Who is Jesus? - Part 2 - By Nicky Gumbel, Holy Trinity Brompton

For much of my life I haven’t been a Christian.  I wasn’t brought up in a Christian home and I didn’t come from a churchgoing background.  In fact, for a lot of my life, I would have described myself sometimes as an atheist, sometimes as an agnostic.  When I was at university, I was sharing rooms with a person whose been my closest friend really now for about thirty years, somebody called Nicky Lee and I kind of warned Nicky about Christians.  I said, “If ever you meet any of those people who call themselves Christians, whatever you do don’t let them into your room.  Talk to them through the crack in the door and when you  - after a very short time say to them, ‘Thank you very much indeed, goodbye’”.  And so I had - I had this kind of attitude all the way through my life to what I perceived as people who were a little bit too enthusiastic about their faith.

It was Valentine’s night 1974.  I’d been to the Valentine’s night ball at this particular college, the college were holding a Valentine’s Day ball, and I’d met a girl there and we’d gone back to my rooms - I was sitting in our rooms - I don’t remember very much about it, except I do remember she had red hair - and I was sitting there and Nicky Lee came back with his girlfriend, he’d been to an entirely different meeting, and he said to me that he and his girlfriend (now his wife) Sila, had become Christians and I was just totally stunned.  I mean Nicky was the nicest person I knew!  Why would he go and want to become a Christian?  So...I, I very quickly took this girl home, I think I took her to the bus stop and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her since!  But then I... as I was walking back to the rooms, I was thinking, “What am I going to do about this?  Poor Nicky!  The Moonies have got him!  How can I help him?”  I didn’t know anything about Christianity really so I decided that the best thing that I could do was to do some research.  So I decided I would read the Koran.  I would read something about Karl Marx.  I would read, possibly, something about existentialism and I thought also, perhaps I should read the Bible.  When I got back to my rooms I was looking around for some of these things and I came across an old Bible I’d had from school and I thought, “Right, I’m going to start reading this”.  So, I decided that I would start at the New Testament.  I started with Matthew.  I read all the way through Matthew.  All the way through Mark.  All the way through Luke.  And about 3.00 in the morning I was half way through John, when I fell asleep. 

The next day I finished John, I continued reading through The New Testament - all that day I just read and read and read. The following day I carried on reading.  I was a student so I didn’t have any work to do!   And I reached a point where I knew that it was true.  And over the last twenty-three years or so, I’ve had time to reflect and think about it.  And I what I want to look at tonight is, what is the evidence that it really is true?

The place, I think, to start is obviously the person of Jesus Christ.  We know that Jesus existed.  There was an old Russian dictionary - old Communist Russian dictionary that described Jesus as “a mythical figure who never existed”.  No serious historian would take that view today.  There is a lot of evidence that Jesus existed.  First of all there’s evidence outside the New Testament.  The Roman historian Tacitus talks about him.  Suetonius refers to him indirectly.  There’s evidence - in a Jewish historian called Josephus.  Josephus was born in AD37 and Josephus wrote this: “Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works - A teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the gentiles”.  And it then talks about - Josephus goes on to talk about his crucifixion and his alleged resurrection and he ends by saying: “and the tribe of Christians, so named after him, are not extinct to this day”. 

So there is evidence outside the New Testament that Jesus existed, but there’s also evidence inside the New Testament that he existed.  Sometimes people say about the evidence in the New Testament, “Wasn’t all this written a very long time ago?  And over the years, hasn’t what these writers wrote down been changed?  How do we know that there haven’t been so many changes?”  The answer is we do know.  We know very accurately through a science called textual criticism.  Essentially, the more manuscripts that we have the less doubt there is about the original. 

Professor F. F. Bruce, who was Rylands professor of biblical criticism at the University of Manchester, wrote a book called “The New Testament Documents -  Are they reliable?”  And he shows just how rich the New Testament is by comparing the New Testament with other ancient documents.  And, essentially, its like this: the shorter the time gap between the original document and the earliest extant copy and the higher the number of copies that we have, the less doubt there is about the original. 

Now if you look at the table that you’ll see in the manual, you’ll see there various other ancient writings.  For example, you’ll see Heroditus and Thucydides which were both from the 5th century BC.  The earliest copy we have of them is 900AD.  So there’s a time span of 1300 years and we only have 8 copies of each.  Yet no classical scholar would doubt their authenticity. 

With Tacitus, there’s a thousand year time gap and we have 20 copies.  Caesar’s Gallic War -  950 years, 9-10 copies.  Livy’s Roman History, 900 year gap - 20 copies.  When we come to the New Testament - the New Testament was written between 40 and 100AD, the earliest copy we have - the earliest extract we have is actually AD 130.  We have papyri  containing most of the New Testament from the 3rd century and we have a full manuscript at AD 350.  So the time span at most is 300 years.  We have 5,309 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts, 9,300 other manuscripts and 36,000 citations in the early church fathers and theologians.  So F.J.A.Hort, one of the greatest textual critics ever, summarises the evidence like this.  He says: “In the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests, the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone amongst ancient prose writings”.  And I don’t think there’s any historian, Christian or secular, who would disagree with that conclusion. 

F.F. Bruce summarises the evidence by quoting Sir Frederic Kenyon, the leading scholar in this area who said: “The interval between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence, becomes so small to be in fact negligible,  and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written, has now been removed.  Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established”. 

The issue is: who is this person Jesus Christ?.  We know he existed, we know he was fully human.  Martin Scorsese, I heard on television say that he made the film The Last Temptation of Christ to show that Jesus was a real human being.  But I don’t think there are many people today who doubt that Jesus was a real human being.  We know that he was - he had a human body, he was tired, he was hungry, he suffered pain.  We know that he had human emotions: love, righteous anger, joy, sorrow.  We know that he went through human experiences.  He went through the experience of birth, growing up, education, temptation, getting a job.  He went through bereavement.  He went through suffering.  He went through rejection and eventually, he went through death.  He was fully human being.  Today, many say, “Well, we agree he was a human being but we think he was just a human being.  He was a great religious teacher but no more than that”.  The comedian Billy Connolly spoke for many when he said, “I can’t believe in Christianity, but I think Jesus was a wonderful man”.  In other words, a great human teacher.

What I want to look at tonight, is what evidence is there that Jesus was more than that? 

Would you like to turn to Matthew, chapter 16, verses 13 to 16? 

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’” -   The Son of Man is Jesus’ way of referring to himself - so he’s saying, “Who do people say that I am?”  “They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets’” - in other words - “They’re saying that you’re a great human teacher”  “‘But what about you?’ he asked.  ‘Who do you say I am?’  Simon Peter answered,  ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’”. 

You know it’s possible to be with somebody for a long time and not realise who they are.  One of the things that I enjoy doing is playing squash and I belong to a squash club which also has a gym, and sometimes I go into the gym and I do some of the things in there, do some of the weights and things, and there’s a guy down there who is called Paul Ackford who is an England - well was an England rugby International.  He’s a huge great guy.  He’s about 6 foot 5, I should think and weighs about 230 pounds.  I didn’t realise that was Paul Ackford but I’d seen him a lot down - he’s just one of the guys down in the gym, and occasionally I used to do weights with him, he did these huge weights and I did these puny little weights and one time I was -  we’d been in the gym chatting, and we were chatting in the showers and I said to him, “Do you do any other - anything else apart from weigh-lifting?”  He, I think, assumed that I knew that he played rugby so he said, “Well, I play a bit of squash”.  So I said, “Oh, is squash your main sport?”  So, he said, “No, rugby’s my main sport”.  So I said, “Oh, well, do you play for a club?”  He said, “Yes, I play for Harlequins”.  I said, “Oh, I’ve heard of Harlequins  - they’re quite good aren’t they?”  He said, “Yeah”.  I said, “Don’t they have some people who play for England in that  club?”  He said, “Yeah, there are five who play for England”.  I said, “Oh, have you ever played for England?”  He said, “Yeah”.  I said, “When did you last play for England?”  He said, “Two weeks ago during The World Cup”.  And I looked at him and I said, “You’re Paul Ackford!” 

I’d been with him all that time and I hadn't recognised who he was.  And these disciples had been with Jesus all this time and they hadn’t recognised until Peter looked at Jesus and he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. 

The question is, was he right?  What evidence is there to support that?  There are two parts to the argument that I want to look at this evening.  Number one: Who did Jesus think he was?  Because if Jesus didn’t think he was God, that’s the end of the argument.  Some say, “Well, Jesus never claimed to be God”.  It’s true that he didn’t go around saying, “I am God”, but if you look at everything that he claimed and everything that he taught, I think there’s little doubt that he was conscious of being a man whose identity was God.  So that’s the first question.  What did Jesus say about himself? 

The second thing is: was Jesus right in that assessment?  What evidence is there to support what Jesus thought about himself?  So, the first part of the argument.  What did Jesus actually think about himself?  Here there are three pieces of evidence.  Number one: his teaching centred on himself.  Most religious teachers, certainly the great religious teachers, point away from themselves and they point to God.  Jesus, in pointing to God, pointed to himself.  Only through a relationship with Jesus do we encounter God.  There is a hunger in every human heart.  Three leading psychologists of the 20th century have all recognised this.  Freud said, “People are hungry for love”.  Jung: “People are hungry for security”.  Adler: “People are hungry for significance”.  Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.  I am the one person who can satisfy that hunger in every human heart”.  Many people are walking today in darkness, depression, disillusionment, even despair.  Jesus said, “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life”.  Someone said to me just after their faith in Christ had come alive, they said, “It was as if I was in a room and suddenly the light was switched on and I could see everything”. 

Many today are fearful of death.  We don’t  - as a society we tend not to talk about death anymore.  I gather even in hospitals now they don’t talk about death.  In fact they now have apparently, in hospitals they have a politically correct way of speaking about death.  They talk about it as “negative patient care outcome”.  But when we die, we die.  Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies”.  Mother Teresa was asked this: “Are you afraid of dying?” and she said, “How can I be?  Dying is going home to God.  I’ve never been afraid.  No, on the contrary,” she said, “I look forward to it”. 

Many today are dissatisfied with materialism.  They’re searching for some kind of spiritual reality and Jesus said, “I am the way”.  People are looking for a system of thinking on which to base their lives.  Jesus said, “I am the truth”.  People are looking for meaning and purpose in their lives.  Jesus said, “I am the life”.  Other people said, “This is the way, this is the truth, this is the life”.  Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life”. 

Many are burdened by worries and anxieties and fears and guilt.  Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”.  Many are not sure how they should run their lives.  The traditional models of politicians or pop stars, these are breaking down and people don’t often know who to follow.  Jesus said, “Follow me”.  He said, if you receive him, you receive God.  If you welcome Jesus, you welcome God.  He said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen God”. 

There was a child once, they’d just come home - the family had just come home from church and the child was just drawing a picture before lunch and I think actually, it was the grandmother who said to this five year old child, “What are you doing?” and the child said, “I’m drawing a picture of God” And the granny said, “Well, nobody knows what God looks like and the child said, “Well, wait until I’ve finished my picture!” 

Jesus said, “If you want to know what God looks like, look at me.  Anyone who has seen me, has seen God”. 

So there his  - his teaching centred on himself.  The second piece of evidence is his indirect claims.  Jesus said a number of things which were not direct claims but show that he regarded himself as being in the same position as God.  So, for example, its well known that he claimed to be able to forgive sins.  Now, of course, we can all forgive people who have sinned against us.  But, to forgive someone who has sinned against someone else, is something that only God can do.  When Jesus claimed the authority to forgive people who’d sinned, not against him but against other people, he was accused of blasphemy.  The lawyers there said, “Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”  Yet Jesus claimed that authority. 

He claimed to - that he was the one who was going to judge the world.  He said, “One day everybody, all human kind, is going to be gathered before me and I will be the judge on that day and there will be a separation like sheep from goats and the test is going to be how people have responded to me in this life”.  That is an astonishing claim.  Its not the claim - that’s not the sort of thing that a good religious teacher would say.  Its not the thing you’d expect your local vicar to say.  “One day, I’m going to be the person to judge the entire universe!”  So, there were his indirect claims. 

The third piece of evidence is his direct claims.  He claimed to be the Christ, the son of God.  He was asked that question at his trial: “Are you the Christ, the son of the Living God?” and he said, “I am” and you’ll remember the High Priest tore his clothes, he said, “Why do we need any more witnesses?  You’ve heard the blasphemy!”  Because a claim, tantamount to a claim to be God, was blasphemy in their eyes and it was that for which he was convicted. 

And then he claimed to be God the son.  Would you like to turn to John, chapter 20, verse 28 and 29?  “Thomas” - Thomas the cynic, the sceptic, doubting Thomas, “said to him” - after he’d seen his resurrected body -  “Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’  Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’”.  Thomas called him God.  Jesus didn’t say, “Hang on a bit!  Isn’t that going a bit over the top calling me God?”  He said, “You’ve been very slow to see the point!” 

Would you like to turn back a few pages to John, chapter 10 and verses 30 to 33.  If anybody ever says to you Jesus never claimed to be God and you only had time to show them one passage, I would suggest you turn to this passage.  I don’t suggest you base it on just one passage, but if you only had time,  John, chapter 10, verse 30.  Jesus said this, “‘I and the Father are one’.  Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father.  For which of these do you stone me?’   ‘We are not stoning you for any of these’, replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere human being, claim to be God’”. 

I don’t think there’s any doubt that if you look at everything that Jesus taught and claimed, that that’s what his claims amounted to.  Now of course, that is not the end of the matter, because the next issue was, was he right to make that claim? 

There are many people who claim all kinds of things, but their claims need to be tested.  Some people claim to be Napoleon, or they claim to be Elvis Presley reincarnated but they’re wrong.  So, how do we test people’s claims?  Jesus’ claim to be the unique son of God - there are three logical possibilities.  Number one is that it was not true.  that Jesus didn’t realise it.  He really genuinely thought he was God, but he was mistaken.  He was deluded.  In other words he was mad.  Second logical possibility is that its not true but Jesus knew perfectly well it was not true.  In which case he was an impostor, he was evil.  And the third logical possibility is that it was true.  C.S.Lewis put it like this:” A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said, wouldn’t be a great moral teacher.  He’d either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he’s a poached egg, or else he’d be the devil of hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman, or something worse...but don’t let’s come up with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher.  He hasn't left that open to us.  He didn’t intend to”. 

So, that’s the issue.  What evidence is there, then, to support what he said?  The first area we should look at  - obviously, his life.  Look at first of all his teaching, what he said.  The teaching of Jesus is widely acknowledged to be the greatest ever to have fallen from the lips of a human being.  Take for example, The Sermon on The Mount.  “Love your neighbour as yourself”.  If someone hits you on one cheek, turn the other cheek”.  “Love your enemies”  “Do good to those who hate you”.  “Do to others what you would like them to do to you”.  Jesus’ teaching has been the - the foundation of our entire Western civilisation.  Many of our laws in this country were based originally on the teaching of Jesus.  We’re making progress in virtually every field of science and technology.  We travel faster, we know more, yet in 2,000 years no-one has ever improved on the teaching of Jesus.  They’re the greatest words ever spoken.  In fact, they’re the kind of words you would expect God to speak.  Is it possible that those were spoken by someone who was mad?  Or someone who was evil? 

Then, look at the things that he did.  Look at his works.  Jesus must have been the most amazing, extraordinary, wonderful person to be with.  Sometimes people say, “Christianity is boring!” But imagine being with Jesus!  What fun it would have been!  Think what fun it would have been to go to a party with Jesus.  Do you remember he went to a party once after a wedding and the wine ran out and he said, “Well, why don’t you go and fill some stone jugs with bath water?”  So they went and did that and then he said, “Well, now why don’t you go and pour that bath water into the wine glasses”, and as they poured the water into the wine glasses, out came Chateau Lafite ’48.  48BC that is, of course!  Wouldn't it be fun to go say, hospital visiting with Jesus?  Do you remember he visited a hospital one time and there was a man there who’d been crippled for 38 years.  And he said to him, “Take up your bed and walk!” and the man walked out of the hospital totally healed.  Wouldn't it have been fun to go on a picnic with Jesus?  No need to take sandwiches!  5,000 people.  Five loaves and two fish.  Wouldn't it have been fun to go to a funeral with Jesus?  Do you remember he went to a funeral once and it was difficult because the man had been dead for four days and was in the tomb.  And when Jesus arrived he said, “Take the stone away”, and they said, “We can’t do that because there’ll be a terrible smell!” And Jesus said, “No, no.  Go on”.  And then he called out, he said, “Lazarus, come out!” and this man who’d been dead for four days came out and Jesus said, “Take the grave clothes off him and let him go”. 

Jesus is the same today.  He’s still healing people, setting people free.  People are being set free from alcohol, from drugs, marriages being brought back together, families being reunited.  It’s not just his miracles but his love.  His love for the unlovely.  For the lepers, for the outcasts.  Transforming peoples lives.  His love shown in his death, giving up his life for others.

If we were wanting to look at the evidence for - to support his claims, we’d look at his - first of all at his teaching, secondly, we’d look at what he did, thirdly, his character. 

The character of Jesus has impressed millions of people who wouldn't call themselves Christians.  Bernard Levin, perhaps the greatest columnist of our generation wrote an article once, he said, “For the fourteenth thousandth time, I am not a Christian!”  But he went on to say this: “Is not the nature of Christ in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced?  He still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love”.  He was the supreme example of unselfishness but never self-pity.  Of humility, but not weakness.  Of joy, but never at another’s expense.  Of kindness, but not indulgence.  And of course, the real test of a person’s character comes when they’re under pressure.  And when Jesus was suffering, being tortured, he turned to the people who were torturing him and he said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”.  His character was such that his enemies could find no fault in him and his friends said about him, “He’s without sin”.  Could that really have been somebody who was mentally unbalanced, or evil? 

And then, fourthly, there’s his fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.  No-one else in the history of the world has ever had a whole book written about them, or a whole collection of books written about them before they were born.  Jesus fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies.  29 of them he fulfilled in a single day.  Now, it’s sometimes been suggested: “Well maybe he was a kind of clever con man and he got hold of this book and he said, “Ah, there are all these prophecies about someone, Id better go round fulfilling them all!”  The difficulty with that is the sheer number of prophecies about him.  But not only that, there is the fact that humanly speaking, he had no control over many of the events.  For example, there are many prophecies about the exact manner of his death and the place of his burial.  In fact, even the place of his birth was prophesied.  Now supposing he was a con man and came across that, “Oh dear!  I’m meant to be born in Bethlehem!” It’s too late. 

Fifth piece of evidence and the most important of all is his conquest of death.  The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of Christianity.  That’s why we start the Alphacourse - we don’t start with the issue, Is there a God?  We start with the session, Who is Jesus?.  The New Testament theologian Tom Wright put it like this: “The Christian claim is not that Jesus is to be understood in terms of ‘A God about whom we already know’.  The Christian claim is this:  the resurrection of Jesus strongly suggests the world has a creator and this creator is to be seen in terms of, through the lens of, this Jesus”.  So what evidence is there that the resurrection really happened.  Let me summarise it under four main headings. 

Number one:  His absence from the tomb.  Many theories have been put forward to explain the fact that the - Jesus’ body was absent from the tomb that first Easter day.  But none of the theories put forward to explain it have been satisfactory.  First one is, it’s been suggested that Jesus didn’t die on the cross.  That he survived crucifixion and he felt much better after resting in the cool of the tomb and he emerged to convince his disciples that he’d risen from the dead.  The problem with that is that Jesus had undergone a Roman flogging which was enough to kill many men.  He’d undergone crucifixion and crucifixion was a means of killing people.  That was the job of the Roman guards.  He’d been put in a tomb with a stone that weighed one and a half tonnes put in front of it.  Furthermore, if you’d like to look at this verse in John, chapter 19, verse 34.  There’s a very interesting piece of evidence.  “When they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.  Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water”.  Now we know now that that is good medical evidence of death.  That is the separation of the clot and the serum.  But John when he wrote this, didn’t know that.  He was just recording the facts of what happened.  But now we know that is powerful evidence that Jesus was in fact, dead. 

Second theory that’s been put forward to try and explain Jesus’ absence from the tomb is that the disciples stole the body and began a rumour that Jesus had risen.  Leaving aside the fact that the tomb was guarded, that theory is psychologically improbable because here was a group of depressed, disillusioned people and it needed something extraordinary to transform them.  And then think about how much they had to suffer for the fact that they were proclaiming that Jesus was alive.  I had a friend who was a scientist at Cambridge University and he became a Christian because he said he could not believe that those disciples would have been willing to be tortured and die for something they knew was not true. 

Third suggestion has been that the authorities stole the body but that’s even more unlikely.  What was their motive for stealing the body and if they did steal the body, all they had to do when the rumour started that Jesus was risen from the dead was to say, “No he’s not!” and produce the body  But they never did, they couldn’t. 

Fourth suggestion is that robbers stole the body but again that doesn’t work because there was only one valuable thing in that tomb and that was the grave clothes.  And the interesting thing is that when Peter and John ran to the tomb and they looked in, they saw that the tomb was not, in fact, empty.  The grave clothes were still there.  Jesus' body had emerged, as somebody put it, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.  The grave clothes had literally collapsed and the head piece had been folded up and put in a separate part and when they saw that, they saw and believed.  So that’s the first piece of evidence: his absence from the tomb. 

The second piece of evidence is his presence with the disciples.  Were these hallucinations?  Its true that some people do hallucinate.  People who are highly strung, highly imaginative, very nervous people or people who are sick or on drugs but the disciples don’t fit into any of those categories.  Here are burly fishermen.  Cynics like Thomas.  Tax collectors.  Tax collectors do not hallucinate! 

Then look at the number of them.  Jesus appeared to over 500 people over - on 11 different occasions over a period of 6 weeks.  500 people likely to share the same hallucination?  Then look at the nature of the appearances.  Hallucinations are just subjective, they have no objective reality. 

Would you like to turn to Luke, chapter 24 and verse 36?   “While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’.  They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.  He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet .  It is I myself!  Touch me and see;  a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have’.  When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.  And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’  And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence”.  I have a friend called James Odgers and he became a Christian because of the broiled fish.  He could not believe that an hallucination would eat broiled fish!  Jesus cooked breakfast for his disciples on one occasion.  He ate and drank with them.  He had long conversations with them.  These were not hallucinations.  So the second piece of evidence: his appearance to the disciples. 

The third piece of evidence is the immediate effect.  Here was this group of people discouraged, depressed, disillusioned - and suddenly they were out there preaching on the streets saying, “Jesus is risen from the dead!”  And this explosion took place.  The birth and growth of the Christian church beginning with a handful of uneducated fishermen and tax collectors it spread over the whole known world in the next 300 years.  It’s the story of a peaceful revolution that has no parallel in the history of the world.  Could any other event apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ account for that? 

Fourthly, the effect down the ages: Christian experience.  Countless millions of people through the ages have experienced the risen Jesus Christ.  People of every colour, tribe, race, continent, nationality, from different economic, social, intellectual backgrounds.  Same experience - the risen Jesus Christ. 

Wilson Carlisle, the founder of the Church Army, was preaching one time at Hyde Park corner and he was saying, “Jesus is alive today!” and there was a heckler at the back, and the heckler shouted out, “How do you know he’s alive today?” and he said, “Well, I was talking to him for half an hour this morning!” That is the ultimate proof.  The experience of millions of people round the world who are experiencing a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. 

In the last 23, nearly 24 years now, I’ve experienced that Jesus is alive.  I’ve experienced his love, his presence and I would say as probably hundreds of people here tonight might be able to say, “I know its true, because I have experienced the risen Jesus Christ myself”. 

So we looked at what Jesus claimed and we saw there were three realistic possibilities.  One that he was evil.  Another that he was mad.  And the third is that he really was a man whose identity was God.  And when you look at the evidence - what fits the facts?  When you look at the evidence of the teaching of Jesus.  When you look at the evidence of the things that he did.  When you look at his character.  When you look at his fulfilment of prophecy.  When you look at his resurrection from the dead, it doesn’t make sense, it’s illogical, it’s absurd to suggest that he was mad or that he was evil.  On the other hand, there is masses of evidence to support what he said about himself. 

It was Sherlock Holmes who once said, “When you have eliminated the impossible” - and it seems to me, it was impossible that Jesus was either mad or evil, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. 

C.S.Lewis, again, put it like this: “We are faced then with a frightening alternative.  The man we’re talking about was (and is), just what he said, or else a lunatic or something worse.  Now it seems to be obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange, or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.  God has landed on this enemy occupied world in human form”.