Jesus: Reality

     Who is Jesus?  Like most religious questions, this one would receive many different answers from individuals in any given group.  Some would identify Him as the Son of God, while others might attack Him and His followers.  But very few informed people would dare deny the existence of a historical Jesus.
     Jesus is real.  He is real as we compare the events of His life with Old Testament prophecies.
     "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign," Isaiah 7:14 reveals, "behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel."
     "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah," Micah 5:2 prophesies, "too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.  His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity."
     "Thus says the Lord," Jeremiah 31:15 states in a prediction of Herod's slaughter of the children following the birth of Jesus, "'A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.  Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.'"
     "For He will give His angels charge concerning you," Psalm 91:11-12 says in a statement quoted by the devil in his temptation of Jesus, "to guard you in all your ways.  They will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone."
     "But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphthali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles," Isaiah 9:1-2 foretells of the ministry of Jesus around Capernaum.
     "The people who walk in darkness will see a great light;" Isaiah notes, "those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them."
     "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!" Zechariah says of the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.  "Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
     Psalm 8:2 predicts the praise that would be given Jesus from the mouths of children.
     The Lord's betrayal, abuse and crucifixion are prophesied in passages from Zechariah and Psalms.  The twenty-second Psalm contains a picture of the crucifixion that brings goose-bumps to anyone who realizes that it was written hundreds of years before the actual event.
     Jesus is real.  We recognize the reality of the Master as we see prophesies of all parts of His life fulfilled.
     But the Bible is not enough, skeptics claim.  Let's look at secular history, then, to examine the reality of Jesus.
     "Hence to suppress the rumor," the Roman historian Tacitus wrote of Nero, "he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.  Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also."
     Although Tacitus obviously did not like the Christians, he did not even attempt to deny the historical nature of Jesus and His crucifixion.
     Lucian of Samosata, a Roman satirist of the second century, also acknowledged the historical reality of Jesus and His crucifixion.
     "He was the Christ," the first-century Jewish historian Josephus stated, "and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him."
     Thallus and Phlegon, who both wrote during the first century, mentioned the enexplainable darkness which covered the earth on the day of Christ's crucifixion.
     In the middle of the second century a man called Justin Martyr wrote a "Defense of Christianity" to the emperor Antonius Pius.  Among other things, Justin suggested that the emperor examine the "Acts of Pilate," the official report of the Roman governor who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus.
     We do not have the emperor's written reply, but we do know two things.  He did not have Justin killed, which he would have done if the Christian would have bothered him with false claims.  And we know what action Antonius Pius took.  He ordered a relaxation of the persecution of Christians.
     At the close of the same century, Tertullian addressed another defense of Christianity to both the emperor and the senate.  According to Tertullian, Tiberius, the emperor at the time of the crucifixion, acknowledged the divinity of Jesus after reading Pilate's report.  Tertullian appeals to the "Acts of Pilate" as proof of unexplained darkness, a sudden earthquake, guards running away in terror, Jewish leaders claiming the disciples had stolen the body, and the resurrection of Jesus.
     Jesus is real.  He is real in prophecy, and He is real in secular history.

     Jesus is real in prophecy and in secular history.  And, if the biblical and secular accounts are correct, then there are also some conclusions of logic that point to the reality of Jesus.
     If there really was a man named Jesus, and if He really was crucified, there was some one who could have saved Him from death.  The only human who knew for sure His origin was His mother, Mary.  Had Jesus not have been the Son of God, Mary would have undoubtedly stepped forward to stop the horrible execution of her first child.  All she would have needed to do was to testify that Joseph, or some other man, was the father of Jesus.  Her silence as they drove the nails into His hands and feet are powerful confirmation of the divinity of Jesus.
     There is also the question of the Lord's body.  We have historical evidence of His crucifixion.  But we also know that the body was not still in the tomb four days later.  If the body would have been there, the Jews would have simply pointed to it to destroy the Christian religion.
     What happened to the body?  There are only three possibilities.  The Jews could have stolen it, but they would have soon produced it to quiet the claims of the Christians.  The disciples could have stolen it, but it doesn't make sense that they would have then dedicated themselves to lives of persecution and death because of their claim of having seen a risen Lord.  The only other possibility is that Jesus was resurrected.
     Yes, Jesus is very real.  He is real prophetically, historically and logically.  But this reality does us no good if Jesus is not real to us.
     "For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ," Paul explains in Philippians 1:19-21, "according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
     Paul goes on in this passage urging the early Christians to make Christ real in their lives, to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel and to stand firm in the faith.
     "Be on the alert," Paul admonishes in 1 Corinthians 16:13, "stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong."
     In chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, Paul stresses the reality of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
     "The sting of death is sin," he explains in the final three verses, "and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
     "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."
     Toward the close of the third century there was a group of Roman soldiers which happened to be composed entirely of Christians.  This legion, called "The Theban," was sent to put down an uprising in Gaul.  On the way to their next assignment they discovered that they were being sent to persecute Christians.
     When they refused to march any farther, other troups were sent to kill every tenth man.  When they still refused, the decimation was repeated.
     "We are your soldiers, my lord," the Theban leaders said, "but we freely confess that we are the servants of God;  we owe to our prince duty in war, to God our innocence; we receive from you pay,  He has given us life; we cannot obey you and renounce God our creator, our master, and yours.  If you ask us nothing injurious, we will obey your orders as we have to this time; otherwise we shall obey Him rather than you.
     "We offer the services of our arms against your enemies, but we do not believe we are permitted to bathe them in the blood of the innocent.  We took an oath to God, before we did to you, and you can have no confidence in the second, if we violate the first.  You command us to seek out Christians, in order to punish them; you have no need to seek others, behold we are such!
     "We confess God, the Father, Author of all things, and Jesus Christ His Son.  We have seen you put to death our companions without mourning, and we have rejoiced that they have been honored in suffering for their God.  Despair has not driven us to revolt; we have arms in our hands, but we have not used them.  We prefer to die innocent, rather than live guilty."
     Instead of offering resistance, these soldiers laid down their weapons and offered their necks to the troops who killed them.  Jesus was not just a logical or historical reality to them.  He was not even simply a reality which remained enclosed in the pages of the Bible.  He was real to them.
     Of course, Jesus cannot be real to us if we do not obtain that reality from the Scriptures.  But we also need to realize that it is not enough to read about Jesus and then set Him down along with the book.
     In 2 Timothy 2:1-13 Paul emphasizes the reality of Jesus.
     "It is a trustworthy statement:" He points out in verses 11-13, "for if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; If we endure, we shall also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us; If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself."
     Jesus is real.  He is real whether we accept it or not.  But His desire is that we acknowledge, and make a part of our lives, the truth which will set us free.

Unless otherwise noted, "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), (C) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.lockman.org)