Articles
How Would You Answer?
A friend asked how I would respond if someone said he did not believe the Bible is inspired.
This is what I told him.
If the person is open to the truth, I would first prove that Jesus rose from the dead.
“Nothing is more crucial in the field of Christian evidences than the question of the divinity of Christ. Nothing is more crucial in establishing the divinity of Christ than His resurrection from the dead” (Batsell Barrett Baxter, I Believe Because . . ., p. 223).
“If our Lord said frequently . . . that after He went up to Jerusalem He would be put to death, but on the third day He would rise again from the grave, and this prediction came to pass, then . . . everything else our Lord ever said must also be true” (Wilbur M. Smith, Therefore, Stand, p. 419). Jesus taught that the Scriptures are indeed God’s word and therefore authoritative (John 10:35; Matthew 4:1-11; 15:3-9).
It’s only logical.
Everything hinges on His resurrection.
His resurrection validates all He claimed to be. It also validates all He said.
If He did not rise, then we can dismiss Him as a deluded religious fanatic as best, or at worst a deliberate fraud. In either case, we could not say, as so many do, that He was a good man or a great teacher, but not the Son of God.
But if He did rise, then our only logical recourse is to admit He truly is God’s Son (Romans 1:4).
And then the next step: submitting to Him as our Savior and Lord.
It only makes sense.
