The Bible says we have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and are in need of forgiveness. But why did Jesus need to die to enable us to be forgiven by God? Isn’t that an extreme measure for God to use in order to forgive people for making some bad choices?

 

Sin’s Role To understand why Jesus had to die we must understand a little of what sin is and the nature of God. We will summarize these two issues to place this question within a proper context.

 

God is a relational God who is by nature perfectly holy (Isaiah 54:5 and Revelation 4:8) and absolutely just (Revelation 16:5). Scripture says, “He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair” (Deuteronomy 32:4). Doing holy and just things isn’t something God decides to do, it is something he is. He by nature is holy and just.

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Once a person dies, really dies, and is buried, there is no coming back. People just don’t rise from the dead naturally. It is impossible without miraculous intervention. So is there proof that a miracle took place—that Jesus was dead and then was bodily resurrected?

 

There is an abundance of evidence to support Jesus’ resurrection. Many good resources are available on the subject. However, there are also a number of alternative theories that try to explain the absence of Jesus’ body from his tomb. They include the “stolen-body theory,” “the relocated body theory,” “the hallucination theory,” “the spiritual resurrection theory,” and others. Each of these theories attempts to explain facts about which there is little debate. The question is not whether those facts are true, but which theory best explains them. We will consider three of those facts.

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What if I told you I owned a brand-new Lamborghini and it was sitting in my garage right now? If you knew me you would probably say I couldn’t afford such a high-priced car on a high-school teacher’s salary. Of course, you’d be right. But all you would have to do is call my hand and say, “Show me the Lamborghini.” And if I couldn’t produce the goods, I would be a fraud.

It’s a little different when it comes to producing “the goods” on God. We just can’t pray a prayer or snap our fingers and presto!—God appears and dispels any question about his existence. To be truthful, even that might not persuade some people to believe in him. But the fact is, God in a real sense remains hidden to us as a material being. The Scripture says, “God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” ( John 4:24). And as a spirit, God is invisible to us (see 1 Timothy 1:17). You see, he is on another plane of existence than we humans. We are not meant to see him in all his awesome power and might. He told Moses, “You may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).

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You don’t have to know much about the “birds and the bees” to know that virgins don’t have children by remaining virgins. Human reproduction requires that a female’s ovum (egg) be fertilized by a male’s gamete (sperm) to achieve human conception. There simply is no other option short of a miracle. So what proof is there that Jesus was miraculously born of a virgin?

Those who don’t believe in miracles of course dismiss the virgin birth. In fact, Mary, Jesus’ mother, questioned the whole concept herself when the angel Gabriel announced it to her. “Mary asked the angel, ‘But how can this happen? I am a virgin’ ” (Luke 1:34). The angel explained that the conception would happen by the Holy Spirit, “so the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The angel acknowledged that all this was miraculous and added, “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). God does perform miracles, and in this case he caused Mary’s pregnancy.

A Mistranslation?

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Occasionally a book comes along that really excites me. Cold Case Christianity is such a book. In case you haven’t heard of him yet, author J. Warner Wallace is a practicing cold case detective who has one of the fastest growing apologetics podcasts and websites. Cold Case Christianity is Wallace’s first book. But given how insightful it is, I hope it’s not the last!

Wallace was a self-described “angry” atheist until his mid thirties. After visiting Saddleback Church, he decided to use the Forensic Statement Analysis (FSA) to investigate the gospel of Mark. If the FSA works for suspects and witnesses, Wallace thought, why not for the Gospel of Mark? He had become a bona fide expert at judging the veracity of a statement through examining the author’s use of language. Within a month of studying Mark’s Gospel, Wallace concluded it was an eyewitness account of the apostle Peter. This was the beginning of his conversion to Christianity.

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Jennie Allen is a Bible teacher who is passionate about inspiring a new generation of women to encounter the invisible God. Raised in a Christian home, Jennie heard about God her entire life but not until high school did she see her need for Him. Since that time she has been teaching groups of girls and young women about her God.

Jennie’s DVD-based Bible studies are uniquely relational, interactive and dig deep quickly. Her first study, Stuck: The Places We Get Stuck and the God Who Sets Us Free was released at the end of 2011  Her latest Bible study is entitled Chase: Chasing After the Heart of God (Thomas Nelson), and it focuses on the life and psalms of David.

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One question I often get asked is: where is the line for being a Christian or not? 

You’d be surprised at how often I get asked that question.

Some people focus on a specific point and time for a decision to follow Christ. I certainly think that any decision of that magnitude should be the watershed in your history….and a hard to forget. But for some, they don’t really remember that “point”. For some it’s more gradual.

One seminary professor put it this way: “Everyone has to cross the Mississippi River to be a follower. You’re either on one side or the other. But the Mississippi River is narrower at some points than at other points. Some step over. Others ride a boat.”

I agree.

But the real problem today is that few actually knows what constitutes the “Mississippi River” of faith. Few know where the line lies. So here’s a simple way to remember:

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Jesus is political. That’s how He died.

In this season of everyone pitching their political beliefs—including my favorite kind of naysaying, Facebook critics—Christians quickly get out of control. In the midst of it all, it’s really easy to lose sight of who is really ruler, Jesus, as Eugene Cho recently pointed out. It’s also easy to lose sight of just how political Jesus is and what that means for us.

Our Opposition Is Everywhere—That’s the Choice We Made

Jesus’ entire identity opposed the worldwide power of Rome.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are among the most significant artifacts of the Ancient Near East. In this special article that first appeared online at the Baptist Press, Benjamin Hawkins shows how the Dead Sea Scrolls speak to the reliability of the Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls are currently being exhibited at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Hawkins is a PhD. student. The Scrolls are also on display in New York City in a magnificent display presented by The Franklin Institute.

When a Bedouin shepherd discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel in the 1940s, few people immediately understood their importance. After taking the scrolls back to his camp, this shepherd left one of them on the ground to be torn apart by children, while one person reportedly used another scroll fragment to wipe a baby's bottom.

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