The Veracity of the Prophetic Witness

I’m always amazed at the accuracy of prophecy as recorded in the Bible. I’m currently looking at the prophetic witness leading up to Christmas for our church, a different part of the messianic prediction every day. Be sure to look for the 25 days of Christmas from Alex, that’s A-L-E-X, Southern Baptist Chapel. From 1,500 years to 400 years before Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, people were writing about Him to describe Him, His work, and worldwide events simultaneous to His advent. When we get to Acts 17:31, as Paul is philosophizing to the elite contemplators on Mars Hill, he states, “…having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

Proof. That’s a strong word.

The word translated into the English “proof” here, πιστιν, literally means faith. Proof is a strong word when trying to get at the veracity of any story. Luke, here, quotes Paul as saying that God furnished a reason for people to have faith in Jesus by raising Jesus from the dead. I find that the Bible puts it in terms that even worldly people are unwilling to do. While worldly and insecure people always talk about what they believe in as fact, as if it is unquestionable even though it falls outside the realm of common observation, the Bible speaks in terms of reasonable faith. It is intellectually honest while most people with strong scientific and religious convictions are not. The Bible speaks in these terms even though there seems to be stronger evidence for the story it tells than other conflicting stories and even statements of so-called fact like is touted by the darwinian religious group of our time. I think we too often look for evidence in the wrong place.

We try to prove the unobservable from what can be observed, truly a fools errand because if anything transcends our evidence, such evidence, by definition, never ascends to it. I can observe biology and geology and never get to anything beyond that. The Bible doesn’t try to prove God based on what God created. Proving or disproving any historic narrative only from what we call empirical evidence is, again, a fools errand and the dogmatic pursuit of people who are insecure in their own belief hoping to find something concrete to show they are smarter than anyone who believes differently.

But, God actually furnished us with a reason to have faith in Jesus–the perfect representation of God in the flesh. He did so the only way He could since He is transcendent. First, by assuming human flesh so we could actually observe Him. Second, by transcending death–which is final for us mere mortals. Third, by providing testimony only possible if it’s all true. This testimony was shared for more than a thousand years perfectly describing the person, work, and world of Jesus of Nazareth. All someone has to do is show the Old Testament to be reliable to essentially render proof that the New Testament claims about Jesus are true–providing reasonable belief not only in God’s existence but also in the person and work of Jesus. Here we are looking to biology, geology, and archeology when the proof, at least as close as we can get to proof, is in the prophets and resurrection.

It would be easy to falsify the claim that Jesus is God if someone could show that He doesn’t fulfill the messianic prophecies. Since He does fulfill them all and they accurately described the world, the claims measured in any scientific way must be affirmed regardless of what we think in terms of biology or universal origins. God is. Jesus is God in the flesh. These two claims are nearly impossible to deny with any degree of intellectual honesty at all.

Merry Christmas. Be sure to check out 25 Days of Christmas for the prophetic vision at alexsbc.church.