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Can the Bible be Trusted? Are the
N.T. Document Reliable?
Psalm 119
Today we are going to begin
with the question of “Can the Bible be Trusted?” Many
Christians have no idea of how we got the bible we have, where it came
from, or how we know it is a reliable document of history.
If we are going to engage in cultural conversations with people who do
not believe in the bible, we must have a better argument than,
“Well it is in the bible so it must be true.”
One of the principle marketing schemes of “The DaVinci Code”
is the tagline, “Seek the Truth.” That is such an important
saying. However, we must understand that in seeking truth we must seek
the whole truth and not simply parts of the truth.
I would assert that everything in the bible is true. But it is not true
because it is in the bible; it is in the bible because it is true. All
truth is God’s truth.
•
More than eighty gospels were
considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen
for inclusion—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them. (pg. 231)
•
“Fortunately for historians, some
of the gospels that Constantine
attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were
found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran
in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag
Hammadi.” (234)
•
“The
Nag Hammadi scrolls . . .tell . . . an alternative history of the time of
Jesus and Mary Magdalene”
(Dan Brown)
•
Teabing
calls these texts “the earliest Christian records”
(245) and the “unaltered gospels” (248).
First, The Dan Brown is
simple wrong about the Dead Sea Scrolls there are no gospels in the Dead
Sea Scrolls, in fact all the findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls which
amounted to 11 different caves were that of O.T. documents….there
was not a single New Testament document.
And while we don’t have time this morning these O.T.
documents kept by the essence community which was located in that area
give us O.T documents dating back to 200 B.C. and provide the most
compelling evidence that our O.T. today is a faithful rendering of the
O.T. documents….but that’s not what we are speaking of this
morning…..we are focusing on NT documents.
What are the Nag
Hammadi Documents?
w
Accidentally
discovered in 1945 near the Egyptian village of
Nag Hammadi.
w
Inside the jar, they found thirteen
leather-bound volumes containing fifty-two treatises….not 80
gospels as Dan Brown claims….however they do include books such as
the Gospel of Thomas and Philip and Mary.
So, why aren’t
these books in the N.T portion of the Bible?
So, how did we settle
on the 27 books of the New Testament?
1) They were a response to heretics. Marcion- A.D. 140
In A.D. 140 a heretic named Marcion developed a list of writings that he
propelled as the “canon” of scripture. They included writings
that were obviously opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
So, the early church had to refute his writings by listing what books
were true writings….which they did and we will comment on in a
moment.
2) They were a response to persecution. Diocletian- A.D. 303
In A.D. 303, the Emperor Diocletian declared the destruction of all
sacred books of Christians. No one wanted to die for simply a religious
book. Christians needed to know which ones were real and which ones were
not.
3) They were upheld by the early church leaders.
Polycarp (A.D. 115) Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) Ignatius (A.D. 50-115)
These early church leaders were able to define for the Christians of the
day what books were truly of the apostles and the early church and which
were not.
All of these agreed upon the same 27 books that we have today.
The New Testament canon was formalized at the Synod of Hippo in A.D. 393.
What
was the Criteria for Inclusion in The New Testament Canon
The books of the New Testament were written during the last half
of the first century (50-90 A.D.). As letters from Apostles were written and
received in the churches, copies were made and circulated. A growing
group of books developed that were recognized as inspired Scripture
– and thus part of the canon of New Testament. There were several
criteria for inclusion in the canon:
1)
Was it written or sanctioned by an Apostle?
Although Mark was not one of the Apostles, his teaching reflects
his association with Peter; Luke, though not an Apostle, traveled with
Paul (in fact parts of Acts are written using the pronoun
‘we’). The four gospels can all be dated to the first
century. It’s absurd for Brown to claim that they weren’t
collated until the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 because the majority of
the New Testament was widely acknowledged a hundred years before Constantine. The
premise of the DaVinci Code is that there are more reliable gospels than
the four we have. However, books like the Gospel of Thomas are dated from
the second or third century. Which do you think is more accurate?
2) The document must
contain consistency of doctrine.
Incidentally,
one of the books that Dan Brown likes to reference is the Gospel of
Thomas, which is a collection of 114 “secret sayings”
purportedly from Jesus. I’ve read this supposed
“gospel” and it is really strange. Here’s what verse 7
says: “Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the
lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the
lion still will become human.”
3) The
document must bear evidence of high moral and spiritual values.
Does
verse 14 of the Gospel of Thomas sound like something Jesus would have
said? “If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if
you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will
harm your spirits.”
4)
Did it have widespread and continuous acceptance by the early Church?
The various books of the New Testament gained acceptance as they
were written and circulated. Some books were accepted as Scripture soon
after they were written. Peter regarded Paul’s letters as Scripture
(2 Peter 3:15-16) and Paul referred to Luke’s gospel as Scripture
(1 Timothy 5:18). By the end of the first century more than two-thirds of
our present New Testament was accepted as the inspired Word of God.
A
document called the Muratorian Fragment, dating back to A.D. 175,
actually identifies a list that contains twenty-three of our present
twenty-seven books.
Contrary
to The Da Vinci Code, Constantine did not
decide what books should be accepted as Scripture at the council of Nicaea. The topic
of the canon of the New Testament did not even come up at the Council of
Nicaea in A.D. 325, and the church without formal ratification as such
had already acknowledged the 27 books of the N.T as Scripture for almost
250 years.
The Reliability of the Bible
One of
the criticisms that people have about Christianity is this: “How
can you base your beliefs on a book written by humans that is thousands
of years old and has been tampered with?” This is a loaded
question. It presumes, falsely, that because the Bible was penned by
humans and that it is thousands of years old, it must therefore be
inaccurate and unreliable. This, however, is simply not the case.
How can
we be sure the Bible is reliable?
There are
four convincing pieces of evidence that demonstrate the reliability of
the Bible. They can be summarized with the acronym M.A.P.S (Manuscripts,
Archeology, Prophecy, Statistics)
Manuscripts
We don’t have the original
documents penned by the writers of the Bible. We have only copies of the
originals – called manuscripts.
Below is a chart with some of the oldest extant New Testament
manuscripts compared to when they were originally penned.
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Important
Manuscript
Papyri
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Contents
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Date
Original Written
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MSS
Date
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Approx.
Time Span
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Location
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p52
(John Rylands
Fragment)3
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John 18:31-33,37-38
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circa
96 A.D.
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circa
125
A.D.
|
29 yrs
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John Rylands Library,
Manchester, England
|
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P46
(Chester Beatty Papyrus)
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Rom. 5:17-6:3,5-14; 8:15-25, 27-35, 37-9:32; 10:1-11, 22, 24-33, 35-14:8,9-15:9, 11-33;
16:1-23, 25-27; Heb.;
1 & 2 Cor., Eph., Gal., Phil., Col.; 1 Thess. 1:1,9-10; 2:1-3; 5:5-9, 23-28
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50's-70's
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circa
200
A.D.
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Approx.
150 yrs
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Chester Beatty Museum,
Dublin & Ann
Arbor, Michigan, University of Michigan library
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P66
(Bodmer Papyrus)
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John 1:1-6:11,35-14:26;
fragment of 14:29-21:9
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70's
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circa
200
A.D.
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Approx.
130 yrs
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Cologne, Geneva
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P67
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Matt. 3:9,15; 5:20-22, 25-28
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circa
200
A.D.
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Approx.
130 yrs
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Barcelona, Fundacion San Lucas Evangelista, P. Barc.1
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How can we
know if these copies are reliable - unaltered from the originals,
unchanged, and exactly what the authors of Scripture wrote?
How do we
test these manuscript copies?
The best
way to confirm the accuracy of the New Testament documents is to test
them with the same standards used to investigate any other historical
document. There are three tests
that can be applied to documents of antiquity.
1.
Bibliographic Test: considers two things
i) the
number of copies of the manuscripts
ii) the
time span between the original and the earliest known copy.
Below is
a table comparing various classical works with the New Testament.
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Author2
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Date
Written
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Earliest Copy
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Approximate Time Span between original
& copy
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Number of Copies
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Accuracy of Copies
|
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Lucretius
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died 55 or 53 B.C.
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|
1100 yrs
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2
|
----
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Pliny
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61-113 A.D.
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850 A.D.
|
750 yrs
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7
|
----
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Plato
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427-347 B.C.
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900 A.D.
|
1200 yrs
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7
|
----
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Demosthenes
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4th Cent. B.C.
|
1100 A.D.
|
800 yrs
|
8
|
----
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Herodotus
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480-425 B.C.
|
900 A.D.
|
1300 yrs
|
8
|
----
|
|
Suetonius
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75-160 A.D.
|
950 A.D.
|
800 yrs
|
8
|
----
|
|
Thucydides
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460-400 B.C.
|
900 A.D.
|
1300 yrs
|
8
|
----
|
|
Euripides
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480-406 B.C.
|
1100 A.D.
|
1300 yrs
|
9
|
----
|
|
Aristophanes
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450-385 B.C.
|
900 A.D.
|
1200
|
10
|
----
|
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Caesar
|
100-44 B.C.
|
900 A.D.
|
1000
|
10
|
----
|
|
Livy
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59 BC-AD 17
|
----
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???
|
20
|
----
|
|
Tacitus
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circa 100 A.D.
|
1100 A.D.
|
1000 yrs
|
20
|
----
|
|
Aristotle
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384-322 B.C.
|
1100 A.D.
|
1400
|
49
|
----
|
|
Sophocles
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496-406 B.C.
|
1000 A.D.
|
1400 yrs
|
193
|
----
|
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Homer
(Iliad)
|
900 B.C.
|
400 B.C.
|
500 yrs
|
643
|
95%
|
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New
Testament
|
1st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D.
|
2nd Cent. A.D.
(c. 130 A.D. f.)
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less than 100 years
|
5600
|
99.5%
|
|
New Testament
|
|
|
Between 100 and 300 yrs.
|
14,970
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99.6%
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With this type of method, the New Testament
documents can be reconstructed with an incredible accuracy.
Furthermore, the New Testament is approximately 99.5% textually
pure. This means that of all the manuscripts in existence they
agree completely 99.5% of the time. Of the variants that occur,
mostly are easily explainable and very few have any effect on the meaning
of passages. In all, no New Testament doctrine is affected by any
variant reading.
No
classical scholar doubts the authenticity and reliability of these
secular works, in spite of the large time gap and the relatively few
manuscripts. The New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone
in its wealth of manuscripts and its short time gap between the originals
and the earliest copies. Listen to the words of Sir Frederic Kenyon,
former director and principal librarian of the British Museum:
The Interval, then, between the dates of the original composition
and the earliest extant [existing] evidence becomes so small as to be in
fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the
Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has
now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the
books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.
2.
Internal Test: This test looks at the claims of the writers themselves
Q] Were
the original authors of the Bible eyewitnesses?
Q] Or, did
they at least receive their information from credible sources.
It’s
interesting to note the specific claims of four New Testament authors
Luke, Peter, John, and Paul:
·
Luke 1:1-3 - “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of
the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed
down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of
the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated
everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly
account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the
certainty of the things you have been taught.”
·
2 Peter 1:16 – “We did not follow cleverly invented
stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
·
John 19:35 – “The man who saw it [namely John] has
given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the
truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”
·
1 Corinthians 15:3-8 – “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 Peter, and then
to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the
brothers 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.”
3.
External Test: This test compares the manuscripts to see if they are
trustworthy in historical events, geographical locations, and cultural
things. It is important and significant to note that secular historians
make direct references to Jesus that confirm the Bible’s record of
Jesus. Examine the table below:
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Josephus
(Jewish
historian,
priest,
& Pharisee)
The Antiquities
18.63-64
c.93
a.d.
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“About
this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him
a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of
such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many
of the Greeks. [He was the Christ.] When Pilate, upon hearing him
accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to
be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not
give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them
restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and
countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of
Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not
disappeared.”
|
|
Tacitus
(Roman
historian)
Annals
15.44
c.
115 a.d.
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“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 Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus
checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first
source of the evil, but even in Rome…Accordingly, an arrest was
first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an
immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the
city, as of hatred against mankind.”
|
|
Pliny the Younger
(Roman)
Letters
10.96
c.
111 a.d.
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“I
have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the
question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment
awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for
execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced
that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go
unpunished…
They
also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no
more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to
chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to
a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal
purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery… This
made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by
torture from two slave-women, whom they called deaconesses. I found nothing
but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths.”
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Archaeology
First, in Joshua 6, we read
that after Israel
marched around the walls of Jericho,
God knocked the walls down and they collapsed outward. Liberal scholars scoffed
at this until the early 1930s when excavations of Jericho showed that this is exactly
what happened. Second, until 1961 there was no archaeological evidence
for Pontius Pilate. That year two Italian archaeologists uncovered a
Latin inscription referring to the Roman governor. Third, in John 5
we read of a pool called Bethesda
with five porticoes. For years critics discounted this because there was
no evidence for its existence. That is, until it was found forty feet
below ground, complete with five porticoes. It is fair to say that
archaeology is a good friend of the Bible. I’m told that over
25,000 sites have been discovered that support the Bible’s claims.
Nelson Glueck, the renowned Jewish archaeologist has said, “It
may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever
controverted a biblical reference”
Prophecy
The Bible records
predictions of events and people hundreds and in some cases thousands of
years before they happen. According to the Bible, God alone can predict the
future:
Here are
27 examples of Messianic Prophecies from the Old Testament fulfilled in
the New Testament
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The Messiah would …
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Old Testament reference
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New Testament fulfillment
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Be
A descendent of David
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2
Samuel 7:12-16; Jer. 23:5; Psalm 89:3-4
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Matthew
1; Luke 1:27,32,69
|
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Be
Born in Bethlehem
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Micah
5:2
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Luke
2:4-20
|
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Be
Born of a virgin
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Isaiah
7:14
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Matthew
1; Luke 1
|
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Be
The “seed” of the woman come to destroy the work of Satan
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Genesis
3:15-16
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1
John 3:8; ultimately Rev. 20:10
|
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Be
a Priest in the order of Melchisedek
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Ps.
110:4
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Hebrews
5:6
|
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Come
before the “Scepter” passed from the tribe of Judah
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Genesis
49:10
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11AD
|
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Come
while the temple
of Jerusalem is
standing
|
Mal.
3:1; Dan. 9:26; Zech. 11:13; Haggai 2:7-9
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Mt.21:12
|
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Open
the eyes of the blind
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Is.
29:18
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Mt.9:27-31,12:22,20:29;
Mk.8:22-26,10:46; Lk.11:14,18:35; Jn.9:1-7
|
|
Speak
in parables
|
Ps.78:2
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Mt.13:34
|
|
Be
rejected by his own people (Jews) but that the Gentiles would believe
in him
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Is.8:14,28:16,49:6,50:6,52:33,60:3;
Ps.22:7-8,118:22
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1
Peter 2:7
|
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Be
preceded by a messenger – “a man in the desert”
|
Is.40:3;
Mal.3:1
|
Mt.3:1-3,11:10;
Jn.1:23; Lk.1:17
|
|
Enter
into Jerusalem
riding on a donkey
|
Zech.9:9
|
Mt.21:5;
Lk.19:32-37
|
|
Be
betrayed by a friend
|
Ps.41:9
|
Mt.27:3-10,26:47-48
|
|
Be
betrayed for a price of 30 pieces of silver
|
Zech.11:12
|
Mt.27:3-10
|
|
Be
betrayed and the money would be used to buy a potter’s field
|
Zech.11:13
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Mt.27:6-10
|
|
Not
open his mouth to defend himself against his accusers
|
Isaiah
53:7
|
Mt.27:12
|
|
Be
beaten and spit on
|
Is.50:6
|
Mt.26:67,27:26-30
|
|
Would
be “numbered with transgressors”
|
Is.53:12
|
Mt.27:38
|
|
Crucified
|
Ps.22;
Is.53
|
Mt.27,
Mk.15, Lk.23, Jn.19
|
|
Not
have his bones broken
|
Ps.34:20,
Ex.12:46, Nb.9:12
|
Jn.19:33-36
|
|
Have
his clothing divided up and people would cast lots for it
|
Ps.22:18
|
Jn.19:23-24
|
|
Be
given vinegar and gall to drink
|
Ps.69:21
|
Mt.27:34,48
|
|
Say,
“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
|
Ps.22:1
|
Mt.27:46
|
|
Be
buried with the rich
|
Is.53:9
|
Mt.27
|
|
Be
resurrected physically from the dead
|
Ps.16:10
|
Acts
2:31
|
|
Be
seated at the right hand of God
|
Ps.110:1
|
Heb.1:3
|
|
Be
the Son of God
|
Ps.2:7
|
Mt.3:17
|
Statistics
We have
observed in the above table just 27 of the prophecies that predicted the Messiah
who was to come. There are over 300. They were all fulfilled - to the
letter - by Jesus Christ.
It is
statistically impossible for one man to fulfill all of these prophecies
by chance. To illustrate this even further, Dr. Peter Stoner estimated the likelihood of
just eight of these prophecies being fulfilled in one person by chance
was 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (a 1 with 17 zeroes after it). Imagine
covering the state of Texas
with silver dollars two feet deep. Now, let’s suppose you took one
of the silver dollars and marked it with a red dot and then dropped it
from an airplane. Then, you thoroughly stirred up the entire mass. You
then find a friend and blindfold him and tell him he can go anywhere in Texas and reach
down and try to pull out the coin with the red dot on it. Dr. Stoner says
that those are the same odds of 8 of these prophecies being fulfilled in
precise detail by Jesus…..now remember there are over 300
Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled with precision by Jesus
Christ.
Any
person rejecting Jesus Christ as the Son of God – as the promised
Messiah - is rejecting a fact proven more absolutely than any other fact
in the world. Any person rejecting the accuracy and inerrancy of God's
Word is simply choosing to ignore the evidence.
Conclusion:
Finally,
the statistical probability of someone fulfilling the prophecies by
chance is for all intents and purposes impossible. God is the one who is
orchestrating history. Jesus is the promised Son of God. If the predictions
of his first coming have been so astonishingly fulfilled, there is no
question that his second coming also will occur just as the New Testament
says. He will come with great power as Lord and King and Judge. What we
have in our hands is God’s Word that has not been altered or
changed down through the centuries.
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
implies that Christianity, as we know it, is based on a big lie, or
rather, several big lies. However, after carefully examining the claims
made in The Da Vinci Code,
it is clear that what is based on a big lie is not Christianity but
rather The Da Vinci Code.
Return to First
Baptist Sermon page.
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