By Aaron Swartzentruber
Greenleafton, MN
In John chapter 14:2-3 Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.”
According to Jesus’ own words, He’s alive. Because a dead man can’t prepare anything. Jesus said He will come again. That statement, along with many other Biblical truths, and his personal encounter with the risen Christ, is most likely how the Apostle Paul understood the fact that Jesus is alive, is The Christ, and is coming back. He’s not twisting or fabricating anything at all by claimimg that. If you want to blame somebody for the living Christ of the Christian faith, you have to blame God.
Who is Jesus anyway? Is He God? In John 14:7 Jesus says, “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also, and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.” Jesus just claimed in that verse that He is God. Not a god, The God. In John 8:58 Jesus says “Before Abraham was, I am.” Verse 59 says, “Then took they (the Jews) up stones to cast at Him.” The Jews knew that He was claiming to be God, that’s why they thought He was worthy of death. You can believe or not believe what Jesus said, but you can’t say that He didn’t claim to be God.
Why do many people deny the ressurection of Jesus? Or why do they so hate the doctrine of His ressurection? Maybe it’s because they know that you can’t hold court if the Judge is dead and if His ressurection is true that means the Judge is alive, and they know that they’re guilty so they frantically trample His ressurection to try to get rid of the guilt. But no matter what they do, the guilt is still there. Well, if that’s you, I have some wonderful news for you. The salvation that the risen Lord Jesus Christ offers to you right now is a gift for the guilty. God nails the handwriting of ordinances that are against you to the cross of Christ if you believe Him and come to Him. (Colossians 2:14)
What if the ressurection is not true? Well then we’re just on our way to a cold, dark, hopeless grave, that’s all. When I was a little boy I used to shutter at that thought. But actually, if we would just die and that was the end of it all, death would be an easy way out. John 5: 28-29 says, “Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the ressurection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the ressurection of damnation.” Everybody in the graves, believers and unbelievers, will be ressurected, believers to eternal life and unbelievers to eternal, conscious damnation. Don’t misunderstand the scripture, where it says, “They that have done good, to the ressurection of life,” does not mean that if you do good things you have a chance at eternal life. Romans 3:12 says, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Indeed, by God’s law, the whole world is guilty before Him, according to Romans 3:19. But “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
I don’t know why somebody would choose to stay inside a burning house and perish with it, when, at the cost of somebody else’s life, a path has been cleared for them to escape. And even now the firemen are trying to pull them from the flames but they still refuse.
I don’t mean to preach at you. I just want to show you the word of God, so that you might believe. Consider your ways, saith the Lord. Until next time…
Scott Harrison says
I want to believe Jesus is alive, that all things will be made right one day, that there will be a judgement of all that have ever lived. (Yes: I’m an odd fellow perhaps, but I long for a time when all things are “judged” and put into perspective, when things become clear, when justice and mercy are manifest.,. If Jesus is in that ‘court’ what have we to fear? His lovingkindness and compassion for the discarded people of society, for doubters and thieves, wealthy princes who are weighed down by their riches, and traitor to the csuse, fallen women and murderers and collaborators with Rome, for pagan soldiers and demoniacs, the poor, the broken and lost… If Jesus is in the court pleading the case of a lost and fallen humanity, what have we to fear? So pray for me Aaron, for I am full of doubts. The inerrancy of scripture, the very words upon which such a hope is founded, is a major stumbling block. I’m not just talking about the Bart Ehrmann sort of criticism, but within Christianity itself, scholars who throw a long shadow of doubt over the veracity of these texts. But here’s the thing: each day, amidst my own doubts and confusion, I sense what you say is true, that Jesus lives, that the Resurrection occurred, Now, smug atheists might say that I am in the last throes of cognitive dissonance, the inevitable collapse of faith: but I experience, deep in my consciousness, perhaps somewhere deeper than that, this ‘overture’ or approach from Jesus Christ. It is as if every day that I think, how can there be a God in a world so full of cruelty and pain? When so many clever minds deconstruct the scriptures and seek to no avail for the historical Jesus (the so-called “Quest”) – at this very moment I encounter Christ. I can’t explain it, other than as an experience of the Holy Spirit of God, or Grace, Mercy. But then immediately I counter this idea as a presumption. Who am I, a speck on a tiny planet amidst billions of stars in space, to be approached by God?!!! What hubris! I can hear Dawkins and Hitchens laughing heartily at me. Yet still, this sense of holiness when my own thoughts are those of a doubting man. To address your essay, is Jesus alive? I have no “proof”, not even the Bible which Evangelical Christians hold so dear and regard as the inerrant Word of God. But The Word of God seems to be spoken in my heart! Even as I wrestle with the very notion of God, surrounded by those who say it’s all nonsense. Allow me a little parable of my own: If the Earth were caught in some calamity, all the world destroyed, and a few people without a Bible on a little space station orbiting the earth survived, even there I think, Jesus would still ‘insist’ or encounter those lonely astronauts.
So these are my thoughts on reading your essay. Thank you,
Frank says
I love you Jesus.
Thomas E. H. says
//I don’t mean to preach at you. I just want to show you the word of God, so that you might believe.//
So, what you’re saying is “I don’t want to preach to you, but I want to preach to you.”
//In John 8:58 Jesus says “Before Abraham was, I am.” Verse 59 says, “Then took they (the Jews) up stones to cast at Him.” The Jews knew that He was claiming to be God, that’s why they thought He was worthy of death. You can believe or not believe what Jesus said, but you can’t say that He didn’t claim to be God.//
On the contrary, one can say that Jesus didn’t claim to be God if we don’t find that quote about him a reliable quote. It takes faith in the men who wrote the Bible (and the interpretations thereafter) to believe in what the Bible states.
Tony Onyenowu says
Well said.. The grace that saves is available still for now. God bless His word now and always. Amen.