This weekend I had the chance to hear Michael Licona, New Testament scholar and author of the recent Resurrection of Jesus, respond to some of the most common objections raised against the gospels. His talk was part of the “On Guard” apologetics conference in Denton, TX. These particular objections came from Mike’s debate with Bart Ehrman over the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.

Objection: “The Gospels are forgeries”

Response: An example from secular history may help answer this objection. Plutarch is a trusted ancient historian. Interestingly, his name does not appear on any of the existing volumes. Yet historians are confident he wrote the volumes because of external evidence from contemporary writers. Similarly, we have external sources that confirm the tradition of the gospel writers, even though their names do not appear on the originals (as far as we know). For instance, Papias confirms that John wrote his gospel and wrote about 105 A.D., roughly 15 years after when John was written. He also confirms that Mark writes the testimony of Peter. And second century apologist Justin Martyr confirms that Luke wrote his gospel.

The cross is more about life than death. Jesus teaches us how to live life in his last moments. He teaches us what it means to be godly—to love those who hate you, even in the most painful circumstances. Here are the five things Jesus taught me on the cross:

1. Forgiveness is about us, not them. Forgiveness is not dependent upon other people’s actions. Luke’s gospel records Jesus looking down on the men who beat him and crucified him, and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Jesus doesn’t ask God to forgive the men who crucified him, and the crowd who mocked and beat him, because they deserve mercy, but because they are ignorant. They are anything but deserving. Jesus forgiving those who killed him shows us more about him than it does them. He was right with God, even when people had done wrong by him. We should forgive others because God forgave us when we didn’t deserve it.