Is faith blind?

Faith is not blind.
Here is a quick summary about Jesus Christ and his life.

It is not possible for us to know whether God exists or what his nature is unless he takes the initiative and reveals himself to us. We have to know his characteristics and the nature of his behavior towards us.

Suppose we know that he exists but he is like Adolf Hitler, capricious, cruel, prejudiced and frightening... What a terrifying realization!!

We have to scan the horizon to see if there is any evidence indicating the existence of God. There is clear evidence... In a village in Palestine 2000 years ago, Christ was born in a stable, and to this day the whole world celebrates his birth.

Christ lived quietly until he reached the age of 30, after which he began his public ministry, which lasted for three years, and his ministry was designed to change the course of history. He was a kind person, and the common people listened to him with pleasure. "Because he taught them as someone with authority."1

Who is Jesus Christ

After a while he clearly seemed to be making statements about himself. Amazing statements that shock those who hear him, as he defined himself as superior to the teacher or the prophet. And he began to say frankly that he was God. His identity was the focus of his teachings. And that the most important question he asked to those who followed him was “Who do you think that I am?” When Peter answered, he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.”

Jesus Christ openly stated that he is God, which affected those around him. The Bible says: “For this reason, the Jews sought more and more to kill him. Because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God is His Father, making Himself equal with God.”3

On another occasion, he said: “I and the Father are one.” Then the Jews wanted to stone him, so he asked them for what good deed do you want to kill me?

Jesus clearly declared that He possesses attributes that only God possesses.

When a paralyzed man came wanting Jesus to heal him, “Jesus told him, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” This affected the religious leaders, who said in their hearts, “Why does this man talk like this? He blasphemes. Only God can forgive sins.”

• At a critical moment when Jesus' life was at stake, one of the religious leaders asked him: "Are you the Christ, the Son of God?" Jesus said, "I am he. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven." The high priest tore his clothes and said, "Why do we need more witnesses?" You have heard the blasphemies." 5

• “They said to him, ‘Where is your father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know me or my father. If you knew me, you would know my father as well.’6
• “If you had known me, you would have known my father as well, and from now on you know him and have seen him”7
• "He who sees me sees the one who sent me"8
• “And behold, I have been with you for such a long time, and you did not know me, Philip. He who has seen me has seen the Father, so how can you say, Show us the Father?”9
• "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, so believe in Me"10
• “He who hates me hates my father also”11
• “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him”12

Not blind faith in the "Four Possibilities"

As we confront Christ's claims, there are only four possibilities:

Either he is a liar, crazy, a myth, or what he says is the truth.

If we say that it is not true, then we automatically affirm one of the other three alternatives, whether we realize it or not.

The first possibility:

That Jesus lied when he said of himself that he was God and that he knew that he was not God. But he deliberately deceived his hearers to give authority to his teachings. Even those who deny his divinity assert that he was a great teacher while they do not realize that there is a contradiction in that, so how can he be a great moral teacher and lie regarding an important issue such as “who is he”?

The second possibility:

She says that he was sincere in what he said, but he himself was deceived, as he believed that he was God. Nowadays, we call such a person crazy. Was Christ like that? Whenever we look at the life of Christ, we do not see evidence of any defects or imbalances in his person. Rather, we find in him the greatest balance under great pressures.

Third possibility:

It is that all of this is a legend and that the disciples of Christ admired this story, wrote it and transmitted it through the ages. The myth theory has been largely refuted as the findings prove conclusively that the four Gospels of Christ's life were written in times contemporaneous to Christ. Dr. William Albert, one of the most famous archaeologists in the world, said, "There is no reason to believe that any of the four Gospels were written at a time after AD 70.
To believe in such a thing it would be great if someone wrote a biography of JFK and claimed that he is God and that he forgives people for their sins and that he rose from the dead such a story would not qualify as believable because there are still many people who know Kennedy and they will certainly know that This is an incorrect legend that these manuscripts were written after his death.

The fourth and only remaining possibility:

Is that Jesus was telling the truth. But the claims alone do not mean much and are not of importance. There are many who claim to be God. You can claim that you are God, but the question that must be answered is what do we base our claims on, it will not take more than 5 minutes to discover that the claim is false and it will not be difficult, but the matter is completely different with Jesus of Nazareth, as he proved that he is God, "but if you I work, and if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him.”

Evidence from the life of Jesus Christ

First: His moral character and values coincided with his claims.

He is unique and distinct like God. Christ was without sin, and Christ was able to confront all his enemies and answer their questions, “Who among you convicts me of sin?”14

We read about the experience of Jesus Christ in the wilderness, but we never heard from him confessing the sin he had committed, although he asked his followers to do so, i.e. to ask forgiveness for their sins.

It is amazing that there is no sense of sin when Christ is "close to God." The closer a person gets to God, the more he realizes how failed and sinful he is. This is true for the greatest spiritualists and saints, but not for Christ.

Even John, Paul, and Peter, who teach the universality of sin, said that Christ is without sin or iniquity, “who committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”15

Even Pilate, who was not a friend of Christ, asked, "What evil did he do?"
And the Roman commander who witnessed the death of Christ on the cross and the soldiers who were with him said: “Truly this was the Son of God”16

Second: Christ clarified his authority over nature, which only God can control.

Jesus was able to calm the storm with one word. And they were afraid with great fear, and said to one another, Who is this? For even the wind and the sea obey him.

Christ fed 5,000 people in the miracle of the two fish and five loaves. He restored to the widow her only son by raising him from the dead, and also returned the girl from death to the bosom of her collapsed father. The great thing about this matter is that even the enemies of Christ do not deny the occurrence of these miracles, knowing that they tried to kill him and said: “If we leave him like this, everyone will believe in him, then the Romans will come and take our place and our nation.”18

Third: Jesus demonstrated the power and authority of the Creator over diseases and the sick.

He made the lame walk, the deaf speak, and the blind see. Most of the signs of healing were for congenital diseases, not accidental ones, like those we find in John 9, which talks about a man who has been blind since birth. This man was really dumbfounded and says that all he knows is that he was blind and now he can see. Jesus was the healer who opened the eyes of the blind.19

Fourth: The wonderful evidence that proves the validity of Christ's claim of divinity is his resurrection from the dead.

Jesus predicted five times his death and also predicted how he would die and rise from the dead three days after his crucifixion and that he would appear to his disciples. Surely this is the greatest proof that Jesus Christ is God.

All of Jesus' friends, followers, and even enemies bore witness to his resurrection from the dead as the basis of their faith. Paul, the greatest of the apostles, wrote and testified about it. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, our faith would have no meaning. 20 Paul the Apostle built all Christianity on Christ's physical resurrection from the dead, and this is the greatest event in history.

And since Christ did indeed rise from the dead, we certainly know with confidence and faith that God really exists, and therefore we can get to know Him, His person, and how to communicate with Him.

If Christ did not rise from the dead, then Christianity would be nothing more than an artifact in a museum and nothing more than that. It will not continue, it will not have goals, and it will not be connected to reality. Christianity may be beautiful, hopeful ideas, but no one will be jealous of them; There will be no martyrs fed to lions, no missionaries giving their lives to spread the word of God to others.

Attacks on Christianity by its enemies have centered on the resurrection because it is clear that this event is the essence of Christianity. For example, there was an attack in the early thirties by a young British lawyer who was convinced that the resurrection was nothing but a lie and an illusion, and because it was the cornerstone of Christianity. He decided to research it and prove its falsity.

As a lawyer, he began the research process, looking for evidence to refute the resurrection, and while Frank Morion was doing his research, something interesting happened, as the case was not as easy as he expected. The result was the first chapter of the book "Who Rolled the Stone", in which he says how he examined the evidence and was convinced of the truth of the resurrection of Christ, contrary to what he wanted, because the resurrection actually happened and not just a theory.

Christ's death

It was the death of Christ on the cross in front of all people, where he was executed in front of people because the authorities said that he disbelieves in God. But Jesus said that the reason for his crucifixion is to pay the price for our sins and sins. Then he wrapped the body of Christ in linen immersed in perfumes and spices, and placed his body in a stone tomb, and the door of the tomb was closed with a stone weighing 1.5-2 tons. And because Jesus had said that he would rise three days after his crucifixion and death on the cross, he placed guards from the Roman armies at the door of the tomb and sealed the tomb with an official Roman seal to make it the property of the authority.

Despite all this, the body of Jesus disappeared from the tomb, and the linen remained in the shape of the body, but it was empty, and the stone had been rolled some distance from the tomb.

Was the resurrection of Christ just a story?

People interpreted that what happened was that the disciples stole the body of Jesus. 21 We have records of the reaction of the rulers and leaders when they learned of the disappearance of the body of Jesus. They gave money to the guards and told them to claim that the disciples stole the body of Jesus while they were sleeping. This story was so false that Matthew Al-Bashir did not waste his time denying it because it is a very clear lie.

Imagine yourself in front of a judge in court saying that your neighbor has entered your house and stolen your TV while you were sleeping, everyone in court will laugh at you.

In addition, we are facing a psychological and moral impossibility here. Stealing the body of Christ is not one of the characteristics of the disciples and is not what we know about them. This means committing multiple crimes of lies and deceit, and it is inconceivable that some of the disciples had conspired to steal the body of Christ.

Each of the disciples faced some kind of torture, and some were martyred for stating their beliefs and not denying the truth of the resurrection. Certainly, they would not have sacrificed their lives for something unreal, and they would not have died for a lie. If the disciples really had taken the body of Christ, or that Christ was still dead, we would have faced a difficulty, which is the interpretation of his appearance after his crucifixion and his death on the cross.

Another hypothesis: The Roman and Jewish authorities took the body of Christ, but why? What is the goal? They put guards at the door of the tomb, so why would they hide the body? And what about the silence that fell on the authorities when they learned that the body had disappeared? What about their confrontation and resistance to preaching the resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem? The leaders tried their best to prevent the spread of the news of Christ's resurrection from the dead, and they seized Peter and John and repelled them in an attempt to shut their mouths.

But there was a small solution to the problem (if they were the ones who took the body of Christ), which is to throw the body in the streets of Jerusalem, and then Christianity would end, but this did not happen because they did not steal the body, because Christ had risen.

Another popular theory is that the women failed and strayed from the grave in the dark of the morning and went to another grave. This theory fails like the previous ones. If the women made a mistake, is it possible that the priests and the enemies also made a mistake, and also went to the same wrong grave and found it empty, or even Peter and John, could they have committed the same mistake!! Certainly, Yusuf al-Rami, the owner of the tomb, would have solved the problem, and we must remember that it was a private, not a public, burial. And there was no grave near that grave so that people would make mistakes by going to it.

fainting theory

This theory says that Christ did not actually die on the cross, but only passed out as a result of fatigue, pain, and the blood that he lost. When he was placed in a cold place, such as the tomb, he woke up, regained consciousness, and appeared to the disciples after he came out of the tomb. This theory appeared at the end of the eighteenth century.

Let us assume for a moment that it is true, and that Christ was buried alive without food, drink, or any kind of care, so how would he then be able to roll the heavy stone and cross next to the guards and walk for miles with his feet hammered with nails!!

The only theory that explains the empty tomb is the actual resurrection of Christ from the dead.

What does Jesus Christ offer you:

Jesus Christ rose from the dead and proved that He is God and He is certainly alive today. And he is ready to be more than an idol because he wants to enter your life.

Jesus said: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him." 22

Jesus said: "I came that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."23

And because Jesus Christ died on the cross to take away all our sins, He offers you forgiveness and acceptance to be in a real relationship with Him now.

You can invite Jesus into your life now. You can say the following phrases:

"Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross in my place to erase my sins, I ask you to forgive me and come into my life now. Thank you for giving me this relationship with you."

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Notes: [1] Matthew 7: 29 [2] Matthew 16: 15-16 [3] John 5: 18 [4] John 10: 33 [5] Mark 14: 61-64 [6] John 8: 19 [7] ] John 14: 7 [8] John 12: 45 [9] John 14: 9 [10] John 14: 22 [11] John 15: 23 [12] John 5: 23 [13] John 10: 38 [14] John 8: 46 [15] 1 Peter 2: 22 [16] Matthew 27: 54 [17] Mark 4: 41 [18] John 11: 48 [19] John 9: 25-32 [20] 1 Corinthians 15: 14 [21 ] Matthew 28: 11-15 [22] Revelation 3: 20 [23] John 10:10