Christian Apologetics: How To Answer

Jesus as the Truth and the Exclusive Way to the Father

Christians, we say that we love the one who's the very embodiment of truth. I mean, it's a famous verse. I hope you all know it. It's John 14, 6. I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.

So it's really an amazing thing that we have as Christians a foundation to talk about knowledge, to talk about evidence, to talk about facts, to desire truth. That's something that we get to own. And it's really interesting because we live in a time where there's been an erosion in the West of Christian principles and a Christian culture, a culture of Christ, you might say, where early on in our history in the West, in America, we were very much Christian in our thinking and in our culture.

And the Puritans coming over, the Calvinists, the Huguenots, and all that we have as our heritage, a lot of that's been eroded now. The history of Christianity is very, very fascinating in terms of Christians being a thinking kind of people, being about education and knowledge and discovery and science.

And so some of the world's most respected institutions to this day were not started on secularist or atheistic principles. They were started really in the very beginning as Christian institutions of learning and expanding knowledge and discovery.

And so you think about Oxford and you think about Cambridge and Harvard and Yale and Brown University. These are institutions that were started off as really distinctly Christian institutions, modern science as we have it today.

You can thank the Christian worldview for your smartphones. You can thank the Christian worldview for astronomy and where it's gone today. You can thank the Christian worldview for the advances in virtually every major area of science.

It was the Christian worldview that gave modern science the pop that it had. And you see some of the greatest intellectual minds and giants in history in the last 2 ,000 years were Christians. Christians really ruled in many ways in the world when it came to the advances in art and music and science and architecture.

We were the leaders. And we live in a day and age today where there's been such an erosion where Christians are seen in our culture. Let's admit it. Let's just say it as it is, as the idiots, right? As the buffoons.

We're the ones that take blind leaps of faith into nothing. We don't prize truth and evidence. We are people that are termed blind faith religionists. And so that's where we actually find ourselves today.

The Christian Worldview, Science, and Western Civilization

Now, I want to say something here. That is not at all in accord with the facts of the Christian worldview or our actual practice. It is, I think, the result of a lack of bold gospel proclamation to the culture.

And so we find ourselves in an interesting area right now as Christians. Is that Jesus commands us to love truth. And it's interesting because when I quoted that verse to you, John 14, 6, how do we generally quote that text?

We quote it often to somebody when we want to lead them to Christ, to point them to Jesus. We say that He's the way. He's the truth. He's the life. No one comes to the Father but by Him. So we don't mince words about the fact that Jesus is the exclusive way to reconciliation and peace with God, right?

And so we point people to that. Jesus is the only way to be reconciled to God. Apart from Jesus, there is no salvation. Peter says so much in the book of Acts when he's proclaiming at Pentecost the glories and excellencies of Jesus.

What does he say? He says,.

And so, by the way, that was an amazing thing. We don't often know our history. Peter was actually directly defying Rome when he said that. So Christianity is so in your face, so committed to truth, that it was willing to actually come against the state of the day.

That's the kind of bold treatment it was. So you think, for example, when the Christians in the book of Acts are captured, this goes to the bold proclamation of the gospel and a commitment to truth, right?

And, of course, its consequences. The Christians are actually captured. And what was the charge against the Christians in the first century? It was just known and understood what their message was.

It was this.

They say there's another king, Jesus. And that was something that you could not do. Think about this in terms of our boldness, that we should really get back to a biblical boldness, a humble boldness.

Christians were known in the first century in the context of a hostile state for saying, Jesus is what? Anyone know?

No?

This is like Ferris Bueller now.

Anyone? Anyone?

Jesus is Lord, right? And what did Rome want to say at the time? They wanted to say, Caesar curios. Caesar is Lord. He's the ultimate.

Caesar is the ultimate.

You can have whatever gods you want. Rome said that. You can have whatever little gods you want. Didn't really make a difference to Rome. They were a pagan culture. Let's just accept that. You can worship anything.

They didn't care that you worshiped Jesus. You could have worshipped a rock. They didn't really care. But you got to give just a little pinch of incense to Caesar.

You got to just give just a little bit.

You got to make sure that you see as ultimate and supreme Caesar above your God, Jesus. And the Christians were killed, not necessarily because Rome didn't like the idea of Jesus as a God you worship, but they were killed because they would not say as an ultimate that Caesar is the ultimate.

They said Jesus is the ultimate. You might be asking, well, how does this relate to apologetics? It relates in a very, very dramatic way. And here's why. When we talk about apologetics, we're talking about a defense of the Christian faith.

We're talking about defending the Christian faith. Not some general form of theism, like perhaps there's a God out there, some kind of God. Maybe there's some supreme being, some supreme intelligence.

Maybe he or it or she is not knowable, but there's something out there. And popular today are, I think, apologetic methodologies. Maybe you guys have heard of a man named William Lane Craig. He's a very famous Christian apologist.

Loves Jesus. Calls people to faith in Jesus at times. And he does defend the resurrection of Jesus, I think, quite powerfully in a sense of the historical evidences for Jesus. But we find ourselves in a conflict when it comes to ultimate commitments, like I was talking about with Christians in Rome.

Ultimate commitments. Oftentimes Christian apologetics, again today, will be in terms of maybe God exists. Anybody see the movie that came out this past year or maybe it was the year before? I forget now.

I'm getting old and you just sort of forget. Amen?

Okay.

The movie God's Not Dead. Hear about that? There were popular memes for all you older people. These are things on a thing called the Internet. They go around in their little pictures and they give little quick messages, okay?

Just trying to help everybody out, okay? There was a popular meme that was going around when this film came out. And the meme was about the movie and it was a clip from the movie. And it was popular. It was liked like thousands upon thousands of times.

That means people approve of the message when you like it on your social media. And the meme, it was a picture from the film God's Not Dead. And it's a man standing there at the podium and he's the Christian defending God's existence.

And he says this. He says something to the effect of, Atheists say you cannot prove God exists. And then underneath it, it says, well, that's true. Let that hang for a second. And then he says, but you can't prove that he doesn't exist either.

And everybody's like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like. And it went out everywhere. Share, share, share, share, share, share, share. Christians are sharing, sharing. God's not dead.

God's not dead.

See? You see, atheists? Gotcha.

I can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't. Nanny nanny boo boo. Like it's this, like this contest of, you know, we all really don't know. And we're all taking a chance here. You're taking a risk with maybe he doesn't, but I'm taking a risk, you know, over here.

And so we really have to say, you know, what is it, 50 -50? Is it more 60 -40, God exists? And it's an interesting thing, isn't it? Because you do not see that apologetic methodology, that defense of the faith anywhere in the Bible.

The idea that God maybe doesn't exist, or he's more statistically probable that he exists. Now, the Christian faith comes with things like the heavens declare the glory of God. The fool says in his heart there is no God.

You capture that? Now, I want the meme that goes out like that. It's the Christian at the podium that says, the fool says in his heart there is no God. Not that God is a mere possibility. Because you see, this is a question about ultimate commitments.

Apologetics as a Defense of the Christian Faith

Because when we talk about Christian apologetics, over this course we're going to talk about basic Christian apologetics. Maybe talk about a little more advanced stuff as we're here.

We'll see where we go.

But we're going to talk also about Mormonism and lead that into a discussion of how do we actually reach our Mormon neighbors. But this entire series is going to actually assume something. And here's what will be assumed throughout the entire course.

And that is that Jesus Christ is the truth. That Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority. That God is the central reference point in all questions of knowledge and truth. And that apart from God we can't know anything.

So we're going to actually argue in this course that the proof of the Christian faith is that apart from God you can't prove anything at all. We're going to prove the Christian faith from the impossibility of the contrary.