PROOF OF THE MIRACLES OF JESUS
1 Cor. 15:3-8
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: A MISER’S KINDNESS
1. Sam is a kind-hearted husband but he’s the tightest skinflint you ever saw. One day he took his wife Sue to the Woodlands Mall.
2. They walked down half the mall for over 45 minutes admiring all the wonderful shops when Sue began to feel a bit hungry. Just as they passed the food court, Sue whispered to him, "Sam, that restaurant we just passed. What a wonderful smell of food was coming out of it. What do you think?"
3. Sam wanted to be kind to her, so, still holding her hand, he turned around and they walked back past the restaurant again.
B. TEXT
1. We are continuing our series “Proofs that the Bible is True!” Tonight we’re touching on another extraordinary intervention of God in human history – God’s sending His Son into the world in the person of Jesus Christ!
2. “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” 1 Cor. 15:3-8.
C. TITLE & THESIS
1. So tonight we’re looking at “Proofs of the Miracles of Jesus.”
2. The Question has been asked: “Hasn’t the New Testament been changed, since it has been copied and recopied throughout history?” Accusations have been made that zealous monks or others embellished Biblical accounts about Christ and the Apostles. It is said that the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection and ascension never occurred, but were added later. These charges can be easily shown to be untrue.
I. FIRST CENTURY MISREPRESENTATION UNLIKELY
If the followers of Jesus, in the period A.D. 33-100, had made up the stories of the miracles, the claims would have been refuted and disproven, for too many people were still alive who would have known they weren’t true. Much like if people claimed today that John F. Kennedy walked on water, fed 5,000 people from a single lunch, drove out demons and healed thousands of sick people, such claims would be loudly denounced in the media as patently false. Quite the opposite was true. Paul, in one of his letters (I Cor. 15:16), stated that of the 500 people who had seen Christ after He rose from the dead, the majority of them were still alive in 60 A.D. and could verify that they had seen the risen Christ!
II. CONFIRMATION OF HIS MIRACLES BY NON-CHRISTIAN CONTEMPORARIES
A. THE JEWISH RULERS of Jesus’ day didn’t dispute that Jesus had performed miracles, rather they tried to question the source of the power He exhibited. “By what authority are You doing these things?” (Matt. 21:23; see also Matt. 9:32-34; 12:22-24, 25:1-4; John 9:15-16). This line of attack -- the “how” of Jesus’ miracles -- continued in the Jewish Talmud. Babylonian Sanhedrin 43a says, “On the eve of Passover they hanged Jeshu (of Nazareth) ... in that he had practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel.”
B. PONTIUS PILATE evidently made a record of his procuratorship and sent copies to the imperial archives in Rome. This record included accounts of the Miracles of Christ. When the Christian witness, Justin Martyr, stood trial before Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius in A.D. 150, he appealed to these records when speaking of the miracles of Jesus; “That He performed these miracles you may easily be satisfied from the ‘Acts of Pontius Pilate’” (Apology I:48).
C. FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS (born A.D. 37), a Jewish historian, wrote a history of the Jewish people. Included in it is this statement about Jesus. “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (Antiquities, Book 18, ch 3, par. 3).
D. TACITUS (c. A.D. 55 - c. A.D. 117) Annals, book XV:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.”
E. SUETONIUS (c. A.D. 69 - c. A.D. 140) Lives of the Caesars - Claudius, sec. 25: “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.”
Lives of the Caesars - Nero, sec. 16; “Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.”
F. JULIUS (c. 160 - c. 240) Chronography, XVIII refers to writings by Thallus and Phlegon concerning the darkness during the Crucifixion: “On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun...Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth - manifestly that one of which we speak.”
G. ORIGEN (c. 185 - c. 254). In Against Celsus, Origen quotes Celsus, a second-century skeptic, on Jesus. Celsus, while attacking Christianity, admits that Christians teach Jesus is “God,” “born of a Virgin,” “son of a carpenter,” and had “miraculous powers” (Book 1, Chap. 28). In Book 4, Chap. 14, Celsus tells the Christian doctrine that Christ, as God, came down and took on human nature. In Book 6, Chap. 78 he mentions the Christian teaching that Jesus is “the Son of God.”
H. PLINY THE YOUNGER, Roman Gov. of Asia Minor (c. 62 - c. 113) Letter To Emperor Trajan, 10.96. “…the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god, and that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, and from breach of faith, and not to deny trust money placed in their keeping when called upon to deliver it. When this ceremony was concluded, it had been their custom to depart and meet again to take food, but it was of no special character and quite harmless…”
I. THE JEWISH TALMUD. The early claim of Jesus’s virgin birth is substantiated by the frequent and widespread scornful title for Jesus, “Ben pandera” or Jeshu ben Pandera.” Pandera is a travesty on the Greek word for virgin (parthenos), thus calling Him “Son of a virgin.”
III. EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITERS
A. CLEMENT OF ROME: (100 A.D.), affirms the Resurrection, The Gospel accounts (miracles) and that Jesus was sent to earth by God to take away our sins.
B. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH: 50-107 A.D., a disciple of the apostles Peter, Paul and John, was convinced of Jesus’ Godhood and miraculous life. He was eventually martyred for the faith.
C. JUSTIN MARTYR: (106-167 A.D.) is regarded as one of the greatest early Christian apologists. He was born around 100 A.D. and was beheaded for his faith in Jesus in 167 A.D. He mentions as facts many things about Jesus and Christianity, such as: The Magi (wise men who brought gifts from Arabia), King Herod, his crucifixion, His garments parted among the Roman soldiers, the apostles leaving him on the night of His arrest, his fulfilled prophecies, His resurrection and His ascending into heaven, among many others. These quotes can be found in his debate with Trypho the Jew.
IV. N.T DOCUMENTS FROM THE 1ST CENTURY
Some of the manuscripts have been copied and recopied many times, but with 25,000 manuscripts extant and two new discoveries of manuscripts dating from the first century, no doubt remains that the accounts of the miracles of Jesus were in the original texts of the New Testament, and NOT added later by some monk, as has been charged.
EYEWITNESS TO JESUS
CARSTEN THEIDE, Papyrologist
MANUSCRIPT CONTENTS DATE
1. Magdalen Papyrus(P64) Matt. 26:7-31 Before 66 A.D.
2. Dead Sea MSS 7Q5, Mk 6:52-53, “as early as A.D. 50"
3. Dead Sea Scroll MSS 7Q4 1 Tim. 3:16-4:3 Before 68 A.D.
4. Barcelona Papyrus (P67) Matt. 3:9,15; 5:20-28 Before 66 A.D.
5. Paris Papyrus (P4) Luke 3:23;5:36 66 A.D.
6. Pauline Codex (P46) Paul's Epistles 85 A.D.
7. Bodmer Papyrus (II; P66) Gospel of John 125 A.D.
8. P32 Contents? 175 A.D.
9. P45 Contents? 150 A.D.
10. P77 Contents? 150 A.D.
11. P87 Contents? 125 A.D.
12. P90 Contents? 150 A.D.
13. John Rylands Greek 457 (P52) John 18:31-38 100-125 A.D.
14. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2683 (P77) Mt. 23:30-39 150 A.D.
15. P. Oxyrhynchus 2 (P1) Matt. 1:1-9,12,14-20 100 A.D.
16. P. Oxyrhynchus 3523 (P90) John 18:36;19:7 125-150 A.D.
These documents show that the N.T. was produced in its entirety in the 1st Century and that it contains the genuine account of the life of Jesus – His Deity, miracles, death for our sins, His resurrection, and His ascension. We can have absolute confidence in the Old and New Testaments as the most accurate ancient documents in existence!
CONCLUSION
A. PRAYER
Prayer that we may share the Good News of the Bible and its amazing testimony with others who haven’t yet heard. And may we live lives in more consistent obedience to God’s Word. For any who are suffering difficulties, may they be more confident that God is a God of His Word. He will help them in their hour of need.
B. DISMISSAL
