Lecture

Many down through history have claimed to be gods. Yet if the New Testament is to be believed, only one person has been able to die for the sins of others. Only one has survived death and burial to be declared, by resurrection, the Son of God.

Vernon Grounds: I might find it difficult to believe in the resurrection of just an ordinary individual. But Jesus wasn’t an ordinary individual, His advent was foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures. Centuries before He came, Messiah was predicted, and Jesus fulfilled those predictions. His birth was supernatural; He was born of the virgin. His character was supernatural; everybody admits that He’s the paragon of virtue. His teaching was supernatural; “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46 KJV). He performed miracles, and these miracles were not just senseless wonders, but they were acts of compassion to validate His claim to messiahship. Everything about Jesus was supernatural, and consequently I find the resurrection to fit right into that picture: supernatural exit from time-space, the resurrection, and then the ascension. So the resurrection fits beautifully into that whole mosaic. If you were to leave that aside, the jigsaw puzzle would be missing a very significant piece. But it all fits together into a coherent pattern of supernaturalism.

We’ve considered the remaining five of ten converging evidences, or reasons to believe God became a man.

Isaiah saw a God-man

Jesus’ friends saw more than a man

His enemies accused Him of blasphemy

His miracles were acts of God

Jesus’ departure was greater than His birth

Together these converging lines of evidence give us more than just reason to believe that God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. They give us reason to trust this God-man to bring us to the Father in heaven.

Closing

Luis Palau: If a person has come to the conclusion, after these evidential points, that perhaps there’s a God, and they begin to get close to believing, if there is a God, and His Son was born of a virgin, and they’re willing to accept that … then the next step is to take a step of faith and say, “God, if You’re there, I have dishonored You much. I have doubted You. I have expressed my doubts, most people have. I repent. I want to know You. I want to experience You. I need You desperately. Come into my life. Reveal Yourself to me.” And the Bible says, You shall find Me when you search for Me with all your heart (e.g., Matthew 7:7). And the fact is, He’s looking for us. When a person comes to the point when he says, “You know, there’s a ring of truth to all of this, and I am ready to do whatever God tells me to do,” it’s the epitome of an encounter that God has provoked through the years perhaps to draw you to Christ. And therefore humble yourself and say, “God, I believe You. I trust You. I surrender my life to You. May Your Son have mercy on me, forgive me my sins, and give me eternal life.”

Michael Wilkins: Life really ultimately does come down to what we do with Jesus. That is really the central question of all of our lives: What will we do with Jesus? Because if He is who He said He was, if He is God, then He truly is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the only way to find a real relationship with God. If He isn’t, then we’d be fools to follow this line. I’m not a very religious person. I don’t care to be a fool. And therefore I want to be as convinced as I possibly can that I’m following the truth. But what I would want to tell any person who is thinking out there, don’t expect this or … don’t consider this to be just one of many possible pursuits in life. Jesus is the real question that all of us have to ultimately address.