100 The Fundamentals things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19, 20). A little later still after arrest and imprisonment, in peril of death, when sternly arraigned by the council, we hear Peter and the Apostles answering their demand that they should be silent regarding Jesus, with the words, “We ought to obey God rather than man. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses of these things” (Acts 5:29-32). Somqr thing tremendous must have occurred to account for such a radical and astounding moral transformation as this. Noth- ing short of the fact of the resurrection and of their having seen the risen Lord will explain it. , These unquestionable facts are so impressive and so con- clusive that even infidel and Jewish scholars now admit that the Apostles believed that Jesus rose from the dead. Even Ferdinand Baur, father of the Tübigen School, admitted this. Even David Strauss, who wrote the most masterly “Life of Jesus” from the rationalistic standpoint that was ever writ- ten, said, “Only this much need be acknowledged that the Apostles firmly believed that Jesus had arisen.” Strauss evidently did not wish to admit any more than he had to but he felt compelled to admit this -much. Schenkel went even further and said, “It is an indisputable fact that in the early morning of the first day of the week following the crucifixion, the grave of Jesus was found empty. It is a second fact that the disciples and other members of the apostolic com- munion were convinced that Jesus was seen after the cruci- fixion.” These admissions are fatal to the rationalists who make them. The question at once arises, “Whence these con- victions and belief?” Renan attempted an answer by say- ing that “the passion of a hallucinated woman (Mary) gives to the world a resurrected God.” (Renan’s “Life of Jesus,” page 357.) By this, Renan means that Mary was in love
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