SUNDAY EDITORIAL

Now some people say that Jesus did not die on the cross. For those people I urge you to look up Roman Crucifixion and study that for a bit. I have yet to come across one example of the ancient Romans crucifying someone and that person lives. Before a crucifixion, the person is scourged which means whipping with a short whip that has sharp bones or pieces of sharp metal attached. Many people died from this before ever making to the cross.

It is impossible for some to be scourged and then hung on a cross for hours to be alive and well, walking around a couple of days later. Also, when the Romans wanted to speed up the death, they simply broke the legs of the person so he could not push up to breath. In the case of Christ, he was stabbed with a spear to make sure he was dead. The Romans were very good at this so we do know that it was a fact that Jesus died on the cross.

Ok so we know that we can prove in a court of law that Jesus lived, preached, taught presumably performed miracles and died by crucifixion. But how can we know that he came back to life?

Well during this time, there were many prophets, a growing number of teachers known as scribes and Pharisees earned money as teachers of the Law. John the Baptist was another prophet in the time of Jesus who was also put to death. But why do we not follow John or these other teachers who were so good that they were paid to teach?

Let’s look at the disciples. If Jesus had not risen from the dead would they have given up their lives to teach about him? Remember what Peter did before Jesus died? These men were afraid for their lives. They did not want to die, so instead they hid. But because they saw the risen Christ, they realized that Jesus really was the son of God. All of the Apostles with the exception of John died by martyrdom. This simply means they were put to death because of what they taught, preached and believed. What again would cause these simple men to give up their lives when immediately after the death of Christ, they denied Jesus, and they cursed Jesus and went into hiding.

Now for my favorite. Saul who changed his name to Paul. Again history does not deny the existence of this man and scientific evidence shows several books of the Bible were written by the same man so we have to conclude that Paul did exist. Why then would someone with such a strong Jewish education, who hunted down and killed Christians because of their belief all of a sudden, change his way and start preaching and teaching people about Jesus Christ?

Once again if we were in a court of law, we could come to know other conclusion except that these men did in fact see the risen Christ.

Jesus Christ was real and did die on the cross. Jesus Christ did rise again on the third day and our faith and belief in Christ Jesus is what saves us.

Hi folks, please understand that I believe we do not need science to prove this. I just sent this because as the pastor of one of the leading online seminaries, I have people come up to me all the time about questions like this. I find it amazing that people will believe the Jesus did not exist or did not come back to life without any intelligent research. If any intelligent person, actually did the research, there is only one logical conclusion they could obtain. As far as people saying that it was not 3 days from Friday to Sunday, I suggest you study Hebrew, Latin and ancient cultures. The phrases, “after three days” and “on the third day,” are not contradictory, either to each other or with Matthew 12:40, but simply idiomatic, interchangeable terms, clearly a common mode of Jewish expression. Just as in 2nd Timothy 3:16 the word Pneuma literally means breathed into. This does not mean that God breathed into the scripture. The word used at the time meant God’s power. So when you read that verse you see Paul saying to Timothy that God’s Power is in the scripture. On the Third day, after 3 days, etc. mean basically the same thing. To prove this point again, the Pharisees wanted guards posted until the third day, Sunday not Monday.

Now I have friends who say He died on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, which day is absolutely correct? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. Just like when was Jesus born, no one knows although I am quite sure it was not 12/25. The point we need to take is that He did in fact, rise up from the dead.

In Christ,

Pastor Bob

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