JESUS CHRIST, A REALITY?

 

Rev. Elmer Manzo
Kipling Ave. Baptist Church
Etobicoke, Ontario

EVERY TIME Christmas comes, it seems to bring out the theologian in everyone. Newspapers, magazines, and tabloids always run articles
about the reality of Jesus Christ- ”Who Is He?” They try to portray the record in the gospel as a collection of myths and legends. Newsday ran an article with similar theme. So did the Toronto Star and U.S. News and World Report.

Skeptics used to say that the New Testament wasn’t written until hundreds of years after Jesus lived - after a jungle of myths and legends had grown up and distorted the original events. But we know now the New Testament books were originally written a mere twenty to forty years after Christ’s crucifixion. That’s within a single generation-less than the time separating us from the end of World War II. Far too brief a span for myths and legends to take hold.

In fact, if we compare the historical evidence for Jesus to the evidence for other figures who lived in ancient times, there’s just no comparison. Consider that although we don’t have the original documents of the New Testament, we do have several thousand copies-some of them written
only a hundred years after Jesus lived. Compare that to the Roman writer Tacitus. He is considered a first-rate historical source. Yet we have only
twenty copies of his work, and the earliest manuscript is dated a thousand years after he lived. And no one doubts the authenticity of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Yet the earliest manuscript of his work that we have is dated fourteen hundred years after he lived.

We all know about Caesar. Yet the earliest copy of his Gallic Wars is dated a thousand years after the original. There can simply be no doubt any longer that the New Testament is an authentic documentthat it describes real events. Jesus is better authenticated than any other figure from ancient times. Furthermore, all of what the prophets of the Old Testament regarding the birth of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, and his reign as
King of kings and Lord of lords are all fulfilled in the personhood of Christ. I don’t have the space to write all of the fulfilled prophecies about the birth of Jesus Christ and his death but suffice it to say that there is no other person who had lived on earth that has literally fulfilled about the description of the Messiah apart from Christ.

But in spite of the historicity and the reliability of the accounts of the four gospels regarding Christ’s works and accomplishments, still, many cast their doubts about the claims of Jesus Christ. Enemies of the Christian Church have created a pseudo-Christ derived from spurious Gnostic writings i.e.
Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene which was written too late to be considered reliable. These books is where Dan Brown has based his famous book- The Da Vinci Code. And people who are hostile to the Christian faith would rather cast their belief on such writings than the authentic Word of God.

So if people ask you how you know Jesus was a real person, respond with your own question: Was Caesar a real person? Was Aristotle real? If they say yes, tell them the evidence for Jesus is much stronger. Or you can turn the question around: If people doubt that Jesus was real, tell them they’ll also have to throw out everyone else we know from ancient history-Tacitus, Aristotle, Caesar. The evidence for their lives is much weaker than the
evidence for Jesus’ life.

There’s just no middle ground: either you believe the New Testament account of Jesus is authentic - or you become a complete skeptic about all of ancient history.