Is Jesus God?

I am not writing to prove if God exists, because everyone knows that all things in nature have a cause; therefore, the universe can’t cause itself. Nor can it always have been, because due to the exponential progression in conscience, we would not still be sinning by now. And according to the same law, there cannot be an eternity of the past of cause and effects of gods creating gods or supernatural causes in the past. We are left with only one answer: there must be an uncreated Creator who intelligently designed everything except Himself, since He always existed.

I am also not writing to compare Christianity to other religions or world-views, because I have already done that and there is no comparison and little satisfaction in seeing how man makes “self” his center in so many different ways. If you have come to the point I am at after several years as a born-again child of God through Jesus Christ (the only way), you know your faith gets tested. The decision is between a Creator who doesn’t enter His creation and One who does. The technical name for not entering His creation is “deism”. The technical name for entering His creation is the theism of “Christianity”. Which one is right, where does the evidence lead us, is the evidence overwhelming, and can a plausible scenario be drawn up for how sin could have come into Christianity to create a false resurrection?

Second Hand Information

There are those church fathers and second generation apostles who knew the first generation apostles, but second hand information is not the all determining factor, especially secular sources. And there are competing religions which attempt at a resurrection after Jesus death and resurrection, even some accounts of something vaguely resembling a resurrection before Christ, but always fails on some point or another. Because 1 in 3 people call themselves Christian and the Bible is the freest book in the world, this accessibility to the Word of God is something you would expect from a gracious and loving God.

The prescient issue becomes what evidence as certain proof exists in the Word of God that is so solid, that it renders a final decision for or against Christ. The possibilities as I see it are, Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or He is God. No other option is worthy of consideration, for He surely lived and walked the Earth. If He is God then the Bible for the most part at the very least is true. If He is a liar, then we need to reject Christianity for its main doctrine. If Jesus was a lunatic, Christianity likewise must be rejected because Jesus was a madman. But if He is God, then you ought to spend an incredible amount of time in your life in prayer, worship, fellowship, reading His Word and books on the Word of God to allow the revelation of the Holy Spirit to work in your spirit and to know God’s will.

Is it possible Jesus presented Himself differently than He was portrayed by the original apostles or second hand writers? No, because of many reasons, but for our purposes, we will sum up those reasons by saying almost all skeptical scholars admit Jesus lived, walked the Earth and was convinced He Himself was the Messiah. If Jesus is God, it would be no difficulty at all for God to enter into His creation. It seems quite clear He truly believed He was the Messiah.

What It All Comes Down To?

“God raised Jesus from the dead” passes all these tests:

1. There is great explanatory scope. The Bible explains why the tomb was empty, why the disciples saw postmortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came into being.

2. There is 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’ unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection makes sense as the divine confirmation of those radical claims.

4. It is not ad hoc or contrived. It requires only one additional evidence which is…God exists.

5. It is in accordance with accepted beliefs. The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” does not in any way conflict with the accepted belief that people do not rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief as wholeheartedly as much as God raised Jesus from the dead.

6. The resurrection of Jesus far outstrips any rival theories in meeting the above conditions. Down through history, various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered, but they all have been universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. No naturalistic theory has, in fact, attracted a great number of scholars.

(These six points are a summary from historian C. B. McCullagh in his book, Justifying Historical Descriptions.)

Therefore, the only explanation of the established facts seems to be that God raised Jesus from the dead and because Jesus is God. May you now do what your conscience is telling you to do.

As you mature in your faith, the only real challenge that comes up is His missing body, a resurrected body and then a raised up body witnessed visually. The reason this is so hard to fathom is because it just doesn't happen in the natural world, but with God all things are possible. If it was His intention to do it, He has already done it. And the evidence is overwhelming and unchallenged. We must go where the evidence leads us despite all emotional ties. That is what it means to be intellectually honest with oneself.

Troy Brooks