Jesus' Unusual Resurrection

   We've already talked about the resurrection, but let's look at how unusual it is. Saying that His resurrection is unusual may make one think that it means that there were other resurrections. In fact there were, but those people were raised back to the same type of life as before. Lazarus, the widow's son, Jairus' daughter, etc. Jesus was raised to eternal life. He would never die again. The others did die again, but Jesus is alive for eternity.
   Morgan wrote, "No other leader of any other religion ever authenticated his message by rising from the dead. And no other leader of any other religion ever proved himself alive 'by many convincing proofs'." Morgan continues that Jesus "...staked His entire reputation, ministry and impact on the proposition that He would rise again." Christ told His disciples that He would die and after 3 days rise again.(Matt 12:40, 17:22-23)
   Again I quote Morgan, "In making these predictions, He was staking the future of the gospel on His ability to return to life following His execution. And in fulfilling the predictions, He was authenticating His message and proving Himself with power to be the Son of God. No other figure in history has ever made such claims, and no one else has ever risen from the dead. None but Christ."(that is, to eternal life)
   I think Morgan makes a very convincing case that Jesus made a very convincing case that He is, indeed, the Son of God. That's what the Bible says. Believe it. It is true!

Sincerely,
Rick

Jesus' Unusual Claims

   No one but Jesus could claim to be both God and man and not have mental problems. The reason is because Jesus told the truth. In John 10:30-33 Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." In the following verses the "Jews" said that He made Himself God (vs 33). Once you know Who Jesus is, you can see that He is doing things only God could do. That was, also, part of His claim to be God. He told  the Jewish leaders He had witnesses to prove Who He was. In John 5:31-47 Jesus gives 7 witnesses who prove Who He was. They are - Jesus, Himself-31; then the Holy Spirit Who descended on Him at His baptism-32; John, the
Baptist-33; His works (miracles that only God could do)-36; The Father (God)-37; the Scriptures-39; and lastly, Moses-46. Morgan wrote that the only charge that "...stuck and led to His condemnation and execution was His claim to be God."
   Jesus also claimed to be man, but most people don't have a problem believing that fact. Again, Morgan wrote, "...His favorite title for Himself was 'Son of Man'."
   Morgan continued, "John Chrysostom said in the fourth century: "I do not think of Christ as God alone, or man alone, but both together. For I know He was hungry, and I know that with five loaves He fed 5,000. I know He was thirsty, and I know that He turned the water into wine. I know He was carried in a ship, and I know that He walked on the sea. I know that He died, and I know that He raised the dead. I know that He was set before Pilate, and I know that He sits with the Father on His throne. I know that He was worshipped by angels, and I know that he was stoned by the Jews. (The Jews took up stones to stone Him, but as I understand it He hid from them-John 8:59, 10:31-39) And truly some of these I ascribe to the human, and others to the divine nature. For by reason of this He is said to have been both God and man."
   I say again that no one else could make such claims with out easily being proven wrong. His miracles and resurrection and other witnesses prove Him true!

Sincerely,
Rick

Jesus' Unusual Teaching

   Not only did Christ draw people to Himself more than any other man in history, but He also was a very unusual teacher. People still talk about His teaching being wonderful and beyond any other teacher. He was a "great teacher", many say, but don't follow His teaching! They honor Him as One Who understood people's needs, but refuse to follow Him to have their needs met!
   The Bible says that many were"...amazed at his teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law."(Matt. 7:28-29)
   Morgan said, "A.T. Pierson observed that Christ taught the Scriptures as if He were the Author rather than its commentator. How incredible, Pierson said, that He 'comes forth from the carpenter's shop...and His first public utterance is the most original and revolutionary address on practical morals which the world has ever heard.' "The people in His hometown of Nazareth wondered, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?(Matt. 13:54) th

   They saw Him as a boy Who grew up among them as any other boy did. So how could He be so different?! The Jewish leaders feared Him because they thought He could lead the people against Rome and Rome would "...come and take away both our place and nation."(John 11:48) The leaders planned His death and said, "it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish."(John 11:50)
   Morgan writes, "Even the military was challenged. When the chief priests sent the temple soldiers to arrest Christ, they came back empty-handed. The Pharisees, furious, asked, 'Why didn't you bring Him in?' The guards had a simple reply, 'No one ever spoke the way this man does!'(John 7:46)" Morgan continued, "And the remarkable thing about Jesus' teaching was the cohesive way in which He pulled together all spiritual truth into the reality of the Gospel. He taught that He Himself was the centerpiece of Scripture, the centerpiece of history, and the centerpiece in the plan of God for redeeming the human race. 'For God so loved the world,' He told Nicodemus, 'that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.'(John 3:16)"
   He was a good teacher. Later, after Jesus' resurrection, the authorities, seeing that they were "unlearned and untrained men ," noted that the disciples had been with Jesus.(Acts 4:13)

Sincerely,
Rick

Remember Those Who Saw The Resurrected Christ!

   I thought for Easter I would review about those who saw Christ after He arose from the dead.
   There were many real people who saw Christ after He arose. In I Cor. 15:5-8 Paul tells us over 500 people saw Him all at one time. He also tells us that Peter saw Him, and the 12 disciples saw Him. Paul also said that most of those who saw Christ were still alive when Paul wrote I Cor.
   Some would compare these witnesses to those who "see" Elvis Presley, but the Bible doesn't allow for that. It says clearly that Jesus showed Himself alive by "many convincing proofs" 10 times during a 40 day period.
   Morgan writes, "The genuineness of these eyewitness reports and the historical reliability of the accounts are virtually beyond question. He, then, quoted Wilber Smith, "...added an insightful point about these appearances when he wrote:
   '...about a year ago, after studying over a long period of time, this entire problem of the Lord's resurrection and having written some hundreds of pages upon it at different times, I was suddenly arrested by the thought that the very kind of evidence which modern science, and even psychologists, are so insistent upon, for determining the reality of any object under consideration is the kind of evidence that we have presented to us in the gospels regarding the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,  namely, the things that are seen with the human eye, touched by the human hand, and heard by the human ear. This is what we call empirical evidence. It would almost seem as if parts of the Gospel records of the resurrection were actually written for such a day as ours when empiricism so dominates our thinking.'"
   Morgan also wrote, "Some people assume that Christ only appeared to the believers and that we must therefore impugn these eyewitnesses as having biased accounts. That is not true for two reasons. First, none of His disciples expected Him to rise from the dead. They were all skeptics who were so astounded by the Resurrection that they only gradually grew convinced. Thomas was particularly adamant in his refusal to believe that Christ had arisen. 'Unless I see the nail marks in his hands,' he said, 'and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it'(John 20:25).
   And there were skeptics among the 500 who met Him on the mountainside in Galilee. 'Some doubted,' Matthew 28:17  says. Yet they could not refute their own eyewitness accounts.
   But Jesus not only appeared to skeptics - He showed up before the eyes of some who were openly hostile. We know of two enemies in particular, both mentioned here in I Cor. 15, who became convinced of Christ's resurrection. The first was Jesus' own half-brother, James, who had openly ridiculed and rejected Christ through-out the Gospels. Yet in the Book of Acts, we see him assuming courageous leadership in the early church, withstanding threats of torture, danger, and death. What suddenly happened to transform James from an agnostic (half-)brother to a courageous martyr? First Corinthians 15:7 says: 'Then He appeared to James.'
   Paul mentions another enemy who was transformed by the Resurrection. 'Last of all He appeared to me also,' the apostle says (I Cor. 15:8). The appearance of the risen Savior to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road is the final post-resurrection appearance in the New Testament apart from the apocalyptic visions of Christ in the Book of Revelation. And it is one of the most eventful, for it instantly transformed the fiercest enemy of Jesus Christ into the greatest missionary the Church has ever known."
   If one will read the Biblical accounts with an open mind he will see the truth of what Morgan wrote. The disciples were very hesitant to believe that Jesus had really arisen from the dead, but once convinced, they knew it was true and most of them died rather than deny that Christ was God in flesh, the Savior of the world. Only the apostle John died naturally, but was banished to the Isle of Patmus for his testimony of Christ.

Sincerely,
Rick