As a pastor, my initial thought here is to go to scripture as testimony to this.  But I know that many will not accept that approach.  So we will look at a few other things.

There are 66 different books in the Bible that we have today.  They were written of a period of thousands of years.  I cannot in this short article begin to address each book.  But anyone who understands Christianity knows that the four gospels are key; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Are they true?  They give the story of Jesus life from four different perspectives. 

Today we will seek to establish an understanding of the reliability of the gospels by reviewing these truths about their existence. 

1.   The Gospels were written by men who were either with Jesus in his ministry (The apostles Matthew and John), or by men who worked directly with and sometimes for the apostles of Jesus (Mark and Luke). 

Sometimes the question is asked; why not include things like the gospel of Peter, or the more recent assertions about the gospel of Judas.  Two reasons come to my mind.  First, Judas died before Jesus, exactly when would have written such a thing.  In the same thought, Peter worked with Mark and probably had a decent relationship with Luke, not to mention he and John were clearly good friends.  Why is it he would feel the need to write down another gospel?  He wouldn’t.  Second, there is no evidence that they date back to a time when eyewitnesses could refute them.  The timing thing here is monumental.  If the gospel of Peter or Judas was not written till hundreds or thousands of years after the events occurred, it gives time for legend to build.  But Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all written by people who actually lived with or in the time of Jesus life.  They were held to a higher accountability simply because there were people around who could have said, “oh wait, I was there, that is not how that happened.”  Thing is, we see no refutation of the claims of the early church until hundreds of years after Jesus, the apostles, and even those who crucified him were gone from this earth.

2.   These authors of the four gospels we have in the bibles had no reason to lie.  In fact, they would have been far safer if they had of come out and said, “nope, never mind, we made it all up.  Jesus is dead and his body is over here, come see.”  That never happened. 

What did happen was that the apostles of Jesus, those who knew the truth, not based on faith, but based on sight and touch, they continued on never recanting of the truth of Jesus Christ and his life, death, burial, and resurrection.  It is actually easier to call the apostles of Jesus crazy, than it is to say that they lied.  They all live the rest of their lives, some longer than others, as though they have no fear of death and stating plainly that Jesus would resurrect them, so humanity had no control or threat over them.  All of them died by execution except John who was sent to exile to work in a prison camp until he recanted all this stuff about Jesus being resurrected.  He never did.

3.   The early church believed in the resurrection.

I know, this is supposed to be an article supporting the gospels, but the earliest record of the church believing the resurrection of Jesus Christ is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.  This is the earliest confession of Christianity.  And the fact that we know that the book of 1 Corinthians dates back to within the lives of several of the Apostles serves as confirmation of its reliability concerning the theology of the first century church.  The ‘creed’ found in this passage dates back to within just a few years of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  That tells us that if it were wrong, if it misrepresented the truth, there were those still alive who could refute it.  They never did.

4.   The persecution of the early church serves as a testimony that the gospels are true. 

The fact that the early Jews and Romans wanted to eradicate this sect of believers in Jesus serves to show us that they could not find or produce evidence to refute what these people were saying or believing about Jesus.

All they had to do was to produce the body of Jesus.  Yet they couldn’t.  You cannot say that they didn’t know where to look.  No matter what your point of view it is agreed upon that it was either a Roman or (Jewish) Temple guard squad that was stationed at Jesus Tomb.  So they knew where he was.  The problem was that even Jesus enemies agreed the tomb was empty.  How did it get that way when trained soldiers were guarding it?  The Apostles were unable to fend those same soldiers off in the garden just a few nights before, not to mention the fact that Jesus told them not to resist.  That only leaves one real option; something came from somewhere they didn’t expect.  (Remember, trained soldiers here.)  Only one place that could have been.  From the tomb itself.  When the stone rolled away and He came walking out, the guards had no answer for that.

Neither did the Jewish authorities, nor the Romans.  Hence all they could do was to persecute the people who followed this ‘risen Jesus.’  They had no evidence to combat the resurrection.

The bottom line here is that the Bible is telling you the truth.  I have met so many people who claim to be Christian yet have no idea what their Bible says.  My point is this; don’t trust a preacher, which includes me.  GO, read, pray, find out for yourselves.  The Bible is true, and so is everything in it.  Don’t live your life thinking that because someone told you something one time that you should live that way (even if you do like it).  But rather find out the truth.  Seek it out.  Read it in your Bible.  If you don’t have one, leave a response here, and we’ll talk.  I’d think we could arrange something.

Today’s passage:  1 Corinthians 15:1-11 and 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Tags: 1 Corinthians 15, Bible, empty tomb, truth