We have just come through the Easter season, and this season has caused me to realize once again the importance of the "Historic Reality" of the Word of God. Almost two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul called the time span of the Life of Jesus Christ "the fullness of time". It was God's given moment in time when the Father chose to send forth His only-begotten Son to be the Savior of the world - to live, to die, and to resurrect from the dead. It was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that declares for all mankind that salvation is now a reality for all who believe!
The Bible is a book of history - "His-story"! It is a historic record of God's salvation extended to mankind. The Old and New Testaments are a continuum of events that declare the reality of God's love for mankind, and His desire for all to enter into His plan of salvation.
In fact, the plan of God for mankind's salvation began even before the world was created. Ephesians 1:4 states, "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." Mankind must decide what they are going to do with that reality!
As I recently re-read the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John concerning the last days Jesus spent with His disciples, I was reminded of the historic importance of these eyewitness accounts. Men who were there, and who experienced the tension of the last days in Jesus' life, the horror of His crucifixion, the despair of His burial, and the JOY of His resurrection were commissioned by God to write down these historic events for all of mankind. This commission was carried out through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Peter's words recorded in 2 Peter 1:16 declare, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty." John affirms the same eyewitness testimony when he declares that he was an eyewitness. Here is John's statement in 1 John 1:1-2: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life - the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested to us!"
We have just celebrated a historic reality - Easter - just as we will celebrate the historic reality of the independence of our nation on the fourth of July! Many today will not give the same credibility to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as they do to the historic reality of our nation's independence. This, however, does not make Jesus' resurrection from the dead any less credible. The same rules of historic evidence apply in both instances. Each individual must decide what he or she is going to do with these historic records of Jesus Christ.
I remember one time when I was ministering in the jail there was a young man of the Muslim faith who shouted at me, "Are you telling me that if I do not believe in your Jesus that I am going to hell?" We had been talking about the statement of Jesus in John 14 verse 6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." My response to him was, "The words I just read are not my words, but they are the words of Jesus Christ." This young man was going to have to decide for himself what he would do with the words of Jesus Christ. This decision is one that everyone who hears the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, and Him alone, will have to make. This historic proclamation found in Scripture is one I want to encourage Christians to declare with boldness. The assurance of the historic record was declared with boldness then, and we must declare it unashamedly in the trying times we are living in.
Please, be encouraged to declare with boldness God's message of love and salvation in Jesus Christ - the same boldness Peter demonstrated before the Sanhedrin when asked to give an explanation of how a lame man was healed at the temple: "Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?..Rulers of the people and elders of Israel; If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." [Acts 3:12-4:12]
-chaplain ken trevethick
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