Jesus Christ is the center of Christianity, we looked at the reliability of the Bible earlier in our series but once you dig in, the central person is Jesus. And the Bible makes some big claims about Jesus:
- Jesus is God.
- Jesus died for the sins of the world.
- Jesus rose from the dead and is alive today.
All of this leads to an obvious question: Can we believe all of the things the Bible says about Jesus? Especially when it comes to the supernatural act of Jesus’ resurrection. Can we truly believe Jesus came back to life?
How are we supposed to believe that the resurrection really happened?
Listen as Pastor Brian McMillan addresses doubts some may have about Jesus himself and the resurrection that Christians believe in.
Jesus Confirmed by Non-Christian Historical Sources
Many of the details of the life of Jesus are well documented in non-Christian, historical sources.
Here facts that are confirmed by ancient, non-biblical, non-Christian sources:
- Jesus was a real man that was from Palestine
- that he allegedly was born of a virgin
- that he lived a wise and virtuous life
- that he was known for performing miracles
- that he was crucified in Palestine under Pontius Pilate
- that this happened during the Jewish Passover and he was mocked as the King of the Jews
- that he was believed by his disciples to be raised from the dead after three days,
- that his followers partook in unusual feasts where they symbolically ate his flesh
- that his disciples spread his story all over the known world
- that his followers denied polytheism and worshiped Jesus as God
“There are ultimately two choices to explain the empty tomb. Either the origin of the most successful movement in history is:
1) that a group of lifelong, strict monotheists conspired to promote blasphemy, chose to defile themselves by touching a dead body, deceptively hid it somewhere nearby, then broke God’s Law by lying to everyone about it… they did all of this knowing full well that they’d lose family and friends, that economically they’d suffer as a result, and that in all likelihood they’d be tortured or killed in horrific ways by either the Jewish leaders or the Romans. And even while that was happening … none of them fessed up to this lie and no one ever found where they hid the body… Or
2) it’s true. Which requires more faith?”
-Pastor John Ulin
