disciples were not only simple men with mostly blue collar jobs, but that they were not scholars and not even particularly courageous men. For example, when Christ was going through the ordeal of his trail and eventual execution, Peter was confronted by a young girl who accused him of associating with the condemned man. Peter outright rejected that he knew Jesus not once, but three separate times because he was terrified of the consequences of admitting he was friends with him. This is not indicative of a man willing to die for a lie. After reportedly seeing the risen Lord, Peter spent the rest of his life preaching the truth of the risen God and did so with power and authority. He did this until his own crucifixion, where he was hung upside down because he did not want to be right side up, thinking this was too close to the death of his savior. Doubting Thomas was someone who rejected the possibility of a resurrected Lord until Jesus stood physically in front of him as proof. He does not seem like a man who would travel to the far corners of the world, to India to preach the news of Christ, yet that is what most scholars believe he wound up doing. Thomas was eventually martyred for his faith: Why would he give his life for a lie? John, the friend of Jesus and author of the gospel by the same name, was exiled to an island to live out the rest of his life in seclusion, apart from his friends because of his proclamation of his faith. James refused to recant his faith and was beheaded by Herod Agrippa. The apostle Andrew was reportedly hung on an olive tree to death. Matthew was beheaded. Phillip was crucified. Bartholomew was flayed then crucified. James the Lesser was thrown from the top of a temple. Simon the Zealot was crucified. Thaddeus was beaten to death. Matthias was stoned to death while being crucified. These do not seem like deaths that anyone would envy, especially if they were being put to death for something they knew was a lie. The Apostle Paul, who had a conversion on the road to Damascus, was imprisoned for a portion of his life before being beheaded for refusing to recant. Is it really reasonable to assume that these men were willing to give their lives to serve a conspiracy?

It is hard to imagine that if the disciples were not convinced of what they saw, if they did not wholeheartedly believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that they would have given their lives in such a fashion. This is not reasonable. This is not sane. This logic is coupled with the fact that when Jesus appeared to these men, they bowed down and worshiped him as the Messiah. Not only did the disciples do this, but so did Jesus’ own mother and brother. In Matthew 12, Jesus’ mother and brother come to fetch him and bring him home because they believe he was spreading lies about himself. However, when he returned from the dead, they fell at his feet and worshiped him. No mother in her right mind would mistake her son for God, had he not done what Jesus had done. As members of the Jewish faith, committing this act of blasphemy would have guaranteed them a place in Hell. One also has only to look at some of the other practices put into effect after the start of the early church to see that they were not troubled with the old tenants of their faith. They switched the Sabbath from its traditional day on Saturday to Sunday. The law is clear when it comes to the Sabbath, but they did this because it was on Sunday that Christ rose from the dead. The institutions of communion and baptism only make sense if one accepts that Jesus first died and then rose again. All told, these actions are not suggestive of men who placed their loyalty in a fabrication, rather these seem to be the actions of men convinced of the truth and persuaded to do something about this new-found knowledge.

Taking all of the above into consideration, the historical veracity of the resurrection, its crucial place in the center of the Christian faith, its abundance of witnesses, its primacy of documentation, and its impact on the lives of the men and women who were willing to die for the truth, it seems clear that there is more to the story of the resurrection then just an elaborate lie. It would be easier to discredit the presidency of George Washington on the basis of proof then it would be to outright discount the proof in favor of the resurrection. Christians should not be duped or fooled, so while it is true that it takes faith to believe in the Bible, faith is not the only standard that we must adopt. Having stated that, the Christian faith is founded solidly upon the same sort of proof that we look to when we believe in anything that has happened in the past, and it is far better documented than most incidences in history. As Christ had no intention of leaving his faithful followers in the lurch and consigning them to a lifetime of uneasy uncertainty, Jesus provided us with ample proof and expects us to take that proof into consideration and to strengthen our faith based upon that truth and knowledge. All of Christianity hinges on the resurrection of Christ; all of his life’s work was fulfilled in his returning from death in bodily form. Christians should be vigilant and knowledgeable on all aspects of this tremendous event and we should not be daunted nor intimidated into not offering up substantial evidence that backs up what the Bible says.

Humans are flawed but God is good: Why our moral compass doesn’t point true north

A problem I frequently encounter with people who reject God is the issue of truth. There lies a certain false presupposition that we as a collective culture are capable of finding a sort of ultimate truth that transcends all individual cultures and can find a set of standards to hold to all mankind. In this paper I’m going to look at the nature of truth, why humans are bad at creating it, and the truth that is offered us in the scripture. It is my intention to show that without the Bible and God, we can no more fabricate standards to hold ourselves to, then we can be perfect people through sheer willpower alone.

I had a conversation with a friend that rejects the notion of God is actually fed up with the church in general. In the course of our conversation he said that humans have the potential to become basically good and that through the power of positive thinking and the like we can rid ourselves of the many plagues of evil wrought by mankind. The problem with this is a basic one. If we are to better ourselves we must then hold ourselves to a higher standard. This higher standard most atheists believe will be something of a human construction and will be achieved by a general consensus of what’s moral and good. The issue with that is that men are basically evil and prone to selfishness and greed. Men will, all too often, act for their own best interest and they will care very little for the suffering their actions incur. Men murder, lie and steal if they find it profitable and they can get away with it. This issue has been the subject of many classic works of literature like The Invisible Man, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and Lord of the Flies. So then if mankind is itself the source of such evil and debauchery then how can we lift ourselves up from such a point of fallen grace? Meaning, if we are the source of these evils then how can we possibly expect to create a set of morals that will change human nature if those morals are birthed out of that same place where the evil originated?

            There are two basic different kinds of truth. The first type of truth is subjective truth. This is when someone says something like “Chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream”. While people may disagree with that person, this is an issue of preference and therefore we wouldn't say that it’s wrong. Things that fall into the category of subjective truth can be things regarding aesthetic beauty, music, food, or books. Things that do not belong in the category of subjective truths are things like morals. For instance although some would agree that the statement “abortion is wrong” is a subjective truth, as Christians we would say that it doesn’t matter who you are or what your opinion is, abortion is always wrong. That’s where we enter into the arena of the second type of truth and that is objective truth. If I were to say that I am 26 years old and I showed my birth certificate to prove it, no one would call me a liar. If I were to say, however that homosexuality is a sin, that’s where people would call me wrong and say that what I claim simply isn’t true. Those objections would be valid if I were saying that homosexuality was wrong on my own authority, but I am not. When I make such a judgment statement I say that with the full weight and backing of scripture which says that homosexuality is wrong. So if in the first kind of truth, the subjective kind, people can be considered the authority because the truth is dependent on who speaks it, then on whose authority do the objective truths lie?

The fact of the matter is that mankind is terrible at coming up with truth because we are fallen creatures who live in a fallen world. Take slavery for instance. A little over 200 years ago slavery was considered by some to be a morally permissible practice that far too many people in America allowed. Through books and treatises like Uncle Tom's Cabin however, there was a moral awakening and by signing into effect the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln abolished slavery and as a culture we haven’t turned back. So one could credibly argue that slavery is an excellent example of how men can and will discover truth, like the one that slavery is wrong, and impose a new truth to the betterment of society. The problem is of course that it took so long to get to that point. For thousands of years slavery was permissible in every civilized country at one point or another and mankind did nothing about it. At every instance where our more “enlightened” society has righted some moral wrong, we have only to look to history to see how long we've let it go on prior to that. If men are really good at their core then why is it that we have had to come to so many revelations about moral issues throughout history? Why haven’t we been observing these practices since the dawn of time? The answer seems obvious, it’s because we are not naturally good people who are adept at distinguishing truth and putting good practices into motion. We are fundamentally flawed and prone to evil. If we are prone to evil, then it seems fair to say that the desire to do wrong lies in the very essence of who we are. And if that’s true, then how can we ever look to ourselves to fully rid the world of evil? It seems more likely that we must look to some sort of external source outside ourselves and adopt its standards as our own if we ever want to reach a point of actual truth and moral goodness.

It is at this point in my argument that causes friction. Some would argue that while it may be true that we need an external source to dictate what is right and what is wrong, many will disagree that the Bible should be that source of truth. This is a fair point and it is here that faith comes into the picture. People might look to history and point out that the church itself was responsible for many atrocities committed against mankind, and some would even say that the trend continues in our modern day society.  To that I say this; the wrongs committed by the church in past and at present were not the result of God himself, but rather the result of flawed men claiming the authority of God and imposing their will, and not God’s, onto people. If we were to really look at the truth of scripture we can see that it was progressive far beyond its time and that if men and women really examined it as a source of truth then many of the social injustices we see today would have been righted a long time ago. When Jesus said in Luke 10 to love your neighbor as yourself and then further defined a neighbor as someone that might initially be considered your enemy or different than yourself, that seems to rule out slavery if taken to heart. In James 1 we are told to care for the orphans and widows which would eradicate the marginalization of children worldwide. Matthew 25 commands us to treat all men as representatives of God’s kingdom and to take care of them, eliminating abuse of our fellow man in general. All of these scriptures rest fully on the authority of God and claim him as the ultimate truth. In John 14 we see that Jesus identifies himself as the physical representation of truth itself and what’s more life itself. Here then we have a much needed external source that can lift us out of our self-conceit and sinful nature.

So by us saying that truth is relative and we can invent truth for ourselves, this seems to me to be an obvious lie. As people we are incapable of finding any sort of truth on our own power because we are too flawed to start with. Our authority when it comes to the truth is not reliable. We must instead fix something greater than ourselves as the ultimate authority of truth and moral goodness and follow that source to best of our ability in order to transcend the evil nature we enter this world with. That source of truth can be found in the Bible and in the Holy Spirit, which comes to indwell men, and it is through that alone that we can be saved and create a culture of truth. If we look to ourselves as a moral compass and trust in our own understanding, it will never point to true north and we will never find our way.

Why the Issue of Creation Matters Far Less (and More) Than Most Christians Think

Why the Issue of Creation Matters Far Less (and More) Than Most Christians Think

            As soon as an atheist and a Christian get into a debate, one of the first questions that will arise will be the issue of creation. Atheists consider this to be their ace in the hole because there seems to be an overwhelming amount of scientific information that points to the fact that the Big Bang really happened and that evolution is the best explanation for how mankind wound up walking the earth. Christians, by comparison look like simple minded fools screaming about the lies that science wants to tell us, and as a result of this Christianity has lost some of its credibility over the years. Another troubling thing seems to be that when it comes down to the issue of creation itself, Christians divide and fall into different categories still. Because of this seeming insurmountable obstacle the discussion about what really matters to Christianity can fall by the wayside and the issue seems to be more about who can throw more science at the other party. I believe that the issue of creation is the single most important issue that Christians must face, but that the way they go about defending it causes them to lose face.

            There are three different Christian views about how the creation account in Genesis is meant to be understood. The first view is called the 24 Hour View. This view asserts that the days mentioned in the Genesis account of creation are meant to be taken as literal 24 hour days and that it was in a one week period of these 24 hour days that God brought everything into the world. This view I think is the one that many atheists believe that Christians hold and is indeed a popular view among God’s people. God said that it took him 7 days, we should take that on faith and trust that if He wanted to then he could have done it in 7 days. Atheists will scoff at this and point to the myriad of evidence like tectonic plate shifting, radio carbon dating, fossil records, and the expanding universe theory. This view is becoming, I believe, more unpopular with the scientific community who identify as Christians and there are certainly some underlying issues with taking this point of view.

            The second creationist theory is called the Framework View and this view claims that the Genesis account is designed to give us a framework for creation. It says that we are to understand the account in Genesis as a figurative retelling about how the universe came to be and that we are to look towards the language to understand that it does not mean a literal day. This view points elsewhere in the Bible where poetic language was used for a specific purpose and it says that this is the case in Genesis. We are to look at the symmetry of creation and understand that it is a framework for how God really created the universe. The third view is similar to the second and it is called the Day-Age View. In this view proponents will state that each day mentioned in the creation account is supposed to be seen as a figurative length of time although it is meant to be understood chronologically. They say that the events listed are consistent and logical with the formation of a new planet and we can see that God didn’t mean a literal 24 hour day but perhaps a millennia in which those processes of creation took place. These last two views are more consistent with what we know from science and especially in this last view atheists and creationists can find common grounds. It would be easy to acknowledge some form of Big Bang as that was the moment that the universe was brought into being and it would make sense to say that since God works inside of a set of observable laws and rules that we should be able to use the physics of the universe to find proof for the start of creation there.

            While I think that evolution run contradictory to what the Bible teaches I firmly believe that there are far more commonalities between the viewpoints about creationism and a secular person’s view point about the creation of the world then an outsider would at first assume. The problem is that since we are so focused on trying to throw this theory and that theory at one another we have stopped talking about the thing that really matters most, and that is, does God exist? Really that is what the whole issue of creation should be about, we should be centered on the fact that the universe seems to be so ideally suited for human life, that the best possible explanation would be that it was designed for us. I think there is room for a happy marriage between the scientifically minded and the theologically inclined, but we have let other non-important issues cloud our discussions and affect our judgment. We have failed to acknowledge one important fact and that is this; we are called to place our faith in either science or God and only one has never failed the test of time

            There are such a number of supposedly scientific theories that have been believed over the years that have proved ludicrously wrong that no person in their right mind would claim them as truth. Yet, despite this trend for time to prove some theory wrong people seem unwilling to learn from history. They will instead cling to the latest trends and vehemently hold that the latest and greatest theory is undeniably correct and always will be. The thing is that we as followers of Christ need to rise to the challenge, but that does not mean that we always let them lead the conversation. We need to be scientifically literate, but we are ultimately called to place our faith on the scripture as our first and last line of defense. We need to make sure that we are clear on what the account in Genesis really means and what it entails so that we will not appear foolish and ignorant, but at the same time we need to understand that science can never fully have all the answers.

One of the biggest crimes throughout this debate is that we often fail to even bring up the name of Jesus, the single most important character in the Bible and in our lives. The message of Christ falls by the wayside and we fall to bickering about proofs that are anything but. We need to remember that what we are called to spread is the message of His love and mercy. If people can be humble enough to acknowledge him as Lord and Savior over their lives then that should be the starting place for the merger of faith and science.

For these reasons it is of the utmost importance that when asked a question about the creation of the universe we answer like A.W. Tozer did. He said, “Give me Genesis 1:1, and the rest of the Bible poses no threat.” Meaning that it is important to think about the creation of the world, but far more important is it to acknowledge the one who created it. If we wind up just attempting to use science to prove our point we have then left out the best source of truth and the person in our corner with the most credibility, Jesus.

Change

OK OK last bit of poetry stuff, then I'll write something that actually matters. This is another spoken word piece that I did because the mood struck me.

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Late the other night I was driving down the street, black as only darkness can be, waiting while both my car and my mind idled. The candy apple red held me to a stop and when the Christmas colors exchanged places, I saw that the light did something that I’d been aching to do for far too long, change. See I’ve been rolling down the hill of my life like a cliché snowball But I just gather clutter and insecurities to me. Like gum on the bottom of my show it clings, and although I’m moving forward, I’m going nowhere. I’d like to blame external forces, like everyone and everything else but me, because then I don’t have to look into the mirror and face the person I haven’t become.

The dust on my Bible’s gotten so thick that when blown off the motes dance like pixie dust in the failing light.

Change hasn’t come hunting me down like I’d long believed it would. No dire quest has presented itself and honestly I’m not sure I’d fit into those superhero tights anyway. It’s terrifying to know that you are your own arch-nemesis and that you’ll fight the good fight right after American Idol. Turns of the catalyst to a radical new life was written thousands of years ago and all I’m asked to give is everything. Not that bad in retrospect, I could’ve been asked for more. I’m told by authors of old that my soul has been sold by faith not by gold. I’m politely informed that I’m part of the body of Christ, but that’s OK, I’m pretty sure I’m a spleen. God wants to use me and all that he asks is everything, thank Him it isn’t more. Guess I’ve been conditioned to be commissioned, but I’ve been in remission because of an omission but Christ has been fishin so I guess I’ll bite. The road is narrow but at least it’s well lit, and I swear I can see myself in tights on the other side. What do I have to lose?

1) My foolish pride. It clings to me, invisible to my eyes but it’s like a neon sign to all of my friends. I’ve grown so used to the weight that the light doesn’t keep me up at night, and I’m afraid that without my bravado I’ll become too mundane to be self-important. My pride has been a constant companion whispering sweet lies in my ear telling me that it’s not good enough to be good enough, it’s better to be better than everyone else. So I tear others down and plant my flag in their rubble. When asked to give up my pride the silence was so profound, I almost didn’t hear the quiet voice of the creator whispering, “You are mine, and I love you.”

2) My delusions of grandeur. I’ve dreamt like every young boy who’s never grown to be a man of my name being known far and wide and commonly used as a synonym for awesomeness. Sick, sycophantic, sideways, screwed up, stupid, silly, notions of needing to hide my face long enough to relent to the adoring masses that flocked to be near me. I’ve always thought that the pinnacle of achievement would be to have my image be synonymous with fame, but Christ said that I should be synonymous with His holy name. To be known not by who you claim to be, but by whom you represent. Not by deeds of self glorification, but by a presence of purification, that would be quite a sensation, worthy of presentation.

3) My time. My internal clock was constantly reading “Who Cares?” and the alarm never went off. I was living under the notion that a simple profession was all I needed to give and from then my life would in of itself be lived for a higher cause. Much to my dismay, like dragons, this just wasn't true either. It turns out to say and to do are not distant cousins and invoking one didn’t invite to other. I was hoping by telling others that Christ loved that that would be enough, I never expected I’d have to show them it was true. So my time shifted from Call of Duty to the duty of the call, from pretending to preaching, from sleep to study, from texting to the text. When the seconds of the minutes of the hours of the days starting adding up I started seeing Christ in the margins and soon as the sum. It made the difference of chocolate and vanilla and I hate vanilla.

4) My heart, soul, mind and a couple of bucks in change. Once the currency of my self-importance became depleted, it turns out I was broke. Broken. This is exactly where I needed to start with God, broken and looking for him to fix me. Like a master craftsman he reforged me using all the best parts and making me anew. Once again I didn’t recognize my reflection because it was no longer my image that I saw but myself made in His. I was a spleen no more.

I am His hands doing good works and holding the hands of those who have lost hope. I am the feet, walking with others towards Christ and guiding those back who have lost their way. I am the mouth speaking the words that Christ has put there, spilling out verbs like faith, love, and hope that I’d always believed were nouns. I am the ears hearing the stories of the forgotten, listening for the cues to tell that there’s more to this life and like Dorothy they’ll find it in stunning Technicolor. I am the eyes, seeing people as Christ sees them, perfect because he made them. And I am the back that bears the cross daily, dies to myself and lives the way he designed me to.

I found that the more I gave the less I wanted to hang onto and the more he used me the more I wanted to be used. I’d been re-positioned to become fully commissioned. Low and behold all that he asked from me was everything and it turns out that really wasn’t much to give at all.

San Francisco

The following is a peace I did that's meant to be read as a spoken word bit. It follows the idea of the being surrounded by humanity but feeling like it's broken and somehow distorted. I wrote the line "I feel like everyone here wants to rob me but they’d settle for telling me their life story" while walking through the city because it stood out as the truest possible thing about those walking all around me. There's something incredibly heartbreaking about standing around so many people who can be found everywhere get they're totally lost.

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San Francisco. The sun is high casting long shadows like dark funhouse mirror versions of my person on the littered pavement. The city here tingles with delicate beauty and an electric danger.

I feel like everyone here wants to rob me but they’d settle for telling me their life story.

Crazy homeless people seem to infest this city like fleas on a dog. Everyone is screaming opinions and nonsensical words to passersby. Stories in pretend languages are cried out like the world has ended and they’re the only ones who know. Joints are freely shared because incarceration means for one night a bed and a meal. Glances tell me that everyone here wants to avoid the harsh reality that they are all alone and surrounded simultaneously.

I watch as a frail Asian man drops breadcrumbs to the pigeons and seagulls and judging by the amount of bread that he’s brought I’m guessing this is a daily routine. His glasses balloon his eyes to comic proportions and I see written there like it’s been chiseled in stone that the world has not been kind to him and more than anything I want to give him a hug and tell him that although the bad outweighs the good in this world that joy exists like hidden glints of light off of murky puddles on the ground. He drops the breadcrumbs on the ground as close to his person as the birds will come. With a flick of his wrist he could end their lives but I’m guessing that it’s the closest contact he ever has with another living being. I watch men clutching trash bags that contain anything but.

People staring into empty space but I know that something dances before their eyes just out the field of our vision, on imaginary roads they traverse every day. The lilting jilting walk of unsteady legs transporting unsteady minds are prevalent throughout this city. Their brains are like puzzles, all the pieces accounted for but picture just isn’t complete.

I feel like everyone here wants to rob me but they’d settle for telling me their life story.

I watch as people talk to their dogs and the canines return the unintelligible syllables with looks of patience and understanding. People are shouting at strangers just to get reactions that prove their existence. Some men are walking with purpose, and others just walking to keep the earth spinning. I see a thousand faces I’ve seen before, and all of them are unfamiliar. I watch a man walking down the street dribbling a basketball that isn’t there. Based on his ill-fitting clothing and his lack of personal hygiene, I’m guessing that eye contact is a precious commodity that he isn’t often afforded.

Men and women are desperate to tell me how the world works and the longer I listen the more reason I see in their madness. I eavesdrop on a one sided conversation a woman has with a brother that died a long time ago. She points a dirty finger and accuses him of molesting her and ruining her life, then with real tears for a fake brother she forgives him and I can only wonder if she got the privilege to tell him all those things while he still traversed this world.

If home is where the heart is then I suspect that these people here are having an out of body experience.

I see a man tell a dirty joke in a forgiven language to no one and everyone.

Do these people know that they matter? Do they know that they exist? If one of them dies will there be anyone to carry on the memory of the fallen? God, do they know that they’re loved? It’s gut-wrenching to see people with stories of anguish and lies, stories that will never be told wandering the streets like tumbleweeds in a high wind. I would ask but I’m not sure I’m fluent enough in the tongue of insanity to make sense of the gibberish responses.

 If we are dwelling in a sea of humanity then these people are goldfishes.

A dime a dozen and passed over by society.

How does God judge those that don’t exist in this physical world, but rather exist in a mental state of confusion? Gently I hope. They’ll die with no headstone and no mourners. Can we restore these people simply by making them feel loved?

I read a book once where a man wrote that we are defined by those that love us. If that’s true then that wide chasm we believe separates us from the bums is but a small step filled with heartbreak. It’s promises made but never kept. It’s hurt that’s never had a chance to heal. It’s disappointment without relief that has turned these people’s minds into the soup they stand in line for.

I feel like everyone here wants to rob me but they’d settle for telling me their life story.

They come to me with outstretched hands accidentally asking for the one thing they need most, change. The sad thing is that I possess the key to the change they so desperately need and I carry it with me almost daily but the only time I really use it is for trivia, or to prove a point in an argument, or when I want to appear righteous. It’s a book that is full of divine truth that is all too often overlooked and always taken for granted by those with easy access to it. The people here need to be told that they are loved by the author of that book because until they understood that they are precious and have worth they’re just lost sheep caught out in the harsh weather of indifference.

My porcelain heart breaks again for these people who live under the lie that they are not important.

 If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then the road to heaven must be paved with acts of faith.

We can choose to ignore what’s going on but a spade is a spade and ignorance is just ignorance. Anyone who calls it bliss is too foolish to appreciate bliss.

I see a man pull a lamp from a trash pile and like the lamp can no longer, his face lights up. Deep wrinkle lines in his face battered by too much substance abuse showed me a map of happiness not often expressed. “I’ve found stuff like and sold it at pawn shops for $600”, he tells me because my look of amusement at his antics shows that I’m aware his heart still beats. I smile and don’t say that I’m sure he’ll spend the money on this that will quicken death’s inevitable march. He keeps smiling and showing the other vagrants and I’m almost jealous that one man could divine such pleasure from a forgotten lamp.

I feel like everyone here wants to rob me but they’d settle for telling me their life story.

Story of Love

This is a little poem that I wrote a long time ago and just thought I'd dredge up. I wrote it for a lesson plan and I'll admit it's actually not too bad, but then again I don't know if it's any good either.

Story of Love

In the beginning there was God, and God was love

He was perfect in his love and because of it God created man

With the first breath of life that was forced into the dust figure of Adam God intended love to be the very power behind the start of life

When Adam awoke he found a world created for him because a powerful Maker wanted to give Adam the very finest he had to offer

The day time was filled with a paradise of creatures on earth and at night the skies displayed the vast theater of God

Adam and God dwelled together in love

Because God wanted Adam's knowledge of love to deepen he soon gave Adam a companion to walk with him through the many trials of life

For God knew that although he had created something perfect in love that man would turn his back on God and choose what he foolishly thought to be wisdom

Perfect in its conception by the creator and forever marred by the creation, man fell and with it love too was forever altered

But hope still lingered

Eventually love blossomed and Adam and Eve conceived sons

Tragically the earth was once again struck by dark powers when love took on a deplorable new form, love of the self

Cain murdered Able

Like dark stands opposite to light so hate was born to diminish love

God's people went about the earth disrupting God's intentions until redemption for mankind became an impossible concept

Even though the evil of men had spread beyond reproof God loved his creation still and so he gave it a chance to start over in the form of a forty day torrent of water from the heavens

Yet mankind still sought to split themselves into factions, warring in a never-ending conquest for superiority, abandoning the concept of love

Through the ages God's faith in us endured

He still loved his people enough to give them heroes with names that echo in eternity, names like Moses, Joseph, Jacob, Elijah, Ruth, Ester, David, Job, and Daniel

While man continued to flourish and flounder, God devised a way to once and for all communicate his extreme love for a people he so desperately wanted to connect to

Christ was born of a woman, and God incarnate walked the earth

Christ loved everyone regardless of race, creed, station in life, or deeds committed in the past

Christ shattered our concept of love when he not only told us to love our enemies but then died to prove that he meant it

God stood by and sacrificed his own son that through the perfection of his life and ultimately the selflessness of his death, all men might have a standard to which they could hold love

When Christ rose after descending for three days into hell he returned triumphant as a living testament that love conquers all, even a torturous death, even for an unrepentant species

Our knowledge of love could have stopped there but God wanted our understanding to be complete and deep and so he gave us twenty-three other books of the Bible after the stories of the life and times of Christ, so that we could fully appreciate what our Heavenly Father has done for us in giving us love

Throughout his books love was an overarching theme and at the end came a warning of what was to come when God's love would leave this world

We now stand as a culture that doesn't understand what the true significance of the word love

We have perverted, twisted, misused, misunderstood, and abused this gift of love

We have taken it from its exalted position and made it a cliché to be falsely understood in a single song on the radio

Rejecting the shape of love we have instead formed a mold into which we continually cram our limited understanding of love

Stripped of its power, brought low by villains, and overused to the extremity, love now seems a trite phrase that we can barely tell one another with conviction

The idea that an all powerful God could hunger for a connection with us so much that he sent the most precious gift that he could fashion and then let dirty hands put nails into his sons' is so unbelievable that the world at large chooses to reject it

Rather we'd set our sight on things that glitter in the sun or melt in our hands

We'll stamp the word on t-shirts, tattoo it on our bodies, demand it from our fellow man, but all the mean while, fail to truly witness it a world created solely for us

God's love is so limitless, so profound, so deep and wide, so singular, so important, that to really think about it would bring the proudest man to his knees in utter awe of the thought that it's also so personal

You can't experience joy without it, it's the sweet flavoring of life that makes tragedy bearable

Love is a connection so unfathomably incomprehensible that we strive to make mentioning it a routine in order to survive the day

Unlike any other force in the universe it can tear a soul asunder, rip the heart right from our chest, and at the same time it's the only thing that can ever make us truly whole

No other gift could be so precious, no other feeling could be so breathtakingly stunning, no other desire so provocative as love

No matter what we tell ourselves, no matter what we've done, no matter where we've been, or no matter how far we've gone, Christ promises us that he will always unconditionally, unflinchingly, unchangingly, undeservingly, eternally love us for who we are

As the story of love is being continually written it makes each of us stop and ponder our role

Will we become beacons of God's love or a bitter example of a loveless life wasted?

Can we attempt to live up to the lofty ideals that Christ gave us for love or will we rather fall short of the intensity that love has the potential to hold?

It comes down to just this and nothing more, can we, knowing what God has done for us in writing the story of love, afford to take our names out of that book of life, by denying the existence of our creator and can we accept that we are worthy to be loved just as our neighbor is worthy of being loved?

In the end there is God, and God is love

Ephesians 3:16-19 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Creation

I was talking to my dad the other day as we sat at Flame Broiler eating a healthy lunch. Being the concerned father that he is he asked how my studies were going and what I was doing in class at the moment. I told him that I'm bogged down in studying 3 different views of the timeline of creation and that to be honest I was getting a little fed up with it. I asked him if he had an opinion on the whole subject and, being that he is a Peterson of course he had an opinion. He said that he had all ways ascribed to the K.I.S.S. method of reading the Bible. He smiled and told me that stood for Keep It Simple Stupid. He said that as he’d read the Bible throughout his life he’s found this principal to be a good one and that all too often we tend to muddle things in the Bible and to confuse what it’s trying to tell us in the process of appearing to be smart. He said that although there are different views really what matters is that God did the creating and the rest will be argued until the end of time. Ultimately as we conversed and in light of my own meditations I’m inclined to agree. I remember reading the story of the creation of the world and falling into the wonder of it as I was amazed that God was so powerful he created everything around us. I remember trying to imagine what it must have looked like if I was standing at the creator’s side and marveling over each new wonder as he unveiled it. I think that God must have had a grand old time in fashioning the different animals that we see now, from the long necked giraffe to the fat hippopotamus. I was always entranced with the notion that God was so incredibly creative that he could think up a world where all those wonders exist. As I got older and began to battle with the realities of creation, I took a severe apologetic approach to the whole matter. I lost myself in trying desperately to disprove evolution and to make sure that if and when I got into debates that I would come out looking smarter than my opponent. I had statistics and witty comments to make on a wide variety of topics concerning creation and I was a force to be reckoned with. As I grew older still and entered the world of college I was again taken to a state of wonder as I examined biology, anatomy, chemistry, geology, and astronomy. The natural sciences were breathtaking and learning even more about the intricacies of the natural world renewed my high opinion of our Creator. I've kept up with science over the years and would read each new article concerning the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle and the Large Hadron Collider. I would read about science looking into the far corners of the galaxy and discovering new solar systems. I’ve always been a big science fiction fan and I love that idea that there might be something else out there, even if this is bad theology. I could've gone into a field of study that concerned the cosmos and I even went to summer space camp when I was younger, but as I matured in my faith I realized that while knowledge of creation is good, knowledge of the creator is better. Then as I went into seminary I was hoping to be wowed and amazed all over again, but something funny happened. Instead of looking at the breadth and depth of God it became an academic study of the regenerate or unregenerate Paul in Romans 7. It started becoming about who was right, Calvin or Augustine? I found myself in bitter discussion with friends about the nature and degree of predestination and what the correct hermeneutical interpretation of Luke 16 really is. And somewhere along the way God fell from the sky and from nature and landed solidly into my textbook and that’s where he stayed. It’s hard to see the forest when you’re busy cataloging and dissecting the trees. But as I looked and really thought and prayed over the passage of creation, flickers of memories came back like scenes from a movie I've lived through. I was reminded of the tears that streaked down a friend’s face as he and I sat on a rock and watched the sunrise over a valley completely uninhabited by man. I was reminded of a night in Alaska when I saw the sky shimmer an alien green as traces of the northern lights meandered across the sky. I thought of sitting on the ruins of an abbey in Whales and finding a peace there that seems to escape me in the daily rat race. I was reminded of a time where I stepped out of a hut in small village town in the middle of the Ecuadorian jungle and looked up and saw the night sky. It was bright and blazing and I felt like if I looked too hard into it I’d lose my grip on gravity and fall into an illuminated universe and go careening into the Milky Way. I looked back at those times and saw that they were good. I get it. After every day God looked on his creation and saw that it was good, and I couldn't agree with him more. I have every intention of finishing my degree and I will have a ready answer if a student asks me where I stand on the order of decrees. I’ll be able to share my opinion on the triune nature of God and I’ll be able to explain why I ascribe to the day-age view of creation. I’ll do all that and what’s more I’ll be able to tell people why I see God in his works of nature. Why I look at the ocean in its seeming infinity and the moon on its path through the sky and why I know that God must have created all of that, because when I look at it I can see that it’s good. Why I’ll be able to look at my wife knowing that God created us individually and to be together and I know that it’s good. When my father told me to keep it simple there’s a truth there that cannot be quantified or calculated, it’s the call to know what the Bible says and why it says it, without losing the wonder of why it even has to say anything at all.