In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).
This is the first miracle recorded in the Bible. This simple statement is the touchstone of how you interpret “God Is incredible.”
For those of you who don’t believe in God, you probably think there is insufficient evidence to believe the very first words of the Bible. To you, it isn’t credible to believe, given the “facts on the ground,” that a god or gods exist.
Some believe that the idea of God is illogical and self-contradictory, and therefore even looking for God makes no sense from the start. They stop their search before they start.
Others may look for God via the scientific method but cannot conceive an experiment to isolate the variable “God.” They interpret this lack of experimental evidence as evidence of absence and conclude their search for God as a falsified hypothesis.
Either way, many atheists and agnostics have looked for God, and not finding him, have concluded that he, therefore, does not exist. They believe God is incredible in the “not credible, hard to believe” sense of the word.
I’ll paraphrase one of my favorite quotes from Guy Finley: “These are the same people who have lost their car keys, in their own house, and looked everywhere for them, and couldn’t find them anywhere.”
It’s the last place you look, where you didn’t look before, that holds the hidden keys. The keys didn’t stop existing because you couldn’t find them. They were lost in the sense that you were looking in the wrong place for them.
Believers, on the other hand, see God everywhere. They look at the same “facts on the ground” but believe that God is so “extraordinary as to seem impossible” yet believe that the evidence that he exists is credible.
Do you know what they have in common? They both are looking for evidence to buttress their beliefs. It’s the interpretation of the evidence, and the evidence gathered or not gathered, that determines which way they interpret “God is incredible.”
I once heard Anthony Flew, one of the most well-known atheists of my generation, debate my hero Thomas Warren. Anthony Flew is well known for his adapted parable of the hidden gardener.
“Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees, “There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. “But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.” So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well’s The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still, the Believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.” At last, the Skeptic despairs, “But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"1
You know what, he’s right.
He’s right in the sense that an invisible, intangible, insensible, eternally elusive gardener would be undetectable to us. The only way to know if such a being existed would involve revealing itself in some tangible manner. Without sufficient evidence, how could we believe in such a being at all?
If you’re an atheist or agnostic, you might even be shaking your head saying, “That’s right. Case closed: God is incredible.”
Do Christians believe that God is such a being? Yes and no.
In the doxology recorded in 1 Timothy 1:17, the Bible says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
In his essence, God is spirit (John 4:24) and invisible to human eyes (John 1:18; Romans 1:20; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 11:27). However, Mr. Flew left out a very important, and to the Christian, incredible fact.
The Bible claims that the invisible God showed up!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. … 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. … 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:1-3; 14; 18).
John explains their eye-witness testimony this way:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us … “(1 John 1:1-2).
The apostles' testimony is that their eardrums vibrated when he talked; their eyes registered his image on their retinas when they gazed upon him. Their hands handled his physical body, proving he was not a mere apparition but physically present.
They bear witness that not only did their physical senses experience him, but that they perceived his glory, grace, and Life. They bear witness that he was a man, but not merely a man.
The atheist and agnostic may dispute whether they believe he was the manifestation of the invisible God. However, they can no longer credibly accuse the Christian of believing in an imaginary or non-existent being.
“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, … to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. 6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:1-6).
The gospel is not a “Once upon a time that never really happened” story. Whatever you may do with the claims of Christ, you cannot claim that it is not rooted in space and time as much as Caesar Augustus.
Is it credible? That is determined by whether you believe in the Bible and testimony of the men who claimed that they saw him (topics that we will be covering in later posts).
Jesus Christ – Man Of History
Is the Bible the only evidence that Jesus Christ existed in space and time? That’s a great question. Here are some of the extra-biblical historical references to Jesus.
Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived near the time of Christ (37-100 AD). His “Antiquities Of The Jews” was a history of the Jewish people written from a Roman perspective.
Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; (AOTJ Book 20 Ch. 9.1)2
The Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to Christ, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and early Christians' existence in Rome in his final work, Annals (written ca. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44.3
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 Judæa, 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.4
The Passing of Peregrinus or The Death of Peregrinus is a satire by the Syrian Greek writer Lucian. The lead character, the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus, takes advantage of Christians' generosity and lives a disingenuous life before burning himself at the Olympic Games of 165 CE. The text is one of the few Classical texts that contain explicit references to Christians or Christianity.
The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; 5
I have not included all of the external Biblical references to Jesus. Still, these are sufficient for me to believe that Jesus is a man of history. The gospel records historical persons associated with the time he was on earth—Herod The Great, Pontius Pilate, Augustus Caesar, Tiberius Caesar, to name a few.
The real question is, do you believe the apostles are credible eye-witnesses? God knew we would need persuading about the extraordinary claims the Bible makes. I hope you’ll read along as we continue our search.
Kevin Huddleston
