Real Meaning of Christmas

You’re probably aware that Christians everywhere recently celebrated Christ’s coming to earth.  But did you know that there are actually two competing views within Christianity as to why Jesus even came?  One essentially says that Christ came to make demands on us, the other that Christ came to free us from demands that already existed.  One is that He came to ask you to DO something, the other is that He DID something for you. 

One verse I really like that expresses the correct concept is John 3:17 – “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” 

Systematically, one theory is known as “works”, and the other “grace.”  The works concept, actually much more popular amongst churchgoers, is very similar to other world religions, while the grace concept is completely novel.  The works concept says that man must earn their way to God by being a good person, while the grace concept says the way to God is an undeserved gift provided by God Himself.  The works concept is very similar to what we experience in many facets of life such as business relationships, or school.  If you work hard, do well, and achieve excellence, you get a good grade, a job, a raise, etc. Those who ascribe to the “works” concept assume that since so much of life is merit-based, why would one’s moral and spiritual performance not matter to God?  On the other hand, in the grace concept, God is viewed more in relational terms.  He is like a Father that loves you unconditionally, and nothing you can do as a child of God can affect your standing with Him.

If you have a church background, which one would you say your church taught?

The “works” concept generally says that what Jesus did for mankind, with His coming to earth and death for our sins, was necessary but not enough for man to be able to make it to God’s level; to some extent man must also do their part to make it to heaven, eternal life, righteousness, etc.  The “grace” concept says that what Jesus did for us was “enough” – final, complete, finito!  As our sins have already been paid for and salvation has already been secured, God can credit His righteousness to anyone who would rely on Him for it. So we do have a role to fulfill, but it as a passive role to accept what Christ has done on our behalf.

I have a quick analogy I call “the dishwashing analogy” that illustrates the concept well.  It is as though you are responsible for cleaning the dishes, yet the amount of dishes to clean is so great that as you continue to load the dishwasher, you get hungry, have to eat, and create more dirty dishes.  In fact, for arguments sake let’s say that the rate at which you create dirty dishes is greater than the rate at which you are able to load them.  You admit that it is your responsibility to clean the dishes, yet you have no ability in yourself to ever complete the job.  Dismayed, you finally give up.  Hours later, your brother comes to you and says, “I have good news for you – though you were unable to complete your responsibility of loading the dishwasher, someone with superior skill has come into the house and has done the dishes for you.”

If you are in this position, you actually have a couple options, though only one is reasonable.  You could continue trying to clean the dishes, which would be extremely foolish, both because they are already clean, and because all you ever succeeded at was creating more dirty dishes.  The other option is that you could rely on the work of another.  This is what it means to trust in Christ.  You rely on the work of another. 

I will leave it to the Bible to drive the point home: “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation.  However, the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” (Romans 4:4-5)

Religion / Works	Christianity / Grace
Do – all about what you do for God (Galatians 2:21, Romans 10:4)	Done – All about what Christ has done for you. (Romans 4:5)
Merit- rewarded/punished based on your moral/spiritual performance	Grace – Rewarded/punished based on Jesus Christ’s performance and what you think of it.
Costs (Romans 6:23a)	Free (Romans 6:23b)
Humans add to salvation	Nothing left for you to do.  God already did everything.
Salvation accomplished by human effort (“works” – Ephesians 2:9)	Salvation accomplished by the individual relying on what God has done (“Faith” – eph 2:8)
“Hope so” Salvation.  No certainty.	“Know so” Salvation.  Know with certainty!
MUST boast in self – look at what I did.  Check out my validating performance record, my resume of good deeds.	Boasting only in Christ – look at what God did even though I didn’t deserve it.
Serve God out of Fear  - Fear of Negative consequences is motivator for good behavior.	Serve God out of Love - already blessed, position of gratitude fuels behavior.
Dead works – works independent of God’s provision (Gal 5).	Faith works – works done by faith through the Holy Spirit, manifesting itself in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5)
Law focused - do things for God out of obligation and assume you have the power to do so.	Dead to the Law (Romans 7) – relies on God to do what he cannot do on their own through Christ’s resurrection life.

Did Jesus rise from death?

Discover the Evidence, Decide for yourself.

(1)   Can you discount the resurrection of Jesus?  I can’t.  The trouble is, if the resurrection did not happen, one has to answer the following questions regarding Jesus death and the subsequent founding of Christianity with a better explanation than the resurrection:

a.      Who was Jesus? - All historical sources of the time agree that Jesus really lived and died.  Christian sources affirm his identity in the gospels; the Jewish historian Josephus affirms his existence and those of his followers; Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman Historian, affirms that Jesus really lived and died under the reign of Pontius Pilate.  Several other later historians, writers, and philosophers assume Jesus’ existence.

 Tacitus writes regarding the persecution of Christians by Nero: “But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome.  Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.  Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.” (Annals XV.44)

Tacitus is in complete agreement with gospels on the time period of the existence and death of Jesus of Nazareth.

“Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified” (Mark 15:15)

“They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.  There they crucified Him and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.  Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross.  It was written, Jesus the Nazarene, The King of the Jews.” (John 19:17-19)

“Pilate summoned the chief priests and rulers of the people, and said to them, ‘You brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion, and behold, having examined Him before you, I have found no guilt in this man regarding the charges which you make against Him…But they were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified. And their voices began to prevail.  And Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted.”  (Luke 25:13-14, 23-24).

b.      Why was the tomb empty? – all parties (the disciples and those opposed to Jesus) agreed that Jesus’ Tomb was empty on Easter Morning.  The disciples claimed Jesus resurrected, the Jews that opposed Jesus claimed that the body was stolen.

c.       Why did the church start in Jerusalem? – The church began in Jerusalem based on the fact of the resurrection.  This is recorded by Luke in the book of Acts, and is corroborated by Tacitus in the quote above.  Since Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, why would people believe in the resurrection if the location of His dead body was readily known?  Why would the disciples of Jesus start a religion based on false information in the same location where that information could readily be refuted?  If there was no resurrection, it would have been smarter, obvious rather, to start a new religion based on false information in a different location.

d.      Why did all the disciples suffer persecution and ultimately death for their proclamation of the resurrection? – People often lie for some type of personal benefit for themselves; money, power, fame, etc.  People even die for lies which they believe to be true.  However, people do not often lie in order to lose material possessions and have their lives threatened, when they made up the lie and know it to be false.  In the face of opposition, the truth will come out.  Why did all 12 disciples never change their story in the midst of opposition?  Why were all of them willing to die for their message?

e.       Why did the resurrection accounts rely heavily on the testimony of women?  - Women in that culture had little authority as courtroom witnesses.  If the early Christians wanted to create a fabrication, they would not have used the voice of women to help propagate the story.

f.        Why did devout Jews abandon their beliefs in order to follow Jesus? – To follow Jesus as God was considered blasphemy by the religious authorities that were not convinced that Jesus was the Messiah.

g.      Several alternate theories have been proposed in order to evade the conclusion of the resurrection.  My conviction is that all of these explanations fail to account for all the facts surrounding the resurrection, and none of them carries the explanatory power that the resurrection itself holds.

Some alternate explanations that have been proposed are (the following is an adaptation from Duane Morris' "On Reasonable Ground" lecture notes - www.onreasonableground.org):

                                                              i.      They went to the wrong tomb – this explanation fails to account that the Jews confirmed that the tomb was empty (Matthew 28:11-15).  It also fails to recognize that Jesus body was buried in the family tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50-55), a well-known Jew and member of the Sanhedrin.  It would be easy to recognize if the disciples went to the wrong tomb because Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb would have been relatively easy to locate based on his public position.  It also fails to account for the belief held by the early disciples, that they had seen the resurrected Jesus, a belief that they promoted to their death. Furthermore, who would have believed the disciples that Jesus had resurrected, when they easily could have back checked the story and found that Jesus was lying dead in Joseph’s tomb?  Instead we find that thousands of devout Jews in Jerusalem converted and became the first Christians. 

                                                           ii.      Jesus was really buried in a mass graveyard for executed criminals.  Again, this position fails to account for the only historical story that Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb and that all parties agreed that the tomb was empty on Easter morning.  It fails to account for the appearances of Jesus to the disciples that convinced them to begin preaching the gospel in Jerusalem; fails to account for the conversion of Jews to Christianity in the only city where the central facts in favor of Christianity could be easily refuted.

William Lane Craig points out that since we find no other burial story, in denying the burial story, “One is reduced to denying the historicity of one of the most straight forward and unadorned narratives about Jesus and giving credence to imaginary alternative stories that don’t exist.” (Craig William Lane. The Son Rises. 1981. p63.)

                                                         iii.      The disciples were Hallucinating.  This explanation accounts for the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, but does not have an explanation for the empty tomb, which is part of the equation that one is trying to explain.  Furthermore, it is highly unlikely, nay I say impossible, that all of the disciples would have had the same hallucination at the same time.  Hallucinations are generally private experiences, and certainly not where everyone has the same hallucination at the same time.

                                                          iv.      He never truly died.  Known as Swoon Theory, this is the belief that Jesus merely passed out and was revived in the cool tomb.  But come on people! - He was flogged, bleeding out, crucified by trained executioners, stopped breathing, double checked with a spear thrust to the heart sac, yet wasn’t dead?  The idea that he would have recuperated in the tomb (had he even been alive before that point) without medical supplies, water, or food, is absurd.  Crucifixion involves an excruciating, painful process either resulting in death by asphyxiation or cardiac arrest.  You can only fake a death by crucifixion for as long as you can hold your breath; which isn’t very long.  Jesus never would have made it past the roman executioners.

                                                            v.      Graverobbers stole the Body.  Ancient graverobbers don’t steal bodies, they steal jewels, clothes, or anything of value attached to bodies.  This account also fails to address how the graverobbers would have made it past the roman guard (several trained soldiers); does not account for the martyrdom of the disciples or mass conversion of Jews.

                                                           vi.      The Disciples stole the body.  The original counter explanation, which claims that the disciples lied in order to start a new religion.  What would they have to gain?  Money, Power, recognition?  There certainly would have been an incentive.  But what did they actually gain?  Poverty, persecution, and ultimately death.  So this explanation does account for the empty tomb, but does not explain why the disciples would die for a lie that they initially created.  Furthermore, it fails to account for the unlikelihood that the disciples could get past the roman army to access the body.

Which explanation accounts for all the facts the best?  Apologist Duane Morris explains, "If an explanation fails to account for some of the facts, then its “Explanatory Power” is deficient relative to an explanation which accounts for all the facts.  If no other explanation accounts for all the surrounding facts, the one which does necessarily possesses the most 'Explanatory Power.'" Which theory explains the empty tomb, the transformation/martyrdom of the disciples, the church starting in Jerusalem, and the conversion of a large number of devout Jews?  Only the Resurrection explains all the facts which follow the crucifixion of Jesus.

All of this begs the question, why did Jesus have to die and rise from the dead?  Perhaps there has been no greater amount of writing done on this subject than any other in human history.  I’ll give the short answer:  For you.  Christ died for your sins, and rose again, so that you wouldn’t have to pay the penalty for your own sins, so you wouldn’t have to face the consequences of falling short of God’s perfect standard, which is an eternal spiritual death.  He rose again so that we might rise again to newness of life and eternal life.  This is a free gift given to anyone who relies upon Jesus for it.  Salvation, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life is something that is unearned and unearnable.  It is impossible to earn God’s favor, it must be accepted as a free gift through the work of Jesus on your behalf.   Those who try to earn God's favor and a place in heaven by being a "good person" are deceived as to man's nature and their own moral and spiritual batting average.

"Because by works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.  But now, apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for their is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:20-24)

What can man bring to the table, in order to be in right standing with God?  Only sins!  Although we deserve death, what does God provide and offer for man?  Love, mercy, and grace, accomplished through His Son who died and rose on our behalf. 

Have more questions about the resurrection? Contact:

Matt Sheeks

www.facebook.com/matthew.sheeks

mattsheeks@gmail.com