What Did The Earliest Christians Believe? Part 2

The early Christians were claiming divinity for Jesus during a time when eyewitnesses to his life would quickly have contradicted them if they were wrong. For instance, consider Paul's summary of the Christ event:

What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:3–7).

Scholars believe that Paul "received" this statement from other Christians between three and eight years after the crucifixion itself, then included it in his first letter to the Corinthians. 

If Paul received it at such an early date, the creed must have been written even earlier. For all practical purposes, this statement must have been composed when the original events occurred. In addition, it has been proven that it takes more than two generations, and usually much longer, for an event to become a myth. 

It’s All Too Incredible

Jesus' first followers were completely committed to the truth of his claims to divinity. Consider the implausibility of this claim. The only Son of God, existing before time began, ruling the universe alongside the only God and Father of all creation, chose to enter the world during their lifetime.

He was the only baby to choose his parents, yet he chose a peasant teenager for his mother and a poor Galilean carpenter to be his earthly father. He was the only baby to arrange the circumstances of his birth, yet he chose a cave behind a crude traveler's inn outside a tiny country town, with only dirt-caked field hands to witness his entrance into the human race.

He then grew up in a village so small it is not named even once in the entire Old Testament. He picked fishermen and tax collectors to be his disciples. He died as a convicted felon on a cross. Then he came back to life and ascended into heaven. 

It's all too incredible to be imagined.

But It’s True

And yet Peter and the other apostles refused to stop preaching these very claims, even when threatened with their lives (cf. Acts 5:29–32). 

While there were at least fifty tombs of holy men that became sites of religious veneration during the time of Jesus, there is no evidence that Christians ever venerated the tomb of their Lord, for the simple reason that it was empty.

Each apostle but John was martyred for serving this Lord, and John was exiled to the prison island of Patmos for preaching about him. 

Billions of people across twenty centuries have accepted the claims of these first Christians and have followed their Lord as the God of the universe.