Excerpt from Swallowed by Life: Mysteries of Death, Resurrection and the Eternal
By Ada Brownell
The best court cases depend on physical
evidence and, hopefully, truthful eyewitnesses’ testimony.
I decided to go
to eyewitnesses’ writings contained in the Bible to determine the truth about
Jesus’s Resurrection, which is what gives Christians the hope of eternal life.
The
Bible is an amazing book, written by forty different authors with varying
occupations over a period of one thousand five hundred years, on three
continents, and in three languages. More
historical manuscripts are available on the New Testament than any book of
antiquity, and it’s difficult to doubt the divine inspiration of the Bible because
the forty authors all agree on hundreds of controversial
subjects, although they were imperfect humans.
In contrast, the Book of Mormon was
written by
Joseph Smith and the Koran by Mohammad, with some additions by his followers.
I read through
the New Testament and underlined every scripture pertaining to eternal life and
resurrection.
The Apostle Paul
wrote, “How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But
if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain”
(1 Corinthians 15:12–14).
When
Carolyn died, I had the advantage of having not only read and studied the Bible
for years, but having taught classes from Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a book that examines facts about
the Christian faith. One significant part of McDowell’s work is to determine
whether the Resurrection is historical fact or a mere hoax.[1]
The
author wrote, “After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, and
thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the ‘most wicked, vicious, heartless
hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of
history.’”
When
a student asked McDowell why he couldn’t refute Christianity, the author
answered, “For a very simple reason. I am not able to explain away an event in
history--the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
McDowell’s first two books were his attempts
to refute Christianity. When he couldn’t, he accepted Jesus Christ as his
Savior and became a Christian.[2]
I
knew the Bible has several internal claims that it is the Word of God. For
instance, 2 Peter 1:21 says the Bible was written by holy men of God as they
were inspired by the Holy Ghost.
I’d already read
the testimony of many witnesses, but I needed to read them again. I decided to
look again at the Bible’s authenticity, at the divinity of Jesus, at His
miracles, and at why we can believe He was dead but came out of the tomb alive.
Several biblical
writers witnessed the dead raised to life and saw Jesus’ victory over the tomb.
I
noticed what John says: “That which
was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked
upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was
manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us” (1 John
1:1–3).
Luke
also pointed out he was an eyewitness: “Even as they delivered them unto us,
which from the beginning were eyewitnesses…” (Luke 1:2).
The Apostle
Peter wrote: “We have not followed
cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).
Josh
McDowell points out the lives of the apostles were transformed after the
Resurrection. According to scripture and biblical historians, every one of the
apostles, with the exception of John, who died as a prisoner on Patmos, and
Judas, who killed himself, gave their lives because they preached that Jesus
rose from the dead. McDowell adds people often become martyrs because of their
beliefs—but no one would give his life for something he knew was a lie. If
Jesus had not risen from the dead, the disciples would have known it.
Yet, even with eyewitnesses' testimony, we can't prove events in the past. We had to decide whether to believe the evidence, and there is a reason for that. Faith is necessary for Salvation.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
Note: There is much more evidence for faith in the book, Swallowed by Life http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06
-- Copyright Ada Brownell, 2011
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