His Name is Jesus

by Rocky Fleming

Day 4: The Gospel Story

“Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero… Shall we suppose that the evangelical history is a mere fiction? Indeed, it bears no marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which no one presumes to doubt, is not so well attested to as that of Jesus Christ.” — Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the greatest intellects of France and skeptics of Christianity, 1712 -1778

“The Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero.”  Well said, for the Gospel story is so amazing that one would have to give up much of his reasoning to not believe it.  The Gospel story is not just the three years of Christ’s public ministry, or the years following that the disciples lived and preached.  It includes all those things, and as well, the message of the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection.  It is the story of over 2,000 years of transformed lives from the point of Jesus’s birth, life, death and resurrection until today.  It is also the story of human rights, racial and social reform, and women’s rights that have been made known, as the Gospel has changed history.  

It is the story of God reaching to man in the most thorough and elaborate way so that there can be no doubt that what He did was well planned.  His plan is a magnificent design that unfolds from Genesis to Revelations and presents God’s good intentions for mankind through Jesus Christ, and this is what we know as the Gospel.  It is much greater than we can understand.  The Gospel deserves our awe, and to be clearly presented to a world in desperate need of it.  The entire Gospel is a fact that a non-believer or an anti-believer such as an atheist needs to know so that they can make an “intelligent”decision about what they do not believe.  After all, one needs to know something before they can know what they reject, wouldn’t you think?

If one would take the time to review the history of the Gospel, he or she would conclude, like Rousseau did, that it could not be a work of fiction.  There are too many historical facts, archaeological proof, and testimonial reports to support the claims.  Through the years, there have been skeptics that have tried to disprove the Gospel.  Of course their target of choice is the resurrection.  How can you disprove or prove it?  There is only one way.  Human testimony is the only way.  What people saw, touched, experienced and how it affected their life for the rest of their life is the evidence that a skeptic must look at.  If done without prejudice or a preset perspective as many atheists have, the overwhelming information and facts support the Good News that Jesus Christ conquered death and resurrected from the grave.  He is who He said He is, and what He offers is that which all mankind desires.  I love Billy Graham’s words:

“There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three.“Billy Graham

If someone wants evidence before accepting the fact of God, and the truth about Jesus, which include the claims about Him, all that person needs to do is to do some serious research into the facts.  The fact is, there is more proof that Jesus Christ rose from the grave after He was killed on a cross than there is evidence to prove that Alexander the Great even walked on the face of the earth.