1 Peter 1:8 (a) — Testimony

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him …

This is truly one of the great mysteries of our Modern Age. How is it possible that two thousand years after a man named Jesus walked this earth, people still to this day believe that he is alive?

In Acts chapter 5, there is a story about the Jewish Council (called the Sanhedrin) who condemned Jesus to death for claiming to be the Messiah. Two months after they had rid themselves of Jesus they expected things to go back to normal. But they didn’t. Instead, the disciples of Jesus, now called Apostles, kept talking about Jesus like he was alive. To complicate things, they did miracles of healing in the name of Jesus. Thousands of people were coming to believe that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah.

To discourage this behavior, the Jews put the Apostles in jail. Even this didn’t work. Within hours the Apostles were back in the temple courts telling their story to anyone who would listen. Now they were really mad! Before they could agree on what to do, one of their own, a man named Gamaliel, offered the following argument: He said, in effect, that experience had shown that the followers of false messiahs quickly dispersed after their leader was killed. This situation, he stated, would follow the same pattern unless God himself were behind it.

So the argument provided in Scripture is that God causes people to believe in Jesus.

But what if a person doesn’t believe in Scripture? What if there is no foundation of faith for them to fall back on? Why would anyone believe this stuff?

This is my own story.

I had come to a point in life where I questioned everything and believed nothing. It was a sad and lonely time, but it was a journey I had to take. Somewhere in the emptiness of those years, I asked this question: If my brain is made up of the same stuff that everything else in the universe is made up of, where do my thoughts come from?

I am not a physicist, but I have studied the basics of physics and I believe that all physical matter follows certain rules. Despite all the variations on these rules and all of the unknowns of physics, it seemed to me that all of physics falls under the general rubric of “cause and effect.”

I understand that there are those among us who still believe in perpetual motion and other such nonsense. When the distance between “cause” and the eventual “effect” becomes great enough, we can lose sight of the process. When that happens, we imagine that all sorts of “effects” are possible regardless of the laws of physics.

Nevertheless, in my mind, it seemed clear that every effect has to have a cause in the physical realm. As such, creative thought should not be possible. Language should not be possible. Taken to its extreme, life is not possible if one believes the simple principles of basic physics.

The conclusion I came to is that we are more than just a physical being. The body itself, including the brain, functions according to the laws of physics, but our thoughts, the creative part of our mind, exists outside of the physical realm. Once I reached that point in my thinking, I realized I was talking about the possibility of “spirits.” Furthermore, if I could have a spirit, if everyone had their own spirit, there could be other spirits. In fact, there could be a Supreme Spirit.

Following this line of reasoning brought me to the conviction that God exists. If God exists, and everything we see was made by Him, then the Bible could have been made by Him, too. After all, if God could create the universe and all that is in it, how hard could it be for Him to get a book published? If that book and all the corroborating evidence that supports it points to Jesus as the Messiah, then Jesus is the Messiah.

Both of these examples are simple exercises in reason. The one undeniable truth for those who believe is that they have been touched by Jesus. We believe because he is alive.

Application: Tell someone why you believe Jesus is alive.

Food for Thought: Some people say reason has no place in faith. How many ways are there to arrive at the point of believing in Jesus?