Gooding, David: Is the Bible True?

Topic of the authority of scripture is an enormously wide topic, and we have no hope of covering it in all its many ramifications in the short time that is now available to us. What I propose to do, therefore, is to introduce, uh, three or four aspects of the topic in the talk that I'm required to give, then I shall cease and ask for your comments and suggestions and questions, if you have any. I want, therefore, to deal with the question of the authenticity of the copies of the Bible that we have. I don't know whether you have found it so in your experience, that from time to time one will find people who are not believers arguing against believing the Bible. And one argument that some of them will sometimes use is that the Bible has been copied out so many, many times that you can't possibly believe that what you now have in your hands is anything like what the original writers wrote. The Belfast Telegraph, that uh, eminent newspaper, I will say one time carried a half page on the back in which the co- religious writer, the man who had a religious paragraph each week, advanced the argument that the Bible has been copied out so many times that you can't uh, really have any confidence that what you have in your hand when you pick up an English translation of the Bible is what was originally written. Now, it is wise, therefore, for us to collect the information as best we can, uh, on this kind of thing, and to have it, so to speak, up our sleeve and ready to use if you find people that have a genuine difficulty with that. You see, there are some folks who, for whom it isn't a genuine difficulty. They're merely using it as a smoke screen to hide behind because they don't really want to change their lifestyle, and they know if they would believe the Bible, it would radically change their lifestyle. And so they hide behind all sorts of questions that sometimes they don't even understand themselves, but it seems to them a good defense, you'll see. But on the other hand, there are real and genuine people who, uh, have this difficulty. How do we meet it? Well, of course, it is the fact that the Bible has been copied out many times. And when the, uh, New Testament, to take that for a moment, when the New Testament was first written, it wasn't printed, there were no printed copies, it was copied out by hand. And, uh, uh, therefore, uh, it is the fact, let me tell you if you don't already know, that when you take the five thousand plus manuscripts of the Greek New Testament that have survived, you'll see, you will find, if you compare them, that there are thousands of differences between those manuscripts. Let me tell you that, let me hasten to add that I believe in the inspiration of scripture. I believe actually in its verbal inspiration. The fact that there are thousands of differences in the manuscripts doesn't, uh, perturb my faith or shake my faith in the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture. When we talk about the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture, we are talking about the documents as originally written. Those documents were copied out by hand. Now, you probably have seen somewhere or other, uh, uh, pictures of such manuscripts. I brought along a couple of books giving you pictures of such a manuscript. Here is a whole volume of pictures of some of the New Testament epistles. You'll see. They are, uh, uh, um, uh, they were written, according to their learned e- editor, about two hundred AD. This is part of the famous collection of Chester Beatty papyri. Uh, they are, that means that they're written on a stuff called papyrus, you'll see, and here are photographs of the actual manuscripts. But every Irish Christian, I think, bar about two, has long since gone down to Dublin and seen them. Uh, the, the, the greatest claim of Dublin to fame in this world is the Chester Beatty, uh, uh, museum, you'll see, in the suburbs of Dublin. It's a marvelous place, uh, you'll see, to take the wife on a Saturday afternoon instead of going to the rugby match, as you well know, uh, because it has all sorts of marvelous things, jade and silk prints and marvelous Irish tooled leather bindings, do you see? But even there, its chief joy and delight is its collection of New Testament manuscripts known as the Chester Beatty manuscripts, and as far as large manuscripts goes, they are the earliest of the New Testament in the world, apart from one or two small specimens. And of course, all evangelicals who believe in the inspiration of scripture have long since been up to Chester Beatty, uh, library just to see the manuscripts, haven't they, you see? And if they hadn't, they would go forthwith, you see. Wouldn't think of stopping in Schweitzers on the way, not until they'd been to the Chester Beatty library to see the Chester Beatty manuscripts, you'll see. Well, here are pictures of them, and I can leave them out here, if I may, uh, for anybody that wants to come and have a look at them, you'll see. Now, it is a fact that the early copies were copied out by hand, hence the many mistakes in the copying. And now let me tell you something about that, namely this, that it was a great mercy that the first copies of the New Testament writings were copied by hand and weren't printed. And the reason for that is this. If the first copies had been printed, they'd all been the same, wouldn't they? And if the printer had made a mistake, you couldn't have found it out. If you are reading, you see the Irish News, Independent, Belfast Telegraph, or any other such thing you might read, and coming down a column, you suddenly say, this doesn't make sense. Must be some words left out here or something. It does not make sense. It's no good going next door and saying to the neighbor, hi, let me have a look at your paper, because it comes off the same press, and if yours lacks some words, so will his. You will have no way of finding out what the original, uh, intention was of the man or woman who wrote the piece, unless you could go and find the editor of the newspaper and say, hi you, did you mean to say this, or has the printer made a mistake? And if the early manuscripts of Bible had been printed and the early manuscript, uh, uh, the early copies, I mean, of the Bible had been printed, and the printer had made a mistake. Well, you couldn't, you couldn't get back unless you could go and see the original author, can you? Could you? The fact that they were written by hand by many different people is a great advantage, because while people will make mistake in copying out by hand, if you don't, uh, believe that, try copying out the whole works of Shakespeare and see whether you can get through without making at least one mistake. I guarantee you'll make hundreds. But while many old people will make mistakes, they won't all make the same mistakes, yes? So that you can compare the manuscripts with each other and then deduce where the mistakes have been, and so forth and so on. Now, that is a long and very complicated matter. I don't hide it from you. It's not a matter for amateurs, it is a matter for experts, and is an enormously complicated thing. That said, however, the verdict of the textual critics, as we call them, people that look after the manuscripts and see to the text of scripture, uh, the verdict of the the textual critics is, and some of the leading textual critics in this last hundred years will tell you that, uh, the amount of uncertainty, that is the amount of uncertainty to what was actually written, would be less than two percent. And of that two percent, the most part contains things of very little importance indeed. Uh, the Greek, for instance, has two words for and. Doesn't make any difference to the sense which you use. You'll find some manuscripts use one and some use the other. Well, that's a difference, isn't it? But it isn't a substantial difference. It doesn't affect the meaning whatsoever. Uh, do see. Moreover, as you'll be aware, there's another side to the question. That is to say, no major doctrine of the New Testament depends on simply one verse, or one sentence, or one passage in the New Testament. So that, uh, yeah, there is no major doctrine in doubt whatsoever because of any remaining uncertainties in this place or that as to what exactly the original said. Moreover, one more thing that you should know about the manuscripts is, one, the, uh, large number of manuscripts there are. When we talk of manuscripts, we're talking about copies copied out by hand until printing was invented. There are, I think, at the last count, well over, uh, thousand manuscripts of New Testament, you see. Now, when you compare that with other works that have come down from the ancient world, like Julius Caesar, his account of his wars, and Tacitus the historian, and people like that, some of those works have survived, but only in one or two manuscripts, some of them, and they very late manuscripts. Compared with them, the evidence for the New Testament is overwhelming, you'll see. And one more observation, and then we can leave that topic, is the great age of some of the New Testament manuscripts. And this one here, uh, uh, uh, the Chester Beatty manuscript contains Paul's epistles, and incidentally epistle to the Hebrews as well, as you heard me say earlier, is dated two AD. Now just consider what that means. Uh, that does mean that, um, uh, it was actually written out within a hundred and fifty years of the time Paul lived. And why is that remarkable? Well, when you go to, uh, Dublin, or I ought to say when you went to the Chester Beatty Library and you, you saw these things, you saw the actual manuscript there. You won't be allowed to touch it, but there it is, the manuscript in front of your eyes that somebody wrote two AD. That manuscript is still in existence, and this is the year that made me think this is nineteen hundred and eighty nine, I think at the last count, you'll see. So this manuscript in the Chester Beatty Library is, um, let me see, seventeen hundred seventeen hundred and eighty years old. Nearly two thousand years old, the manuscript is, it still survives. Well, when you think of that, and you go back to the time it was written, AD two hundred, uh, it's a copy, it isn't the original, so it was copied from another manuscript. How old do you suppose that other manuscript might have been? The manuscript from which it was copied could have been one of the earliest copies ever written. It could have been copied out in the time of Paul himself. You'll see. So do, uh, remember that, the tremendous age of the, uh, um, uh, some of the, uh, manuscripts of the New Testament. There is one tiny fragment of the Gospel of John that's even earlier than this. When it comes to the Old Testament, uh, the situation is somewhat different. I'm not going to discuss that with you now, but again, point out to you that the manuscripts that we now have of Old Testament are some of them, again, exceedingly ancient. Here is a photograph of a very ancient scroll. You can come up afterwards and look at it if you want to. This is a scroll of your favorite book in the Old Testament, Leviticus. And, uh, it is, of course, written in Hebrew, and it's not the square script, it's the older script. Uh, that manuscript still survives. This is but a photograph of it, we'll see, and it has to be at length like this because, uh, that manuscript was written as a scroll and not as a book, we'll see. Leviticus scroll, therefore, and the date of it is about hundred BC. The actual manuscript written about a BC, so well over two thousand years old now. And that's not the earliest, uh, manuscript of an Old Testament book that we have. There are some earlier still. They tend to be fragments, but, uh, there you are. And how old, you say, was the manuscript from which this was copied? Well, I can't tell you. It could have been hundreds of years old itself, of course. So, uh, we needn't pretend then, to come back to the beginning, we needn't pretend, uh, that there are no, uh, uncertainties. There are mistakes in biblical manuscripts, of course, but you should bear in mind, uh, the old age of some of our manuscripts. You should bear in mind the large numbers we have, and, uh, therefore, uh, it makes it possible for scholars who work in these areas to come to their decisions as to what the, uh, uh, original writing was. Do you see? You need have no fear at that level, uh, to, uh, meet your unconverted friends, e- and to assure them that when you hold in your hand your Bible, it is substantially what God intended you to have. That deals, therefore, with the question of the authenticity of our copies of scripture. But of course, there are bigger questions, aren't there? Uh, now we can say, now we can be sure that you have in front of you here in the New Testament what the New Testament writers originally wrote. The question now arises, is it true what they wrote? We'll see. Here there are all sorts of, uh, questions relating to, uh, historical events that they mention. And, uh, critics, liberal critics have called into question the accuracy of the history, you'll see. And they will tell us that there are historical mistakes in Holy Scripture. Now, one little book that makes a very good place to begin, if you don't possess a copy, uh, you might like to take notice of the title that is exceedingly helpful, uh, on this angle is the little book by Professor F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable? And he will discuss with you not only the question I began to talk about, manuscripts of Bible, he will discuss with you, uh, the question of the historicity of the events, and where you can check, because you have outside sources, and you can check, uh, the historical things that are mentioned in the New Testament, uh, he will answer for you how reliable is the New Testament from that point of view. This is a little book that has, uh, been worth its weight in gold. It's gone into I don't know how many editions. This is an old-fashioned one now. He constantly brings it up to date, constantly goes out of print because it is in such great demand. It is certainly well worth having and keeping in your armory. You may think this is very remote, but in the swinging sixties— I was alive then, uh, there came, uh, to Dublin Fair City a young lady who had been convinced that the hippie lifestyle was the life for her, you'll see. An exceedingly intelligent young lady, but was living, uh, uh, with I don't know how many men she was living with anyway, one at a time generally, and, uh, you'll see, uh, she had given up on society in general, and as for anybody who believed the Bible, she thought that they were absolute primitive cavemen or something, and that's by definition, uh, be, uh, ignorant, uh, people. One of the things that brought her to the Lord was not simply the witness of her Christian friends, but was this little book. When she read it, she found out that there was a scholar, world famous scholar, absolute expert in history and in the original languages, and I don't know how many other disciplines, who actually believed the Bible. That was a shock to her system from which she never recovered. And she found out it wasn't that she was being very scientific and modern through doubting the scripture. She didn't really know what she was talking about, actually. And she'd taken her ideas of the New Testament from secondhand core, uh, sources like the BBC and its outrageous performance and other such things, and had never really read the evidence for herself, thought you had to be bonkers to start reading the Bible and taking it seriously. And coming across an actual scholar who could argue the historical facts with her brought her up to such a jolt and showed her that she was the ignoramus, for being ignorant of the history and so forth connected with scripture, it eventually brought in her repentance to taking the Bible seriously, and the woman came to personal faith and trust in Christ and has lived all the years since to prove it. A useful book for yourself, of course, but also if you get that type of person that you are trying to help. Uh, incidentally, going back just for a moment to, uh, topics we were talking about last night, there are a lot of modern people, are there not, who will say, you don't believe the Bible, do you? And when you reply, oh yes, of course I do, they will say, but the Bible teaches God created the world, you'll see. They think that damns it forthwith because it shows it to be unscientific. Well, now the reverse is true, actually. And two books that I have personally found helpful, you may already have seen them, is this one here, Christ and the Cosmos, by Professor E. H. Andrews, expert, uh, engineer, uh, you'll see, and this one by Alan Haywood, also an academic. This one by Alan Haywood is particularly useful because he offers a critique of evolution from the writings of the evolutionists themselves, which is fair enough, isn't it? What a ho. He collects here what leading scientists who are not believers, some of whom are atheists, and their criticisms, very devastating criticisms of the theory of evolution by atheistic scientists. Uh, we'll say. In fact, his critique, his own critique of evolution is in the words of people that do not believe Bible. So that makes a very useful, uh, uh, uh, critique of the whole situation, we'll say. And then, of course, he goes over to the positive side. Moreover, he is not so extreme as some. He doesn't himself believe in what is called a young earth. Nonetheless, the man believes in the inspiration of scripture and does not believe in a atheistic evolution, nor even in so-called theistic evolution either. A very useful book is that thing by Alan Haywood, Creation and Evolution. Um, let's go over to the positive. How do we know that what the New Testament says is true? You'll say it's a good place to start with some people, at any rate, that, uh, when the Bible talks of Pilate, well, we may know it's not talking about a fable. If you go to Caesarea in, uh, Israel at the moment, you can see, uh, an engraving there, um, engraved to Pilate, you'll see that there's his name on dear man, you'll see, and many other such things. It's good to have that confirmation from outside the Bible of the historicity of the things the Bible records. But of course, the things that we're really interested in are the bigger things, are they not? That God is love, for instance. How would you prove that? You can't... just saying that the, the, the bi- the manuscripts are reliable, and where you can check its history, the New Testament is reliable, but what when it comes to the great doctrines of scripture? How can you show that they are true? If you talk of authority in that sense of the New Testament, one of the first things you'll come to is, of course, the basic thing, the story of the resurrection. It is that that stamps Christianity as authentic, beyond all, of course. That is why in the Acts of the Apostles, you will find the apostles preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Is it a something that you have to take simply in blind faith? Is there, or is there any evidence for it? The answer is, of course, there is a tremendous amount of evidence for the resurrection. The New Testament itself will quote you some. Now, people are in the habit of saying, some of them, ah, but you don't expect me to believe what the Bi- the New Testament says about the resurrection. Do you? Why not? Well, it was written by Christians. Show me a non-Christian who believes in the resurrection, and then I'll start talking. They say you can't, you can't cough up any book from the, from New Testament days, can you? That was written by a non-Christian that, uh, tells that, uh, Jesus Christ is risen. A little bit of a silly question, isn't it? You say, why? Well, normally, if you believe Jesus Christ was risen, you became a Christian anyway, didn't you? The fact to get hold of is that, uh, people who became Christians, they weren't Christians when they first heard about the resurrection. In fact, it was the message of the resurrection that led them to faith in Christ. Saul of Tarsus, for instance, he not only wasn't a Christian, he was a bitter opponent of Christianity. What converted him to Christianity? Well, the evidence that Jesus was risen. The first people to tell the world that the grave was empty, again, of course, were not Christians, were they? It was the Jewish religious authorities who bribed the soldiers to say that when they examined the tomb on the first Sunday morning, it was empty. They didn't offer any explanation, but that's what they said. Why do you think they they said that? Why did they put that about? Well, because they were afraid, as Matthew explains, that the Christians were going to say, look, well, the tomb is empty, isn't it? He's risen from the dead. So in trying to scotch that rumor, they thought they'd better get in first, and they told the world the tomb was empty. But the disciples had come and stolen the body away while the soldiers slept, which is a funny story, because if they were asleep, how did they know who came and stole it? But never mind. Ah, we'll see. Ah, we'll see. So they told, uh, the world that the tomb was empty and the Christians had stolen the body away, and then the Christians didn't say anything for the next fifty days. It was the non-Christians who first told the world that the grave was empty. If you can't believe their account of why it was empty and how it became empty, well, you better listen to the Christians then. They'll give you another account. But now, on the question of evidence, there are many, many, many books that have been read. Uh, if you want a summary of it, one book, uh, if you haven't got it already, is that book by Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. And in our, we'll witness to people who think that belief in the resurrection is, uh, uh, uh, believing a legend that has no historical basis. It's good to have some of those facts up your sleeve, not just to know vaguely about them, but so that you can show yourself informed and really meet people and their difficulties. If you want something more high-powered and philosophical on that, then you should consider perhaps reading the works by Professor T. F. Torrance, Space, Time, and the Incarnation, who shows that far from being unscientific, uh, you'll see the modern up-to-date science, philosophy of science does not rule out things like the resurrection as being unscientific. Why do I say that? Well, uh, uh, uh, we in the UK have been troubled, as we do from time to time, not only with extreme cold winter or excessively hot summers, but also by the Bishop of Durham. Uh, and he and his like, constantly encouraged by the BBC to tell the world, we'll say, that while he believes the resurrection, he doesn't believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, all right, that's fair enough. If he tells us he's an unbeliever, well, we must accept what he says. The troubling thing is that he's foreverlasting saying that you, that you can't believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ and be a scientist or, or be up to date in your modern scientific thinking. You'll see. And the general public thinks this is marvelous because everybody wants to be scientific, don't they? Now, literally, the man is talking bosh as far as science goes. He got his ideas when he was a young man going through theological, uh, uh, training. And in those days, in most theological seminaries, they were taught the theories of a German professor called Rudolf Bultmann, now deceased, and his theories are passé, you see. But in those days, Professor Bultmann told the world that you can't be live in this scientific world and still believe in the actual historicity of events like the virgin birth and the resurrection, a bodily resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus. Why did they say that? Well, because of Professor Bultmann's ideas of science. I cannot trouble you now with the, uh, philosophy of science and the discussion that, uh, uh, is involved. But if you read the volumes that Professor, uh, T. F. Torrance has put out in these last years, you will discover that that old science, that scientific view of the world, advocated by Bultmann, would not be recognized by any self-respecting scientist nowadays. It is quite false as science. Don't you be ashamed of scripture, its doctrine of the incarnation, the bodily resurrection, bodily ascension of Jesus Christ, and be led to think that this is unscientific, and therefore at best you must take it as a myth. We're interested in that topic, read some good science, and not only just science, but what is more important in this connection, philosophy of science. I commend to you such learned works that by, uh, uh, Professor Torrance, Space, Time, and Incarnation, and so forth and so on. We'll say, you may think this is very remote. Let me tell you a little story. In Belfast, we have a teacher training college. In this teacher training college, some twenty years ago, I suppose, uh, there were a number of students, and they were studying, uh, religious education, how to teach the Bible to school children. Among these students, there were some believers. They asked the head of their department, could he arrange a debate? They'd like to have a seminar. Could they invite one, uh, Protestant and one Catholic, uh, uh, uh, to come and spend five minutes or ten giving their views of what happens after death? And then there was to be a general discussion. I went first. I was the Protestant pitched upon to do this, so I did my best. We'll say the Catholic representative was at that time a, a, a woman, a lady. She was head of her department in a very large teacher training college in Belfast. She was teaching the students how to teach Bible in school. She said to me, would I mind going first? Because she didn't want to be tied down to any particular viewpoint. So I went first, you'll say, and said what I believe scripture teach, teaches on the topic of what happens after death. Then she came on. She spent her first five minutes saying what the Roman Catholic Church has taught in times past, provision, beatific, limbo, purgatory, and so forth, and lake of fire and whatnot. And then she said, but now we know that that is not true. In fact, we now know that we know nothing about what happens after death. She said, you know, Jesus Christ and his apostles, uh, did say a lot of things about what happened after death. But you see, we can't believe what they say. That's irrelevant nowadays, because, you see, they lived in the pre-scientific world, and they believed in a universe that was in three decks, you see, heaven above, earth in the middle, and heaven somewhere- and hell somewhere below the earth. And they thought that Jesus Christ came out of the top deck and came down to earth, and then he died and went down to the bottom deck, and then he rose up and came to the middle deck, and he's gone back to the top deck again. And we know the universe isn't like that, she said, and so what Jesus Christ and his apostles said about what happens after death is utterly irrelevant. And she was teaching students how to teach the Bible in Roman Catholic schools. Of course, he's not alone, and multitudes of Protestants that have taught, uh, their students just the same thing. And they've gone off into their schools to teach it. And it has the air of being scientific. And therefore they tell you you can't believe what the Bible says. Except you take it as a myth. So the dear Bishop of Durham, to which I allude, if you ask him, do you believe in the resurrection, he would say, yes, of course I do. And if you didn't know to ask him anything more than that, you would say, marvelous, he believes in the resurrection. If you were to ask him, do you believe in the resurrection as a historical event, the likelihood is he will say, no, I don't. It is a myth made up by this church to express the church's faith that Jesus didn't come to an end when he was buried in the tomb, but somehow or other he does live on. I mentioned that all then in this context. There are many folks that I meet, I don't know about you, uh, uh, we'll say, that, uh, don't begin to bel- uh, think about believing the Bible, because they've got it into their heads that believing the Bible will involve them in believing things like the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his incarnation, his ascension, that they think are somehow contrary to science. And that's a tremendous shame, because their concept of science is itself at fault. They're very old fashioned in their science, and if they listen to some of the more modern scientists that are working at the frontiers of knowledge in the realm of science, they wouldn't find any conflict between that kind of science and what the New Testament is saying. And if you want to know the names of the books and so on, uh, we can talk about that later. Finally, the other point I want to make is this. I'm not about to decry all I've said so far about the importance of having the facts about the way the Bible was copied out, and so forth and so on, and, uh, and the matter of manuscripts. That is important. Likewise important is the question of the historicity of the events that the New Testament, uh, uh, refers to. Uh, it's important to know how they stand up when you can check them, where it's possible to check them, with external historical sources. Fundamental, of course, is the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. But of course, when you have considered all the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, and it is enormous, it still will leave you in the position that we were talking about last night, where you will have to take a personal step of faith to come to have the final and overwhelming evidence that he is alive. Because only by faith can you make contact with that living Lord. We'll say, being convinced that there is a power station down the road and that the pylons are carrying wires and being convinced that they are carrying electricity and being convinced it is, uh, wired up to the house won't give me to see the light, will it? I've got to turn the switch before I do that. And therefore there has to be a step of faith if I'm finally going to discover that the living, that the Lord Jesus is really alive and gets in touch with me. But that brings me to another big point. If you were to ask me, why do I believe the Bible? You see. Or let me put it this way, why do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? I wouldn't reply to you because the Bible says so. I should put it the other way round. Why do I believe the Bible? Well, because Jesus Christ tells me to. I don't know what you normally say to your friends. I've had many friends and many, uh, contacts, and you see their difficulty is this, and there's a serious difficulty. I say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. They say to me, but how do you expect me to believe that? Because, you see, they say, I don't believe the Bible. Of course, if I believe the Bible, I should say, yes, he he's the Son of God. Bible says so, but I don't believe the Bible, they say. You, you believe the Bible, so you accept everything it says, and because you accept what the Bible says, you believe that Jesus is the Son of God. But they say, you see, we don't go- grant you the first thing, we don't believe the Bible is the word of God, and if we first got to believe the Bible is the word of God, and believe after that that Jesus is the Son of God, well, we shall never come around to believing that Jesus is the Son of God if we don't start by believing the Bible. And you know, I can see the logic of their position, can't you? I don't know what you say to your friends, uh, uh, uh, who, uh, talk like that. Perhaps I- I'll tell you what I say, I hope that doesn't shock you too much. I say you don't have to start by believing the Bible. And did you believe everything in the Belfast Telegraph? I say, no, of course not. So you don't read the Belfast Telegraph? Oh, we do sometimes. Don't believe everything in it. I wouldn't even of the Irish Times, would you come to think about it. You don't say, now I'm about to pick up the Irish Times, oh, I believe every word, every comma, because it's the Irish Times. Of course you don't. You don't say, well, I can't be sure that everything in this is true, so I shan't read it either, do you? Read it, and then make up your mind. Why do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Well, not because the Bible says so the other way around. It's because I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God that I believe the Bible. Let me tell you some reasons why. I read the Bible like I would read the Irish Times or the Belfast Telegraph. I meet this figure of Jesus Christ in it. And according to the Bible's description, I can see very quickly that this is a figure that is utterly unique. If it's true. Towers above everybody. He's one of, well, to put it at the lowest, he's one of the outstanding people in history, isn't he? You can say that Muhammad had influence on millions, and Christ on multi-millions more. And then the look, I look around me, and I find that, uh, not only do you read about this Jesus Christ in the Bible, but the character that there is depicted is a character that has won the faith and the love of millions. That's a historical fact, isn't it? Whether I agree with them or not. And it's so won their love and faith that millions have died for him already. And if you like to do a little research, you'll find a good many more millions that would in this present day, be prepared to die for this Jesus Christ. And I have to do some hard thinking. Who invented this Jesus Christ? Let's suppose, uh, he's a made-up character. And that whoever wrote the ga- gospels made up this character. Well, now you're in the presence of a miracle of some proportion, aren't you? There have been occasionally in the course of history brilliant writers who have invented characters that never did exist. You see Scrooge, for instance, from from Dickens, yeah? To invent a character that, in that sense, lives to people, you require a enormously gifted artist. Do you know of anybody that's ever invented a character in literature that has become so real to some people they've been prepared to die for him. And all the while he an invention. Well, if Jesus Christ was invented, then we ought to bend our past to discover who were the inventors, because they were the biggest miracle makers in all history of literature. Yeah? Is he invented? Well, then you'd have to ask who, who would have invented him? Because it is plain on the surface that Jesus Christ, if you compare him with the world in which he lived, was nobody's hero. What do I mean by that? Well, he claimed to be Messiah, but you'll see the Greeks, when they heard about Jesus Christ, thought it was the biggest load of tomfoolery and folly they ever did hear. The ideal of the Greek wise man, read the Greek philosophers, would be a man like Socrates. Have you read the story of the death of Socrates? Goodness, yes, of course you have. I mean, if you hadn't, I mean, you must. Only cost you three and six, uh, an English translation. That tremendous event of the death of Socrates, when he was condemned to die because of what he taught, and the jailer came in with a cup of poison, he had to drink the poison, and with perfect equanimity and calm, while all his disciples were breaking down and sobbing their hearts out, he rebuked them, and in perfect calm and peace he drank the poison and died. The Greek ideal. And this story that you find in the Gospels of Jesus Christ, how did he die? Why, in Gethsemane, sweating blood and tears and crying on the cross, my God, why have you forsaken me? I tell you, no Greek invented that story. Bible itself will tell you that story is folly to a Greek. The Romans, when they came across Jesus Christ and Herod the, uh, the Idumean and his troops, and somebody told them that this Jesus Christ claimed to be king, they never heard of anything so screamingly funny for a long while. They said that king, and they they dressed him up and put a crown of thorns on the purple robe and put an old reed in his hand and had a real soldier's, uh, fun and games. They thought he was the most ridiculous notion on earth. A one who claimed to be king and wasn't even prepared to let his disciples fight to protect him. Absurd. Now, what the Jews think of him, they were looking for a liberator to liberate them from the oppressing Romans. It wasn't only that his nation crucified him, but the apostles themselves who wrote the story tell us that when it came to the crunch in the Garden of Gethsemane, they were going to try and defend him with their swords, and Jesus said, no, you don't. Put up that sword. Then all the disciples forsook him and fled. Wasn't simply they lost their nerve. They thought what he was saying was so absolutely absurd, a Messiah who wouldn't even defend himself, nor let his disciples fight to defend him. Well, bar me. I tell you straight, the character of Jesus Christ, I'm not asking you to begin by believing the New Testament's inspired. I'm telling you the character in the New Testament was not invented by anybody. Where did he come from then? He wasn't invented, he was real, wasn't he? Why do I believe he's the Son of God? Well, because he said so. You say you're arguing in circles, old boy. No, no. I'll tell you why. If I were to stand here today and say to you, I'm the Son of God, you know. Is that so really? And quietly you'd ring a psychiatrist or something, wouldn't you? Warn my friends in Belfast that Gooding's gone even more nuts than he used to be. Yeah? Jesus Christ says he's God incarnate. Does that strike you the words of a lunatic? You say, no, this is a Jesus Christ who brought peace to millions. Yes, not only peace, but his concept of holiness. You know, if I wanted to go to find about music, I would go right to the top, and if it were possible to get Beethoven or Chopin, I should go to them. I shouldn't go to the next door neighbor's cat, because it does have a go at singing, but my, the results are disastrous. You'll see. I, I go right to the top. When it comes to morality, who would you go to if you could? Well, the answer is to be found in the teachings of Jesus Christ, isn't it? Tower above the rest of us, like Mount Everest and the eternal snows. It was he who taught us that kind of holiness that himself claimed to be God's son. If he wasn't, he's a liar. If he's a liar, contradicts everything he taught on the way of ethics, he's the most biggest humbug you ever met on the face of the earth. Is that your reading of him? If he says he was the Son of God, then I believe it because he says so. And then, of course, we come back to the evidence that that Jesus Christ who said he was the Son of God was vindicated. He rose again the third day. Any other kind of reasoning? Yes. Because Jesus Christ is unique in this. John the Go- John the Ap- Apostle says in his epistle, this is he that came by water and by blood. For time's sake, skip the water for a moment and consider what John means by saying that Jesus Christ came by blood. That is, he not only went by blood, he came by it. When he began his public ministry, his forerunner John the Baptist proclaimed to the world that this Jesus Christ had come as the Lamb of God to die for the sins of the world. One of the reasons why I believe he's the Son of God, you know. Because, you see, though he taught ethics and taught us that we ought to be good, the Bible tells us that when he came, he didn't come to teach us to be good, he came to die for us. See, my trouble is not that I don't know I ought to be good. I don't know about you. Do you feel that that's your trouble? You didn't know you ought to be good and you need somebody to tell you? Of course not. I know I ought to be good. Well, I thought so. My trouble is not that I don't know I ought to be good. My trouble is that I, I, I have not been good. And that puts me in a terrible fix. What am I to think about, uh, uh, the moral law? Does it matter or doesn't it? If it doesn't matter, then there's an end of all values. If it matters, I'm in trouble because I've broken it. That's where Jesus Christ comes alongside me and says, yes, and I've come to deal with your problem, you know. Not just come to tell you to be good. I've come to die for your sins. I can tell you this, you'll only have to decide the question once because there's nobody in the whole of history that will ever come alongside you and say, look here, I am your creator incarnate, and I came to die for your sins. Nobody else will ever say that to you. He stands unique. How do I know he's true? Well, at that level, I know he's true because he, he, he meets my need. If I'm hungry and you put before me a, a brick, well, I'll do my best to taste it, but no good. You'll say, put a chunk of wood, no use. You put a loaf of bread, ah! It's the need. And Jesus Christ, who died at Calvary and came to die for my sins, the only one in all history that ever said anything like it, ever has said it to me. He meets my need. And I say, yes, he's true. And coming to believe he is the Son of God incarnate and my savior, then I say, well, if he says the Old Testament is inspired, I accept it. And if I've reason to think that his authority lies behind the New Testament, then on his say so, I accept that as well. And now I cease.