Do The Facts Not Matter?

Are the scripturally recorded facts about the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ essential to the credibility of the Christian faith?

This question has been brought into prominence by publicity given to the idea that the historical facts are unimportant. Whether or not Jesus was born of the virgin Mary is in this view dismissed as irrelevant. Nor does it matter whether He actually fed five thousand from five loaves and two fish, or literally walked on the sea, or physically healed some and raised others from the dead. These may be seen as legends which grew up around the "primitive" message of the founders of the Christian movement. Without accepting them as literal or factual we may still be true Christians. The thing that counts is our faith, our recognition of true spiritual values, our living out the love of God in daily experience.

The facts described in the gospels about Christ's sufferings at Calvary are also dismissed as unimportant are not all kinds of traumatic details added over the years to embellish the image of martyrdom surrounding a hero for any cause? The point of real value is to recognize the ideal of a noble spirit suffering injustice and torture, yet overcoming by love the hatred of those who abused him.

As for the resurrection, hysteria under stress has often caused people to imagine they've had a vision of some kind. Who more likely to be subject to such hallucinations than superstitious Galileans 2000 years ago? In any case, the literal resurrection of the Lord is no~ thought to matter. Only let us grasp the concept of future hope and we shall have the essence of what was illustrated in the st6ry of the resurrection.

This method of treating the Scriptures is not of course new. It has been the basis of certain "modernistic" patterns of theology for many years. But it has belonged more to the theological college, the religious academic world. Certain preachers of this persuasion have publicized such ideas from the pulpit. Literature on these lines has been available for the limited readership with a taste for it. More recently, however, there has been a projection of these concepts through the media in a form far more appealing to the ordinary person.

A typical example is a TV programme featured on British television entitled "Jesus - The Evidence". Attractively presented, with beautiful pictures of Israel, it showed a panel of learned academics and theologians discussing the historical evidence for the life of the Lord Jesus. The gospel records were represented as unreliable, probably "invented" long after the first century. The discussion cast doubt on the facts recorded in the Gospels. At the same time the theologians insisted that this did not matter. One could be a genuine Christian

even though the stories of the gospels were not historically to be relied on. Such spiritual qualities as faith, hope and love were really what counted in Christian experience. Many viewers having no personal background of Bible knowledge would assume that those on the panel knew what they were talking about. Their confidence in the truth of Scripture would be undermined.

For the Christian believer it's reassuring that the Holy Spirit seems to have anticipated this line of attack. For the truth of the historical facts is emphasized, and their importance as the basis of faith confirmed. As for instance in I Cor. 15:

I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve (vv.3-5).

For if the dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins (v.l6).

Again, the Lord Jesus spoke of His mighty works as evidence that the Father had sent Him, and of such importance that those who saw them were responsible to believe in Him: "If I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father" (John 15:24).

A Christian commentator has pointed out that the programme "Jesus - The Evidence" had been approved by the Churches Religious Advisory Council, which acts as spokesman for the churches in Britain on broadcasting matters. This, he felt, was not surprising as most members of the Council are trained at colleges "where the same kind of half-faith teaching has been producing priests and ordinands with half a Bible, half a faith and a double dose of intellectual superiority".

Thankfully we turn from "the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge" (I Tim. 6:20 NIV) to hear again the testimony of some who personally saw and heard:

We did not tell you cleverly invented stories when we told you about the

power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty (2 Pet. 1:16 NIV).

The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe (John 19:35 NIV).

We accept the evidence of the historical truth of the gospels and recognize their fundamental importance to genuine Christian faith. For "belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17).

unknown | Oct 1984
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