Thursday, March 17, 2016

Today we examine the “problem” of miracles. Most skeptics approach all of these other tests of the Bible’s reliability with a preconditioned bias against miracles. How can I believe in donkeys that talk, virgins who give birth, and the dead raised to life? We’re not going to examine each individual miracle in the Bible to prove its validity, but we are going to look at why we can believe in the miraculous and supernatural without feeling like we have to check our brain at the door.

A little background: Fifty years ago Newtonian physics reigned. The primary philosophical thrust of Newtonian physics is that there are observable, fixed laws of nature that govern everything. Today, however, Newtonian physics does not reign; it has been replaced with quantum theory. Notice the word theory. According to quantum theory, all we can know is that there are customary ways in which things operate. So we’ve moved from fixed, observable laws that do not alter (we just don’t know all of them yet) to quantum theory that suggests there are some things that seem to be customary or usual, but that’s about all we know about the universe. If that is true, if we’re moving away from certainty in some ways—from fixed, observable laws—I think there is room for more that we don’t understand or don’t know when it comes to the miraculous.

Skeptics of the miraculous use circular reasoning. They argue, “Miracles cannot happen, therefore miracles have not happened.” Skeptics will say, “I’m scientific, reasonable, and rational. I just cannot believe in the supernatural. Because I reject the miraculous, I cannot believe the Bible.” The problem is that this is the least scientific approach of all. The whole point of the scientific method is to come without a subjective bias (as best you can) in order to observe, reflect on what you see, make a hypothesis, experiment, and then reevaluate based upon your observation.

The scientific method has its limits. By their very nature, miracles are supernatural events. They are unprecedented and cannot be retested and observed in a laboratory. The scientist who believes in the miraculous is not rejecting the scientific method, he or she is simply acknowledging its limits.

There is good reason to believe in the miracles of Scripture. First, there were many eyewitnesses who saw firsthand and attested to the reality of the miracles recorded in the Bible. One could argue, “Ah, but they all had an agenda! They were trying to make it appear as if Jesus had performed miracles to prove He was the Messiah.”

This leads us to our second reason to believe in the miracles of Scripture: the testimony of hostile witnesses. Hostile witnesses are those who observed firsthand the teaching and miracles of Jesus, but still rejected Him as the Messiah. You will notice that many of these hostile witnesses never dispute the miracles He performs. They feel threatened and angered by the authority and teaching of Jesus. They reject the idea of a Messiah who comes first as a suffering servant to wear a crown of thorns before He comes as a conquering King who wears a crown of victory. But they do not dispute His miracles. If Jesus had not performed the supernatural and all of the miraculous stories were fabricated, He would have fallen off the pages of history as another crazy man claiming to be someone He wasn’t. He would have been disproven and discredited in His own time by all of those who were hostile to His teaching.

Third, His disciples were willing to give their lives for Jesus. Now martyrdom does not prove the truth of the message one dies to uphold. Many people have sacrificed their lives for a false hope. But martyrdom always proves that someone believes so deeply in something that they are willing to make the greatest sacrifice—their own life—in order to defend it. For some, the “thing” for which they make the ultimate sacrifice is a cause. For the disciples, it was a Person. The disciples believed so deeply that Jesus was the Messiah because they had heard His teaching, witnessed His miracles, and observed a life of perfect obedience to the Father, that they died to make sure others knew what they believed to be the Truth.

The purpose of this series of posts has been to give us rational reasons for why the Bible is reliable without using the Bible to prove itself. That is not an argument for becoming a Christian or believing in Jesus in and of itself. It’s an argument to say the Bible is reliable, accurate, and historically verifiable. This Book isn’t bunk. It isn’t inaccurate. It hasn’t been altered. You can trust it.

Now when you open it, and you study what Christ says about Himself, you come to what C.S. Lewis calls the “trilemma”. Christ says of Himself such radical and shocking things that you’re left with three options: He is either a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord of all creation.

Perhaps he was a lunatic—a nut job on the level of a man who thinks he is a poached egg, as Lewis puts it.

Or was He a liar, which makes Him worse than the devil of hell himself knowing He is not the Messiah, knowing He is not divine, and yet deceiving people.

Or He was who He said He was. Lewis asks, “What option is not left to us that everyone wants to choose?” Well, that He is a good man, a great moral teacher, a wise sage giving good advice for life. He never said that about Himself. He intentionally left that option off the table.

So the argument we’re making here is that this is reliable. And if it is reliable, you open it up and realize that you have to do something about Jesus. What will you do with Jesus?

Pastor Jeff Frazier