Radical Jesus - part 2

In the New Testament, we read of many signs that Jesus did to substantiate the claims that He was making. In the fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus reiterates some of these things that He has claimed here, but also adds a few more such as, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man can come to the Father except through Me."; "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father"; and "Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or else believe for the very works sake." In other words, Jesus not only claimed to be God in human flesh, the perfect source of truth and the One who grants eternal life, but offered conclusive proof through the miraculous deeds or "works" He was doing. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said that John the Baptist bore witness of Him, but that there was a greater witness than that of John. This greater witness was the works that the Father had given Him to do. Among these authenticating signs was Jesus' power over the elements. He turned the water into wine, He walked on the water, and He calmed a raging storm by His word. He showed His power over disease for He healed the suffering with a touch. He cleansed those with leprosy. He caused the lame to walk, opened the eyes of the blind and even raised the dead. He called upon these works to verify that His teaching was true.

At another time when huge crowds had gathered around Him, Jesus said, "A faithless and perverse generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given, except that of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Thus His resurrection would constitute the basic sign to an unbelieving world, that He was all that He claimed to be.

When Jesus cleansed the temple of the money changers, He was asked by the Jews for a sign of authority to do what He had done. His response was, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rebuild it." John tells us that He was referring to His own body as a temple thus the resurrection from the grave three days after His death.

In Acts 1:3 we read that Jesus showed Himself alive after His death by "many infallible proofs." The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is one of the most factually verifiable events in history. It is confirmed by the testimony of many eyewitnesses such as Mary, Peter, the other Apostles and more than five hundred people at one time. If there is any validity to our system of jurisprudence, which establishes fact on the basis of eyewitness testimony, then the resurrection must be accepted as fact. "But," you may argue, "there was no cross examination of the witnesses!" Are you certain of that? Let it be noted that the vast majority of these witnesses were violently killed for their testimony, and none recanted, though doing so could have spared their lives. (For more information see Foxe's Book of Martyrs) So many gave their lives for what they had seen and heard that the Greek word "martus" (which meant one who bore legal testimony) came to mean those who suffered death for the Christian witness.

But along with His miraculous works and His historical resurrection from the dead, we have to also take into consideration the multiplied prophecies concerning the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled. Throughout the Old Testament, there were more than three hundred predictions concerning the Messiah that were fulfilled in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. What would be the odds of one person fulfilling those prophecies by chance? The number is so astronomical, that it puts chance out of the picture. In his book Science Speaks [1], Peter Stoner estimates the odds of one person fulfilling just eight of these Messianic prophecies as being one in ten to the seventeenth power. How overwhelming is this probability? Stoner illustrates this by "supposing that we take ten to the seventeenth power silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them come true in any one man, from their day to the present time. It is clear that chance had nothing to do with the fulfillment of these three hundred predictions. It is also important to note that the design spelled out in prophecy was far beyond any one person's ability to control. From the place of the Messiah's birth to the amount of money offered for His betrayal, we find factors that were out of any person's ability to arrange. Jesus could not by chance or by His own personal effort have fulfilled those three hundred predictions. It had to be by God's design.