Tag: Jesus Christ

Created for a purpose

When an engineer or an artisan contemplates what he wants to make, he or she works towards a purpose. They have in mind not only what they want to produce, but why they want to make it, or for what purpose it is designed. So it is with the divine Creator: he had a purpose in mind when he made the universe, the world, and humankind in his likeness. This means that there is meaning to our existence! This is the answer to our big question – what are we here for? The only one who can give a reliable answer to the question of our meaning and purpose is the brilliant designer, the creator God who made us.

The reason science cannot find the purpose of life is that science does not deal in purposes, but rather in causes. Science studies the material realities of the world, which are incapable of having purposes, because purpose demands the will of a person. Science can envisage no personality at the start of the universe, so for science there can be no intelligent design nor any purpose. Purpose is attributed by persons to what they are doing or going to do. God our Creator is both infinite and personal and when God set to making humans, he had a purpose in mind.

The next big question, then, is what was God’s purpose in creating humans? The clue is in the other expression in the context of that creation: “in his likeness”. It is a profound and complex affirmation: God made humans not infinite like he is, but personal like he is. 

He is infinite in power – to be able to create the whole universe when there was nothing before he made it. Scientists describe the amazing explosion with mighty power and extreme heat that was the beginning of all things: and they tell us the constants of physics were there from the very start. But in that very act of creation, God’s infinite wisdom and personal creativity was at work as well. So God is not mere power – he has thoughts, he speaks, he loves, he makes decisions, he is personal. And because he is personal (at an infinite level) he works according to his purposes and he is capable of telling us what his intention is for us humans. We too, made in his likeness, have similar personal ability, so that we can understand him when he communicates and enter into his purposes for us.

So it is, then, that when God speaks to humankind, he reveals his purpose for our existence – the meaning of our lives.  What a service that is that he renders to us! How thankful we should be that we can at last know why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing – and that from the infinite source of all wisdom, from our Creator himself, who sent his Son to tell us!

So what is his purpose for us? There are different facets to it, but the initial description of the creation of man and woman in Genesis 1 that Jesus refers to, it gives us the practical purpose: “And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion” – over all that is on the earth. Quite an ordinary kind of charter: have children (multiply) and have responsibility as the lord of the world (under God, of course, for it is God who sets humankind in that high status.) This ennobles all the down to earth reality of human work and family life, for these are ordained by God. This is therefore the good way to live. This is the real-world aspect of our purpose as human beings. We have a world to explore and to make to flourish; that is our task. But why we do that, is another chapter.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Does evolution refute creation?

Some, reading what I wrote about the Creator, may be of the opinion that the theory of evolution has negated the idea of creation, so I need to clarify a few things. 

First, evolution envisages the development of species: creation concerns the absolute beginning of everything that exists (apart from the eternal God himself). No-one can seriously claim that evolution created the universe. Only the almighty Creator could do that.

Secondly, evolution does not require atheism: there are theistic evolutionists who hold that God intervened in the evolutionary process to constitute human beings as we know them today –that is, conscious personal beings made in God’s image, capable of relationship with God.

Thirdly, evolution has not actually been proved – indeed, it is incapable of proof since vast ages of time would be required for demonstration by experimentation. Nancy Pearcey, who knows far more about this than I do, summing up a science article in Newsweek, wrote: “The fossil record does not, nor ever will, support the Darwinian scenario of a smooth continuous progress of life-forms, nicely graded from simple to complex”. 

Fourthly, Phillip E. Johnson’s research on the bases of evolutionary theory has shone light on the naturalistic or atheistic assumptions underlying the evolutionary theses. “The doctrine that some known process of evolution turned a protozoan into a human is a philosophical assumption,” he affirms, “not something that can be confirmed by experiment or historical studies of the fossil record”. So evolution has not been demonstrated following the exacting demands for proof and truth that we expect from science. Evolution does not refute creation. 

Some atheists may hold tenaciously to evolution because they do not want to envisage a Creator God; only God knows their deep reasons, but it is a shame to refuse our loving Creator as if his existence would be harmful. The Christian option has multiple indications of its validity and explanatory power to valorise our personal reality, whereas mindless evolution would logically reduce us to mindless animals or soulless machines. Such a philosophy is unliveable. 

Jesus’ teaching that “from the beginning God made them male and female” (Mark 10.6), does infinitely more than evolutionary theory to enable us properly to understand ourselves. It not only valorises our personal faculties, but it provides a framework for real meaning and purpose. Indeed, the understanding that we were created by God frees us from the existential despair that is communicated by the hopeless and ultimately groundless vision that we came about by blind, mindless chance.

Authentic hope for answers can only come from the Creator informing us himself; and his wisdom and love have found the way to do that – by divine revelation, centred on Jesus.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Begin at the beginning

Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? These are the basic questions we all ask at some time – and so many people are frustrated because they don’t get the answers they need. So did Jesus tell us the true answers to these and our other key questions about life, death, God and the universe? Let’s see.

Jesus laid the foundation to it all when, questioned about the ethics of divorce, he referred to his Father, God, as the Creator “who made them from the beginning…” (Matthew 19.4). We need read no further for the moment: right there we have a vital clue to understanding who we are. The key truth we are to grab hold of here is that God made man and woman. God is our Creator, and Jesus adds, “he made them male and female”.

This means, first of all, we are not here by chance. The human species has not been “thrown up” by some fluke accident that made life possible, and we are not the result of an extremely long process of upward improvement in species. We need to put out of our minds that root of despair that sees humankind as either an animal or a machine; it is these philosophical visions that have brought upon our secular age the desperate confusion about our human reality. 

No! When human beings appeared on the earth they were there because God had fashioned them in his creative genius. It is not an exaggeration to say that we humans are God’s chef d’œuvre. Professor Brian Cox informs us that the human brain is the most complex thing in the entire universe. I, for one, find it impossible to believe that such a brilliant entity could have come about by chance processes. Rather, when God created the first man and woman, he endowed them with his greatest and most complex gift: our human brain. You have one, and you’re using it right now. It has never seen the light of day, since it is carefully encapsulated within the safe confines of your skull. But is it an absolute wonder. It gives us rationality so we can discuss these very personal issues we are preoccupied with, and it enables us to reason and to grasp truth. No animal has that capacity.

This is the reason why we have such value; we are not mere machines – we are persons. Jesus’ words in Matthew 19 make reference to the first book of the Bible, and he actually quotes with the full approval of his own authority some words from Genesis chapters one and two. In those chapters we have a wonderful key to our human value: “God said, Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1.26). This is part of Jesus’ biblical worldview; in the New Testament his younger brother James wrote, “people… have been made in the likeness of God” (James 3.9). 

We will have to fill this out with its deeper meaning, but at least what is clear is that humankind, man and woman, have glorious value because they partake of the likeness of God. This does not mean that God has a body; Jesus said “God is spirit” – but he is personal as well as infinite. We are not infinite, but we are constituted with the personal faculties – like God’s – of emotion, intellect, will, conscience and the faculty of speech. All these and what issues from them are valorised in this Christian understanding of man created by God in his image. You are not a fluke accident; you are highly valued!

Clive Every-Clayton

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Coming to terms with truth

We live in the age of postmodernism, which is sometimes defined as unbelief towards, or rejection of, “metanarratives”. These are supposedly total explicative systems, whether philosophical, religious or even political like communism. People in the 20th century became disillusioned with the apparently futile search for a global system of Truth. With no-one having come up with the obviously true system, hope was abandoned of ever finding one. The result is that there has been a generalised relativism, with a loss of hope for finding true answers to our deep questions of our existence. There seems to be no absolute Truth; everyone has their personal ideas, but no-one has a total true overarching narrative.

Previously in the Christian West, it was generally thought that there was Truth. Why? Because in the context of Christianity, God knows all Truth and he communicated Truth in his revelation, the Bible. That is still the conviction of millions of people like me, but that metanarrative is no longer the general consensus. The current metanarrative is postmodernism – whose fundamental principle is that no metanarrative is to be believed as true; so in fact it is self-contradictory as it destroys its own basis of belief. It is therefore leading us up the wrong path, and society’s existential despair is the result. With no Truth, there can be no hope. All seems hopeless and meaningless. That’s why our generation should be humbled to reconsider Christianity with its evidence of God’s coming into the world and communicating Truth to us. It has never actually been disproved – only side-lined. 

I have tried to lay the basis for believing that what we hear from Jesus is nothing less than God’s truth – as if the Creator had spoken out of heaven to you. In the Bible we are listening to the real God who is actually there – the God who has come down to earth in Jesus to communicate Truth that He alone knows for sure. In other words, we are not dealing with a “spiritual” ideal, or a philosophical vision that is mere human thinking or a religion of human invention. We said at the start that our only hope of satisfying, authentic answers is if God himself speaks them to us, since humans have proved incapable of getting absolute truth by our own reasoning powers.  I have sought to show evidence for the fact that Jesus is God’s emissary, come into the world from his Father, God, to faithfully relay to us the truth that he had heard from God: if that groundwork is sufficient to lead you to listen to God himself, you will listen, hopefully, with a humble attitude, eager to learn. And you would find the real answers to your profound questions about reality.

If, on the other hand, you are not (yet) convinced of that basis, you can still check it out by reading the Gospels – that is the least you could do to show yourself intellectually serious; or just keep tagging along, reading further the actual answers that Jesus brought. You may read them in a critical frame of mind, not convinced of their truth; and that’s okay, because one cannot believe without assessing the facts, and that extra light may help you to realise that these are indeed divine and universal answers that satisfy the heart and mind.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Divine answers

As we begin to pay attention to God’s answers to our existential search, the reception we give to his answers will depend on our understanding of who Jesus was. We need to be clear: if he was from God, his answers are on a whole different level to anything that human beings can think up.

The reports we have of Jesus’ life refute any suggestion that he was mentally unbalanced or a blatant and deceitful imposter. Such an assessment goes against the evidence of Jesus’ unique identity as a man of exemplary holiness, whose moral teaching was profoundly wise, whose psychology is the best ever conceived, and whose influence on history has been highly beneficial. All this, quite apart from his numerous miracles, his profound love that led him to give his life for our salvation, and his totally unique resurrection from the dead.

If therefore he was a unique manifestation of God himself, then his answers are no mere human philosophical opinions. We are led to believe that he did bring us answers from heaven. That means his answers are actually absolute truth coming from the Highest Authority in the universe. This brings out the seriousness of what we are doing here: if it is true, it is of the utmost importance. Indeed, there are logical consequences if that is the case: we are faced with the supreme authority in the universe telling us how it is. Our Maker had the answers all along; if he has told them to us, we should not ignore them, but receive them gladly.

Having studied all this carefully for many years, this is my position. I take it as given, that we are blessed with God’s revealed truth. This is the only way for authentic hope for answers. 

Now this may be considered my assumption – for I have said that all thinking is based on assumptions. But this assumption – the foundation on which we build – is a conclusion based on the historic incarnation of him whom we have come to believe can be none other than God’s divine messenger. If this sounds like circular reasoning, consider theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til’s assertion that “all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning”. That’s why the historic appearance on earth of God’s incarnate Son is so foundational; it is the unique basis on which we can hope to build absolute Truth. God alone knows and can speak absolute Truth.

Remember how God’s voice came from heaven saying, “Listen to Jesus”? (Matthew 17.5) I invite you to take an open-minded stance, just to listen, and see what you think. As you consider in more detail what answers God gave through Jesus to our deep existential questions, it is for you to decide whether or not they have the mark of Truth – whether you will believe in Jesus or not. Knowledge of the facts is indispensable as a foundation of valid faith.

I will seek to show that God’s truth and guidelines for living indicate the true “good life” and human flourishing that our Creator wills for us. As I hope ultimately to show, God is loving and compassionate and his truth will lead us on to consider how he offers us true life, “eternal life” or “abundant life” as Jesus called it (John 10.10, 27-28). Jesus not only brings the truth of God that answers our questions; he also lovingly offers life that truly satisfies the deep hunger of our hearts.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Resurrection appearances

Christianity would never have taken off without Christ’s resurrection. The apostles witnessed the risen Christ and it transformed them into fearless proclaimers of their Lord and Saviour, died and risen to bring us salvation. Their transformation is enough to show it really happened. 

Here is the evidence, the main facts as they are recorded in the Gospels:

  • The roman centurions ensured Jesus was dead on the cross, by piercing his side with a spear.
  • His corpse was laid in an unused sepulchre, dug out of the rock, and a heavy stone was rolled over the entrance and sealed by the roman soldiers who guarded it to make sure the disciples would not come and steal the body and claim he was risen. (The Jewish leaders had taken note that Jesus had taught that he would rise after three days).  
  • There was an earthquake, and the guards fainted, and then fled in fear.
  • Mary Magdalene came to embalm the corpse and saw the tomb was open, and the stone had been rolled away.
  • She went and told Peter who ran with John to the tomb.
  • Peter and John saw the tomb was empty, and went away.
  • Mary stayed, and saw Jesus who spoke with her and told her “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20.17).
  • The same evening, when the disciples were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews, Jesus came into their midst and showed them the wounds of his crucifixion and the spear-wound in his side. He spoke to them and asked “have you anything here to eat?” (Luke24.41) so that, as he ate the fish they gave him, they could see he was not a ghost. He also said to them: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20.21). 
  • A week later he came there again, showing himself in the same way, particularly to Thomas, one of the eleven faithful disciples who had been absent the time before. “Put your finger here, and see my hands,” said Jesus to him, “and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20.26-27). 

More appearances of the risen Jesus are recorded, but the most significant is the last just mentioned, for Thomas had doubted the report of Jesus’ resurrection. When he saw the risen Christ, he answered Jesus in an expostulation of faith: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus’ response to that was by no means to rebuke Thomas for blasphemous exaggeration. Rather, he says, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20.28 NIV). This was his way of saying, “Happily, you have finally got it, Thomas! That is indeed who I am – both Lord and God”.

Numbers of unbelievers down the centuries have sought to discredit Jesus’ resurrection, and several, checking it out, have changed their opinion, writing books to explain how the evidence led them to conclude that Jesus was indeed the divine Son of God. If we, too, come to that conclusion, we have the basis of real hope for answers that come from the most authentic of sources, God himself.

This leads us to listen with more confidence to the truths Jesus brought which can enlighten us as we face our deep existential predicament as human beings.

We will examine these life-giving teachings in blog posts to come.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Resurrection predictions

In an autobiography I read long ago, written, if I remember rightly by a Jewess, she recounted reading a Gospel for the first time, not knowing anything of it. As she read, she was profoundly touched by the excellence of the person of Jesus, his moral life, his wisdom and teaching – to the point that she thought this must be a prophet sent by God, like those in the Old Testament. As she read finally of his betrayal, arrest, trial and condemnation by the authorities, both religious and Roman, she grew more and more apprehensive of the outcome, wondering how God would get his prophet out of such circumstances. But when she reached the crucifixion and the death of Jesus, she closed the book, broke down in dismay and set a time of grieving for so great a man.

After that period of sorrowing, she finally picked up the Gospel again, and you can imagine her amazement, relief and joy as she read on and discovered that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples, eating and speaking with them. It led her to faith in Jesus as her Messiah and Saviour.

The fact that Jesus rose from the dead is the decisive factor in demonstrating that he was who he said he was: he was “declared to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead,” says the New Testament (Romans 1.4). I will share the evidence for this historic fact in the next blog; this time I want to bring out something else just as amazing: Jesus actually clearly predicted on three separate occasions that he would rise from the dead. 

Did you ever hear of someone predicting their resurrection? That just doesn’t happen! If anyone was so brazen as to make such a claim, the ensuing reality that he remained dead would quickly disillusion any who had believed him. But Jesus predicted his death and resurrection and it happened! Matthew, Mark and Luke all record these clear predictions, as well as other allusions Jesus made to it, which John also recorded. So all the Gospels contain the absolutely unique prophecy by Jesus of a humanly impossible event, which occurred three days after his death (and even the three day delay was foretold by Christ!). This has no equal in world religions, and it constitutes enough evidence to convince the most hard-minded unbeliever, if he has the honesty to face up to it. 

“Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man [i.e. himself] must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly” (Mark 8.31-32 c.f. parallels in Matthew 16.21 and Luke 9.22). Again: “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day” (Matthew 17.22-23 c.f. parallel in Mark 9.31). Then a third time, Jesus took the disciples aside and said to them: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; they will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise” (Luke 18.31-33 c.f. parallels in Matthew 20.17-19 and Mark 10.33-34).

These precise predictions are certainly among the most extraordinary facts recorded by the Gospel writers; and what is even more mind-boggling is that they turned out to be true: it all happened just as Jesus said it would.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Have you read any of the gospels?

Have you read any of the Gospels? I’d be interested to know the impact that a serious reading of a Gospel would have on an adult who had never been exposed to Christian things before…

You may have difficulty believing in the supernatural, but when you read of the miracles performed by Jesus, the visit of angels announcing his birth to a virgin, Jesus casting out demons who recognised him as “the Holy One of God”, and saying, “You are the Son of God” (Luke 4.34,41) – you must admit, these Gospel reports are quite consistent with the activity of an all-powerful God.

Did you know that Jesus multiplied a few loaves and fishes so as to feed a crowd of 5,000 people? That he touched a leper and his leprosy was cleansed? That on three occasions he raised back to life individuals who were dead? That he calmed a storm by rebuking the wind and the waves with his authoritative word? That he turned large quantities of water into wine at a marriage feast? That he gave sight to a man born blind? That he healed every person in the crowds who came to him for help?

Evidently, here is a totally unique man with supernatural power to do good in various forms to people in all kinds of needs. His miraculous works bore witness to his divine power. “The works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me,” said Jesus (John 5.36). He further said, as he might say to you today: “If I am not doing the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (John 10.37-38).

I have written about the witness born to Jesus by himself and by the Father; here, his miraculous works bear witness to him too. As he had promised, he sent the Holy Spirit of God on the apostles (recounted in Luke’s second book in the New Testament, “The Acts of the Apostles”, chapters 1 and 2), and they were thus divinely equipped to write the Gospels. Of John’s Gospel It was attested: “we know that his testimony is true” (c.f. John 21.24).

And as the apostles preached Christ in their first proclamation as Lord and Messiah they insisted again and again that they had seen Jesus alive after he had risen from the dead: “This Jesus… killed by the hands of lawless men, God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death… This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2.23-24, 32). “You killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses” (Acts 3.15). “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed… we are witnesses to these things” (Acts 5.30-32). So Luke sums up “With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4.33).

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead constitutes the final divine attestation to the deity of Jesus: as such it deserves particular attention.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Assess the evidence

To assess the evidence for Jesus’ identity, there is no other way than to start with the four Gospels. We cannot avoid the question of the authenticity of the Gospel accounts; this can go deep and technical, and there are good books by competent scholars available for those who want such authoritative information. For example, Professor Richard Bauckham, author of a scholarly work, “Jesus and the Eye-witnesses: The Gospels as eye-witness testimony”, says the Gospels are “biographies of a contemporary person, based as such biographies were expected to be, on eye-witness testimony”. 

Two of the Gospels were penned by Matthew and John who were members of Jesus’ inner circle of 12 apostles. Mark was a young man who knew Jesus and was close to the apostle Peter. Luke was a medical doctor, and “a historian of the first rank”, according to Sir William Ramsey specialist in ancient Middle East studies who, after twenty years research in the ancient Near East, avers Luke “should be placed among the very greatest of historians”. In the opening of his Gospel, Luke (who travelled with the apostle Paul on some of his journeys) shares his scholarly method of personal research of the “things that have been accomplished among us”. He affirms that he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning”, having received them from “eye-witnesses” in order “to write an orderly account” (see Luke 1.1-4).

Oxford don C.S. Lewis, specialist in medieval literature considers the Gospels’ genre to be “reportage… pretty much close up to the facts”, and definitely neither fable, myth or legend. 

Other scholarly works demonstrating the reliability of the Gospels are “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament” by Craig L. Blomberg and “Can we Trust the Gospels?” by Peter J. Williams, principal of Tyndale House, Cambridge, which is full of details indicative of their trust-worthiness. But I like the simple words of another professor, J.I. Packer, a biblical scholar of worldwide reputation, who has written: “There is no good reason to doubt the authenticity of what the Gospels say of [Jesus]. They were evidently written in good faith and with great care by knowledgeable persons (cf. Luke 1:1-4, John 19:35, 21.24). They were composed at a time when Jesus was still remembered, and misstatements about him could be identified. They were accepted everywhere, it seems, as soon as they were known, though the early Christians as a body were not credulous and detected spurious gospels with skill. The consensus of the centuries has been that these four portraits of Jesus have a ring of truth… It is not credible that he should have been made up. It is safe to say that not even Shakespeare, who created Lear, Hamlet and Falstaff, could have invented Jesus Christ!”

That last thought is worth a moment’s reflection. How would it ever be possible for four budding writers in the middle of the first century AD, seated round some ancient table in a tavern in Jerusalem, enjoying a time exchanging their various writing projects, to come up with the idea of inventing the gospel story? If Shakespeare couldn’t do it, how much less could four different unknown creative writers?

Someone has well said that it would take a Jesus to invent a Jesus. If Jesus did not exist, some unknown moral genius must have written the Sermon on the Mount! W. Robertson Nicholl has well said: “The Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor of it would be more astonishing than the hero.” And Peter J. Williams would add: “It is far simpler to suppose that the founding figure of the new religion was the creative genius for these stories [the parables] than to suppose that several later creative geniuses all credited their less creative founder with their great compositions.” 

The last word to Professor J.I. Packer: “We may be confident, then, that in reading the Gospels we meet the real Jesus.”  (In Truth and Power, Eagle, 1996, p. 31-32).

Clive Every-Clayton

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The vital question

We see Jesus in the Gospels reiterating and confirming his claim to be the Son of God come down from heaven to speak God’s truth to the world. If this is true, it provides authentic hope that his teaching is able to answer our existential questions. There can be answers from God our Creator, in theory, if, first, He knows all things, and second, he can tell us. This is of the essence of what Christians believe to be true, on the basis of evidence and experience (as I hope to show).

So we need seriously to consider if Jesus was indeed God’s messenger, sent in human form into the world (as he claimed). Because – let’s be frank: if he is God’s Son – that is, more than a prophet, a very unique incarnation of God, as Christianity holds – then “the Light of the world” will enlighten us with absolute answers. And if he is not the Son of God, we have a huge puzzle to solve if we are to be intellectually honest: how did the Jesus-event ever happen? Who was he really, this historic Master whose influence more than any other so radically benefitted humanity and transformed human history? A strange holy man if he goes around making himself out to be God when fully knowing he is lying! 

So the identity of Jesus is a vital question, needing our first authentic answer. The Jews asked him “Who are you?” (John 8.25). Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and his vociferous disciple, Peter, expressed his conviction that Jesus was for real: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16.16). And Jesus calmly affirmed Peter’s response, in words meaning, “You’ve got it, Peter. My Father revealed that to you” (see Matthew 16.17). Thus Jesus confirms that this was indeed his identity.

It is useful to understand that for the Jews of Jesus’ day, such a claim to deity was considered blasphemous for a human being to make. That’s why, at the end of John’s Gospel chapter 8, when Jesus reached the culminating point of his talk by saying, “Before Abraham was, I AM”, the Jews picked up stones and would have killed him: for only God is the “I AM”.

Like Peter, we are all challenged – even obliged – to take our position (for refusing to believe is also taking a position). And to do so validly, we need to evaluate the evidence put forward in the Gospels (because Christian faith is evidence-based, not blind!). Jesus said that his apostles, aided by the Holy Spirit of truth, would “bear witness” to him (John 15.26-27) – so their writings constitute yet another witness to the unique person that was Jesus, as they recorded what they had seen and heard, for posterity. We have therefore in the four contemporary Gospels the permanent record of Jesus’ life, teachings, death and resurrection that we can assess. As we examine the history of Jesus, we will be seeking to ground our on-going search on something believably true.

Clive Every-Clayton

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