What evidence is there for Christianity? You can’t prove Christianity mathematically. You can’t prove it scientifically. Science, of course, is very, very important. But science answers different questions to faith. Science answers the questions, ‘When and how did this world come into being?’ What it can’t answer is the question ‘Who and why?’
Let me use a visual aid.
This is a photo of a Pear and White Chocolate Cake. Now, this cake, supposing we sent this cake off to the top scientists in the world. They would be able to tell you, possibly, what ingredients were put into this cake. They might be able to tell you how it was made. They might even be able to work out when it was made. But they wouldn’t be able to tell you who made it and why it was made.
Actually, the answer is my teenage daughter made this cake! It’s a very nice cake! The reason she made it was for my Birthday. It's my favourite cake. But only the creator can tell you who made it and why.
So that’s the difference between science and faith. Science is very important because it deals with scientific questions. But equally, faith is really important because it answers some very fundamental questions about life. And everyone has faith. An atheist has faith that there is no God. You can’t prove that mathematically or scientifically. And those of us who believe in Jesus do so on the basis of evidence.
You know, historical evidence is evidence. Scientific evidence is not the only kind of evidence. A lawyer uses what you might call historical evidence. Every time a jury brings back a verdict, they’re doing it on the basis of things that happened in history: evidence of history. And every jury decision is a step of faith. And so it is that we have to make up our minds about Jesus. And that is a step of faith.
I came to believe in God because of Jesus. It seems to me that the resurrection of Jesus, which I came to believe in – and we’ll come back to this – strongly suggests that this world has a Creator and that that Creator is to be seen in terms of, through the lens of, Jesus.
And to me, it makes a lot of sense. You can’t get to know someone unless they reveal themself. No one can get to know you unless you reveal yourself. And if there is a God and he wanted to reveal himself to us, what would be the best way to do that? It seems to be logical that he would reveal himself in a way that we could understand: in a human being like us.
So what is the evidence? First of all, what is the evidence that Jesus even existed? Some people say, ‘Well, you know, maybe Jesus didn’t even exist.’ But there’s overwhelming historical evidence. No serious historian would suggest that Jesus didn’t exist.
We know from evidence outside of the New Testament that Jesus existed: from historians like Tacitus and Suetonius.
So there’s evidence outside the New Testament. But most of our evidence comes from inside the New Testament. Now, of course, the New Testament was written a long time ago, and people say: ‘How do we know that what we have here hasn’t been changed over the years?’ And the answer is we do know, through a science called ‘textual criticism’.
Essentially, the way textual criticism works is like this: the more manuscripts that you have, and the earlier they are, the more you can be sure about what the original said.
So we know from evidence, outside and inside the New Testament, that Jesus existed. But who is he? We know he was fully human. He had a body, emotions, experiences. But many today would say, ‘Yes, he was a human being. We know he existed. Maybe he was a great human being. Maybe he was a great religious teacher – but no more than that. To suggest he was the Son of God, to suggest he’s God, that’s going too far.’
So there are two parts to this argument. The first part of the argument is: what did Jesus think about himself? Because if Jesus didn’t think that he was God, that’s the end of the argument. And even if he did, the second part of the argument is: was he right?
So what did Jesus say about himself? The first bit of evidence here is that Jesus’ teaching was centred on himself. Great religious teachers point away from themselves. They say, ‘Don’t look at me. Look at God.’ Jesus, who personified humility, said: ‘Look at me. Come to me.’
This question of ultimate meaning and purpose: what is our life about? This sense of what you might call a spiritual hunger – this sense that other things don’t quite satisfy: however good these things are, there’s always this slight void, this sense that something is missing.
A little child was drawing a picture of God in class one time. The teacher said, ‘What are you doing?’ The child said, ‘I’m drawing a picture of God.’ She said, ‘What do you mean? You can’t draw a picture of God. Nobody knows what God looks like.’ The child said, ‘Well, they will do in a minute!’ Jesus said: ‘If you want to know what God looks like, look at me. If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen God.’
And then there were his indirect claims. Jesus claimed to be able to forgive sins. He went up to people and said: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ Now, of course, if someone offends you, you can forgive them. But you can’t go up to some random person and say, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ When Jesus did that, the lawyers said, ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
Forgiveness is at the heart of what Jesus came to do: to make forgiveness possible. It’s at the heart of Christianity.
And then there were his direct claims. There are so many of them, but... We haven’t got time to look at them all, but I’d love us to just look at one.
I think if you look at all the evidence, it’s clear that Jesus did make that claim. It’s an astonishing claim. But, of course, a claim like that needs to be tested. And really, if you think about it, there are only really three possibilities:
So, the second part of the argument: was he right in what he said about himself? What’s the evidence to support his claims? Here’s the first piece of evidence: his teaching.
Jesus’ teaching has been the foundation of our entire civilisation in the West. Many of our laws were originally founded on the teaching of Jesus. We’ve advanced in every field of science and technology. Think how much we’ve advanced in the last ten years in science and technology. Yet in 2,000 years no one has ever improved on the moral teaching of Jesus. They’re the greatest words ever spoken. They’re the kind of words you’d expect God to speak.
So the first piece of evidence: his teaching.
Secondly, his life: what he did.
I thought Christianity was boring. I thought Jesus would be a bore! You know, I thought Jesus would be the kind of person who would turn wine into water! I was amazed to read of Jesus going to a party – it would have been such fun to be with Jesus: he went to a party; the wine ran out. He said, ‘Go and get those jars. Fill them with the bathwater and start pouring it out for the guests,’ and they started pouring it out, and out came Château Lafite ’45 – BC, that is!
Not just his miracles but his love for the marginalised: feeding the hungry, healing the sick and, ultimately, laying down his life for us. Jesus said: ‘Greater love has no one than this than to lay down his life for his friends.’
And then his character has impressed millions of people who wouldn’t call themselves Christians.
His enemies could find no fault. And his friends, who knew him really well, said, ‘This guy’s without sin!’
I often think the real test of character is when we’re under pressure. And Jesus, when he was being tortured, said about his torturers: ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.’
And then his fulfilment of prophecy. No one else in the history of the world has had a whole collection of books written about them before they were born. Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies, twenty-nine of them in a single day. ‘Well,’ you might say, ‘maybe he got hold of the Old Testament, he read all these prophecies and he thought, “Right, I’d better go around fulfilling all of these!”’ The problem with that is the sheer number of them – and, humanly speaking, he had no control:
The exact manner of his death was prophesied. The place of his burial. His resurrection. Even the place of his birth was prophesied. You know, reading through: ‘Oh, I’m supposed to be born in Bethlehem’ – it’s too late!
And then his conquest of death. This is the cornerstone of Christianity. It’s so relevant to every single person here: because statistically speaking one in one die!
You know, the Victorians used to talk a lot about death, but they never talked about sex. We talk a lot about sex, but we don’t talk about death. It’s just something you don’t mention. Even in hospitals now they try to avoid using the word ‘death’. I heard of one hospital where they said: ‘You must never use the word “death”.’ They had a politically correct way of describing it: ‘negative patient care outcome’.
But people die nevertheless! And when you go to a funeral, and the coffin goes into the ground, it looks absolutely final. And it is – unless death has been conquered; unless when Jesus died and was buried he was raised to life. If he was, then there’s hope beyond this life.
But is it just wishful thinking? It is unless there’s evidence.
First of all, his absence from the tomb. No one has ever satisfactorily explained why Jesus’ body was not there the first Easter Day. People have come up with all sorts of explanations: the authorities stole the body. Well, in that case, why didn’t they produce it when everyone was saying that Jesus had been seen? They couldn’t.
I find this piece of evidence fascinating: that when the disciples heard that Jesus had been raised from the dead, they ran to the tomb, and when they got to the tomb, they looked in, and what they found was the grave-clothes of Jesus were still there. The only valuable thing for a robber to steal was still there. And they’d collapsed, like a caterpillar’s cocoon when the butterfly has vanished. And the piece that had been around his head had been folded up and put in another place. And it says when they saw that, they believed.
So not only his absence from the tomb; then his presence with the disciples. Jesus was seen on several occasions, on one occasion by more than 500 people. That’s probably the number of people downstairs here in the church tonight. All saw him on the same occasion. People say ‘hallucination’: hallucination does occur amongst highly-strung, highly imaginative, very nervous people or people who are sick or on drugs. The disciples don’t fit any of those categories. They were cynics, like Thomas. They were tough fisherman. They were tax collectors – tax collectors do not hallucinate!
And then there was the transformation of the disciples. Here was a group of people depressed, disillusioned, and suddenly they’re going around saying ‘We’ve seen Jesus! He really is alive!’
Most of the disciples died pretty horrific deaths as a result of their beliefs: they were crucified, they were beheaded, they were tortured. And all they had to say was: ‘No, no, no, no, actually it’s not true. We didn’t really see him.’ But they didn’t. Those people would not have died for something they would have known was not true. But they knew it was true because they’d seen the risen Jesus.
And as a result of this movement – it’s a movement without precedent in the history of the world – swept the whole known world, and it has no parallel. And it’s still happening. You know, there are 2,300 million Christians in the world today, of every ethnicity, every continent, every nationality, every economic, social and intellectual background. They all speak of this encounter with the risen Jesus.
So when we look at what Jesus claimed about himself – the first part of the argument – it’s clear that Jesus did claim to be a man whose identity was God. Was he deluded? Was he a fraud? When you look at – when I look at the evidence of his teaching, the things that he did, his character, his fulfilment of prophecy, his resurrection, it seems to me absurd, illogical, unbelievable to say he was insane or a fraud. On the other hand, it provides the strongest possible supporting evidence that what Jesus said about himself was true.
From the video - Nicky said:
And that’s how I came to the conclusion it’s true. But it’s one thing to believe it here. And for me, I tried to put it off, because I wasn’t keen on the implications of it being true for my life. I thought I could put it off till my deathbed, maybe! But then I thought that wouldn’t be intellectually honest. So I basically said, ‘Okay, yes!’ And at that moment I experienced in my heart a real encounter with Jesus, which changed my life in a very radical way.
And I experienced that rather than it being some kind of ‘terrible thing that was going to happen’, that when Jesus said ‘I have come that you might have life and have it in all its fullness’, that’s what I’ve experienced for the last forty years.
Of course, it’s not always easy. Of course, there are ups and downs. Of course, I mess up. But I’ve found that it really is true! Jesus really is who he claimed to be. Jesus really did rise from the dead. There really is hope beyond this life! And this encounter totally changed my life.
