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be established, Christianity must go. It was a true in stinct that led a leading and brilliant agnostic in Eng land to say, that there is no use wasting time discussing the other miracles. The essential question is, Did Jesus rise from the dead? adding, that if He did, it was easy enough to believe the other miracles; but, if not, the other miracles must go. Are the statements contained in the four Gospels regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ statements of fact or are they fiction, fables, myths? There are several lines of proof that the statements contained in the four Gospels regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ are exact statements of historic fact. Internal Proofs This argument is thoroughly conclusive, but we shall not assume anything whatever. We shall not assume that the four Gospel records are the true history; we shall not assume that the four Gospels were written by the men whose names they bear, though it could be easily proven that they were; we shall not even assume that they were written in the century in which Jesus is alleged to have lived and died and risen again, nor in the next. We will assume absolutely nothing. We will start out with a fact which we all know to be a fact, namely, that we have the four Gospels today, whoever wrote them and whenever they were written. We shall place these four Gospels side by side, and see if we can discern in them the marks of truth or of fiction. The first thing that strikes us as we compare these Gospels one with another is that they are four separate and independent accounts. This appears plainly from the apparent discrepancies in the four different accounts. These apparent discrepancies are marked and many. It would have been impossible for these four accounts to have been made up in collusion or to have been derived from one another. There is harmony between the four accounts, but the harmony does not lie upon the surface; it comes out only by protracted and thorough study. It is precisely such a harmony as would exist between accounts written or related by several different persons, each looking at the events recorded from his own stand point. These accounts must be either a record of facts that actually occurred or else fictions. If fictions, they must have been fabricated in one or two ways— either in dependently of one another, or in collusion with one another. They cannot have been fabricated independently of one another; the agreements are too marked and too many. It is absolutely incredible that four persons sitting down to write an account of what never occurred, in dependently of one another, should have made their stories agree to the extent that these do. On the other hand, they cannot have been made up, as we have al ready seen, in collusion with one another; the apparent discrepancies are too numerous and too noticeable. The next thing we notice is that each of these accounts bears striking indications of having been derived from ey e witnesses. The account of an eye witness is readily distinguish able from the account of one who is merely retelling what others have told him. Any one who is accustomed to weigh evidence in court or in historical study soon learns how to distinguish the report of an eye witness from mere hearsay evidence. Any careful student of the Gospel records of the resurrection will readily detect many marks of the eye witness. Some years ago when I was lecturing at an American university, a gentleman was introduced to me as a skeptic. I asked him, “What line of study are you pur
suing?” He replied that he was pursuing a post-graduate course in history with a view to a professorship in his tory. I said, “ Then you know that the account of an eye witness differs in marked respects from the account of one who is simply telling what he has heard from others?” “Yes,” he replied. I next asked, “Have you carefully read the four Gospel accounts of the resurrec tion of Christ?” He replied, “I have.” “ Tell me, have you not noticed clear indications that they were derived from eye witnesses?” “Yes,” he replied, “ I have been greatly struck by this in reading the accounts.” Any one who carefully and intelligently reads them will be Struck with the same fact. The third thing that we notice about these Gospel narratives is their naturalness, straightforwardness, art lessness and simplicity. The accounts, it is true, have to do with the super natural, but the accounts themselves are most natural. There is a remarkable absence of all attempt at coloring and effect. There is nothing but the simple, straightfor ward telling of facti as they actually occurred. The weight of this kind of evidence is greatly increased and
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THE RISEN ONE Cruel was the cross where they nailed Him, Now all His anguish is o'er. Lonely was the tomb where they laid Him, But He's alive forevermore. Vainly had they posted their warders, Dawn found the stone rolled away And an angel watcher proclaiming, ''Come, see the place wherein He lay." Harder than the rocks of His prison, Once was this cold heart of mine, But the risen Jesus has touched me, And raised me by His power Divine. Now with Him I dwell in the heavenlies, As one alive from the dead, Drawing all my life every moment From Him, my glorious living Head. Daily let us watch for His coming, Soon shall the days roll away, O that He may find us all watching And hasting on that glorious day.
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— A. B. Simpson
reaches practical certainty when we have several indepen dent witnesses of this sort, all bearing testimony to the same essential facts, but with varieties of detail, one omitting what another tells, and the third unconsciously reconciling apparent discrepancies between the two. This is the precise case with the four Gospel narratives of the resurrection of Christ. Dr. William Furness, the great Unitarian scholar and critic, who certainly was not over much disposed in favor of the supernatural, says, “Noth ing can exceed in artlessness and simplicity the four accounts of the first appearance of Jesus after His cruci fixion. If these qualities are not discernible here, we must despair of ever being able to discern them any where.” The next thing we notice is the unintentional evidence of words, phrases, and accidental details. It oftentimes happens that when a witness is on the stand, the unintentional evidence that he bears by words and phrases which he uses, and by accidental details which he introduces, is more convincing than his direct testimony, because it is not the testimony of the witness, but a testimony of the truth itself. The Gospel accounts abound in evidence of this sort. Take, as the first instance, the fact that in all the Gospel records of the resurrection, we are given to under-
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MARCH, 1964
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