A REASON
TO BELIEVE
The Case
For Christ –
The Head
vs. the Heart
by Craig Johnston
Every so
often I like to share something written by another. Today’s post is written by
Craig Johnston. Craig
and I attend the same men’s fellowship at our church. He spoke to the fifty or
so men a few weeks ago about his experience having been selected so sit on a
Grand Jury in our county – and then made application
to the spiritual warfare in which we are all engaged.
What he told us was important enough
that I asked his permission to share his words with others. For the sake of
space and clarity, here is an edited version of what he granted me permission
to post.
Here is what he said:
On a typical day we’d hear 50-90 cases. I
was shocked and a bit alarmed by the level and nature of crime in our community
and those surrounding us. There is a proliferation of gang activity, family
violence, drugs, prostitution, and so many cases a complete lack of regard for
fellow human beings.
The level of crime and general lack of
civility reflects a world engaged in spiritual warfare. There is no doubt we
suffer from the effects of a growing segment
of secular society that wants nothing to do with God or religion. God and religion are often portrayed as a source of our problems. God and
religion, people believe, create an atmosphere of conflict and judgment, not of
peace and understanding.
Many of the so-called intellectuals say the
God of Christianity is a myth. They
teach and proclaim across the media, the public square, and in our educational
institutions and even our courts that logic, reason, and science preclude the
need for our man-made “god”.
In their ongoing attempts to discredit
Christian faith, they lump all faiths together, likening the violence done in
the name of one religion to discredit all – as though all religions are equal
or the actions of one individual represent the teaching of a faith.
And in denigrating faith in the God of
the Bible, atheists and other anti-Christ evangelists achieve their goal of establishing
a world where everything is a matter of personal perspective, a place in which
morality is relative.
Law enforcement and the justice system
do their best to provide a safe and civil society – but the history of the
world dating back millennia demonstrate that the cure to the ills of our times
will be accomplished not by putting one’s faith in people, but in putting one’s
faith in God.
True faith results from not just knowing
who God is, but a desire to knowing His nature and will for our lives. For most of us, I believe the journey of
faith start with the head and then moves to the heart. There are times even now
when the Doubting Thomas in my head pulls me away from the direction my heart
is leading. I’d like to share some words of encouragement that have helped me
over the years that help my head get back in line with my heart.
Simon Greenleaf (d. 1853) helped put the
Harvard Law School on the proverbial legal map. He wrote the three-volume legal
masterpiece, A Treatise
on the Law of Evidence, which is still regarded as “the
greatest single authority in the entire literature of legal procedure.” The
U.S. judicial system today operates on rules of evidence established by
Greenleaf.
While teaching law at Harvard, Greenleaf stated
to his class that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was simply a legend; as an
atheist, he thought miracles to be impossible. In a rebuttal, three of his law
students challenged him to apply his acclaimed rules of evidence to the
resurrection account.
Greenleaf accepted his students’ challenge and
began an investigation into the evidence. Focusing his legal mind on the facts
of history, Greenleaf attempted to prove the resurrection account was false. Yet the more Greenleaf investigated the record of history,
the more stunned he was at the powerful evidence supporting the claim that
Jesus had indeed risen from the tomb. Greenleaf’s skepticism was being
challenged by an event that had changed the course of human history.
Among other conundrums, Greenleaf
was unable to explain several dramatic changes that took place shortly after
Jesus died, the most baffling being the behavior of the disciples. It wasn’t
just one or two disciples who insisted Jesus had risen; it was all of them.
Applying his own rules of evidence to the facts, Greenleaf arrived at his
verdict.
In a surprising reversal of his
position, Greenleaf accepted Jesus’ resurrection as the best explanation for
the events that took place immediately after his crucifixion. It would have
been impossible, he determined, for the disciples to persist with their
conviction that Jesus had risen if they hadn’t actually seen the risen Christ.
Greenleaf was so persuaded by the
evidence that he became a committed Christian. He – and many former atheists
and agnostics who committed themselves to disprove the New Testament account of
Jesus – Greenleaf concluded that any unbiased person who honestly examines the
evidence will conclude what he did—that Jesus the Christ has truly risen.
As if the resurrection of Christ isn’t enough
to convince the honest skeptic, the sheer number of Old Testament messianic
prophecies provide additional reason to believe the veracity of the New
Testament claims about Jesus.
There are no prophecies foretelling of
Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Buddha, or any of the other founders of their
religions. Yet of Jesus, there are literally hundreds.
For example, God told us through the
prophets that a Virgin would conceive the Messiah, who would be born in
Bethlehem but in some way would come out of Egypt, and be called a Nazarene. He
would enter Jerusalem on a colt, be betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of
silver, die a sacrificial death for us – and then rise from the dead. We even
knew what His last words from the cross would be, how he would suffer the scorn
of the crowd, and how soldiers would cast lots for his garments.
The mathematical odds of one person
fulfilling the more than three hundred prophecies are impossible for us to
grasp. For example, for the fulfillment of only eight prophecies is one
out of 10¹⁷. That’s 1 followed by 17 zeros.
It looks like this: 100,000,000,000,000,000.
For one person to fulfill 48 prophecies
is 1 followed by 157 zeros.
Yet, Jesus fulfilled more than 300
prophecies! I’ve not worked it out, but the odds of that happening have to be
somewhere in the realm of absolutely impossible -- without the divine
intervention of an omnipotent and omniscient God to whom nothing is impossible.
The battle for the heart begins with the
mind. And victory in that battle begins and ends only with the God of History, the
God of Reason, and the God of science and mathematics.
Christians know Him as Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit.
Noted Catholic author and priest, Fr
Thomas Dubay came to this conclusion: “From the natural point of view we can
come to know God from the vestiges of Himself that he has left in the splendors
of the visible universe: the blazing red sunset, the snow-covered mountain
peaks, the graceful flight of a bird, the breathtaking magnificent complexity
of a single living cell. On a still more exalted level we know Him in the
loveliness of the saints- but remains a knowledge of the infinite through the
finite”
In a round-about way, Fr. Dubay was
paraphrasing the 19th Psalm written 3,000 years ago: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his
craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they
make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.
Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the
world.
May God give those who
truly seek Him eyes to see and ears to hear.
