 Okay, recording has started. Good morning. Once again, all of you are doing good. Today is Thursday, 7th October. We are going to pray and get started. Can somebody please lead us in prayer and then we will get started. Can I pray? Alright Charles, go ahead please. Heaven Father, we thank you so much for such a sweet morning that you are giving us. We thank you that we have been taken special to be on the group, on the team, on the list of those that woke up, for those that were asleep, and those that died to sleep, they will also wake up. Now Lord, as we dedicate these minutes to the study of your Word, Lord, we pray that you will enlighten us, you will equip us, you will anoint us. That Lord will be able to get what he wanted us to get, so that we shall live a life that preaches you. I pray for a lecture that Lord, you will also guide him, equip him, anoint him. That Lord in all, will be able to understand your Word and be able to apply it in our lives and in the ministries that you have given us. When Jesus' name will pray and believe, amen. Amen. Thank you Charles. Good morning everyone once again and welcome. So we are continuing this course on Christian apologetics. Last week we started talking about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. And we covered a few of these points or facts there on the uniqueness of Christ, why Christ is unique. I'm going to just quickly review that and then we'll move forward, cover that. Then after this chapter then we want to talk about the resurrection of Christ. How can we say that based on the information we have, both just looking at the scenario as well as what has been information surrounding the event. How can we say with confidence that Christ indeed rose from the dead. So that's our next question that we want to address. And I'm not sure if we will get to it, but if time permits, we'll follow up the next question thereafter which is, why do we say that there is salvation only in Jesus Christ? So these three questions, the uniqueness of Christ, the resurrection of Christ and salvation in Christ, they are all centered around the person of Jesus Christ and they are three important, very important questions. Now, and the reason we are addressing it is because in the church, I'm not saying the church in entirety, but there has been a shift even among Christian leaders, both in the uniqueness of Christ as well as in salvation in Christ. So if we don't hold to the uniqueness of Christ, then obviously we will compromise on salvation being only in Christ. And that's sadly, that has happened among some of the Christian leaders and they've shifted away from stating clearly that Christ is unique and therefore salvation is only in the person of Christ to other ideas like universal salvation and so on. So that's these three lessons on the person of Christ are very important. His uniqueness, his resurrection and salvation in Christ, in the person of Christ. So let's quickly review what we covered last week and then we will move forward. So we started talking about the uniqueness of Christ last week. We established that his presence in history is, cannot be disputed. He's there. And we are working our way through these nine reasons or nine key statements of why we say that Christ is unique. So we said that number one, the claims of Christ for himself. So when he presented himself to the world, he presented himself as unique. All the I am statements never includes saying I am one of many, but it implied I am the only. So honestly, if you look at his I am statements in his death and resurrection, very unique in what he claimed that he was dead, but he's alive. And his pre-existence, which no other person claimed, he said I was even before Abraham. Second, in the Bible presents Jesus. It presents him very clearly as deity. Yes, it does have several other human titles, you know, the son of man, or the son of David or other titles like that. But who this person is, he is the one who came from God, who was God and who is God. Thirdly, the Bible also presents Christ as absolutely unique. So when the Bible presents, and we will talk about this later and talking about salvation in Christ. The Bible says that there's only one way of salvation, which is through Jesus Christ. The Bible is not giving us an option saying, look, here's one of the ways, and if you want to find another way, yeah, there could be. It doesn't state that. It's presenting Christ as God's only provision for salvation for humankind. And we talked about number four, the incarnation, the virgin birth. Why this is so important is the incarnation of Christ and his virgin birth. Why is it so important and why it's also very unique, very different, and that makes Christ very unique. We covered that. And number five, we also talked about his life work teaching an impact on history that here was somebody who was really very, who had a very obscure place in his earthly life. Very simple, very obscure. He never did anything big. And yet for some profound reason, his imprint on the history of man since his time on earth is unimaginable. It's unreplicated. Nobody else has done this. And how could somebody with such an obscure, insignificant, short life of just 33 and a half years have such a great impact on humanity? It's astounding. It's amazing. You know, that is that in itself is something to consider as when we look at the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. There have been many leaders who have come and gone, many, you know, teachers and many philosophers and all of that. They've done their part. They've left, you know, some measure of maybe their writings or whatever, but to have the kind of impact on the world, the way Christ has. No one else comes near. So we went up to these five points. We're going to pick up from here number six. Any questions on these five points here so far? There are no questions? Are we still handling the path for the uniqueness? Yes. Yes, Charles. Sorry. Did you want us to gain something else, Charles? No, I was, I was like, okay, if it is the uniqueness, I am okay. I'm throwing. Okay, great. All right. Okay, let's go. I will finish this. Okay. All right, I'm going back to the PDF now. So number six. Why is Christ really unique? And some of these things that I want to, you know, expand on too much because many of us are aware. So his sacrificial death. So Christ died. He was crucified. Now, death by crucifixion was not an uncommon thing. That's the way the Romans in those days penalized people. You know, somebody was out of order. Well, they suffered death by crucifixion. But in Christ's case, we know he was innocent. Even Pilate could not find any wrong with him. So he was wrongfully accused, sentenced to death wrongfully. But the Bible is telling us that his death made all the difference. So, so many people have died. So many noble people have died. So many teachers have died. Philosophers have died. They may have died peaceful deaths or they just died natural deaths. And there's nothing coming out of that. And here Jesus is dying on the cross. And the entire entirety of scripture from Genesis to Revelation is pointing to one thing. The cross in the Garden of Eden. God is bringing the clothing of sheepskin or animal skin. Pointing to the cross. Book of Revelation. Jesus is glorified as the Lamb of God. Slaying from the foundation of the world. Pointing back to the cross. And so the entirety of scripture is pointing to this one thing. Saying this is the place where everything changes. The cross. His death. Him being crucified on the cross. Dying there. Changes everything. And if you want to just kind of summarize it very concisely. His death was substitutionary. His death was on behalf of the rest of the human race. His death was atoning. It paid. It met the requirements of God's justice and judgment on sin and Satan. His death was complete. It was for all sin. His death was triumph and conquering sin, conquering Satan, reversing the fall. And his death is transforming. That means my life is changed. Our lives are changed today because of his death 2,000 years ago. Now nobody else. You don't find this anywhere else that the death of the individual, maybe the founder of a religion, a great teacher, a great philosopher, that that death is the central point of that faith. It's very unique, very different. And that his death is actually making all the difference. And we can summarize it in these five important words. So it's very unique about Jesus Christ. And the whole Bible is pointing towards that death of Christ on the cross. Number seven is the resurrection of Christ, which we will talk about in the next lesson. And as much as the death is extremely important Christ death on the cross, the cross is extremely important. The cross is in itself incomplete without the resurrection, because if the resurrection had not taken place, everything done on the cross would dissipate, would not have any impact on life today. So the resurrection is equally important. And once again, this makes the Christian faith Christ so unique. That is, the reason we believe in Jesus is not because of his teachings, not just because of his three and a half years of ministry. The reason we believe in Jesus is because he died and rose again. And the Bible itself states, and we know this in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is saying, if Christ had not been raised from the dead, then we are still in our sins and our faith is useless. And I was just saying, hey, forget this. Or if you put it in a positive way, the reason we believe in Jesus is not only because of his death, but also of his resurrection. He's alive today. And that's why we believe in him. And this resurrection is not some mystical thing that nobody could attest to. But his death, his resurrection was a bodily resurrection that had about 500 eye witnesses to it. And we will see it in the next chapter. So even though there have been numerous attempts to discredit, to question the bodily resurrection of Jesus by various theories and so on, when we go into the facts, hey, none of these things hold. The theories don't hold. His resurrection cannot be disputed. And it's on that resurrection, his death and resurrection, that the entirety of our faith stands. Christ died, he rose up again. That's the Gospel. And that's what our faith stands in. And that's what makes Christ again unique. And finally, our next two points is, he said salvation comes through simple faith in Christ, and we don't earn it, provide it for us, and we also mention that Christ's power to transform today's lives are still being changed because of what he did. Right? So we covered all of this last week, and just build any questions on the uniqueness of Christ before we get into the next one. Can I ask first? Yeah, go ahead. God has finished his work through his son, but to believe or not to believe, to put faith in the work that God has finished, is it purely human will or something more to it? Purely human will that they will put his or her faith in that work? Or is there is something more to it? Like God also intervenes in this, or I want to understand like what part, human will, how much part human will plays and how much part God plays in it? So the answer to your question is God is involved, right? So it's not entirely human will, but God has a part to play in bringing us to salvation. What does he do? Some of the things we know, John chapter 16, 8 through 11, when the Holy Spirit comes, he convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So that's one thing. The Holy Spirit is convicting people, right? He is causing people to come to this place where, look, I know this is true, but am I willing to commit to it? So that's a conviction of the Holy Spirit. Then there is what Peter writes in 1 Peter chapter 2, as the day of salvation, meaning God is moving people towards this. I'll give you the exact reference there. 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 212, 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 12. So God visits people, that means he sets things up in the lives of people, not just one time, but over and over again, he is encountering people. We call it the day of visitation. God is visiting them in different ways. So in order to bring them face to face with who Jesus Christ is, and bringing them to this place where they need to make a decision for Christ. We could also say, based on Second Timothy, let me just get, that God grants people repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Second Timothy chapter 2, and verse 26, or 25 and 26. So God is at work, causing people to come to this place of repentance. He's drawing them. So Jesus put it like this, John 6, no man can come to me unless the Father draw him. So there is this, some people call it, use different language, like God is wooing them or he is drawing them. And I'm just looking at this. John 6, verse 44. John 6, 44. The Father draws them. He draws them. Some people call it the pull of heaven on their hearts. So in some way, and however he wants to do this in each person's life, he is causing them to have days of visitations, meaning different times he will visit them. He is bringing them to this place of repentance. He is drawing their hearts. So God is doing that. But the decision to follow Christ is something that the individual has to make. So to answer your question, it's both. God's at work. And then he uses humans in between. So we are ambassadors for Christ. So we proclaim the gospel and help. Maggie, you have a question, then we'll take Charles' question and then we'll move forward. Maggie. Thank you, sir. You answered my question when you were answering our last questions. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Charles, your question, please. Yeah. I'm like in agreement with what he said that God is involved because he's the one pursuing us. He's the one continuing to see that we come back to the Garden of Eden, come back to him. Because when you look at Romans 830, it says, And those God has planned for, he has also appointed to be saved. Those he has appointed, he has made right with him. And to those he has made right with him, he has given his glory. So you see the planning, it's his. So there is a part he plays. Thank you. Amen. Preach it, brother. Preach it. All right. Thank you, Charles. All right. So any other questions? Okay. So let's move into the next lesson. Okay. So we talked about the uniqueness of Christ. It's very important, right? So if, you know, let me just make a few statements if we jump into the next one. If somebody asks you and me the question, is Christ unique? We need to have the courage to say, yes, he is. You have to say, yes, he is. He's unique. He's different from everybody else. The leaders or the gods and goddesses of all other religions. Yes, he is unique. And then we can use any of these nine statements or all of the nine to say, these are the reasons why he is unique. And we don't have to apologize in saying Christ is unique. So well, if you say Christ is unique, you're making the Christian faith very exclusive. Yeah, it is exclusive. It's for those who believe in this Jesus Christ. Well, if you say Christ is unique, you're being intolerant to others. Well, we're not intolerant to others. We're inviting others to come and believe in this unique one, right? So we're not, you know, hateful. We're not against people. No, we love people, but we cannot compromise on the statement that Christ is unique. There's nobody else like him. We can't compromise on that. And we're in a shame to say that the Jesus we believe, there's no one else like him. Now that voice has to come forth very clearly in the church and to the world. And that voice, like I was saying, sadly has become weak. Now the church is not stating that. Totally, loudly clearly. And especially when, you know, when you have Christian leaders being interviewed in secular media, and they're asked this question, sometimes the statements are very weak. Not, you know, why they just want to kind of tread the middle ground and try to please everybody. But sometimes you just have to, this is the truth. And we're not saying it to hurt people, we're not. Right. So if you are asked the question, is Christ unique? You and I need to be bold enough to say Christ is unique. And these are the reasons why we are saying he's unique. Nobody else can match up to these things. Okay. So let's get to the next lesson, which is on the resurrection of Christ. So here again, like we said, people have tried to disprove the bodily resurrection of Christ. And we're just going to give simple reasons. There's nothing complicated here. Simple reasons as to why we say that Christ rose up from the dead. He rose up from the grave bodily. Right. So not just mystical, spiritual resurrection. He rose up bodily. His body was taken out and raised brought back to life. So we see the sequence of events that after he was crucified before 6 p.m. that day, Christ was taken, his body was taken off the cross before the end of that day, which is 6 p.m. and put in a tomb. We know it was a borrowed tomb, the tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Armitia. That means he had already, he was a wealthy man, so he had already bought that parcel of land. He had bought the, got his tomb, which was like a cave, cut out, kept ready for himself, maybe his first family. So he was placed in this borrowed tomb. We also know that because Jesus had foretold that he was going to rise from the dead and the Jewish leaders, the priests, the high priests, the priests, the others, had, were aware of what he had been saying that he was going to rise from the dead. They were aware of it. And in order to prevent that, in order to prevent his body from being stolen, so you can see the opponents of Christ doing their bit to make sure that that physical body will not leave that tomb. So it wasn't Jesus' disciples who were deciding the security of the physical body in the tomb. I'm just giving a little overview and then we'll break it down into these points. It wasn't the disciples of Jesus who were saying, okay, we're going to make sure that his body is sealed nicely in the tomb. No. It was the opponents of Jesus. Those who didn't like him and who knew that he had stated he was going to be, he's going to rise from the dead. So it wasn't the disciples of Jesus who went to the Roman soldiers. That means they went to the people in authority and the people in authority were the Romans. And these were not, you know, weak guards. No, they sent a battalion of soldiers to stand before the tomb. So, and, and they sealed it. There's a cloth across the, they, of course, they made sure that the stone was rolled up to close the tomb. And they put a cloth across the tomb signifying a Roman seal. That means nobody touched this cloth. And in front of that were a battalion of at least 12 soldiers, strong, armed, trained men. These are not, you know, weak security guards. They were Roman soldiers, at least 12 of them to guard the tomb. So, and who did this? It was organized by the Jewish priests and the Roman soldiers. Those who definitely had no vested interest and no agenda to get his body out. And they were there to make sure his body didn't leave the tomb. So that's the setting. Now, on Sunday morning, let's be on Sunday morning, the disciples of Jesus are coming to see if, you know, by chance the soldiers will be kind enough to open up the tomb for them to go and embalm the body and do something, you know. So, he was already put there, wrapped up in, according, his body, according to Jewish customs, his body was wrapped up in the cloth, put with these spices, aromatic spices which would have hardened over time and so on. Now, these women were coming to see if they could do something to the body. Of course, they were going to go through it with, you know, maybe the guards would be kind enough to let the men, whatever, you know, they came. That means they had not done anything to take the body out. They were fully expecting the body to be there for that they could come and do something to it, right? So, this is the background. Now, when the body was missing, what we know is these soldiers are scared for their lives because technically they have failed in their work of protecting the body and they could be killed. So, they go and report it to the priests and the priests come up with an idea. They create a lie. They come up with that say, just go and tell people that the disciples came and stole the body. So, right there, the very beginning is, you know, today we use the word misinformation or false information being spread in order to cover up something that genuinely happened. So, right there, the priests saying, okay, yeah, take this money. Just spread the news that the disciples came and stole the body and disappeared. Now, obviously people are going to say, hey, but you were there guarding the tomb. What did you do? Why weren't you doing your job? But they just spread a false news trying to, you know, downplay the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, this is the background. Now, having understood all of that and one last thing that I need to say here is also this, that from the witnesses standpoint people who saw Jesus after his resurrection, we have at least 500 people and we have a period of 40 days. Right? So, that means it wasn't like, hey, we had a glimpse of him on one day, but it was over a period of 40 days. The Bible says there were infallible proofs. That means it was over and over again and that was the question. And there were at least 500 people who saw him alive. Now, we can all ask the question, you know, why only 40 days? Why only 500 people? Now, we just leave that to God's understanding. Well, if he had done 30 days we would still have asked the question, why 30 days? Why 60 days? We would still ask the question, why 60 days? So, you know, we just leave it to God, 40 days. Our understanding is that it was the time for the church to take on the mission of proclaiming the resurrected Christ to the world. So, we know that 40 in the Bible is a time of transition. 40 days, he revealed himself alive and then God said, okay, church, take over from now. I've done my part, you take over from now. We could also ask the question, why 500 followers? If he had revealed himself to 200 we probably would have asked the same question. If he had revealed himself to 1000 we would have asked the same question. So, we just leave that to God just so that that was enough and indeed it is enough that he showed himself alive to these many people in that 40 day period people who saw him alive. So, this is the background. Now, when we put all the pieces together and if you and I were to present this case in a court of law, what would we present as evidence to the resurrection of Christ? Now, everything I've taken I'm sharing, I've taken it from Josh McDowell's book Evidence that Demands a Verdict is just a simple summary of the key points. So, Josh McDowell this goes back, I think to the 70s 80s when he wanted his story and you can read his story and I'm just giving a few points here that he actually questioned the validity of Christ's resurrection and so he wanted to investigate so he came in with the idea of personally investigating I mean is the resurrection of Christ true or not or is it just a myth just a made up story so he devoted time to investigate this so he studied all the gospel accounts then he went and looked at all the archaeological the physical evidence that means go to the site, look at things what do we find, etc look at the historical evidence available that means what did other historians write at that time so you've got your Bible biblical account in the gospels you've got your archaeological physical evidence whatever can be reconstructed and you've got historical evidence whatever can be obtained from historical writings so he did his research thorough research and at the end of it he became a believer in Christ so he set out with with the not as a believer he set out as this is true or not as an investigator and he ended up as a believer and then he wrote this a landmark book evidence that demands a verdict which basically he presents these things of course the book is a thick book with a lot of details but I'm just highlighting these key points so if you and I were to imagine you've done your research like Josh McDowell and you're standing out of law and you are going to present your case to say why the resurrection of Jesus Christ is fact and cannot be fiction what are the things you would present number one and these are not necessarily in order of importance but these are just these are the things you would present number one very important is there's a Roman seal that means you have Roman soldiers guarding the tomb I mean even if there was no tomb stone a body left in an open grave but if you've got 12 Roman soldiers standing there which one of the disciples is going to be able to go in and get the body out who would go in and get the body out even if it was an open tomb you've got 12 Roman soldiers standing there but the fact is this was a tomb that was closed that rolled the stone in it had a seal it had a Roman seal meaning it had this cloth end to end put across the tombstone indicating that this was Roman property this couldn't seal should not be taken off without proper authorization if anyone broke the seal it's the end of their lives and in front of it you've got soldiers standing guarding the tomb it's practically logically impossible for anybody to go in and steal the body out or for Christ to sneak out of the tomb in case he hadn't died case point number one second is after Christ's resurrection the soldiers are dispersed they disappear and there is an empty tomb right there now this is the tomb now somebody some people would say well it was the wrong tomb so the wrong tomb theory well Joseph of Arimathea had the papers for this property it was his property it was his tomb that means you can't go to a neighbor's garden and bury use that as though it was yours no everybody knew this is the property of Joseph of Arimathea this is his this was his property this was the tomb that he had set up so this wrong tomb theory it cannot hold because there's the man who has the papers and he made sure that the body was buried in this tomb and he's right there and this tomb is standing there empty and people can go and see it so there is no question of people going and looking at the wrong tomb they're looking at absolutely the right tomb and yet the tomb is empty the stone is rolled away it is empty and that is in itself an evidence that there is no body there the person who was buried is not there anymore and anyone could go and see that tomb and verify for themselves that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea in which Christ was buried is empty so if you were one of the people there in Jerusalem at that time you could go and see it for yourself nobody could hide it there's the tomb it's empty that means there are not just 500 people who saw the empty tomb it's possibly a huge majority of the people in Jerusalem who go and see the empty tomb this tomb was sealed three days back or whatever number of days back that you go and see it but today it's open this is the tomb where he was buried his body is not there and his disciples are right there they're not hiding his body anywhere it's right there they're all there everybody is there the disciples, the 12 disciples of Jesus there the others who believed in Jesus they're all right there nobody's gone into hiding the only people hiding are probably the soldiers who stood before the tomb but other than that they're all there you can talk, ask so how do you disprove something like this how do we because there is no cover up there is no attempt to you know create something, no the evidence is right there in front of us anybody can go and see it so this is a very strong case the empty tomb the disciples all the players involved except for the soldiers everybody's there go see it, go talk to them see them and it's done not just by four or five anyone in the city can go do it we'll just cover one more point third fact is this the stone that sealed the tomb is a huge stone you know I think Josh McDowell I think the estimate is like about two tons or something it's a huge stone that was rolled in one and a half to two tons stone that's lodged in front of the tomb now just looking at the technicalities of it the way they seal the tomb they create the tomb in such a way that the stone that seals the tomb is slid into place using gravity with the help of gravity so of course there would be people moving in so you can imagine it must have been on a slope and there's this huge stone that's been kept aside on this cave that's been dug out of the rock and the stone slides into place to seal it to close the tomb with the assistance of gravity and of course people just slide it into place so it's not a it's not a small wooden door that had to be opened it's a one to one to two one and a half to two tons stone that had to be moved out of the way in order to access the body which would not be possible by a few women or one or two you know fishermen it would take a solid team of strong men if they had to move open the tomb the other interesting thing is that the Gospel writers mentioned the stone had been pushed up or moved away in such a way that it's being pushed up against the flow against gravity to open the tomb right so here's the third point say well how could and remember this was sealed with the Roman seal and there were soldiers in front of it soldiers right there so the question is how could some feeble fishermen get past Roman soldiers open the Roman seal and move this heavy stone up in order to steal the body and how could they do it in such a way that they didn't disturb the guards or anything so logically speaking there's no possibility of the body being stolen simply because it was sealed by this heavy stone and kept guard by Roman soldiers so the large stone in place just immediately says the fishermen the women disciples could not possibly have stolen the body not under these conditions they could not have done it so there's a large stone that had to be moved if it all the body had to be taken out if anybody could have done it it probably would have been this whole team of soldiers who could have moved the stone but not ordinary people two or three of them so that's a third argument that you and I would present okay that's a pause here we just pick up the other thoughts here now let me see here okay alright we're going to pause here if you have any questions any comments thoughts please type it in the chat and we will pick it up as soon as we come back but take a break and we'll be right back in about ten minutes okay thank you