What if the Resurrection is Real?
Jesus is Who He Says He Is

Ramp: Da Vinci Code
Starts with this: FACT:…

Art Magazine article: Good and Bad:

Bad: the book is full of serious inaccuracies in its descriptions of art
and their history.

Good: Ticket sales at the Louvre – the
French museum where the story starts,
increased 9% last year.

And the number of visitors to Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel,
where the novel ends,
has tripled since the book released.

And that’s nothing, say museum officials,
compared to what they expect following the
release of the movie.

The only thing that factors more prominently in Brown’s book than art is
the Bible and the Church.

And Brown writes in the front page of the book,
and has restated this in several interviews,
that all the documents he refers to are true.

And just like this book is both good and bad for those serious about art,
this book is also good and bad for those
serious about pursuing Jesus,
for those who are considering the claims of Christ.

Bad: 99% of Brown’s references to Biblical content and the
identity of Christ are totally wrong.

If all you know about the Bible and the Church
you learn from The Da Vinci Code,
you’re done with both,
because both are revealed to be frauds.

Good side: There will be a week or two
following the release of the movie where a lot of
water cooler conversations are
going to be about Jesus and the Bible.

This movie is providing an amazing opportunity to engage those in
your world with a life-giving, informed, truthful perspective.

I say an amazing opportunity – I mean
if you can actually engage the conversation.

So today I’m going to be a little information-heavy specifically
because I want to shepherd you well.

You don’t have time to check on all the claims made in this book/movie.

And yet many of you – because people know you follow Christ –
are going to be asked about it.

The possibilities for really meaningful conversations with seekers
because of this book/movie and awesome.

Carmen read the book over the weekend and said,
“I can’t believe anyone would believe this.”

And yet, if you’ve never read any solid church history,
Brown’s story is definitely going to make you wonder,,,

Da Vinci Code, p. 231:
“The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.”

Let me give you 5 key facts about the Bible – facts that make the Bible a totally unique book:

fact:

1. Consists of 66 different “books” and letters, including
- historical record - religious law
prophecy - poetry
biography - letters of instruction
symbolic, end-times “apocryphal” literature

2. Written by 40 different authors
examples:
Moses: political leader educated in Egyptian universities
David: shepherd, poet, warrior, King of Israel
Nehemiah: served in the palace of a pagan king
Luke: Gentile physician and historian
Paul: Jewish rabbi
Peter: fisherman

3. In different places:
3 continents: Asia, Africa, Europe
in deserts, dungeons, palaces, prisons, islands

4. In different languages:
Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic

5. Over a 1500 year span:
including times of war, peace, famine, prosperity, persecution, and revival.

2 critical questions:

accurate?

In order to determine how historically accurate a document is,
you need two pieces of information:

How many matching copies exist?
Gettysburg address: 4 score and seven years ago…

How long is the gap between the original and the copies?

Gallic Wars, written by Caesar, has 10 copies with a 1,000 yr. gap.

The second most historically authoritative manuscript is
Homer’s The Iliad.

There are 643 copies than can be dated within 400 years of the original.

The most historically authoritative manuscript is
The New Testament.

There are 24,970 copies (of the 27 book NT) in existence
which can be dated within 250 years of the original.

25,000 copies, not within a 1000, 400, but 250 years!

Is it accurate?

It’s the most historically accurate piece on
ancient literature known to man – by a long shot.

A second critical question:
Definitive?

Has it constantly changed or has it remained the same over time?

The Old Testament was set by 400 BC.

The books in the New Testament were written
between the years 50 and about 100 AD –
within Christ’s generation and the
generation which followed.

There are lists of the books considered New Testament scripture that
appear in writings of the Church Fathers (Ireneas) from 180 A.D.
that are identical the books in your bible.

The Bible, as we have it now, was basically established by the year 200.

The Da Vinci Code paints a picture of the Bible as a
politically-motivated document
assembled by emperor of Rome as a
way for the government to
manipulate and control the masses.

The truth is Christian scriptures were written and definitively embraced
as the Holy Bible by the church
while it was still being intensely persecuted –
more than 150 years before Christianity was
legalized in Rome.

Bottom line: The Holy Bible is the most credible, reliable,
historically defendable piece of ancient literature in existence.

More books have been written about Jesus than any other person in history. The Bible – which is not the only ancient source on information about him, but clearly the primary one – has been examined and inspected and challenged like no other book in history.

Dr. Elwell – studied with the Jesus Seminar for 20 years.

“From a historical perspective, the points against the authenticity of the Bible are so few compared to the point for it authenticity, they don’t even show up on the score card.”

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this book – this collection of 66 books, written by 40 authors in 3 continents over 1500 years:

? One central, unified message:
The Bible addresses
Political issues, social issues, religious issues,
interpersonal issues, economic issues, and more…

But the one central message of the whole book is this:

God loves the world and is
redeeming all of creation to himself.

John puts it this way in his gospel:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son
that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life.

Not only is there one central message, but there’s
? One central figure:

The entire Bible looks forward to, looks at, or reflects back on a
man named Jesus from a city called Nazareth.

In spite of its diversity, the Bible presents a single unfolding story: God’s redemption of human beings. Among all the people described in the Bible, the leading character throughout is the one, true, living God made known through Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, the Law provides the “foundation for Christ,” the historical books show “the preparation” for Christ, the poetical works “aspire” to Christ, and the prophecies display an “expectation” of Christ. In the New Testament, the “Gospels . . . record the historical manifestation of Christ, the Acts relate the propagation of Christ, the Epistles give the interpretation of Him, and in Revelation is found the consummation of all things in Christ” (Geisler/Nix, GIB’86, 29).

From cover to cover, the Bible is Christocentric.

Henrietta Mears: What the Bible is All About

So the real question,
the reason for all the attention on this Da Vinci Code book is this:

Who was Jesus, really? Who Did Jesus Claim to Be?

The “truth” that is presented in Browns book claims this:

Jesus was a human teacher who never claimed to be divine.

The historical reality is Jesus, himself, his earliest followers,
and the early church all proclaimed with
crystal clarity this message: Jesus is God

Jesus did things that only God could do:

He forgave sins (and then healed them physically to prove his authority).

He walked on water.

On several occasions he accepted worship.

He said “I and the Father are one.”

And when he was asked, point blank, in his trial,
“Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Living God?”

He answered “I AM” –
the same name God uses for himself when he comes to Moses.

In this actions and his words, Jesus clearly claims to be God.

The Gospel writers clearly declare that Jesus is God:

John begins his gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Mark writes a fast-paced, action-packed gospel and delivers the point at the end with the quote from the centurion who oversees the crucifixion of Jesus, “Surely this was the Son of God.”

Mathew writes for a Jewish audience and demonstrates from the
first page to the last how
Jesus fulfills dozens of specific Old Testament prophecies about
the coming Christ

including the facts that he would be

born of a virgin,
in Bethlehem,
be raised in Nazareth,
betrayed by a friend,
and be killed on a cross.

Luke, who writes for a non-jewish audience,
records astronomers from other countries worshiping Jesus as God
shortly after his birth as well as
numerous accounts of Jesus healing people and
casting out demons as proof of his
supremacy over both the physical and
spiritual worlds.

In Acts, Peter preaches his first sermon in Jerusalem just about
a month after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

He clearly declares Jesus as the Christ who was killed and says,
“God has raised Jesus to life and we are all witnesses to this fact.

The message of his sermon is Jesus is the Christ,
his proof is the resurrection,
and the result is 3000 people accept his message
and are baptized.

If the resurrection had not happened –
if that fact had not been witnessed by hundreds of people –
Peter’s audience would have laughed him out of town.

But it did happen.

They all knew it.

The church grows from a couple hundred to
several thousand in an afternoon.

Over and over again, throughout the rest of the Bible,
Jesus is proclaimed to be God.

Paul to the Colossians:
He is the image of the invisible God, God’s fullness dwells in him.

The writer of Hebrews says,
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and
the exact representation of his being,
sustaining all things by his powerful word.

The earliest creed of the church –
dated to just a few years after Jesus’ death and resurrection:
Jesus is Lord

And the evidence that early Christians believed the Jesus was God is huge –
(we’ll talk more about his next week)
all of the apostles were killed for their belief.

The intensity of the state’s persecution of Christians is legendary.

Literally thousands of followers of Jesus died within the
first three hundred years of the Church …

They did not die because they believed, as Dan Brown’s book claims,
that Jesus was just a good teacher.

It was because they believed that the resurrection was real
so Jesus was who he said he was.

It was because they believed He was God.

The claim that Jesus was just a good teacher/prophet or sorts isn’t even a credible choice – as C.S. Lewis points out so well in Mere Christianity.

Jesus clearly claimed to be God.

So he was either lying (in which case you cannot call him good.)

Or he actually believed he was God but was disillusioned. (But few people would die for a crazy person – and if they did you could surely not call him good)
The only other option is that he really was and is God.

Liar, Lunatic, Lord.

“A good man” isn’t an option.

So what does this mean for you tomorrow morning?

If the resurrection is true, then Jesus is who he says he is.

Which means you can…

Trust him with your family/relationship
Trust him with your finances
Trust him with your future
Trust him with your past/pain

:: You can give him your life.