Editorial
From the Newsletter of Revesby Presbyterian Church
April 2007
Rev Dr Peter Barnes
One can easily tell when Easter is upon us in the West – it is that time of the year when the stores are trying to sell millions of chocolate eggs and when the media will sensationalise some quasi-intellectual attack on the Christian faith. Some years back the BBC expected us to take Barbara Thiering seriously. After this came Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, and then in 2006 all sorts of claims made about the Gospel of Judas. Now, in 2007, we are being treated to a documentary produced by James Cameron, the mastermind behind the Titanic and The Terminator. In this we are solemnly assured that a crypt unearthed in 1980 contains not the remains but the names of six people – Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Judah, Matthew, and Joseph. Not surprisingly, Cameron identifies Jesus as the founder of the Christian religion and Mary Magdalene as his wife. Judah is supposed to be their son. Cameron has not been modest in proclaiming the importance of this find: ‘I think this is the biggest archaeological story of the century,’ he says.
Christians are then reported to be outraged. Finally, Phillip Adams continues his mantra that sermons are delivered in church along the lines of ‘Believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary.’ In fact, the apostle Paul preached the death and resurrection of Jesus as something of first importance (1 Cor.15:3). He passed on what he himself had received, that ‘Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ (1 Cor.15:3b-4). The Christian message is thus about history and doctrine.
First, there is history – Christ did actually die, and did actually rise from the dead. This is proclaimed by Scripture as the Word of God, and is backed up by the historical evidence. Indeed, Paul says that over 500 brethren saw the risen Christ (1 Cor.15:6). These men were not perpetrating a hoax. Initially, even Jesus’ own disciples had not believed that Jesus would rise from the dead. They had become convinced that Jesus is Lord, in large part by the hard facts of history – the risen Christ appeared to them, alive from the dead. They were persecuted for this belief. The world of the Roman Empire, like the world of today, will tolerate Christians saying that Jesus is a lord, but not that he is the Lord. The historicity of the death and resurrection of Christ is thus foundational. If Christ did not rise from the dead, Christianity is shot to pieces (1 Cor.15:12-19). Paul was beheaded in Nero’s day, but the fact of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead meant that he looked forward to receiving the crown of righteousness (see 2 Tim.4:6-8). Death had lost its sting.
Secondly, there is doctrine attached to the history – Christ died (an historical fact) for our sins (a doctrinal explanation of Jesus’ death). Why, in about A.D. 30, did a man go willingly to die a horrific death on a cross? Why, especially because this man knew no sin? He is both divine and human. Why should he, of all men, suffer in such a way? The answer is that it was our sins that sent him there. We deserved to die because the wages of sin is death (Gen.2:16-17; Rom.6:23), but Christ took the place of sinners. It is all about substitution. In the words of John Stott: ‘Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself and puts himself where only man deserves to be.’
What does this mean for you and me? It means that the Easter message tells us what God has done about human sin. He has sent his eternal Son to die and to rise from the dead to overcome sin and death. It also means that we must respond to this. The media are hardly likely to report the facts, but that does not mean that we can adopt such a cavalier attitude to this matter of life and death. The likes of James Cameron and Phillip Adams are not facing facts; they are taking refuge in fantasy. Reality is found in the words of Horatius Bonar:
Upon a life, I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die;
Another’s life, another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.
This is indeed good news to sinners!
With warmest regards in Christ,
Peter Barnes