Proofs and Assurances | Sunday, August 22, 2021

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son... who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person... (Hebrews 1:1–3)

He that the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins... If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most pitiable. (1 Corinthians 15:16–19)

If general and special revelation can only take us so far, the resurrection of Jesus is the proof that grounds the whole Christian faith.

The Limits of General and Special Revelation

For several weeks I have been intentionally building a foundation for faith. I have argued that general revelation—revelation from creation, consciousness, and conscience—leads us to conclude that a Creator exists, that this Creator is powerful enough to make everything that exists, and that He is intelligent, possessing the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to make all things. From what God has made within us we can also infer that this God is good, true, loving, beautiful, and moral, and that He wants to be known by His creation.

All of this falls under what theologians call general revelation—knowledge generally available to any person, in any place, at any time. In Psalm 19 David says this revelation is constantly proclaiming God's existence day and night in every language. In Romans 1 Paul says we are without excuse regarding God's existence; these things are self-evidently true.

But general revelation has limits, especially regarding the Creator's nature and will. If there is a Creator, what is He like? What does He want? Why did He create? These questions are unknowable through general revelation alone. Therefore we need an apocalypse of God—we need the Creator to reveal Himself in language intelligible to us. We cannot know Him in any real, relational way without special revelation. And though the rational skeptics of our day doubt such a thing, I argued previously that God has, at various times and in various ways, spoken in times past so that we might know His nature and His will.

Why We Need Personal Revelation

My aim in this series has been to introduce you to the unknown God. God desires that we not merely know about Him but actually know Him in relationship. Yet special revelation also has its limits. We need a greater revelation than general and special revelation together.

Let me illustrate. Imagine I were single, working behind the counter at a coffee shop, and a cute girl came in regularly to do a Bible study with her friend. I want to know her, but she hasn't noticed me. I could leave special treats at her table, hoping she pieces together that someone is behind them. I could ask a co-worker to carry messages back and forth. But communicating by proxy is hard—things get lost in transmission, mixed up, convoluted. If I really want a relationship, I need personal interaction. I have to reveal myself to her personally.

That story is actually close to how my own marriage began some sixteen years ago. A cute girl came into the coffee shop our church operated, a co-worker arranged for us to meet, and seven months later we were married. Fifteen years later we have four kids and a small zoo of animals at home. The point is the parallel: gifts and proxy messages are limited; relationship requires personal revelation.

The Creator who made this universe is outside the box. To reveal Himself fully to those inside the box—whom He made for relationship—He has to step inside the box and come down to our level. He must move beyond general and special revelation to personal revelation. And that is exactly what the Bible says happened. To skeptics this seems incredible, far out, perhaps impossible or highly improbable. To believe it, we need proof—we need assurance.

Paul's Assurance in Athens

That is where we left off in Acts 17. Paul is making known the unknown God to skeptical philosophers in Athens. He presents amazing truths about God's nature—that God is a person, not an impersonal force; that He is Creator and the giver and sustainer of life; that He is not distant but near, both transcendent and immanent. These were the wise guys of the first century, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, and Paul knows his message seems far out.

So he says, in Acts 17:31, that God has given assurance of all this by raising Jesus from the dead. God revealed Himself through what He made so that we would seek Him; He revealed His nature and will to those who seek Him; and then He went further and became a human being so that we could have relationship with Him.

My goal over this message and next is twofold. First, I want to show that this seemingly far-out story is what the Bible actually teaches. Second, I want to show that you should trust it as evidentially and historically true—that there is evidence, not only in Scripture but throughout history. And finally I want to drive home what this means for us: how shall we then live if these things are true?

What the Bible Teaches About Jesus

Is this really what the Bible teaches? In Hebrews 1, the author says God spoke in times past to the fathers through the prophets, but "in these last days" He has spoken to us by His Son—appointed heir of all things, through whom He made the worlds, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. The Bible teaches that Jesus is a man—capital M, Man—with the nature of God. That is what it means to be the Son of God: my son shares my human nature; the offspring of a horse has a horse nature; the Son of God has the very nature of God. He is fully God and fully man, and He came to personally reveal the glory of God to us.

John's Gospel says the same: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." The Word was with God, was God, and was active in creation—and then the Word became flesh. Jesus is the perfect personal revelation of God, the apocalypse of God, the One who shows us what God is really like in human form.

Philippians 2 brings the whole idea to the surface. Over the last year, translating this passage from the original language, I've gained a deeper grasp of it. Paul writes that we should have the mind of Christ Jesus, "who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men... He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name."

Taken together—Hebrews 1, John 1, Philippians 2—the Bible teaches that God became a man to make the way for man to come to God. This individual called the Word, the Son of God, Jesus, became a man and humbled Himself to make it possible for us to come to God.

A Far-Out Claim That Needs Proof

This is the most basic level of what Christians have believed and taught for twenty centuries. Skeptics say you can't rationally believe these things—that a Creator outside this universe stepped into it 2,000 years ago sounds like the stuff of myth or Marvel comic books. Perhaps you watching are a skeptic, or you have a family member or co-worker who is. Yet this is exactly what the creeds, catechisms, and deep theologies of the church, going back to the earliest fathers, have always confessed.

Why believe it? Because as far out as it seems, there is assurance and proof, and your trust and commitment are warranted. How can I be assured my faith and commitment to Jesus are necessary and not in vain? That is the key question.

After Athens, Paul went to Corinth (Acts 18:1). Years later he wrote the Corinthians, and in 1 Corinthians 2 he says, "I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." In chapter 1 he says, "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God... we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called... the power of God and the wisdom of God." That message was foolishness to the philosophers on Mars Hill, and it may be foolishness to the person in the cubicle next to yours—but to those being saved it is the power of God.

The Resurrection: Proof Point and Breaking Point

How do I know my faith is not in vain? In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul gives the proof. "I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you... by which also you are saved, if you hold fast... unless you believed in vain." Here is the proof that your trust in Jesus is warranted: "I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

Then Paul lists witnesses: Jesus was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve, then by over five hundred at once—most still alive—then by James, then by all the apostles, and last of all by Paul himself, who calls himself the least of the apostles because he persecuted the church. This is the same assurance he gave in Athens: God has given assurance of these things by raising Jesus from the dead.

And if the resurrection is not true, Paul spells out the implications. "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty... you are still in your sins... and those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most pitiable."

The resurrection is the proof point and the breaking point of the Christian faith. If Jesus did not rise, everything I preach is for nothing, and your commitment to Him is totally in vain. As Paul says in 15:32, "If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." If there is no resurrection, you might as well be a humanist living for the passions of the flesh.

There is a real problem: dead people don't rise; it defies what we think we know. So how can we believe this is proof? That is largely where I'll go next week—the historical and extra-biblical evidence for the resurrection, what its implications are if true, and how we should then live.

To the Skeptic: Be Skeptical of Your Skepticism

To the skeptic watching, I understand, and I don't think your skepticism is wholly bad. The claims of the Bible are a lot to take in. I believe these things because I have consciously considered the evidence and found that it supports a personal Creator who made all things seen and unseen, who made us to seek Him, and who revealed Himself personally by coming as the man Jesus of Nazareth—who died, was buried, and three days later rose and was seen by many witnesses. Not only is there evidence for this; these things make more sense than the alternative narratives we are told.

Consider the leading story of our day. From a physics institute website in the United Kingdom: most physicists believe the universe was born in a Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, when all the energy of the cosmos was squeezed into a space far smaller than a grain of sand or an atom. For whatever reason this hot, dense cauldron ballooned at a terrifying rate. Supposedly, within the first second, the concepts of time, space, and the laws of physics solidified out of nothing—ex nihilo. From there, order began to emerge out of chaos, without any input from the outside, into a finely tuned, perfectly ordered universe—contrary to the second law of thermodynamics and the law of entropy.

The account continues: subatomic particles like quarks formed first, then protons and neutrons; about three minutes later the universe cooled to a billion degrees, allowing nuclei to form; after twenty minutes fusion stopped, leaving a hot soup of electrons and hydrogen and helium nuclei; after 380,000 years electrons paired with nuclei to make the first atoms; hundreds of millions of years later the first stars formed.

This story is repeated ad nauseam across countless websites and textbooks. It is, I would say, a confessional catechism of scientism, driven home through Discovery Channel shows, TED talks, YouTube videos, and classrooms. It answers life's questions: Where did I come from? A Big Bang and random mutation. Who am I? An animal descended from other animals. Why am I here? To perpetuate my species. Where do I go when I die? Back into the ground to be broken down by lower organisms. That is a pretty far-out story too. So be skeptical of your assumptions, and consider what the counterfactuals to your view may be.

To the Christian: Your Faith Is Rational

To the Christian watching, your faith is not irrational, and your beliefs can be based on evidence—not only the evidence of Scripture. Next week I'll talk about the evidence that supports the seemingly far-out claim that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and rose again the third day, seen by witnesses. If it can be shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Jesus rose from the dead, then it causes us to re-examine everything in this world and in the Scriptures in a totally different way.

So to the skeptic I say, be skeptical of your skepticism. And to the Christian I say, be encouraged: your faith is rational and grounded in evidence that can be examined. You were created by God for a purpose; He made you uniquely you, and as you find and fulfill that purpose your life will glorify Him and find true joy and satisfaction. Of these things I am thoroughly convinced. Over many years of considering the evidence, I am encouraged more and more that my trust in and commitment to Jesus makes sense—and I hope you will come to see that too.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would open our hearts to receive Your word and help us comprehend these things. Would You reveal Yourself, Lord—because if it is true, as I believe it is, that You are real, then I am not talking into thin air but to the Creator of all things. If it is true that You exist, then You are able to reveal Yourself to us by Your Spirit. So I pray for anyone tuning in to this broadcast, whether Christian or skeptic, that You would further reveal Yourself to them, open their heart and mind that they might see You by faith, come to trust You, and commit their lives to You. For we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.