Guest Post: The Resurrection of Jesus

by William Lane Craig

I spoke recently at a major Canadian university on the existence of God. After my talk, one slightly irate co-ed wrote on her comment card, “I was with you until you got to the stuff about Jesus. God is not the Christian God!”

This attitude is all too typical today. Most people are happy to agree that God exists; but in our pluralistic society it has become politically incorrect to claim that God has revealed Himself decisively in Jesus. What justification can Christians offer, in contrast to Hindus, Jews, and Muslims, for thinking that the Christian God is real?

The answer of the New Testament is: the resurrection of Jesus. “God will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17.31). The resurrection is God’s vindication of Jesus’ radical personal claims to divine authority.

So how do we know that Jesus is risen from the dead? The Easter hymnwriter says, “You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!” This answer is perfectly appropriate on an individual level. But when Christians engage unbelievers in the public square—such as in “Letters to the Editor” of a local newspaper, on call-in programs on talk-radio, at PTA meetings, or even just in conversation with co-workers—, then it’s crucial that we be able to present objective evidence in support of our beliefs. Otherwise our claims hold no more water than the assertions of anyone else claiming to have a private experience of God.

Fortunately, Christianity, as a religion rooted in history, makes claims that can in important measure be investigated historically. Suppose, then, that we approach the New Testament writings, not as inspired Scripture, but merely as a collection of Greek documents coming down to us out of the first century, without any assumption as to their reliability other than the way we normally regard other sources of ancient history. We may be surprised to learn that the majority of New Testament critics investigating the gospels in this way accept the central facts undergirding the resurrection of Jesus. I want to emphasize that I am not talking about evangelical or conservative scholars only, but about the broad spectrum of New Testament critics who teach at secular universities and non-evangelical seminaries. Amazing as it may seem, most of them have come to regard as historical the basic facts which support the resurrection of Jesus. These facts are as follows:

FACT #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. This fact is highly significant because it means, contrary to radical critics like John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, that the location of Jesus’ burial site was known to Jew and Christian alike. In that case, the disciples could never have proclaimed his resurrection in Jerusalem if the tomb had not been empty. New Testament researchers have established this first fact on the basis of evidence such as the following:

1. Jesus’ burial is attested in the very old tradition quoted by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:

. . . that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he was buried,
and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

Paul not only uses the typical rabbinical terms “received” and “delivered” with regard to the information he is passing on to the Corinthians, but vv. 3-5 are a highly stylized four-line formula filled with non-Pauline characteristics. This has convinced all scholars that Paul is, as he says, quoting from an old tradition which he himself received after becoming a Christian. This tradition probably goes back at least to Paul’s fact-finding visit to Jerusalem around AD 36, when he spent two weeks with Cephas and James (Gal. 1.18). It thus dates to within five years after Jesus’ death. So short a time span and such personal contact make it idle to talk of legend in this case.

2. The burial story is part of very old source material used by Mark in writing his gospel. The gospels tend to consist of brief snapshots of Jesus’ life which are loosely connected and not always chronologically arranged. But when we come to the passion story we do have one, smooth, continuously-running narrative. This suggests that the passion story was one of Mark’s sources of information in writing his gospel. Now most scholars think Mark is already the earliest gospel, and Mark’s source for Jesus’ passion is, of course, even older. Comparison of the narratives of the four gospels shows that their accounts do not diverge from one another until after the burial. This implies that the burial account was part of the passion story. Again, its great age militates against its being legendary.

3. As a member of the Jewish court that condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. There was strong resentment against the Jewish leadership for their role in the condemnation of Jesus (I Thess. 2.15). It is therefore highly improbable that Christians would invent a member of the court that condemned Jesus who honors Jesus by giving him a proper burial instead of allowing him to be dispatched as a common criminal.

4. No other competing burial story exists. If the burial by Joseph were fictitious, then we would expect to find either some historical trace of what actually happened to Jesus’ corpse or at least some competing legends. But all our sources are unanimous on Jesus’ honorable interment by Joseph.

For these and other reasons, the majority of New Testament critics concur that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the burial of Jesus in the tomb is “one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.”1

FACT #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. Among the reasons which have led most scholars to this conclusion are the following:

1. The empty tomb story is also part of the old passion source used by Mark. The passion source used by Mark did not end in death and defeat, but with the empty tomb story, which is grammatically of one piece with the burial story.

2. The old tradition cited by Paul in I Cor. 15.3-5 implies the fact of the empty tomb. For any first century Jew, to say that of a dead man “that he was buried and that he was raised” is to imply that a vacant grave was left behind. Moreover, the expression “on the third day” probably derives from the women’s visit to the tomb on the third day, in Jewish reckoning, after the crucifixion. The four-line tradition cited by Paul summarizes both the gospel accounts and the early apostolic preaching (Acts 13. 28-31); significantly, the third line of the tradition corresponds to the empty tomb story.

3. The story is simple and lacks signs of legendary embellishment. All one has to do to appreciate this point is to compare Mark’s account with the wild legendary stories found in the second-century apocryphal gospels, in which Jesus is seen coming out of the tomb with his head reaching up above the clouds and followed by a talking cross!

4. The fact that women’s testimony was discounted in first century Palestine stands in favor of the women’s role in discovering the empty tomb. According to Josephus, the testimony of women was regarded as so worthless that it could not even be admitted into a Jewish court of law. Any later legendary story would certainly have made male disciples discover the empty tomb.

5. The earliest Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body (Matt. 28.15) shows that the body was in fact missing from the tomb. The earliest Jewish response to the disciples’ proclamation, “He is risen from the dead!” was not to point to his occupied tomb and to laugh them off as fanatics, but to claim that they had taken away Jesus’ body. Thus, we have evidence of the empty tomb from the very opponents of the early Christians.

One could go on, but I think that enough has been said to indicate why, in the words of Jacob Kremer, an Austrian specialist in the resurrection, “By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb.”2

FACT #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.

This is a fact which is almost universally acknowledged among New Testament scholars, for the following reasons:

1. The list of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection appearances which is quoted by Paul in I Cor. 15. 5-7 guarantees that such appearances occurred. These included appearances to Peter (Cephas), the Twelve, the 500 brethren, and James.

2. The appearance traditions in the gospels provide multiple, independent attestation of these appearances. This is one of the most important marks of historicity. The appearance to Peter is independently attested by Luke, and the appearance to the Twelve by Luke and John. We also have independent witness to Galilean appearances in Mark, Matthew, and John, as well as to the women in Matthew and John.

3. Certain appearances have earmarks of historicity. For example, we have good evidence from the gospels that neither James nor any of Jesus’ younger brothers believed in him during his lifetime. There is no reason to think that the early church would generate fictitious stories concerning the unbelief of Jesus’ family had they been faithful followers all along. But it is indisputable that James and his brothers did become active Christian believers following Jesus’ death. James was considered an apostle and eventually rose to the position of leadership of the Jerusalem church. According to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, James was martyred for his faith in Christ in the late AD 60s. Now most of us have brothers. What would it take to convince you that your brother is the Lord, such that you would be ready to die for that belief? Can there be any doubt that this remarkable transformation in Jesus’ younger brother took place because, in Paul’s words, “then he appeared to James”?

Even Gert L¸demann, the leading German critic of the resurrection, himself admits, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”3

FACT #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary. Think of the situation the disciples faced after Jesus’ crucifixion:

1. Their leader was dead. And Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising, Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to throw off Israel’s enemies (= Rome) and re-establish a Davidic reign—not suffer the ignominious death of criminal.

2. According to Jewish law, Jesus’ execution as a criminal showed him out to be a heretic, a man literally under the curse of God (Deut. 21.23). The catastrophe of the crucifixion for the disciples was not simply that their Master was gone, but that the crucifixion showed, in effect, that the Pharisees had been right all along, that for three years they had been following a heretic, a man accursed by God!

3. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone’s rising from the dead to glory and immortality before the general resurrection at the end of the world. All the disciples could do was to preserve their Master’s tomb as a shrine where his bones could reside until that day when all of Israel’s righteous dead would be raised by God to glory.

Despite all this, the original disciples believed in and were willing to go to their deaths for the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar from Emory University, muses, “some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was . . . .”4 N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, “that is why, as a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.”5

In summary, there are four facts agreed upon by the majority of scholars who have written on these subjects which any adequate historical hypothesis must account for: Jesus’ entombment by Joseph of Arimathea, the discovery of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.

Now the question is: what is the best explanation of these four facts? Most sholars probably remain agnostic about this question. But the Christian can maintain that the hypothesis that best explains these facts is “God raised Jesus from the dead.”

In his book Justifying Historical Descriptions, historian C. B. McCullagh lists six tests which historians use in determining what is the best explanation for given historical facts.6 The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” passes all these tests:

1. It has great explanatory scope: it explains why the tomb was found empty, why the disciples saw post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came into being.

2. It has great explanatory power: it explains why the body of Jesus was gone, why people repeatedly saw Jesus alive despite his earlier public execution, and so forth.

3. It is plausible: given the historical context of Jesus’ own unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection serves as divine confirmation of those radical claims.

4. It is not ad hoc or contrived: it requires only one additional hypothesis: that God exists. And even that needn’t be an additional hypothesis if one already believes that God exists.

5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis: “God raised Jesus from the dead” doesn’t in any way conflict with the accepted belief that people don’t rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief as wholeheartedly as he accepts the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.

6. It far outstrips any of its rival hypotheses in meeting conditions (1)-(5). Down through history various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered, for example, the conspiracy hypothesis, the apparent death hypothesis, the hallucination hypothesis, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. None of these naturalistic hypotheses succeeds in meeting the conditions as well as the resurrection hypothesis.

Now this puts the sceptical critic in a rather desperate situation. A few years ago I participated in a debate on the resurrection of Jesus with a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He had written his doctoral dissertation on the resurrection, and he was thoroughly familiar with the evidence. He could not deny the facts of Jesus’ honorable burial, empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection. So his only recourse was to come up with some alternate explanation of those facts. And so he argued that Jesus of Nazareth had an unknown, identical twin brother, who was separated from him as an infant and grew up independently, but who came back to Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, stole Jesus’ body out of the tomb, and presented himself to the disciples, who mistakenly inferred that Jesus was risen from the dead! Now I won’t bother to go into how I went about refuting this theory. But I think the example is illustrative of the desperate lengths to which scepticism must go in order to refute the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, the evidence is so powerful that one of the world’s leading Jewishtheologians, the late Pinchas Lapide, who taught at Hebrew University in Israel, declared himself convinced on the basis of the evidence that the God of Israel raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead!7

The significance of the resurrection of Jesus lies in the fact that it is not just any old Joe Blow who has been raised from the dead, but Jesus of Nazareth, whose crucifixion was instigated by the Jewish leadership because of his blasphemous claims to divine authority. If this man has been raised from the dead, then the God whom he allegedly blasphemed has clearly vindicated his claims. Thus, in an age of religious relativism and pluralism, the resurrection of Jesus constitutes a solid rock on which Christians can take their stand for God’s decisive self-revelation in Jesus.

 Notes

1 John A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), p. 131.

2 Jacob Kremer, Die Osterevangelien—Geschichten um Geschichte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977), pp. 49-50.

3 Gerd L¸demann, What Really Happened to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.

4 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996), p. 136.

5 N. T. Wright, “The New Unimproved Jesus,” Christianity Today (September 13, 1993), p. 26.

6 C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 19.

7 Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus, trans. Wilhelm C. Linss (London: SPCK, 1983).

• by William Lane Craig

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-resurrection-of-jesus#ixzz32ZMMIVYO

Guest Post: Is "Heaven is for Real" for Real?

Is "Heaven Is for Real" for Real?: An Exercise In Discernment

T. A. McMahon

There have been quite a number of books written by or about people who claim to have personally visited Heaven.

Some of these authors profess to be Christians while others do not. The descriptions of their experiences vary regarding such things as entering into a dazzling white light at the end of a dark tunnel and being greeted by deceased loved ones, or being in the presence of God and seeing the shed feathers of angels dotting the grand floor of His throne room. Many of their stories contain information that would seem to be beyond their ability to know at the time--or at all.

Although these individuals supply much information, the content raises many questions. Obviously, everything they say can't be true because some of the content in one book contradicts what's written in others. How do we know who is giving us an accurate and truthful account?

A biblical Christian might say that he would compare what they say with what is presented in the Scriptures about Heaven. If it rings true to the Word of God, then it must be true. Well, yes and no. Yes, it must be true to Scripture. What is presented certainly cannot be at odds with what the Bible teaches about Heaven; nevertheless, just because it conforms to Scripture doesn't prove that the person's declaration or experience of beingin Heaven actually took place.

I know a good deal about Heaven from my study of the Bible. If I told you that I had recently visited there and only communicated what I knew was recorded in the Bible about it, you couldn't object to what I said on the basis of my being biblically inaccurate. Accuracy, however, is not the only criterion for biblical discernment. There are many other instructions and examples that we must take into consideration. For example, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12 of a "man in Christ" (no doubt Paul himself) who was caught up to Heaven. He didn't know at the time whether it was an experience in which his spirit had left his body, or a vision while his spirit remained in his body. Nevertheless, he states that what he saw and heard in paradise was not lawful for a man to utter. Paul's experience was followed by a humbling infirmity, which he states that God allowed him to suffer "lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations..." (2 Corinthians:12:6-7
). That isn't always the case in Scripture. The Apostle John obviously was given permission to declare what he witnessed in Heaven in the Book of Revelation. This would seemingly apply as well to the writer of the Book of Job.

But can we be sure that the visions and personal experiences of these writers are true? Absolutely--because their words are found in the Scriptures . Of the Word of God, the psalmist writes, "Thy word is true from the beginning...," and Jesus said, "Thy word is truth" (Psalm:119:160; John:17:17).That is the ultimate verification that the experiences of those men of God indeed took place as they described. Furthermore, since the canon of Scripture was closed in the first century A.D., no one since that time can have his vision of-or his alleged visit to--Heaven  validated in the same way.

Jesus gave us another insight to help our discernment when He told of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man, who had died, was in a place where he was tormented and suffering remorse. Yet he begged Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers so that they would not end up with him in "this place of torment." Abraham's response was: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." And again, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke:16:19-31











).

Armed with the above scriptural teachings for the purposes of discernment, let's apply these and other biblical admonitions and critical questions to a book that is having an impact on Christendom and the American public. Heaven Is for Real was published in 2010 and made the New York Times Best-Sellers list. It has also been the cause of controversy in some fellowships, as believers have been divided in their support of and disputation over the book's veracity.

Heaven Is for Real is a nonfiction account that documents the experience of a three-year-old boy who believes that he visited Heaven. The story is told by the boy's father, an evangelical pastor. He and his wife initially seem to be rather startled by their son's revelations, which he shares over a period of about three years. There is nothing not to like about this Christian family, and much that is quite admirable. The little boy is a typical three- or four-year-old--hardly precocious, but simply matter of fact in relating what he seems to have experienced.

That experience took place when three-year-old Colton was undergoing emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. Not too long afterward, he told his parents that he saw them praying for him outside the operating room. When they asked how he knew what they had been doing he said, "Cause I could see you....I went up out of my body and I was looking down and I could see the doctor working on my body. [Scripture tells us that death takes place when the spirit vacates the body. Yet there was no medical report of a clinical death during Colton's surgery.] And I saw you and Mommy. You were in a little room by yourself, praying; and Mommy was in a different room, and she was praying and talking on the phone" (pp. xx-xxi). The accuracy of Colton's disclosure rocked his parents to the core. But that was just the beginning of revelations that far and away defy natural explanations.

Colton's other revelations included: angels singing "Jesus Loves Me" to him; his sitting on Jesus' lap; meeting John the Baptist and the angel Gabriel; petting Jesus' rainbow-colored horse; his descriptions of Jesus' wounds and attire, including a crown with a pink diamond that Jesus wore; the prevalence of kids in Heaven; his description of everyone there having wings like the angels--all except Jesus, that is; his being recognized by his great grandfather, who died decades before Colton was born; and the description of God as "really, really big."

Although most of Colton's observations in Heaven are not outside the realm of possibility of what could take place there, they are nevertheless extra-biblical insights and information, some being more problematic than others. For example, Colton explains that "Everyone kind of looks like angels in heaven," sporting wings (the size of which are dependent on the individual's size) and a halo. Since the resurrection of believers' transformed physical bodies has yet to take place, their form now in Heaven must lack physical attributes. Hence the need for wings of whatever size makes no sense. Moreover, other than the descriptive visions of the heavenly creatures known as cherubim and seraphim and the decorative designs in the Temple and upon the Mercy Seat, angels that appear to humanity are never described as having wings.

Many supporters of the book claim that any and all objections pale in the face of the supernatural knowledge that Colton reveals--things that were humanly impossible for him to know. For example, he said that he had met his other sister in Heaven. When told by his mother that Cassie was his only sister, his shocking response was, "No....I have two sisters. You had a baby die in your tummy, didn't you?" (p. 94). Colton had never been told of the "painful episode" of the miscarriage, and his parents never knew the gender of the fetus. Colton added, "In heaven, this little girl ran up to me, and she wouldn't stop hugging me....She said she just can't wait for you and Daddy to get to heaven" (p. 96). That revelation seemed to be the most convincing for Colton's parents that their son had indeed visited Heaven: "We had wanted to believe that our unborn child had gone to heaven. Even though the Bible is largely silent on this point, we had accepted it on faith. But now, we had an eyewitness: a daughter we had never met was waiting eagerly for us in eternity" (p. 97).

Was Colton truly an eyewitness in Heaven to everything he described? Much of it is quite mindboggling, notwithstanding the fact that all of it is extra-biblical. Yet it provides alleged insights about Heaven; e.g., a girl dies as a fetus, grows into a little girl in heaven, and then is eagerly awaiting her parents' arrival. What if one or both parents reject the gospel? Would there then be disappointment in a place of perfect bliss?

Consider how Colton's father mentioned that "the Bible is largely silent" on a certain issue. It is also completely silent on the specific things that Colton has revealed. This raises the question as to why God would leave out something of value for us in His inerrant Word, which was given through His prophets "as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter:1:21)--only to reveal it later through a little boy (as well as many others who make similar claims). On the back cover of the book we read, " Heaven Is for Real will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering the chance to see, and believe, like a child."

The Bible is God's precise, absolute, and eternal communication to mankind (Luke:21:33; Hebrews:4:12). It did not come by nor was it left up to the will or imagination of man (2 Peter:1:20). Paul writes, "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe" (1 Thessalonians:2:13). Our faith can be childlike, but it is faith placed in God's Word, not in anyone's alleged "eyewitness" account, be they a child or an adult. Peter was an eyewitness to an incredible event. He saw Jesus supernaturally transfigured before his very eyes and heard the voice of God. We can be sure that the personal experience he had was true because it's reported in Scripture. Nevertheless, he tells us that his personal experience (or anyone else's) is not as trustworthy as the Word of God : "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed" (2 Peter:1:19).

At the time and in the years following Colton's experience, his dad was very interested in having him describe Jesus. He wrote that "as a pastor, I wound up spending a lot of time at hospitals, in Christian bookstores, and at other churches--all places where there are lots of drawings and paintings of Christ....When we came across a picture of Jesus we'd ask Colton, 'What about this one? Is that what Jesus looks like?'" (p. 93). Time after time, Colton would reject the dozens of misrepresentations. Then, nearly three years after Colton's surgery, he was shown a portrait of Jesus painted by a young girl named Akiane, who also claims to have have visited Heaven beginning at the age of four. Colton's reaction was, "Dad, that one's right." His confirmation convinced his father: "Knowing how many pictures Colton had rejected, Sonja [his mother] and I finally felt that in Akiane's portrait, we'd seen the face of Jesus. Or at least a startling likeness" (p. 145).

In Exodus, we find a definitive statement against anyone attempting to make an image of God (Exodus:20:4-5
). That applies to images of Jesus, whether of statues or great religious paintings or on the silver screen. One of the many problems is that they inevitably lead to idolatry, which in turn breeds superstition and occultism. Another related problem is that they must all be false representations because they have no basis in Scripture--other than being condemned. Jesus therefore could not encourage a young girl to paint His portrait.

Those who believe that He did encourage Akiane (because she could then point people to Him through her amazing art skills and her testimony concerning Him) need to compare with Scripture what she, at age 16, says about Jesus: "Jesus shared with us: 'I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to my Father, but through me.' I feel that he invited us to participate in the divinity. Each of us is one of kind [ sic ] original path to the way of truth and light, and without our individual love and effort we cannot understand and reach God" (http://akiane.com/blog/?tag=akiane). Her interpretation rejects Jesus as being the only way for mankind to be reconciled to God. It opposes what Jesus taught in favor of Satan's promise of divinity to Eve (Genesis:3:5). Akiane's paintings and words clearly reflect "another Jesus."

What puzzles many people is how Colton, as a three-year-old at the time of his experience, could attain information, most of which was completely foreign to him at his young age. His parents don't know for sure but believe their son received the visit to Heaven as a gift from God. Their "faith," however sincere and biased toward their little boy, does not have the support of Scripture. How, then, was he able to describe what he did without the input gained from actually being in Heaven? No one can say for sure--not even little Colton. He was in an operating room, surrounded by attending medical personnel, and under the influence of an anesthesia-produced altered state of consciousness.

What we do know about that and other types of drug-induced conditions of mind (even dream states, meditation, and an overworked imagination) is that multitudes of people have reported experiences that seem to validate everything from clinical or near-death events to past-lives journeys to abductions on UFOs. They also reveal information for which they had no basis of knowledge prior to their experiences. It may be that an altered state of consciousness creates a condition in which the mind is like a blank screen, open to outside input. Spirit entities, whose goal it is to undermine the Word of God and deceive the world, might have that ability to program the blank screen and could therefore take advantage of anyone in such a highly susceptible condition (see Dave Hunt, Occult Invasion , pp. 187-90). But again, no one knows for sure how such things take place.

The critical issue for discernment is not "how it works" but "what is being communicated." All that a Bible-believing Christian can do in ascertaining the truth of a matter is to be vigilant by "searching the Scriptures" to see if what is being presented is true to the full counsel of God's Word(Acts:17:11). If we don't do that, whether we are young believers or mature in the faith, we are just as vulnerable to false teachings as those whose circumstances have directly opened them to deceptive experiences.

A believer's life in Christ is shaped by a great many experiences that the Lord allows for our growth in Him. It begins with one's believing the gospel, to which sound doctrine is added. As we abide in Christ's teachings, our discernment will increase, thus protecting us from "being carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians:4:14). Let us therefore take to heart Paul's warning: "I have laid the foundation [of the gospel], and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon" (1 Corinthians:3:10). TBC

Bibiographic details:

• Page name: Is "Heaven Is for Real" for Real?: An Exercise In Discernment
• Author: McMahon, T.A.
• Publisher: The Berean Call
• Site name: thebereancall.org
• Date published: May 1, 2011
• Date accessed: April 30, 2014
• Link: http://www.thebereancall.org/content/heaven-real-real-exercise-discernment-0

Guest Post: Blood Moon Madness

Blood Moon? No Big Deal!...Every few years some well-meaning Christian pops up with the latest Bible "proof" that the world will end, or Rapture will happen, on a certain date. Of course, the date comes and goes, and nothing happens. These date-setters do great harm to the Body of Christ, and are poor witnesses to the world about what Christianity is really about. And they ultimately look like fools while giving great fodder to the enemy.

William Miller, a Baptist pastor, predicted that Jesus would return in 1844. Nothing happened. But his followers today are known as the Seventh Day Adventists. Charles Russell predicted the end of the world in 1914. Nothing happened but his followers today are known as Jehovah's Witnesses. More recently, in the 1970s, Southwest Radio Church published an article on the "Jupiter Effect." They claimed that a certain, once-in-eternity, planet alignment would cause increased gravity causing the earth to be pummeled with earthquakes, storms and other catastrophes, subsequently ushering in the Tribulation. And nothing happened.

Also in the 1970s, Joseph Calhoon from California caught a lot of media attention because he had studied the Egyptian Pyramids extensively and concluded that the inside passages were a timeline sign from God and that the Lord would return in 1979. And nothing happened. In the 1980s the book "88 Reasons Jesus Will Return in 1988" was released, written by Edgar Whisenant. He was so convinced he was 100% correct that he said on national television, "If the Lord doesn't return in 1988, the Bible is wrong." And nothing happened. Whisenant died in 2001.

Then we had Y2K...And, as before, nothing happened. Then there was Harold Camping, a radio host who first predicted Jesus would return in 1994, then changed it to May of 2011, and finally changed it to October of 2011. And nothing happened. Camping did learn great truths this past December when he passed away (as we all will). That brings us to the latest scripture-light theory called The Blood Moons.

Mark Biltz, a pastor in Washington State, first began pushing this bunk to unsuspecting Believers a couple of years ago. Biltz is apparently not a dispensationalist and thus horribly misapplies several Old Testament scriptures to make his theory plausible. John Hagee, who has a couple of doctrinal challenges of his own, has taken up the Blood Moons banner with a best-selling book on the subject, "Four Blood Moons."

Biltz's date-setting theory is based on Joel:2:31: "The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes." Biltz takes Joel:2:31 to be referring to solar and lunar eclipses. When he compared previous eclipses on NASA'a website (it lists all the lunar eclipses from 2000 BC to 3000 AD), he honed in on the lunar tetrads, a rare series of four lunar eclipses in a roughly two-year time period.

Biltz noticed that some of these tetrads fell on past Jewish Feast days and also around the time of some significant Jewish historical events. Biltz then noted that the tetrad appearing in 1493-94 was connected to the time of the great persecution of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition between 1478 and 1534.

He believed the tetrad appearing in 1949-1950 was tied to Israel's rebirth as a nation in 1948. And finally he concluded that the tetrad appearing in 1967-1968 was tied to Israel's recapturing Jerusalem's Old City and Temple Mount in 1967. From those past events, Biltz further concluded that the future tetrad of 2014--2015 will herald in major Biblical events fulfilling Joel:2:31.
Of course, there are many problems with that wild conclusion and it's not happening. [Here are just a few.]

Problem #1: Joel 2 is referring to the Second Coming of Jesus. And that event happens seven years after the Rapture. Therefore, we're at least seven years and a split-second away from the Second Coming so it's impossible for it to happen in 2014-2015.

Problem #2: When you compare other verses that also discuss the sun, moon and stars at the end of the age there are other events that coincide with the moon turning to blood.
"I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth," Rev:6:12

"But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken" (Matt:24:29).

Problem #3: Some 40% of the previous tetrads did NOT coincide with Jewish Feast days or major events in history. So how would you know if the next upcoming tetrad had any significance?
Problem #4:The tetrads that DID match up (Inquisition, Jewish Independence and recovering control of the Old City of Jerusalem) actually happened months or years after the events. So not much of a warning there!

Should we expect God to be in the business of "loosely predicting" the future? When you consider God gave Israel the EXACT DAY the Messiah would come into Jerusalem, in writing, 173,880 days prior, this Blood Moon theory seems pretty lame.

There ARE a lot of prophetic signs being fulfilled in our lifetime. But there's no Biblical basis for tying the Blood Moons into predicting the return of Jesus--they mean zilch!

(Bill Perkins, Compass eNews, Feb. 10, 2014)
TBC Staff - EN. (2014, February 24). Blood Moon Madness. thebereancall.org. Retrieved March 31, 2014 from http://www.thebereancall.org/content/blood-moon-madness

Bite-Sized Bible Studies: Have You Been Born Again?

The majority of people that rejected Jesus during His ministry were not atheists or criminals. The majority were people that truly believed that they had faith in God and were going to Heaven. By not recognizing Jesus as the true and living God, deeply repenting of sin and truly putting their faith in Him, they revealed that their faith was fake and in word only, not truly of the heart. They revealed that they didn't know God at all.

Have you been born again? Does the Holy Spirit indwell you? Do you get convicted of sin? Do you hate sin? Do you agree with what the Bible calls sin? Do you KNOW God PERSONALLY? Has your life been CHANGED since you put your faith in God? Do you wholeheartedly believe that the ONLY way for ANYONE who has heard the gospel to go to Heaven is through repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ?

John 3
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=3&t=NKJV

Bite-Sized Bible Studies: According to His Own Purpose and Grace

Inherently, we know, beyond our own cares and desires, a greater purpose for our lives exists.

I do not create that purpose because I did not create myself. Purpose is born of intent. Intention belongs to a mind, not lifeless matter. Thus, by definition, that intelligent intention must originate with an eternal Creator. His is that mind that has a purpose for me.

I cannot know God's purpose because God is Spirit (immaterial and timeless) and I am a finite man of flesh and bone. God has a purpose for me, so He must reveal it to me. God became a man to reveal His purpose for me, to me, because, in my flesh, I could only comprehend it through human language.

God has been revealed to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God incarnate; God Himself revealing His purpose for all of us through the man Jesus of Nazareth, the living Word of God. God's will is revealed to us through the Bible, the written Word of God. Because Jesus is alive, risen from the dead after dying for our sin, He does reveal God's Word to us, in the Bible, through His Spirit.

Our spirit becomes alive to His Spirit by faith in Jesus; who He is and what He has done for humanity in His death for our sin on the cross and His resurrection from the grave for our eternal life. Without faith in Jesus our spirit is dead to God and we cannot hear His Word or know Him. To be forgiven, receive eternal life and to know God personally, we must sincerely believe in the One sent from God, sent from above.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16)."

 

"Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel... (2 Timothy 1:8-10)"

 

 

Bite-Sized Bible Studies: The Truth Will Set You Free

Someone has said, "absolute truth can't be verified as yet."

What they are saying is that there are absolutely no absolute truths. Here is the problem with this statement; it cannot be verified as true! In fact, the statement is plainly self-refuting.

This link may help: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-objective-truth

Atheists/Evolutionists contradict themselves by caring at all about exposing "false" beliefs for "true" ones. Firstly, they believe there is no absolute truth. If that is true, how could anyone really know if their belief is true? Secondly, if there is no afterlife and we are all simply annihilated at death, then nothing anyone ever says or does means anything at all! This belief in the meaninglessness of life is self-refuting and stands opposed to what we all know innately; that there is meaning and purpose to our lives and in the universe. In fact, there would be no universe or life without meaning and purpose bringing this universe and these lives into existence. Meaning and purpose can only come from God and can only exist if we are eternal. If the Atheists/Evolutionists did not know, inherently, that what they say and do means something, then they would never be found saying anything about what is true or not true. The atheist’s argumentation on truth and meaning refute their own assertions.

This is what Jesus said about knowing truth:

"Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, 'If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'" (John 8:31-32)

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=8&t=NKJV

Armor, A Sword and Walkie Talkies (Pt 2 of 2)

Put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm (Eph. 6:13).

Okay, there it is. One, we need to know what God’s armor is. Two, we need to have all of it. And three, we need to put each piece on. Why is this so important? So that after the spiritual battles you will still be standing, and standing firm! Without God’s armor and weapons, the Devil may very well destroy you. So, it is absolutely imperative for all of us to get this and employ it in our lives.

We’ve covered verses 10 through 13, so let’s look at the armor from verses 14 through 18.

Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness (v. 14).

I like that. First of all, Paul says, when the enemy attacks, stand your ground! “Yeah, why should I be moved, devil? You are attacking one of God’s children here. I have the truth of God and the reality of all that He is. God is good, He is present with me, He is all powerful, He is perfect and right in all of His ways. He is merciful and kind, and He is my refuge and strong tower of defense. God is working all things out for good for me, because I love Him and I am His child. You can’t do anything that my God doesn’t allow you to do. And I trust my God!”

An analogy for the belt of truth could be a weight lifter’s belt. Have you seen one of those? It is that thick, leather belt they wear around their waist when they are lifting those heavy weights. Without it, their bodies begin to buckle under the pressure of all that weight on their shoulders. But with the belt around their waist, their bodies stay straight and upright and can hold the weight for a moment, until they set it down.

We have the truth on our side. Who God is. What He has done. What He is going to do. His character. His mercy and love.

So, #1, the belt of truth. And #2, the body armor of God’s righteousness. When you come under attack, think of the truth of God and the truth of who God is; think of how God is perfect in all of His ways. Think of His character and know that He is working out His perfect plan and perfect purpose for you.

For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News (the Gospel) so that you will be fully prepared (v. 15).

Jesus said, I am leaving you with a gift- peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid (John 14:27). The peace that we have, that has come to us through the Gospel, is the peace of Jesus Christ Himself, the peace of God dwelling in us. Isaiah said that Jesus will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we have access to this peace through Jesus. Amen? Amen!

We are not fully prepared for the attack of the devil unless we put on the peace of God, the truth of who He is, and what He is doing in our lives. We need the peace that only comes from knowing Him. The peace that comes from the Gospel is like entering into a rest. We are resting in what Jesus has done for us, not what we have or have not done for God. He has done it all. We are saved by grace through faith alone, not by works, so that no one may boast except in God and in His goodness and faithfulness. And we are resting on what He is going to do for us, not what we can or cannot do. Oh, the perfect peace found only in the presence of our Lord. Be in that place! Be at peace with what God is doing in your life. Be at peace with where you are at “in Christ.” You are in Christ and He is in you. You are in God’s hands. Remember the storm that Jesus calmed? While they were afraid, He asked the disciples why they had so little faith. He was with them and they should have known that He would save them. Be at peace. Only in our Savior may true and lasting rest be found.

Okay then, the 3rd piece of armor for us to “put on” is resting in our relationship with Christ and being at peace because of our salvation in Him. Putting on the peace that comes from the Gospel is another necessary piece of the armor in order for us to be prepared for the attacks that inevitably will come. Let us seek that rest in the presence of the Lord Jesus daily.

In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil (v. 16).

Faith here I think refers to standing firm in our trust in God with our lives, knowing who He is and that He intends good for us. Faith is seen, it is born out, when we are standing our ground against the enemy as he lies to us or when the attacks keep coming, because we know that God is Sovereign in all things. Our gracious Father works all things out for good for those that have faith in Him. We need to stand strong, continuing to put our faith in Jesus to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect timing in our lives.

I love the illustration the Holy Spirit uses in this verse for faith. When our faith is strong it becomes like a shield that stops the fiery arrows of the devil. I can picture a large, thick metal shield being held up against some nasty and fiery arrows. But, I see those arrows bouncing off of the shield. Just, bing…bing….bing, falling all around and the little fires burning out. Notice that there isn’t just one arrow. Isn’t that true? It seems when we are under attack it just keeps coming, one after another. Make your faith like that big, heavy iron shield. Strong and impenetrable, and keep holding it up against those arrows. One after another they come, but the enemy will exhaust his resources at some point, so hang in there and keep that shield up.

So, #4, keep your faith strong and focused on the Lord and who He is and what He is doing. He is the Creator of all things and all things are held together by Him. He will never let us down!

Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (v. 17).

The fifth and final piece of armor to put on is salvation, and we are to put it on like a helmet. Okay, but what does Paul mean by “put on salvation?” Here’s one possible answer. I think Paul may mean two things here: the hope of our eternal life in Christ and the unpayable debt we owe to Christ for this salvation He has freely given us.

When we are faced with trials and temptations, when the devil is attacking our finances or our loved ones, when we are weak or being persecuted, when things are happening that we just do not understand, look to the cross. Look to the salvation that God has so freely given to us as a gift, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We could not make ourselves right with Him, He did it for us. God humbled Himself and became a man and went to the cross for you and me and for the whole world. That is the sacrifice that He made for us. We need to stay focused on the eternal life that He worked out for us. We need to stay focused on our true home, God’s kingdom. Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” When we remember that we have eternal life, we remember that nothing can or will ever separate us from the love of God in Christ, not even death. No matter what is happening, He keeps our souls safe for all eternity with Him.

 Romans 8:35-39, NLT, says:

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us ( NKJV says, “we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us”). 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen? Amen.

The sixth thing Paul tells us to do is not to “put on” another piece of armor, but to “take the sword of the Spirit”, which he explains is the Word of God.

So, we have five pieces of armor to put on, and now our weapon to take with us is the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures that make up our Bible.

Imagine being on the battle field with all that armor, your helmet and your shield, but with no weapon. And you are out there with no communication device to speak to your commander, your fellow soldiers or allies in this battle. You probably wouldn’t last too long out there. We have been given all the armor and now we just need to put it on. But we must take a weapon for the battle, and our weapon is God’s Word. His word is truth, it is alive, active and effective, piercing through the heart like a sharp, two-edged sword. It goes out and does not return without accomplishing what God set out to accomplish by it. Going through these verses in Ephesians, learning to put on the whole armor of God, is a perfect example of the wisdom, strength and power that we have available to us through His Word. It is the Word that spoke all things into existence.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says:

3 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. 4 We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 5 We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

God’s Word and our prayer life are the weapons we use to knock down the strongholds that the enemy has taken and to take them back in Jesus’ name. These are our spiritual weapons.

So, that is the armor of God and our weapons to fight with, His Word and prayer. Prayer is like a communication device that a soldier might use on the battlefield to reach his commander or fellow soldiers. We must use prayer to reach our High Commander, and we must stay in close coordination with our fellow “soldiers.”

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere (v. 18).

On the battlefield, we can be in constant communication with our Commander. Through prayer we can be asking for help, getting instructions and directions, and just being comforted and encouraged by Him. Prayer is key in this battle. Notice, Paul doesn’t say, “don’t forget to pray every once in a while.” He says, “pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion.” If a soldier is out in the battle and only getting the directives from his/her superiors every once in a while, how can they expect to have victory? We need to be in constant communication with our Savior for His strength, His wisdom, His power and His direction. Lord, help me to call on you more, even constantly!

And we should never forget the fellowship of the believers. Some of us have gotten into the habit of skipping church. And I’m not here to judge or beat anyone over the head, but my wife and I had missed church for some time when we moved to a new state, so we know firsthand. And now that we are back and plugged in, the blessings of our new friends in the Lord are indescribable. There is nothing like loving, Christian fellowship in the Lord. These are God’s fellow soldiers on the battle field, and our brothers and sisters in Christ. They need you and you need them if you are going to have any victories in this spiritual warfare raging all around us, all of the time.

Okay, so to summarize, we found five pieces of armor to put on, one weapon to take with us, a communication device to stay in constant touch with our High Commander and the support of our fellow soldiers in Christ.

For armor, put on truth like a belt and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Gospel. Hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil and put on salvation as your helmet. Take the sword of the Spirit for your weapon, which is God’s Word. And pray in the Spirit at all times and on all occasions for all believers everywhere.

Stay alert in this battle against Satan and his army. Both Paul and Peter exhort us to stand firm against the devil and to stay alert. And be persistent in your prayers for all of God’s army everywhere.

By God’s grace may He arm us, empower us and keep us through this battle. The war has already been won by Christ at the cross. Give us victory in our battles, Lord Jesus. And, may Your Kingdom come soon!

For the full commentary on the Armor of God, visit

http://walkingwithjesus.net/vbv.html