The Virgin Birth of Christ

It is well known that the last ten or twenty years have been marked by a determined assault upon the truth of the Virgin birth of Christ. In the year 1892 a great controversy broke out in Germany, owing to the refusal of a pastor named Schrempf to use the Apostles’ Creed in baptism because of disbelief in this and other articles. Schrempf was deposed, and an agitation commenced against the doctrine of the Virgin birth which has grown in volume ever since. Other tendencies, especially the rise of an extremely radical school of historical criticism, added force to the negative movement. The attack is not confined, indeed, to the article of the Virgin birth. It affects the whole supernatural estimate of Christ — His life, His claims, His sinlessness, His miracles, His resurrection from the dead. But the Virgin birth is assailed with special vehemence, because it is supposed that the evidence for this miracle is more easily got rid of than the evidence for public facts, such as the resurrection. The result is that in very many quarters the Virgin birth of Christ is openly treated as a fable. Belief in it is scouted as unworthy of the twentieth century intelligence. The methods of the oldest opponents of Christianity are revived, and it is likened to the

The yirgin Birth of Christ

Greek and Roman stories, coarse and vile, of heroes who had gods for their fathers. A special point is made of the silence of Paul, and of the other writers of the New Testament, on this alleged wonder.

THE UNHAPPIEST FEATURE

It is not only, however, in the circles of unbelief that the Virgin birth is discredited; in the church itself the habit is spreading of casting doubt upon the fact, or at least of regarding it as no essential part of Christian faith. This is the unhappiest feature in this unhappy controversy. Till recently no one dreamed of denying that, in the sincere profession of Christianity, this article, which has stood from the beginning in the forefront of all the great creeds of Christendom, was included. Now it is different. The truth and value of the article of the Virgin birth are challenged. The article, it is affirmed, did not belong to the earliest Christian tradition, and the evidence for it is not strong. Therefore, let it drop.

THE COMPANY IT KEEPS

From the side of criticism, science, mythology, history and comparative religion, assault is thus made on the article long so dear to the hearts of Christians and rightly deemed by them so vital to their faith. For loud as is the voice of denial, one fact must strike every careful observer of the conflict. Among those who reject the Virgin birth of the Lord few will be found — I do not know any — who take in other respects an adequate view of the Person and work of the Saviour. It is surprising how clearly the line of division here reveals itself. My statement publicly made and printed

The Higher Criticism “and The AV;v Theology

has never been confuted, that those who accept a full doctrine of the incarnation — that is, of a true entrance of the eternal Son of God into our nature for the purposes of man’s salvation — with hardly an exception accept with it the doctrine of the Virgin birth of Christ, while those who repudiate or deny this article of faith either hold a lowered view of Christ’s Person, or, more commonly, reject His supernatural claims altogether. It will not be questioned, at any rate, that the great bulk of the opponents of the Virgin birth — those who are conspicuous by writing against it — are in the latter cb.ss.

A CAVIL ANSWERED

This really is an answer to the cavil often heard that, whether true or not, the Virgin birth is not of essential importance. It is not essential, it is urged, to Christ’s sinlessness, for that would have been secured equally though Christ had been born of two parents. And it is not essential to the incarnation. A hazardous thing, surely, for erring mortals to judge of what was and was not essential in so stupendous an event as the bringing in of the “first-begotten” into the world! But the Christian instinct has ever penetrated deeper. Rejection of the Virgin birth seldom, if ever, goes by itself. As the late Prof. A. B. Bruce said, with denial of the Virgin birth is apt to go denial of the virgin life. The incarnation is felt by those who think seriously to involve a miracle in Christ’s earthly origin. This will become clearer as we advance.

THE CASE STATED

It is the object of this paper to show that those who take the lines of denial po the Virgin birth just sketched do great

The I’irgiii Birth of Christ

injustice to the evidence and importance of the doctrine they reject. The evidence, if not of the same public kind as that for the resurrection, is far stronger than the objector allows, and the fact denied enters far more vitally into the essence of the Christian faith than he supposes. Placed in its right setting among the other truths of the Christian religion, it is not only no stumbling-block to faith, but is felt to fit in with self-evidencing power into the connection of these other truths, and to furnish the very explanation that is needed of Christ’s holy and supernatural Person. The ordinary Christian is a witness here. In reading the Gospels, he feels no incongruity in passing from the narratives of the Virgin birth to the wonderful story of Christ’s life in the chapters that follow, then from these to the pictures of Christ’s divine dignity given in John and Paul. The whole is of one piece: the Virgin birth is as natural at the beginning of the life of such an One — the divine Son — as the resurrection is at the end. And the more closely the matter is considered, the stronger does this impression grow. It is only when the scriptural conception of Christ is parted with that various difficulties and doubts come in.

A SUPERFICIAL VIEW

It is, in truth, a very superficial way of speaking or thinking of the Virgin birth to say that nothing depends on this belief for our estimate of Christ. Who that reflects on the subject carefully can fail to see that if Christ was virgin born — if He was truly “conceived,” as the creed says, “by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary” — there must of necessity enter a supernatural element into His Person; while, if Christ was sinless, much more if He was the very Word of God incarnate, there must have been a miracle — the most stupendous miracle in the universe — in His origin? If Christ was, as John and Paul affirm and His church has ever believed, the Son of God made flesh, the second Adam, the new redeeming Head of the race, a miracle was to be expected in His earthly origin; without a miracle such a Person could never have been. Why then cavil at the narratives which declare the fact of such a miracle? Who does not see that the Gospel history would have been incomplete without them? Inspiration here only gives to faith what faith on its own grounds imperatively demands for its perfect satisfaction.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING

It is time now to come to the Scripture itself, and to look at the fact of the Virgin birth in its historical setting, and its relation with other truths of the Gospel. As preceding the examination of the historical evidence, a little may be said, first, on the Old Testament preparation. Was there any such preparation? Some would say there was not, but this is not God’s way, and we may look with confidence for at least some indications which point in the direction of the New Testament event.

THE FIRST PROMISE

One’s mind turns to that oldest of all evangelical prom ises, that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. “I will put enmity,” says Jehovah to the serpenttempter, “between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15. R. V.)- It is a forceless weakening of this first word of Gospel in the Bible to explain it of a

The I’irgin Birth of Clvist

lasting feud between the race of men and the brood of serpents. The serpent, as even Dr. Driver attests, is “the representative of the power of evil” — in later Scripture, “he that is called the Devil and Satan” (Rev. 12:9) — and the defeat he sustains from the woman’s seed is a moral and spiritual victory. The “seed” who should destroy him is described emphatically as the woman’s seed. It was the woman through whom sin had entered the race; by the seed of the woman would salvation come. The early church writers often pressed this analogy between Eve and the Virgin Mary. We may reject any element of over-exaltation of Mary they connected with it, but it remains significant that this peculiar phrase should be chosen to designate the future deliverer. I cannot believe the choice to be of accident. The promise to Abraham was that in his seed the families of the earth would be blessed; there the male is emphasized, but here it is the woman — the woman distinctively. There is, perhaps, as good scholars have thought, an allusion to this promise in I Timothy 2:15, where, with allusion to Adam and Eve, it is said, “But she shall be saved through her (or the) child-bearing” (R. V.).

THE IM MANUEL PROPHECY

The idea of the Messiah, gradually gathering to itself the attributes of a divine King, reaches one of its clearest expressions in the great Immanuel prophecy, extending from Isaiah 7 to 9 :/, and centering in the declaration: “The Lord Himself will give you [the unbelieving Ahaz] a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14; Cf. 8:8, 10). This is none other than the child of wonder extolled in chapter 9:6, 7: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, [Father of Eternity], The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,” etc. This is the prophecy quoted as fulfilled in Christ’s birth in Matt. I :23, and it seems also alluded to in the glowing promises to Mary in Luke I 132, 33. It is pointed out in objection that the term rendered “virgin” in Isaiah does not necessarily bear this meaning; it denotes properly only a young unmarried woman. The context, however, seems clearly to lay an emphasis on the unmarried state, and the translators of the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) plainly so understood it when they rendered it by parthenos, a word which docs mean “virgin.” The tendency in many quarters now is to admit this (Dr. Cheyne, etc.), and even to seek an explanation of it in alleged Babylonian beliefs in a virgin-birth. This last, however, is quite illusory1. It is, on the other hand, singular that the Jews themselves do not seem to have applied this prophecy at any time to the Messiah — a fact which disproves the theory that it was this text which suggested the story of a Virgin birth to the early disciples.

ECHOES IN OTHER SCRIPTURES

It was, indeed, when one thinks of it, only on the supposition that there was to be something exceptional and extraordinary in the birth of this child called Immanuel that it could have afforded to Ahaz a sign of the perpetuity of the throne of David on the scale of magnitude proposed (“Ask it either

1 For the evidence, see my volume on “The Virgin Birth,” Lecture VII.

The I’irgin Birth of Christ

in the depth, or in the height above.” VP-. 10). We look, therefore, with interest to see if there are any echoes or suggestions of the idea of this passage in other prophetic scriptures. They are naturally not many, but they do not seem to be altogether wanting. There is, first, the remarkable Bethlehem prophecy in Micah 5 :2, 3 — also quoted as fulfilled in the nativity (Matt. 2:5, 6) — connected with the saying: “Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth” (“The King from Bethlehem,” says Delitzsch, “who has a nameless one as mother, and of whose father there is no mention”). Micah was Isaiah’s contemporary, and when the close relation between the two is considered (Cf. Isa. 2:2-4, with Micah 4:1-3), it is difficult not to recognize in his oracle an expansion of Isaiah’s. In the same line would seem to lie the enigmatic utterance in Jer. 31:22: “For Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth: a woman shall encompass a man” (thus Delitzsch, etc.).

TESTIMONY OF THE GOSPEL

The germs now indicated in prophetic scriptures had apparently borne no fruit in Jewish expectations of the Messiah, when the event took place which to Christian minds made them luminous with predictive import. In Bethlehem of Judea, as Micah had foretold, was born of a virgin mother He whose “goings forth” were “from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:6). Matthew, who quotes the first part of the verse, can hardly have been ignorant of the hint of pre-existence it contained. This brings us to the testimony to the miraculous birth of Christ in our first and third Gospels — the only Gospels which record the circumstance* of Christ’s birth at all. By general consent the narrative? in Matthew (chapters I, 2) and in Luke (chapters i, 2) are independent — that is, they are not derived one from the other — yet they both affirm, in detailed story, that Jesus, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of a pure virgin, Mary of Nazareth, espoused to Joseph, whose wife she afterwards became. The birth took place at Bethlehem, whither Joseph and Mary had gone for enrollment in a census that was being taken. The announcement was made to Mary beforehand by an angel, and the birth was preceded, attended, and followed by remarkable events that are narrated (birth of the Baptist, with annunciations, angelic vision to the shepherds, visit of wise men from the east, etc.). The narratives should be carefully read at length to understand the comments that follow.

THE TESTIMONY TESTED

There is no doubt, therefore, about the testimony to the Virgin birth, and the question which now arises is — What is the value of these parts of the Gospels as evidence? Are they genuine parts of the Gospels? Or are they late and untrust worthy additions? From what sources may they be presumed to be derived? It is on the truth of the narratives that our belief in the Virgin birth depends. Can they be trusted? Or are they mere fables, inventions, legends, to which no credit can be attached?

The answer to several of these questions can be given in very brief fprm. The narratives of the nativity in Matthew and Luke are undoubtedly genuine parts of their respective Gospels. They have been there since ever the Gospels themselves had an existence. The proof of this is convincing. The chapters in question are found in every manuscript and version of the Gospels known to exist. There ar« hundreds of manuscripts, some of them very old, belonging to different parts of the world, and many versions in different languages (Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, etc.), but these narratives of the Virgin birth are found in all. We know, indeed, that a section of the early Jewish Christians — the Ebionites, as they are commonly called — possessed a Gospel based on Matthew from which the chapters on the nativity were absent. But this was not the real Gospel of Matthew: it was at best a mutilated and corrupted form of it. The genuine Gospel, as the manuscripts attest, always had these chapters.

Next, as to the Gospels themselves, they were not of late and non-apostolic origin; but were -written by apostolic men, and were from the first accepted and circulated in the church as trustworthy embodiments of sound apostolic tradition. Luke’s Gospel was from Luke’s own pen — its genuineness has recently received a powerful vindication from Prof. Harnack, of Berlin — and Matthew’s Gospel, while some dubiety still rests on its original language (Aramaic or Greek), passed without challenge in the early church as the genuine Gospel of the Apostle Matthew. Criticism has more recently raised the question whether it is only the “groundwork” of the discourses (the “Logia”) that comes directly from Matthew. However this may be settled, it is certain that the Gospel in its Greek form always passed as Matthew’s. It must, therefore, if not written by him, have had his immediate authority. The narratives come to us, accordingly, with high apostolic sanction.

SOURCES OF THE NARRATIVES

As to the sources of the narratives, not a little can be gleaned from the study of their internal character. Here two facts reveal themselves. The first is that the narrative of Luke is based on some old, archaic, highly original Aramaic writing. Its Aramaic character gleams through its every part. In style, tone, conception, it is highly primitive — emanates, apparently, from that circle of devout people in Jerusalem to whom its own pages introduce us (Luke 2:25, 36-38). It has, therefore, the highest claim to credit. The second fact is even more important. A perusal of the narratives shows clearly — what might have been expected — that the information they convey was derived from no lower source than Joseph and Mary themselves. This is a marked feature of contrast in the narratives — that Matthew’s narrative is all told from Joseph’s point of view, and Luke’s is all told from Mary’s. The signs of this are unmistakable. Matthew tells about Joseph’s difficulties and action, and says little or nothing about Mary’s thoughts and feelings. Luke tells much about Mary — even her inmost thoughts — but says next to nothing directly about Joseph. The narratives, in short, are not, as some would have it, contradictory, but are independent and complementary. The one supplements and completes the other. Both together are needed to give the whole story. They bear in themselves the stamp of truth, honesty, and purity, and are worthy of all acceptation, as they were evidently held to be in the early church.

UNFOUNDED OBJECTIONS

Against the acceptance of these early, well-attested narratives, what, now, have the objectors to allege? I pass by the attempts to show, by critical elimination (expurging Luke i 135, and some other clauses), that Luke’::- narrative was not a narrative of a Virgin birth at all. This is a vain attempt in face of the testimony of manuscript authorities. Neither need I dwell on the alleged “discrepancies” in the genealogies

The 1’irgm Birth of Christ

and narratives. These are not serious, when the independence and different standpoints of the narratives are acknowledged. The genealogies, tracing the descent of Christ from David along different lines, present problems which exercise the minds of scholars, but they do not touch the central fact of the belief of both Evangelists in the birth of Jesus from a virgin. Even in a Syriac manuscript which contains the certainly wrong reading, “Joseph begat Jesus,” the narrative goes on, as usual, to recount the Virgin birth. It is not a contradiction, if Matthew is silent on the earlier residence in Nazareth- *vhich Luke’s object led him fully to describe.

SILENCE OF MARK AND JOHN

The objection on which most stress is laid (apart from what is called the evidently “mythical” character of the narratives) is the silence on the Virgin birth in the remaining Gospels, and other parts of the New Testament. This, it is held, conclusively proves that the Virgin birth was not known in the earliest Christian circles, and was a legend of later origin. As respects the Gospels — Mark and John — the objection would only apply if it was the design of these Gospels to narrate, as the others do, the circumstances of the nativity. But this was evidently not their design. Both Mark and John knew that Jesus had a human birth — an infancy and early life — and that His mother was called Mary, but of deliberate purpose they tell us nothing about it. Mark begins his Gospel with Christ’s entrance on His public ministry, and says nothing of the period before, especially of how Jesus came to be called “the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). John traces the divine descent of Jesus, and tells us that the “Word became flesh” (John I 114); but how this miracle of becoming flesh was wrought he does not

The Higher Criticism and Th$ New Theology

say. It did not lie within his plan. He knew the church tradition on the subject: he had the Gospels narrating the birth of Jesus from the Virgin in his hands: and he takes the knowledge of their teaching for granted. To speak of contradiction in a case like this is out of the question.

SILENCE OF PAUL

How far Paul was; cquainted with the facts of Christ’s earthly origin it is not eai y to say. To a certain extent these facts would always be regi rded as among the privacies of the innermost Christian circles- -so long at least as Mary lived — and the details may not have been fully known till the Gospels were published. Paul admittedly did not base his preaching of his Gospel on these private, interior matters, but on the broad, public facts of Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection. It would be going too far, however, to infer from this that Paul had no knowledge of the miracle of Christ’s birth. Luke was Paul’s companion, and doubtless shared with Paul all the knowledge which he himself had gathered on this and other subjects. One thing certain is, that Paul could not have believed in the divine dignity, the pre-existence, the sinless perfection, and redeeming headship, of Jesus as he did, and not have been convinced that His entrance into humanity was no ordinary event of nature, but implied an unparalleled miracle of some kind. This Son of God, who “emptied” Him self, who was “born of a woman, born under the law,” who “knew no sin” (Phil. 2:7, 8; Gal. 4:4; 2 Cor. 5:21), was not, and could not be, a simple product of nature. God must have wrought creatively in His human origin. The Virgin birth would be to Paul the most reasonable and credible of events.

So also to John, who held the same high view of Christ’s dignity and holiness.

CHRIST S SINLESSNESS A PROOF

It is sometimes argued that a Virgin birth is no aid to the explanation of Christ’s sinlessness. Mary being herself sinful in nature, it is held the taint of corruption would be conveyed by one parent as really as by two. It is overlooked that the whole fact is not expressed by saying that Jesus was born of a virgin mother. There is the other factor — “conceived by the Holy Ghost.” What happened was a divine, creative miracle wrought in the production of this new humanity which secured, from its earliest germinal beginnings, freedom from the slightest taint of sin. Paternal generation in such an origin is superfluous. The birth of Jesus was not, as in ordinary births, the creation of a new personality. It was a divine Person — already existing — entering on this new mode of existence. Miracle could alone effect such a wonder. Because His human nature had this miraculous origin Christ was the “holy” One from the commencement (Luke I :35). Sinless He was, as His whole life demonstrated; but when, in all time, did natural generation give birth to a sinless personality?

THE EARLY CHURCH A WITNESS

The history of the early church is occasionally appealed to in witness that the doctrine of the Virgin birth was not primitive. No assertion could be more futile. The early church, so far as we can trace it back, in all its branches, held this doctrine. No Christian sect is known that denied it, save the Jewish Ebionites formerly alluded to. The general body of the Jewish Christians — the Nazarenes as they are called — accepted it. Even the greater Gnostic sects in their own way admitted it. Those Gnostics who denied it were repelled with all the force of the church’s greatest teachers. The Apostle John is related to have vehemently opposed Cerinthus, the earliest teacher with whom this denial is connected.

DISCREDITED VAGARIES

What more remains to be said? It would be waste of space to follow the objectors into their various theories of a mythical origin of this belief. One by one the speculations advanced have broken down, and given place to others — all equally baseless. The newest of the theories seeks an origin of the belief in ancient Babylonia, and supposes the Jews to have possessed the notion in pre-Christian times. This is not only opposed to all real evidence, but is the giving up of the contention that the idea had its origin in late Christian circles, and was unknown to earlier apostles.

THE REAL CHRIST

Doctrinally, it must be repeated that the belief in the Virgin birth of Christ is of the highest value for the right apprehension of Christ’s unique and sinless personality. Here is One, as Paul brings out in Romans 5 :12 fT, who, free from sin Himself, and not involved in the Adamic liabilities of the race, reverses the curse of sin and death brought in by the first Adam, and establishes the reign of righteousness and life. Had Christ been naturally born, not one of these things could be affirmed of Him. As one of Adam’s race, not an entrant 2J2 from a higher sphere, He would have shared in Adam’s corruption and doom — would Himself have required to be redeemed. Through God’s infinite mercy, He came from above, inherited no guilt, needed no regeneration or sanctification, but became Himself the Redeemer, Regenerator, Sanctifier, for all who receive Him. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

THE CERTAINTY AND IMPORTANCE OF THE REAL

AND BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS

CHRIST FROM THE DEAD

BY DR. R. A. TORREY

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the corner stone of Christian doctrine. It is mentioned directly one hundred and four (or more) times in the New Testament. It was the most prominent and cardinal point in the apostolic testimony. When the apostolic company, after the apostasy of Judas Iscariot, felt it necessary to complete their number again by the addition of one to take the place of Judas Iscariot, it was in order that he might “Be a witness with us of His resurrection.” (Acts 1 :2i, 22.) The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the one point that Peter emphasized in his great sermon on the Day of Pentecost. His whole sermon centered in that fact. Its keynote was “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses” (Acts 2 132 cf. vs. 24-31). When the Apostles were filled again with the Holy Spirit some days later, the one central result wras that with “great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” The central doctrine that the Apostle Paul preached to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill was Jesus and the resurrection. (Acts 17:18 cf. Acts 23:6; i Cor. 15:15.) The resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the two fundamental truths of the Gospel, the other being His atoning death. Paul says in i Cor. 15:1, 3, 4, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you THE GOSPEL which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third clay, according to the Scriptures.” This was the glad tidings; first, that Christ died for our sins and made atonement, and second, that He rose again. The crucifixion loses its meaning without the resurrection. Without the resurrection, the death of Christ was only the heroic death of a noble martyr. With the resurrection, it is the atoning death of the Son of God. It shows that death to be of sufficient value to cover all our sins, for it was the sacrifice of the Son of God. In it we have an all-sufficient ground for knowing that the blackest sin is atoned for. Disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christian faith is vain. “If Christ be not risen,” cries Paul, “then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (i Cor. 15:14). And later he adds: “If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain. You are yet in your sins.” Paul, as the context clearly shows, is talking about the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the one doctrine that has power to save any one who believes it with the heart. As we read in Rom. 10:9: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” To know the power of Christ’s resurrection is one of the highest ambitions of the intelligent believer, to attain which he sacrifices all things and counts them but refuse (Phil. 3:8-10. R. V.). While the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the corner stone of Christian doctrine, it is also the Gibraltar of Christian evidence and the Waterloo of Infidelity and Rationalism. If the Scriptural assertions of Christ’s resurrection can be established as historic certainties, the claims and doctrines of Christianity rest upon an impregnable foundation. On the other hand, if the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead cannot be established, Christianity must go. It was a true instinct that led a leading and brilliant agnostic in England to say, that there is no use wasting time discussing the other miracles-, the essential question is, Did Jesus Christ rise from the dead? adding that if He did, it was easy enough to believe the other miracles; but if He did 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 three separate lines of proof that the statements contained in the four Gospels, regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ, are exact statements of historic fact.

I. THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE AUTHENTICITY AND

TRUTHFULNESS OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES

This is an altogether satisfactory argument. The external proofs of the authenticity and truthfulness of the Gospel narratives are overwhelming, but the argument is long and intricate, and it would take a volume to discuss it satisfactorily. The other arguments are so completely sufficient and overwhelming and convincing to a candid mind that we can do without this, good as it is in its place.

II. THE INTERNAL PROOFS OF THE TRUTHFULNESS OF THE

GOSPEL RECORDS

This argument is thoroughly conclusive, and we shall state it briefly in the pages which follow. We shall nd

•16 assume anything whatever. We shall not assume that the four Gospel records are 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 century, nor in the next. We will assume absolutely nothing whatever. We will start out with a fact which we all know to be a fact, namely, that we have the four Gospels to-day, 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.

i. 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 im possible for these four accounts to have been made up in collusion with one another, or to have been derived from one another, and so many and so marked discrepancies to be found in them. 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 standpoint. It is precisely such a harmony as would not exist in four accounts manufactured in collusion or derived one from the other. In four accounts manufactured in collusion, whatever of harmony there might be would appear on the surface: whatever discrepancy there might be would only come out by minute and careful study.

But with the four Gospels the case is just the opposite. The harmony comes out by minute and careful study, and the apparent discrepancy lies upon the surface. Whether true or false, these four accounts are separate and independent from one another. The four accounts supplement one another, the third account sometimes reconciling apparent discrepancies between two.

These accounts must be either a record of facts that actually occurred, or else fictions. If fictions, they. must have been fabricated in one of two ways. Either independently 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, independently 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 already seen, in collusion with one another; the apparent discrepancies are too numerous and too noticeable. It is proven they were not made up independently of one another; it is proven they were not made up in collusion with one another. So we are driven to the conclusion that they were not made up at all; that they are a true relation of facts as they actually occurred. We might rest the argument here and reasonably call the case settled, but wre will go on still further.

2. The next thing that we notice is that each of these accounts bears striking indications of having been derived from eye witnesses.

The account of an eye witness is readily distinguishable

from the account of one who is merely retailing 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 lecturing at an American University, a gentleman was introduced to me as being a skeptic. I asked him: “What line of study are you pursuing?” He replied that he was pursuing a post-graduate course in history, with a view to a professorship in history. 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 resurrection of Christ?” He replied: “I have.” “Tell me, have you 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.

3. The third thing that we notice about these Gospel narratives is their naturalness, straightforwardness, artlessncss and simplicity. The accounts, it is true, have to do with the supernatural, 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, straightforward telling of facts as they actually occurred. It frequently happens when a witness is on the witness stand, that the story he tells is so artless, so straightforward, so natural, there is such an entire absence of any attempt at coloring or effect that his testimony bears weight independently of anything we may know of the character or previous history of the witness. As we listen to his story we say to ourselves: “This man is telling the truth.” The weight of this kind of evidence is greatly increased and reaches practical certainty when we have several independent 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. The Gospel writers do not seem to have reflected at all upon the meaning or bearing of many of the facts which they relate. They simply tell right out what they saw, in all simplicity and straightforwardness, leaving the philosophizing to others. Dr. William Furness, the great Unitarian scholar and critic, who certainly was not over-much disposed in favor of the supernatural, says: “Nothing can exceed, in artlessness and simplicity, the four accounts of the first appearance of Jesus after His crucifixion. If these qualities are not discernible here, we must despair of ever being able to discern them anywhere.”

Suppose we should find four accounts of the battle of Monmouth. Suppose, furthermore, that nothing decisive was known as to the authorship of these four accounts, but when we laid them side by side we found that they were manifestly independent accounts. We found, furthermore, striking indications that they were from eye witnesses. We found them all marked by that artlessness, straightforwardness and simplicity that always carries conviction; we found that, while apparently disagreeing in minor details, they agreed substantially in their account of the battle — even though we had no knowledge of the authorship or date of these accounts, would we not, in the absence of any other accounts, say: “Here is a true account of the battle of Monmouth”? Now this is exactly the case with the four Gospel narratives. Manifestly separate and independent from one another, bearing the clear marks of having been derived from eye witnesses, characterized by an unparalleled artlessness, simplicity and straightforwardness, apparently disagreeing in minor details, but in perfect agreement as to the great central facts related. If we are fair and honest, if we follow the canons of evidence followed in court, if we follow any sound and sane law of literary and historical criticism, are we not logically driven to say: “Here is a true account of the resurrection of Jesus”? Here, again, we might rest our case and call the Resurrection of Jesus from the Dead proven, but we go on still further.

4. 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 the testimony of the truth to 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 understand that Jesus was not at first recognized by His disciples when He appeared to them after His resurrection (e. g. Luke 24:16; John 21 14.) We are not told why this was so, but if we will think a while over it, we will soon discover why it was so. But the Gospel narratives simply record the fact without attempting to explain it. If the stories were fictitious, they certainly would never have been made up in this way, for the writer would have seen at once the objection that would arise in the minds of those who did not wish to believe in His resurrection, that is, that it was not really Jesus whom the disciples saw. Why, then, is the story told in this way? For the self-evident reason that the evangelists were not making up a story for effect, but simply recording events precisely as they occurred. This is the way in which it occurred, therefore this is the way in which they told it. It is not a fabrication of imaginary incidents, but an exact record of facts carefully observed and accurately recorded. ’

Take a second instance: In all the Gospel records of the appearances of Jesus after His resurrection, there is not a single recorded appearance to an enemy or opponent of Christ. All His appearances were to those who were already believers. Why this was so we can easily see by a little thought; but nowhere in the Gospels are we told why it was so. If the stories had been fabricated, they certainly would never have been made up in this way. If the Gospels were, as some would have us believe, fabrications constructed one hundred, two hundred or three hundred years after the alleged events recorded, when all the actors were dead and gone and no one could gainsay any lies told, Jesus would have been represented as appearing to Caiaphas and Annas and Pilate and Herod, and confounding them by His reappearance from the dead. But there is no suggestion even of anything of this kind in the Gospel stories. Every appearance is to one who is already a believer. Why is this so? For the self-evident reason that this was the way that things occurred, and the Gospel narratives are not concerned with producing a story for effect, but simply with recording events precisely as they occurred and as they were observed.

We find still another instance in the fact that the recorded appearances of Jesus afttr His resurrection were only occasional. He would appear in the midst of His disciples and disappear and not be seen again, perhaps, for several days. Why this was so, we can easily think out for ourselves: He was evidently seeking to wean His disciples from their old-time communion with Him in the body and to prepare them

22?

for the communion with Himself in the Spirit that was to follow in the days that were to come. We are not, however, told this in the Gospel narratives. We are left to discover it for ourselves, and this is all the more significant for that reason. It is doubtful if the disciples themselves realized the meaning of the facts. If they had been making up the story to produce effect, they would have represented Jesus as being with them constantly, as living with them, eating and drinking with them day after day. Why, then, is the story told as recorded in the four Gospels? Because this is the way in which it had all occurred. The Gospel writers are simply concerned with giving the exact representation of the facts as witnessed by themselves and others.

We find another very striking instance in what is recorded concerning the words of Jesus to Mary at their first meeting (John 20:17). Jesus is recorded as saying to Mary: “Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.” We are not told why Jesus said this to Mary. We are left to discover the reason for it if we can, and the commentators have had a great deal of trouble in discovering it. Their explanations vary widely one from another. I have a reason of my own, which I have never seen in any commentary, but which, I am persuaded, is the true reason; but it would probably be difficult to persuade others that it was the true reason. Why, then, is this little utterance of Jesus put in the Gospel record without a word of explanation, and which it has taken eighteen centuries to explain, and which is not altogether satisfactorily explained yet? Certainly a writer making up a story would not put in a little detail like that without apparent meaning and without an attempt at an explanation of it. Stories that are made up are made up for a purpose; details that are inserted are inserted for a purpose — a purpose more or less evident — but eighteen centuries of study have not been able to find out the purpose why this was inserted. Why, then, do we find it here? Because this is exactly what happened. This is what Jesus said; this is what Mary heard Jesus say; this is what Mary told, and, therefore, this is what John recorded. We cannot have a fiction here, but an accurate record of words spoken by Jesus after His resurrection.

We find still another instance in John 20 ‘.4-6. “So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie.” This is all in striking keeping with what we know of the men from other sources. Mary, returning hurriedly from the tomb, bursts in upon the two disciples and cries: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.” John and Peter sprang to their feet and ran at the top of their speed to the tomb. John, the younger of the two disciples (it is all the more striking that the narrative does not tell us here that he was the younger of the two disciples), was fleeter of foot, and outran Peter and reached the tomb first, but, man of retiring and reverent disposition that he was (we are not told this here, but we know it from a study of his personality as revealed elsewhere), he did not enter the tomb but simply stooped down and looked in. Impetuous, but older, Peter comes lumbering on behind as fast as he can; but when once he reaches the tomb, he never waits a moment outside but plunges headlong in. Is this made up, or is it life? He was indeed a literary artist of consummate ability, who had the skill to make this up, if it did not occur just so. There is, incidentally a touch of local coloring in the report. When one visits today the tomb which scholars now accept as the real burial place of Jesus, he will find himself unconsciously obliged to stoop down to look in.

Still another instance is found in John 21:7: “Therefore that disciple, whom Jesus loved, saith to Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him (for he was naked) and did cast himself into the sea.” Here, again, we have the unmistakable marks of truth and life. The Apostles had gone, at Jesus’ commandment, into Galilee to meet Him there, but Jesus does not at once appear. Simon Peter, with the fisher’s passion still stirring in his bosom, says: “I go a-fishing.” The others replied: “We also go with thee.” They fished all night and with characteristic fishermen’s luck, caught nothing. In the early dawn Jesus stands upon the shore, but the disciples did not recognize Him in the dim light. Jesu-s calls to them: “Children, have ye any meat?” And they answer: “No.” He bids them cast the net on the right side of the ship and they would find. When the cast was made, they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. In an instant, John, the man of quick spiritual perception, says: “It is the Lord.” No sooner does Peter, the man of impulsive action, hear it than he grasps his fisher’s coat, casts it about his naked form and throws himself overboard and strikes out for shore to reach his Lord. Is this made up, or is it life? This is not fiction. If some unknown author of the fourth Gospel made this up, he is the master literary artist of the ages, and we should take down every other name from our literary pantheon and place his above them all.

We find a still more touching instance in John 20:15: “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, “Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Here is surely a touch that surpasses the art of any man of that day or any other day. Mary had gone into the city and noti fied John and Peter that she had found the sepulchre empty. They start on a run for the sepulchre. As Mary has already made the journey twice, they easily far outstrip her, but with heavy heart and slow and weary feet, she makes her way back to the tomb. Peter and John have been long gone when she reaches it, broken-hearted, thinking that not only has her be loved Lord been slain, but that His tomb has been desecrated. She stands without, weeping. There are two angels sitting in the tomb, one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. But the grief-stricken woman has no eye for angels. They say unto her: “Woman, why weepest thou?” She replies: “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.” A rustle in the leaves at her back and she turns around to see who is coming. She sees Jesus standing there, but blinded by tears and despair she does not recognize her Lord. Jesus also says to her: “Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?” She, supposing it to be the gardener who is talking to her says: “Sir, if Thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him and I will take Him away.” Now, remember, who it is that makes the offer, and whit she offers to do — a weak woman offers to carry a full-grown man away. Of course, she could not do it, but how true to a woman’s love that always forgets its weakness and never stops at impossibilities. There is something to be done and she says: “I will do it! Tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take

Him away.” Is this made up? Never! This is life; this is reality; this is truth.

We find another instance in Mark 16:7: “But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.”, What I would have you notice here are the two words “and Peter.” Why “and Peter”! Was not Peter one of the disciples? Surely he was, the very head of the Apostolic company. Why, then, “and Peter”? No explanation is given in the text, but reflection shows it was the utterance of love toward the despondent, despairing disciple, who had thrice denied his Lord. If the message had been simply to “the disciples” Peter would have said: “Yes, I was once a disciple, but I can no longer be counted such. I thrice denied my Lord on that awful night with oaths and cursings. It does not mean me.” But our tender, compassionate Lord, through His angelic messenger, sends the message: “Go, tell His disciples, and whoever you tell, be sure you tell poor, weak, faltering, backslidden, broken-hearted Peter.” Is this made up, or is this a real picture of our Lord? I pity the man who is so dull that he can imagine this is fiction. Incidentally, let it be noted that this is recorded only in the Gospel of Mark, which, as is well known, is Peter’s Gospel. As Peter dictated to Mark one day what he should record, with tearful eyes and grateful heart he would turn to him and say: “Mark, be sure you put that in, ‘Tell His disciples and Peter!”

Take, still, another instance in John 20:27-29: “Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said unto 227 him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Note here two things: The action of Thomas and the rebuke of Jesus. Each is too characteristic to be attributed to the art of some master of fiction. Thomas had not been with the disciples at the first appearance of our Lord. A week had passed by. Another Lord’s Day had come. This time Thomas makes sure of being present; if the Lord is to appear, he will be there. If he had been like some of our modern doubters, he would have taken pains to be away; but doubter though he was, he was an honest doubter, and wanted to know. Suddenly Jesus stands in the midst. He says to Thomas: “Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless but believing.” At last Thomas’s eyes are opened. His faith long dammed back bursts every barrier and, sweeping outward, carries Thomas to a higher height than any other disciple had as yet reached — exultingly and adoringly, he cries, as he looks up into the face of Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus, tenderly, but oh, how searchingly, rebukes him. “Thomas,” He says, “because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they [who are so eager to find and so quick to see, and so ready to accept the truth that they do not wait for actual visible demonstration, but are ready to take truth on sufficient testimony] that have not seen and yet have believed.” Is this made up, or is this life? Is it a record of facts as they occurred or a fictitious production of some master artist?

Take still another instance. In John 21:15-17 we read:

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon,

son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith

unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that T Jove Thee. He

The Resurrection of Jesus Chi 1st

saith unto him, Feed My lambs. He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thoti Me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou knowcst that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he said unto Him, ‘Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed My sheep.” Note especially here the words: “Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me.” Why did Jesus ask Peter three times “Lovest thou Me?” And why was Peter grieved because Jesus did ask him three times? We are not told in the text, but if we read it in the light of Peter’s thrice repeated denial of his Lord, we will understand it. As Peter had denied his Lord thrice, Jesus three times gave Peter an opportunity to reassert his love. But this, tender as it was, brings back to Peter that awful night when, in the courtyard of Annas and Caiaphas, he thrice denied his Lord, and “Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me.” Is this made up? Did the writer make it up with this fact in view? If he did, he surely would have mentioned it. It cannot have been made up. It is not fiction. It is simply reporting what actually occurred. The accurate truthfulness of the record comes out even more strikingly in the Greek than in the English version. Two different words are used for “love.” Jesus, in asking Peter “Lovest thou Me” uses a strong word, denoting the higher form of love. Peter, replying: “Lord, Thou knowest that I love thee,” uses a weaker word, but one denoting a more tender form of love. Jesus, the second time uses the stronger word, and the second time, in his reply, Peter uses the weaker word. In His third question, Jesus conies down to Peter’s level and uses the weaker word that Peter had used from the beginning. Then Peter replies: “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee,” using the same weaker word. This cannot be fiction. It is accurately reported fact.

Take still another instance. In John 20 :16 we read: “Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.” What a delicate touch of nature we have here. Mary is standing outside the tomb overcome with grief. She has not recognized her Lord, though He has spoken to her. She has mistaken Him for the gardener. She has said, “Sir, if Thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Then Jesus utters just one word, He says, “Mary.” As that name came trembling on the morning air, uttered with the old familiar tone, spoken as no one else had ever spoken it but He, in an instant, her eyes were opened. She falls at His feet and tries to clasp them, and looks up into His face, and cries: “Rabboni, My Master.” Is this made up? Impossible! This is life! This is Jesus, and this is the woman who loved Him. No unknown author of the second, third or fourth century could have produced such a masterpiece as this. We stand here, unquestionably face to face with reality, with life, with Jesus and Mary as they actually were.

One more important illustration. In John 20 7 we read: “And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.” How strange that such a little detail as this should be added to the story with absolutely no attempt at explaining why. But how deeply significant this little unexplained detail is. Recall the circumstances. Jesus is dead. For three days and three nights, from Wednesday evening at sunset until Saturday

77i* Resurrection of Jesus Christ

evening at sunset (l!:e evidence for Christ being crucified on Wednesday and not on Friday seems to be overwhelming, but it does not matter for the purpose of our present argument), His body is laying cold and silent in the sepulchre, as truly dead as any body was ever dead; but at last the appointed hour has come, the breath of God sweeps through the sleeping and silent clay, and in that supreme moment of His own earthly life, that supreme moment of human history when Jesus rises triumphant over death and grave and Satan, there is no excitement rpon His part, but that same majestic self-composure and serenity that marked His whole career, that same Divine calm that He displayed upon storm-tossed Galilee when His affrighted disciples shook Him from His slumbers, and said: “Lord, carest Thou not that we perish?” and He arose serenely on the deck of the tossing vessel and said to the wild, tempestuous waves and winds: “Be still,” and there was a great calm. So now, again, in this sublime, this awful moment, He does not excitedly tear the napkin from His face and fling it aside, but absolutely without human haste or flurry, or disorder, He unties it calmly from His head, rolls it up and lays it away in an orderly manner in a place by itself. Was that made up? Never! We do not behold here an exquisite masterpiece of the romancer’s art — we read here the simple narrative of a matchless detail in a unique life that was actually lived here upon earth, a life so beautiful that one cannot rea-1 it with an honest and open mind with out feeling the tears coming into his eyes.

But some one will say, all these are little things. True, and it is from that very fact that they gain much of their significance. It is just in such little things that fiction would disclose itself. Fie ion displays its difference from fact in the minute; in the ;;reat outstanding outlines you can make ‘1 he Higher Criticism and The New Theology

fiction look like truth, but when you come to examine it minutely and microscopically, you will soon detect that it is not reality, but fabrication. But the more microscopically we examine the Gospel narratives, the more we become impressed with their truthfulness. There is an artlessness and naturalness and self-evident truthfulness in the narratives, down to the minutest detail, that surpasses all the possibilities of art.

III. The third line of proof that the statements contained in the four Gospels regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ are exact statements of historic fact, is the CIRCUM STANTIAL EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. There are certain proven and admitted facts that demand the resurrection of Christ to account for them.

I. Beyond a question, the foundation truth preached in the early years of the church’s history was the resurrection. This was the one doctrine upon which the apostles were ever ringing the changes. Whether Jesus did actually rise from the dead or not, it is certain that the one thing that the apostles constantly proclaimed was that He had risen. Why should the apostles use this as the very corner stone of their creed if not well attested and firmly believed. But this is not all: they laid down their lives for this doctrine. Men never lay down their lives for a doctrine which they do not firmly believe. They stated that they had seen Jesus after His resurrection, and rather than give up their statement, they laid down their lives for it. Of course, men may die for error, and often have, but it was for error that they firmly believed. In this case they would have known whether they had seen Jesus or not, and they would not merely have been dying far error but dying for a statement which they knew to be false. This is not only incredible but impossible. Furthermore, if the apostles really firmly believed, as is admitted, that Jesus

The Resurrection of JCMIS Christ

rose from the dead, they had some facts upon which they founded their belief. These would have been the facts that they would have related in recounting the story. They cer tainly would not have made up a story out of imaginary incidents when they had real facts upon which they founded their belief. But if the facts were, as recounted in the Gospels, there is no possible escaping the conclusion that Jesus actually arose. Still further, if Jesus had not arisen there would have been evidence that He had not. His enemies would have sought and found this evidence; but the apostles went up and down the very city where He had been crucified and proclaimed, right to the faces of His slayers, that He had been raised and no one could produce evidence to the contrary. The very best they could do was to say the guards went to sleep and the disciples stole the body while the guards slept. Men who bear evidence of what happens while they are asleep are not usually regarded as credible witnesses. Further still, if the apostles had stolen the body they would have known it themselves and would not have been ready to die for what they knew to be a fraud.

2. Another known fact is the change in the day of rest. The early church came from among the Jews. From time immemorial the Jews had celebrated the seventh day of the week as their day of rest and worship, but we find the early Christians, in the Acts of the Apostles and also in early Christian writings, assembling on the first day of the week. Nothing is more difficult of accomplishment than the change in a holy day that has been celebrated for centuries and is one of the most cherished customs of the people. What is especially significant about the change is that it was changed by no express decree, but by general consent. Something tremendous must have occurred that led to this change. The apostles asserted that what had occurred on that day was the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and that is the most rational explanation. In fact, it is the only reasonable explanation of the change.

3. But the most significant fact of all is the change in the disciples themselves, the moral transformation. At the time of the crucifixion of Christ, we find the whole apostolic company filled with blank and utter despair. We see Peter, the leader of the apostolic company, denying his Lord three times with oaths and cursings, but a few days later we see this same man filled with a courage that nothing could shake. We see him standing before the council that had condemned Jesus to death and saying to them: “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Whom ye crucified, Whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this Man stand before you whole.” (Acts 4:10.) A little further on, when commanded by the council not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus we hear Peter and John answering: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the 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 faikers raised tip 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.) Something tremendous must have happened to account for such a radical and astounding moral transformatiom as this. Nothing 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 conclusive that even infidel and Jewish scholars now admit that the apostles believed that Jesus rose from the dead. Even Ferdinand Baur, father of the Tiibigen School, admitted this. Even David Strauss, who wrote the most masterly “Life of Jesus” from the rationalistic standpoint that was ever written, 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 morn ing 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 communion were convinced that Jesus was seen after the crucifixion.” These admissions are fatal to the rationalists who make them. The question at once arises: “Whence these convictions and belief?” Renan attempted an answer by saying 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 with Jesus; that after His crucifixion, brooding over it, in the passion of her love, she dreamed herself into a condition where she had a hallucination that she had seen Jesus risen from the dead. She reported her dream as a fact, and thus the passion of a hallucinated woman gave to the world a resurrected God. But the reply to all this is self-evident, viz., the passion of a hallucinated woman was not competent to this task. Remember the make-up of the apostolic company; in the apostolic company

The Higher Criticism and The

were a Matthew and a Thomas to be convinced, outside was a Saul of Tarsus to be converted. The passion of a hallucinated woman will not convince a stubborn unbeliever like Thomas, nor a Jewish tax-gatherer like Matthew. Whoever heard of a tax-gatherer, and, most of all, of a Jewish tax-gatherer, who could be imposed upon by the passion of a hallucinated woman? Neither will the passion of a hallucinated woman convince a fierce and conscientious enemy like Saul of Tarsus. We must look for some saner explanation than this. Strauss tried to account for it by inquiring whether the appearances might not have been visionary. Strauss has had, and still has, many followers in this theory. But to this we reply, first of all, there was no subjective starting point for such visions. The apostles, so far from expecting to see the Lord, would scarcely believe their own eyes when they did see Him. Furthermore, whoever heard of eleven men having the same vision at the same time, to say nothing of five hundred men (I Cor. 15:6) having the same vision at the same time. Strauss demands of us that we give up one reasonable miracle and substitute five hundred impossible miracles in its place. Nothing can surpass the credulity of unbelief.

The third attempt at an explanation is that Jesus was not really dead when they took Him from the cross, that His friends worked over Him and brought Him back to life, and what was supposed to be the appearance of the risen Lord was the appearance of one who never had been really dead and was now merely resuscitated. This theory of Paulus has been brought forward and revamped by various rationalistic writers in our own time and seems to be a favorite theory of those who, today, would deny the reality of our Lord’s resurrection. To sustain this view, appeal has been made to the short time Jesus hung upon the cross and to the fact that history tells us of one, in the time of Josephus, taken down from the cross and nursed back to life. But to this we answer: (i) Remember the events preceding the crucifixion; the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane; the awful ordeal of the four trials; the scourging and the consequent physical condition in which all this left Jesus. Remember, too, the water and the blood that poured from His pierced side. (2) In the second place, we reply, His enemies would take, and did take, all necessary precautions against such a thing as this happening. (John 19:34.) (3) We reply, in the third place, If Tesus had been merely resuscitated, He would have been so weak, such an utter physical wreck, that His reappearance would have been measured at its real value, and the moral transformation in the disciples, for which we are trying to account, would still remain unaccounted for. The officer in the time of Josephus, who is cited in proof, though brought back to life, was an utter physical wreck. (4) We reply, in the fourth place, If brought back to life, the apostles and friends of Jesus, who are the ones who are supposed to have brought Him back to life, would have known how they brought Him back to life, and that it was not a case of resurrection but of resuscitation, and the main fact to be accounted for, namely, the change in themselves, would remain unaccounted for. The attempted explanation is an explanation that does not explain. (5) In the fifth place, we reply, that the moral difficulty is the greatest of all, for if it was merely a case of resuscitation, then Jesus tried to palm Himself off as one risen from the dead when, in reality, He was nothing of the sort. In that case He would be an arch-impostor and the whole Christian system rests on a fraud as its ultimate foundation. Is it possible to believe that such a system of religion as that of Jesus Christ, embodying such exalted principles and precepts of truth, purity and love “originated in a deliberately planned fraud?” No one whose own heart is not cankered by fraud and trickery can believe Jesus to have been an impostor and His -religion to have been founded upon fraud. A leader of the rationalistic forces in England has recently tried to prove the theory that Jesus was only apparently dead by appealing to the fact that when the side of Jesus was pierced blood came forth, and asks: “Can a dead man bleed?” To this the sufficient reply is that when a man dies of, what is called in popular language, a broken heart, the blood escapes into the pericardium and after standing there for a short time it separates into serum (the water) and clot (the red corpuscles, blood), and thus, if a man were dead, if his side were pierced by a spear, and the point of the spear entered the pericardium, “blood and water” would flow out just as the record states it did; and what is brought forth as a proof that Jesus was not really dead, is, in reality, a proof that He was, and an illustration of the minute accuracy of the story. It could not have been made up in this way if it were not actual fact.

We have eliminated all other possible suppositions. We have but one left: namely, Jesus really was raised from the dead the third day, as recorded in the four Gospels. The desperate straits to which those who attempt to deny it are driven are themselves proof of the fact.

We have, then, several independent lines of argument pointing decisively and conclusively to the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Some of them taken separately prove the fact, but taken together they constitute an argument that makes doubt of the resurrection of Christ impossible to the candid mind. Of course, if one is determined not to believe, no amount of proof will convince him. Such a man must be left to his own deliberate choice of error and falsehood,

Tlic Resurrection of Jesus Christ

but any man who really desires to know the truth and is willing to obey it at any cost, must accept the resurrection of Christ as an historically proven fact.

A brilliant lawyer in New York City some time ago spoke to a prominent minister of that city asking him if he really believed that Christ rose from the dead. The minister replied that he did, and asked the privilege of presenting the proof to the lawyer. The lawyer took the material offered in proof away and studied it. He returned to the minister and said: “I am convinced that Jesus really did rise from the dead But,” he then added, “I am no nearer being a Christian than I was before. I thought that the difficulty was with my head. I find that it is really with my heart.”

There is really but one weighty objection to the doctrine that Jesus arose from the dead, and that is, “There is no conclusive evidence that any other ever arose.” To this a sufficient answer would be, even if it were certain that no other ever arose, it would not at all prove that Jesus did not arise, for the life of Jesus was unique. His nature was unique. His character was unique, His mission was unique, His history was unique, and it is not to be wondered at, but rather to be expected, that the issue of such a life should also be unique. However, all this objection is simply David Hume’s exploded argument against the possibility of the miraculous revamped. According to this argument, no amount of evidence can prove a miracle, because miracles are contrary to all experience. But are miracles contrary to all experience? To start out by saying that they are is to beg the very question at issue. They may be outside of your experience and mine, they may be outside the experience of this entire generation, but your experience and mine and the experience of this entire generation is not “all experience.” Every student of geology and astronomy knows that things have occurred in the past which are entirely outside of the experience of the present generation. Things have occurred within the last ten years that are entirely outside of the experience of the fifty years preceding it. True science does not start with an a priori hypothesis that certain things are impossible, but simply examines the evidence to find out what has actually occurred. It does not twist its observed facts to make them accord with a priori theories, but seeks to make its theories accord with the facts as observed. To say that miracles are impossible, and that no amount of evidence can prove a miracle, is to be supremely unscientific. Within the past few years, in the domain of chemistry, for example, discoveries have been made regarding radium, which seemed to run counter to all previous observations regarding chemical elements and to well-established chemical theories. But the scientist has not, therefore, said that these discoveries about radium cannot be true; he has, rather, gone to work to find out where the trouble was in his previous theories. The observed and recorded facts in the case before us prove, to a demonstration, that Jesus rose from the dead, and true science must accept this conclusion and conform its theories to this observed fact. The fact of the actual and literal resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead cannot be denied by any man who will study the evidence in the case with a candid desire to find what the fact is, and not merely to support an a priori theory.