Reconciling the Gospel Accounts of Jesus' Resurrection

Its been quite a while since I have posted any new threads on this blog, or even responded to comments made to me. In my last thread, Craig, the man whom I have been debating the existence of God and validity of the Bible with, challenged me to reconcile all of the discrepancies that exist in the gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances. The fact that there are a number of "apparent" discrepancies in these accounts was a stumbling block to his becoming a Christian.

At that time I looked briefly into the topic and realized that it would involved a great amount of study to do the subject justice. I told Craig at the time that though I was temporarily busy that I would soon get around to doing this. Well, I have been very busy since and until just now have not gotten around to this subject until now.

Today being Easter Sunday, I thought I would use my study time for today's message at church to study this topic and then teach on it. So, today I completed that study. You can view my study notes here (cut and paste this into your web browser):

http://calvarychapelgb.com/Topical/Easter2010TopicalMsg-ReconcilingResurrectionAccts.htm

and listen to my message by clicking here and choosing to download this file to your computer by choosing to save it, and then opening the file once it is on your computer (cut and paste this into your web browser):

http://calvarychapelgb.com/Topical/audio/Easter2010TopicalMsg-ReconcilingResurrectionAccts.mp3

Craig, if you are still out there and interested, I would like to read what you think about this message. Likewise, every reader of this blog may share their opinions and insights as well...

The Internal Testimony Of The Bible About Itself

Up till' now, we have created three threads in which we have discussed at great length the evidence for a creator God such as the Bible reveals to us, looking at and discussing three different arguments, the Cosmological Argument, Intelligent Design, and the Moral Argument. These arguments were created to provide a foundation for the real discussion that I hope for us now to enter into. Our debate will now focus upon the Bible itself.

When left on their own, the history of world religions shows us that people come up with all kinds of ideas and beliefs about the nature of gods that have created and/or rule over the material world. Its not my desire to look at or break down the various belief systems and religions of the world, as a whole. I bring these things up just to point out that if God did not provide a revelation of Himself to mankind, such as the Bible claims to be a record of, then men and women would go in every which direction in their beliefs and ideas about God. We had to have a revelation of God if we were ever to know much about Him beyond simple concepts that are conveyed to us through creation itself, or what is referred to as natural revelation.

The Bible consists of 66 books written by about 44 authors writing in three different languages, and over a period of about 1,600 years. It is broken up into two divisions, an Old Testament that contains 39 books, and a New Testament that contains 27 books. Yet, the Bible itself gives a clear testimony about itself and how it came about. It contains throughout references to its being of divine origin and coming about through inspiration of God.

The Old Testament consists of 5 books of the Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the books of poetry (Psalms and Proverbs), Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, and the rest of the books referred to as the Hagiographa (holy writings). The New Testament consists of 5 historical books (gospels and Acts), the epistles (letters), and the Revelation.

The Bible reveals that there has been a "progressive revelation" of God about Himself, with the Old Testament writers predicting prophetically the New Testament era and message, and the New Testament writers interpreting the Old Testament era and significance. The fact that so many different authors from different backgrounds, speaking three different languages, and writing over such a long period of time, could discuss the same themes without major contradiction is more than amazing. But, add to that the fact that the Bible is unlike any other religious book in that it is full of predictive prophesy (at least 35% of it is prophesy) and contains hundreds of verifyable prophesies fulfilled many years after their writing, then it truly can only be explained as being of divine origin.

I plan to create several threads concerning the Bible and its infallibility, inerrancy, and authority, however for this first thread I want to simply provide for discussion the internal testimony of the Bible about itself. What does the Bible say about its origin, inspiration, and authority? As you consider these 35 things that I have compiled about what the Bible says about itself, please look up the reference for these in your Bible so that you can be sure you understand what the Bible claims about itself:

1. All scripture is inspired by God: 2 Tim. 3:16-17

2. The apostle Paul personified scripture as God speaking: Gal. 3:8,22

3. The totality of what scripture records is called a divine oracle: Rom. 3:2

4. The apostle Paul’s arguments in scripture can turn upon a single word: Gal. 3:16

5. To felix, Paul testified he believed in everything written in the law and prophets: Acts 24:14, Rom. 15:4

6. Nowhere does Paul dissent from any of the teachings of scripture, whether its history, doctrine, morals, or prophecies.

7. Scripture is called the voice of the Spirit: Acts 4:25, Heb. 3:7; 10:15

8. Peter wrote that no scripture ever originated from man’s will: 2 Peter 1:20-21

9. The Spirit of Christ spoke through the prophets: 1 Pet. 1:11, as he did through Paul: 2 Peter 3:16

10. Jesus pronounced the indefectible authority of the Old Testament: Matt. 5:17-18, Luke 16:17

11. Jesus called scripture the word of God: Matt. 7:13

12. Jesus said that everything in scripture had to be fulfilled: Mk. 14:49

13. Jesus made the same claim for scripture as He did for His own words: Matt. 24:35, Jn. 7:17; 12:48-50

14. Jesus’ “arguments were clinched by a text, His foes were rebuked for not knowing scripture better, Satan himself was rebuffed by a simple appeal to the written word of God, His ministry was governed down to the smallest detail by what scripture predicted the Messiah would be and do. He refused to separate revelation from scripture, which He used plentifully, confidently and effectively,” Biblical Revelation: Clark Pinnock

15. Christ was never reluctant to criticize the views of His generation when they impeded the true knowledge of God, unlike the modern liberals who seek to interpret scripture in light of secular standards and norms.

16. Jesus rarely appealed to direct revelation for His teaching, He usually cites the scripture as His witness: Luke 4:21; 7:22, 17; 18:31

17. Jesus said God’s word cannot fail or be broken: Matt. 4:4; 5:18

18. God’s word is inerrant as originally given : Pr. 30:5-6

19. God’s word possesses authority: Isaiah 1:2

20. God’s word is efficacious and will not return void: Heb. 4:2, Isaiah 55:11

21. There is no “evidence Christ on any occasion belittled scripture or set it aside (as the Jews did with tradition), or criticized it, or opposed it (although at times He was free or interpretative with it), or operated as a higher critic of the Old Testament in any way, “ Biblical Revelation: Clark Pinnock

22. God’s word has clarity: Psalms 119:105

23. Everything that a believer needs to know about salvation and the Christian walk is contained therein: 2 Peter 1:3-4

24. Scripture contains enough to lead men to Christ and enough to ensure the doctrinal, spiritual and ethical welfare of the people of God: 2 Tim. 3:15, Luke 24:25-27

25. The scriptures proved sufficient for Christ and the apostles and they had no other authority.

26. The scriptures thoroughly furnish the man of God for every good work: 2 Tim. 3:17.

27. “Nor is there any afflictive circumstance a good man can come into, but there is a promise in the word of God suitable to him,” Gill.

28. “For scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which as nothing useful and necessary to be known has been omitted, so nothing is taught but what is of importance to know,” Calvin

29. The Bible was written over 1600 years by 44 or so writers encompassed in numerous historical settings and cultures, men from numerous walks of life, dealing with every height and depth of emotion, facing situations which parallel any situations we may ever find ourselves, hence the Bible contains what we need to face any situation

30. Scripture doesn’t exhaust all possible or even all actual revelation: John 21:25

31. All scripture is not equally clear: 2 Peter 3:16. Yet obscure passages don’t affect the clarity of the essential doctrines of salvation. Scripture is essentially clear because it is God’s otherwise it would fail in its intention and not be sufficient. Because it is both we are commanded to read and obey it: John 5:39, Acts 17:11

32. Most Christians agree about at least 90% of the doctrines of scripture
“If authority fails, all the ancient controversies and heresies will reappear, all is permitted,” Biblical Revelation, Pinnock

33. “The spiritual vacuum in every church is partly due to a loss of biblical authority,” pg 12, Biblical Revelation, Pinnock

34. If one part of the Bible is untrue, can we trust any part of it?

35. The Bible strictly forbids adding or taking away from the word of God: Rev. 22:18, 19; Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Prov. 30:6

The Moral Argument: Evidence of a creator God in the creation and existence of moral absolutes

Well, I have been waiting for some interaction from my last thread before continuing on in my apologetic theme of defending Christianity, the Bible, etc. as part of a Christian worldview. But, since none seems forth coming I must assume that everyone agrees with me, and so I will continue on! :-)

This next evidence for the existence of a creator God such as the Bible portrays I had was reminded of when I recently read Tim Chaffey's book, "God and Cancer." Again, he wrote this book about his own life to document his own death struggle with Leukemia, and how that the Lord sustained him through that struggle. In the back of the book, he has included some of his Christian apologetic work in which he attempts to show evidence for a creator God and create a theodicy from which to understand how a good God could allow evil to exist in our world. To explain the argument for this thread, and because Tim did such a good job with this, I will simply quote the chapter on this theme from his book mentioned above, beginning on page 151:

The final argument that I want to cover in this chapter is known as the Moral
Argument. So far I have been able to narrow the identity of the Beginner and Designer to a monotheistic God who is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and eternal. The Moral Argument can take us a step further in our attempt to uncover the true identity of the Beginner.

The Moral Argument can be simply stated in four steps?

1) There is a universal moral law

2) A universal law requires a universal Moral Law Giver.3) The Moral Law Giver must be absolutely good.

4) Therefore, a universal Moral Law Giver exists.

There are some objections to these statements, but they can be answered easily.
The most common objection is to the first point. Many will argue that there is not a universal moral law. However, when they do this, they are arguing that their view of morality (or immorality or amorality) is better. Thus, they are essentially using the moral law in an attempt to refute the moral law. Consider the following account from a discussion I had with one of my youth group students:

A few years ago, we were discussing ethics and morality in youth group. We had a new girl in the group that night that began to debate me
on every subject. She was arguing that all morality is relative (i.e. what is right for me may not be right for someone else, and what is wrong for me might not be wrong for someone else). We discussed several controversial subjects, and each topic elicited a similar response from the
girl, "That might be true for you but not for somebody else." She argued with me on every topic. She even debated whether or not there were really three chairs next to me in front of the room (for the record --
there really were three chairs). She said, "Well, it might be three
for you, but someone else might have a different reality." After debating about reality and morality for a while, I thought of taking a different approach. Rather than debate the peripheral subjects at hand, I wanted to get to the heart of her argumentation. She believed all morality and all truth is relative. I needed to show her that this is impossible. I stated, "Look, I KNOW there is a right and a wrong for every single person on this Earth." She instantly replied, "You can't know that!" To which I simply reponded, "What did you say?" She started, "You can't know..." As she said the words, she slowed down and stopped because she realized that she was doing the very thing that she said cannot be done. You see, in order to deny that moral absolutes exist, you have to propose a moral absolute -- that moral absolutes are absolutely wrong. Everyone has a standard of right and wrong. It is true that some people view certain actions being right whereas others see the same actions as being wrong. This is true even among Christians. Some believe my alcoholic use is sinful while others believe it can be done in moderation under certain circumstances. These types of examples are essentially dealing with one's convictions, not necessarily the moral law. Once, a man was visiting a Sunday night Bible study at the church I was pastoring, and he started debating with me about the Ten Commandments. I said that they are
the standards that God expects people to live up to. Like the young lady in the previous example, he tried arguing that the Ten Commandments were relative. Other people might have other standards that are completely different. I wanted to get to the heart of the issue again, so I told him that they are absolutes from the Moral Law Giver and that my view of morality was better than his. He said that everyone gets to decide morality for himself. So once again I said that my morality was
absolute and was better than his. He said morality cannot be absolute
and that all moral views are equally valid. I asked him if my view was equally valid, and he said that it was. So I reiterated that my equally valid view of morality is that the biblical position on morality was superior to all others. He continued to argue that this was impossible because all
morality is relative. Finally, I asked him if his position on this subject
was better than mine. He said that it was. I pointed out that by making this claim, he was confirming the Moral Law and was saying that his
answer contradicted his claim that all morality is relative and equally
valid.

You see, he was claiming that his relativistic view of morality was better than an absolute view. By claiming this, he was contradicting his belief that all views are equally valid, and he was setting his view up as morally superior. Rather than refuting the Moral Law, this man actually used it in an attempt to refute it. C.S. Lewis promoted the most popular version of this argument. In Mere Christianity, he wrote at length concerning this argument and stated the following about his time as an atheist:

Just how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust...Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too -- for the argument depended on saying that the universe was really unjust,
not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in
the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist -- in other words,
that the whole of reality was senseless -- I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality -- namely my idea of justice -- was full of sense.

Just like the two examples that I cited, Lewis' story demonstrates that one cannot attempt to refute the Moral Argument without using it. This means that the Moral Argument is undeniably true. So, what does all of this tell us about the Moral Law Giver, whom we call God? First, since He is the standard of what is morally good, then He must be absolutely good. Second, this argument does away with the Islamic god. They believe that Allah is unknowable and unlimited. The fact that the Moral
Argument reveals some of God's morality reveals that He is not entirely unknowable. Also, the fact that He serves as the absolute standard of morality shows that His morality does not change. Muslims believe it is possible for their god to change his mind about things. He could send someone to hell simply because he did not like them -- even if that person was faithful to follow all of Islam's teachings. They believe that he cannot be held to a certain standard because he is unlimited. However, the Moral Argument reveals a knowable god whose standards do not change.

I said at the top, that this chapter from Tim Chaffey's book had reminded me of this evidence for a creator God, and this because over thirty years ago, I twice read C.S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity, from which Tim quotes, and I remembered this argument. One of the things that Lewis did in that book is show how that men reveal that they really do understand and agree with God's Moral Law, and that this Law has been placed into man's hearts by the creator God. Lewis points this out by saying that a person might claim that he does not believe or agree with God's Moral Law (think the Ten Commandments here), and that say, for instance, that adultery is perfectly acceptable morally to practice, even though God's Law says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." That man will not think the same however if someone commits adultery with his wife. Or, a person might think that it is perfectly acceptable to steal, even though God's Law says, "Thou shalt not steal." That man will not think the same however if someone steals from him. You could take any of the Laws and make a similar case.

The Moral Law of God is an evidence for the creator God of the Bible who gave it. You cannot escape that fact, and arguing against the existence of moral absolutes simply requires that you accept the existence of them. The God who created all things is essentially good, holy, righteous, and perfect in all of His ways. It only makes sense that the Old Covenant which was a covenant based upon the revelation of His Moral Code in the Law of Moses, would be given first before the New Covenant that is based upon grace and mercy, and the shed blood of Jesus Christ to pay for all of the transgressions of God's Law made by men.

Intelligent Design: If you find a design you expect to also find a designer

Having discussed the Cosmological Argument for the existence of all that is, and having come to the conclusion that it is most logical for matter not to have come into being from nothing nor having always existed in some form, but rather that God always existed and created everything from nothing (as the bible states it happened), and, in that argument having dismissed all pantheistic views of God, let’s proceed to the next argument for the existence of a creator God.

I first heard the argument of Intelligent Design termed as, “The Watchmaker Theory.” The definition of “intelligence” is, “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations, the skilled use of reason, the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria, mental acuteness.” It is my desire to show that the things in this world and universe reveal to us that there had to be a lot of intelligence which created it and that it didn’t just come into being accidentally as a result of trillions of occurrences of random chance. So, I want to speak to you about intelligence then. William A. Dembski, a proponent of intelligent design has stated, "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence."

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia explains the following about the history of the intelligent design argument, “Philosophers have long debated whether the complexity of nature indicates the existence of a purposeful natural or supernatural designer/creator. The first recorded arguments for a designer of the cosmos are in Greek philosophy. In the 4th century BC, Plato posited a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his Timaeus. Aristotle also developed the idea of a creator-designer of the cosmos, often called the "Unmoved Mover", in his work Metaphysics. In De Natura Deorum, or "On the Nature of the Gods" (45 BC), Cicero stated that "the divine power is to be found in a principle of reason which pervades the whole of nature." The use of this line of reasoning as applied to a supernatural designer has come to be known as the teleological argument for the existence of God.”

The “Watchmaker Theory” was proposed to me in the form of a rhetorical question when I first heard it: “If you took all of the pieces of a very expensive Swiss Watch and put them in a shoe box, and then began to shake the shoebox, how long do you think you would have to shake the shoebox until you could open the box and find all of the pieces of the watch perfectly pieced together working in precise synchronicity?” The answer of course is that it could never happen. When you look at a Swiss Watch you are brought face to face with the fact that there had to be a designer for such a fine piece of machinery that works so flawlessly. It could not have come into being as a result of trillions of random chance acts. In the same way, in the created world in which we live there are too numerous to count examples of highly complex systems that in operation show the handiwork of a master watchmaker, or designer.

Being in the field of Electrical Engineering and working as a software engineer for over twenty-five years, I have had a fascination and appreciation for big fast computers. About ten years ago, I was fascinated by the press release of IBM’s new supercomputer, ASCII White: “WASHINGTON-IBM announced Wednesday it has built the most powerful supercomputer in the world, able to perform 12.3 trillion [floating point] operations per second, three times faster than the next fastest computer…The computer, called Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative White, or ASCI White, covers 9,920 square feet of floor space , equal to two NBA basketball courts, and weighs 106 tons. IBM will deliver ASCI White to the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory this summer to simulate the testing of nuclear weapons. In time, said IBM and Livermore officials, this computer could lead to the end of nuclear testing. IBM officials said the existing 18-hour computing cycles needed to create a global weather model could be reduced to seconds with the new computer. ASCI White has 8,192 microprocessor and is 1,000 times more powerful than "Deep Blue", which defeated Garry Kasparov [the chess champion] in 1997.” But, what fascinated me even more was that when I happened over to the Lawrence Livermore Labs web site hoping to read more about the capabilities of this huge supercomputer, I found posted there this very intriguing remark: “The human brain, it is estimated, computes about 1,000 times faster than ASCI White, which requires 1.2 megawatts of power, enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. At IBM's current rate, a supercomputer could exceed the brain's capacity in 10 years. Even now, it would take one person with a calculator 10 million years to do the same number of calculations ASCI White can do in one second.” The human brain was 1,000 times more powerful than this supercomputer?! And, instead of needing the size of two NBA basketball courts to house it, and 1.2 megawatts of power to run and cool it, the human brain weighs about 2-4 lbs and is powered by eating tasty foods that we eat and enjoy.

Lawrence Livermore’s web site stated more about the power of the human brain: “It is possible to make a very rough estimate of the computing power of the human brain. The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons, each of which is connected to about 1000 of its neighbors through synapses. This equals a total of 100 trillion connections, all of which operate in parallel. If we estimate each connection to be capable of 100 operations per second then this gives a total of 10,000 teraflops for the whole brain. Note that this really is a rough estimate. Others rate the brain at between 100 and 100,000 teraflops. But one way or another the computing power of the human brain is of the order of hundreds of times greater than ASCI White. Although the human brain is much more powerful, it is not unimaginably more so. It is believed that supercomputers will increase in power by a hundred fold within the next decade. This would mean that supercomputers would be on a par with the human brain by the year 2010.” The ASCII White has the computing power of a mouse’s brain according to another IBM press release, and even today I recently read that the human brain is about 100 times more powerful than today’s most powerful supercomputers. And, I read recently that mankind with all of our advanced technical understand and capabilities still understands less that 1% of how the brain does what it does. Amazing!

Now, I cannot think of any good reason when we discover the computing power of the human brain to consider for even a nanosecond that it could have evolved to what it is today by many millions and millions of interations and prior interspecies mutations. Plus, as I pointed out in our previous discussions, the fossil record includes no interspecies anyway. The thought of the human brain evolving to what it is is absolutely absurd! Ah, but it isn’t only the human brain that reveals such complexity, there are many such systems and designs all around us in this world. Within our own human body, our nervous system is incredibly complex and very little understood, as is our sense of sight which gives us depth perception and three dimensional apprehension, our sense of hearing which gives us depth perception also due to the brain’s ability to interpret the right and left inputs, as well as the ability to perceive numerous different pitches and harmonics simultaneously. In The Truth Project, Dell Tackett recently documented the complexity of our body’s clotting system, and then stated that this system couldn’t have evolved to what it is today because without it functioning just as it does no human being would survive bleeding to death at just a few hours or day’s old. Tim Chaffey has written the following in his book, “God and Cancer”: “Biochemist Michael Behe coined the phrase “irreducible complexity” in his highly successful book Darwin’s Black Box. This term refers to creatures or structures that require several parts to be in operation at the same time and in the same place or it could not function. This argument has dealt a serious blow to naturalistic evolution. For his example, Behe talked about the mousetrap. It is a simple device with a few working parts. Nevertheless, all of those parts need to be in place at the right time and be made out of the right materials or the mousetrap would not function.”

The incredible complexity of all kinds of mechanisms and systems in the universe reveals that the creator is extremely intelligent and creative.

Now, there are many things in our world that are very destructive and make it seem sometimes like there was not a thorough thought put into creation. For instance, there is disease, illness, deformity and natural catastrophes (what are sometimes referred to as “acts of God” in our secular world), and the Intelligent Design argument cannot answer these. But, we will talk later about the existence of evil and disease in our world.

Cosmological Argument: Is there a creator God, and if so what might He be like?

The Cosmological argument (also known as "First Cause") for the existence of God is one of a few different arguments that is worthy of consideration. This concept is based upon the idea of a "first cause." Matter and objects don't come into being from nothing by themselves; there is no beginning without a cause. The idea of spontaneous existence from nothing breaks the laws of physics as we know them. Nor does it make logical sense that matter in some form has always existed.

Secular scientists will tell us that the universe came into being because of a "big bang" or explosion of matter that caused all that exists to be shot out in all directions from a single place. This seems to help them better understand where all that exists came from. But, where did the matter that exploded come from in the first place? The same humanistic scientists would argue that it is illogical for God to have created everything from nothing. Yet, they will argue the point that matter had to have come into being from nothing, or to have always existed.

It is more logical to me to believe that God has always existed, as the Bible tells us is true, and that He created everything that exists from nothing. This will be especially the case when consider in our next thread discussion intelligent design and the need for a designer. Let's reserve that discussion for our next thread.

To me it would require more faith to believe that matter in some form came into being from nothing or always existed, than it would be to believe that God has always existed and created everything from nothing.

The Cosmological Argument is sound and it reveals that God must be all-powerful and that He exists apart from all of His creation. It reveals the greatness of God in His power, wisdom, knowledge, etc.

And, the Cosmological Argument also defeats all of the pantheistic notions of God being "the all" that exists. Hinduism, new age philosophy, and eastern religions that embrace a pantheistic god who is just part of the fabric of the universe are shown to be illogical and absurd. A creator God must be transcendant from creation though He may be involved in and present in creation.