Biblical Christianity claims to be an exclusive faith. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (Jn 14:6). This claim was echoed by the apostles as they preached Jesus: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved,” (Acts 4:12). The claim that there are many ways to God is utterly incompatible with biblical Christianity.

But it is precisely this exclusive claim that many modern people find so objectionable. And so this week’s question is one of the most common – if not the most common – objection to the Christian faith in Western countries: there cannot be only one true religion.

One way to begin to answer this objection is with a question: why not?

Why should there not be only one true religion? After all, few people get upset about exclusivity in other aspects of reality. Take physics, for example: when was the last time you heard somebody protest that the laws of physics only work in certain ways? Or take human physiology: do people waste ink writing editorials protesting the intolerance of the human lungs as the only true way to breathe?

Of course not. People are willing to accept that gravity is gravity and lungs are lungs. This is simply how reality is. But if we accept the fact that physical and biological reality is exclusive, why do we object to the same claim applied to spiritual reality?

The reason is that there is a hidden assumption in the objection, there cannot be only one true religion. The assumption lurking in this objection is that religious truth is not a matter of fixed principles (like gravity and lungs), but rather a matter of personal preference. But is this true?

If it is true that religion is merely a matter of personal preference, then God – however one chooses to define ‘God’ – is ultimately indifferent to the spiritual behavior of human beings. Now at this point one might simply shrug and say, So what? That doesn’t sound too bad! What’s the problem?

The problem is that the belief that God is ultimately indifferent to our spiritual behavior is itself an exclusive religious claim! Christianity says there is only one way to God. Critics say there is not only one way to God. Each of these positions makes a religious claim that, if correct, rules out the other. In other words, as Timothy Keller puts it in his book The Reason for God, “It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.”

The fact is that every person on this planet is exclusive in their religious opinions, whether they will acknowledge it or not. So it is no good objecting that there cannot be only one true religion. None of us truly believes that. Deep down, we are all exclusive – just in different ways. The question to ask then is not, can there be only one true religion, but rather, what is the one true religion?

Some say that this question – what is the one true religion? – is unanswerable. But is it? Let us consider the necessary qualities which the one true religion must possess.

Firstly, the one true religion must explain both the diversity and unity in reality. Reality is divided into numerous objects, but all objects are united by overlapping logical categories. For example, we see individual apples for sale at the store, yet we know that each individual apple is also part of a larger class of objects called ‘apples.’ Philosophers call this the problem of “universals” – the problem of “the one and the many.” What explains it?

In the history of human thought, many attempted explanations have been offered to this problem. Plato thought universals such as “appleness” existed in a separate realm from actual apples. Aristotle thought that “appleness” existed in the shared mass of all individual apples. The Scottish philosopher David Hume believed “appleness” was a figment of human imagination, and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant thought “appleness” was a category existing in the human mind and imposed on the chaos of reality. The problem with all these views is that none of them can explain how “appleness” actually connects to apples.

Secondly, the one true religion must explain the existence and universally binding character of all the laws of nature: laws of language, logic, physics, etc.  All of these laws make reality work – but what made the laws themselves, and what makes them continue to work?

Thirdly, the one true religion, whichever it may be, cannot be a religion which originates from man. Why not? Because human beings are finite. We are neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. We lack both the knowledge and power to make any universally binding spiritual pronouncements. Any pronouncements we make would simply be our subjective opinions. Consequently, the one true religion must be a religion of revelation. The authority of this revelation cannot come from any man, otherwise we are back to the problem of subjective opinions. No; in the one true religion, the revelation must be self-authenticating – it must get its authority directly from the divine.

Only biblical Christianity fits all three qualifications. Only the God of the Bible – who himself is one God existing eternally in three Persons – is able to create many particular apples that all share in the one universal quality of “appleness.” In the same way, it is only because the God of the Bible both created and continues to sustain the universe that the laws of nature exist and work everywhere (Col 1:16-17, Heb 1:2-3). Lastly, it is only biblical Christianity that is based not on human authority, but on the revelation of the Old and New Testaments “breathed out by God” (2 Tim 3:16) and in which the “Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth,” (1 Jn 5:6).

Want to experience biblical Christianity, the one true religion? Join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!

Fewer questions are more important for genuine Christian spirituality than the question we consider this week: how does God reveal himself today?

All Bible-believing Christians believe that God reveals certain general things about himself in creation. David writes in the Psalms, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork,” (Ps. 19:1). The Apostle Paul writes in Romans that God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made,” (Rom. 1:20). Theologians speak of these things as general revelation.

Yet when it comes to the question of special revelation – that revelation of God and of his will which is necessary for human beings to be reconciled to God – many sincere Christians disagree sharply. Some claim that God reveals himself not only in the Bible, but also by extraordinary means such as prophecies, tongues, and healings. Others are more cautious, yet still believe that God may reveal himself in visions, dreams, or strong feelings of “being led” to certain courses of action. A third group believes that God has ceased using extraordinary means and reveals himself today only in the Bible.

For the remainder of this article, we will refer to these groups using two terms. For the third group we will use the name cessationists, because they believe that all extraordinary revelation has ceased. For the first two groups we will use the term non-cessationists, since they both agree (in different degrees) that extraordinary revelation has not ceased.

Logically, the cessationist and non-cessationist positions are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be correct. One or the other must be an error, however well-intentioned. So which is it? Before answering the question directly, we might rightly raise another: Does this question matter?

The answer is yes: it matters tremendously. Why? Because it affects how we live our daily lives. For example, take the following thoughts: How can I tell whether God is angry or happy with me? How can I tell if a course of action I’m considering is God’s leading or simply my own fancy? The answers to both hinge on how we answer the bigger question: how does God reveal himself today?

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church believes that the Bible teaches cessationism. Though we believe that the early church in the first century enjoyed a full measure of extraordinary gifts, we believe that these former ways of God revealing himself to his people have now ceased. We believe that God still reveals himself today, but only in the Bible. Why do we believe this?

To answer this question, we must begin by exploring the purpose of the extraordinary gifts in the early church. Why did God pour out such gifts when the church was young? The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians that God gave the extraordinary gifts for “building up,” (1 Cor. 14:26). Paul says in Ephesians that the church is the “household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” (Eph. 2:19-20). Like a house built to last, the church needed to be established on a solid foundation. This was the purpose of the extraordinary gifts.

Secondly, how were extraordinary gifts imparted? The book of Acts shows us that after the first initial outpouring of spiritual gifts on Jews (2:1-4) and Gentiles (10:44-46), all subsequent gifts were imparted only by the laying on the apostles’ hands (Acts 8:14-20, 19:6). Paul alludes to this in Romans when he says that he longs to visit the church in Rome, “that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you,” (Rom. 1:11). This point must be underlined: though many non-apostles exercised extraordinary spiritual gifts, extraordinary spiritual gifts could only be imparted by the apostles personally.

The third point to consider is, does the office of apostle continue in the church today? The biblical answer is no. Although Judas the traitor was replaced, James the martyr was not (Acts 12:1-2) – and Paul explicitly states that he was the last and least of the apostles: “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,” (1 Cor. 15:8-9).

If we put these three considerations together, a definite picture emerges: for the sake of laying a solid foundation in the early church, God granted the apostles, who could not be in every congregation at once, the ability to impart extraordinary spiritual gifts. These extraordinary gifts attested to the authority of the gospel (Rom. 15:18-19, 2 Cor. 12:12, Heb. 2:3-4). But as the apostles disappeared from history – often by martyrdom – so too did the ability to impart extraordinary spiritual gifts. Thus these gifts must necessarily have ceased within a generation of the apostles’ passing.

But we must not miss a fourth point: what else was happening during the apostolic period of the early church? During the same period in which the extraordinary gifts were being exercised, the New Testament was being written. The Lord Jesus Christ had promised his apostles that the Holy Spirit would help them remember what he had taught them (Jn. 14:26), and for the sake of the church this revelation was committed wholly to writing (Jn. 20:30-31). Indeed, Paul writes that the essence of his job as an apostle was to reveal “the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,” (Eph. 3:4-5).

Why is this significant? The completion of the New Testament was significant because it was always intended to be the permanent replacement for the extraordinary gifts. The writer to the Hebrews says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,” (Heb. 1:1-2).

In his last letter as he awaits death, Paul too speaks of the “last days” – but points his protégé Timothy not to continuing prophecy, but to Scripture: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work,” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word,” (4:1-2). Several verses later, Paul informs Timothy that he had to leave a sick friend behind on his travels (4:20). How had Paul, who once raised a dead man (Acts 20:9-12), become unable to heal a mere illness? The reason is that the extraordinary gifts were ceasing – even during the apostles’ lifetimes.

Likewise the apostle Peter, who personally witnessed the Transfiguration and preached at Pentecost, at the close of his life points the church toward something “more sure, the prophetic word,” which “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” (2 Pet. 1:19-21). At the end of this same letter, Peter commends the letters of Paul to his readers, calling them “Scriptures,” (3:14-17).

But if the extraordinary gifts attested to the authority of the gospel, and these gifts have now ceased, what attests to the authority of the gospel – or the Bible – today?

The Apostle John answers this question in his first letter: “the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth,” (1 Jn. 5:6). God the Holy Spirit testifies to the authority of the Bible – the authority of the Words which he himself “breathed out,” (2 Tim. 3:16).

But doesn’t this limit God?

If God himself chose to replace extraordinary spiritual gifts with a permanent written revelation, how does that limit him? In fact, the only person limited in this case is me: I am constrained to follow God’s inerrant Word, rather than my own feelings. But even this is not true limitation. To the contrary, it is spiritual liberation!

How is it spiritually liberating to be limited to the Bible?

Cessationism brings freedom by bringing stability to spiritual life. Because we know that God reveals himself only in his Word, we don’t have to worry whether a nightmare is really an ominous prophecy. I don’t have to wonder whether my “feeling led” is God speaking or simply my desire. In fact, if I ever want to know whether God is angry or happy at me, all I have to do is read the Bible! I never have to wonder what God would say to me; I can open his Word and find out! The Holy Spirit speaks in Scripture. So I open the Bible, ask God to help me understand and apply it, and then pay careful attention to what I read.

If we think about it, the same sort of thing is true in human relationships. If I start reading too much into what I imagine or sense, I might totally misread a person’s intentions. But if I commit to what is objective – what they actually say and do – then I have accurate information on which to evaluate the relationship. If this is true of human relationships, how much more true is it in our relationship to God? So far from bringing limitation to God, this actually liberates man – for it teaches us in daily life to evaluate our spiritual condition not by imagination, but by revelation.

Interested in learning more? Join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!

Previously we looked at the question, “What is the purpose of worship?” We saw that the purpose of worship is to ascribe worth to God – to serve and adore him. We saw, too, that when we worship God properly, we find personal fulfillment.

Many churches today have divided over the issue of proper worship. The controversy often erupts in the area of worship style: should worship be “contemporary” or “traditional”?

The question is more important than it may at first appear. Why? Because the Bible teaches that God is very specific about the way he is worshiped. How do we know this?

Firstly, God gave very specific details about the construction and operation of the first public house of worship – the tabernacle. The book of Exodus devotes six whole chapters to the design of the tabernacle and the regulation for its priests. God spells out in exact detail how the tabernacle is to be constructed – from its dimensions, to its furniture, even down to the materials used for its hooks (Ex 25-30). A bit later it devotes almost another six whole chapters to describe how the tabernacle was built and set up according to this exact plan (Ex 35-40)!

Following these twelve chapters in the book of Exodus, God then devotes the first ten chapters of the book of Leviticus to teaching his people about the proper way to offer sacrifices to him (Lev 1-10). The last of these gives us a very sobering account. In the first public worship service at the new tabernacle, two of the priests decided to exercise a bit of “stylistic liberty.” The Bible tells us what happened:

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. (Leviticus 10:1-2)

Nadab and Abihu attempted to worship God in a way “which he had not commanded them.” The result? God struck them dead.

We should pay attention to this. Why? Because it teaches us that, regardless of good intentions, God rejects all worship which he himself has not commanded. The logical implication of this is clear: the only acceptable way to worship God is the way he tells us to worship him.

If we think about it, this only makes sense. The Bible teaches that God is an infinite spirit, and that we are finite creatures. How could finite creatures ever know how to worship an infinite spirit, unless he told us? Only God can bridge this gap.

Moreover, there is the problem of sin. The Bible tells us that because of sin, even the human mind is corrupt. If God had left us to ourselves, we would all have long ago eagerly “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,” (Rom 1:25). Even Christians are not immune from this corruption of mind (Rom 7:15-23).

These two factors – the radical difference between God and humanity, and the radical corruption of human sin – have important implications for worship. The first shows us that our only hope for proper worship is to worship God in the way he reveals to us. The second shows us that if we attempt to worship God according to our own preferences, we will inevitably slide into idolatry – worshiping ourselves (the creature) rather than God (the Creator).

When we consider all this, the question we raised earlier – should worship be “contemporary” or “traditional”? – begins to appear fundamentally wrong. To speak of “traditional” or “contemporary” worship is to make worship a matter of preference – either in a more conservative or a more liberal direction. But we have just seen that worship is to be determined not by our preference, but only by God’s revelation.

The better question to ask then is this: how does God tell us to worship him? To put the question this way expresses the matter in a way that both honors and listens to God. How does it listen to God? God speaks to us in his Word. Thus to learn how God tells us to worship him, all we need do is carefully study the Bible – looking for exact commands, particular examples, and precise principles which apply to public worship. Thus we ought to speak not of “traditional” or “contemporary” worship, but only of biblical worship.

In studying the Bible, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has determined that there are nine elements of biblical worship: a call to worship, the reading of Scripture, the preaching of Scripture, the sacraments, the blessings (salutation and benediction); public prayer, congregational singing, confession of faith, and bringing of offerings.

What about music? For many, this is the crux of the question.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church understands music to be a beautiful and helpful aide to congregational singing, but not an independent element of worship. For this reason, music must be used very judiciously. So far as it may aid the congregation in praising God, it can and should be employed with dignity and excellence (Heb 12:28). But music must never control the worship or turn into a performance. For this reason, the vast majority of Orthodox Presbyterian Churches sing the historic hymns and psalms of the church accompanied by simple, classical instrumentation.

In practice, this means that biblical worship services in Orthodox Presbyterian Churches tend to resemble “traditional” services. But this is not tradition for tradition’s sake. Rather, it is a sincere attempt to worship God according to the beautiful simplicity of the Bible.

But why is such worship so dull?

This is a fair question, but perhaps it needs to be rearranged. As written, it assumes the problem is with the worship. But what if the problem is not with the worship, but with us? What if worship seems so dull to us because we are dull? What if we have so over-stimulated ourselves in the bazaar of culture that we have dulled our senses to the theatre of the eternal?

The Bible teaches us that worship is not a matter of human preference, but a matter of divine service. But it also promises us that when we serve faithfully in divine worship, we will enjoy it more than we imagine: “Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” (Ps 100:2); “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore,” (Ps 16:11).

Do you want to experience the joy of biblical worship? Join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!

Our modern word ‘worship’ comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘worthiness.’ This tells us that the essence of worship is to ascribe worth. This is how the Bible uses the term: “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness,” (Psalm 29:2).

But what is the purpose of worship?

The best place to go to answer this question is the Bible itself. Psalm 100 gives us an excellent, full-orbed answer:

A Psalm for giving thanks.
1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!
3 Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

From this psalm we should notice four things. Firstly, worship is service (v. 2): the goal is not to serve ourselves, but to serve God. Secondly, worship is adoration – ascribing worthiness to God for who he is (v. 3) and for what he has done (v. 5). Thirdly, worship establishes communion. The Hebrew word for ‘know’ (v. 3) implies intimacy, a loving communication. This communication has both horizontal and vertical components: Christians commune with one another as they commune with God. Fourthly, worship brings fulfillment. Because Christians belong to God (v. 3), in worshiping him they are refreshed (Exodus 23:12) and blessed (Psalm 16:9-11). Jesus said that when Christians gather together in his name, he himself is present (Matthew 18:20). And in thus drawing near to the glorious God, Christians are themselves “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It is crucially important that we not reverse the order in all this. What do we mean?

The Bible teaches that if we seek to serve and adore God in worship, we will find personal fulfillment. But the reverse is not true. If our primary goal in worship is personal fulfillment, we will not ultimately succeed. Why not? Because we have neither adored nor served God, the source of joy (Psalm 16:11)!

When we put personal fulfillment before God’s glory, we attempt to turn the Creator into a commodity. When we make worship about fulfilling people rather than glorifying God, we make people into idols and God into a credit card. Such behavior is not the worship of God. It is the worship of self.

The purpose of true worship, then, is to serve and adore God. If we do this faithfully according to the way God shows us, we will find fulfillment. Why? Because it is what we were made for: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever,” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 1). Note both the singular and the plural in this statement. Human beings have only one primary purpose. But that one primary purpose is like a coin with two sides: enjoying God cannot be separated from glorifying him.

Do you want to glorify and enjoy God? Join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this coming Lord’s Day!

Most people today will acknowledge the fact that a man named Jesus once walked the earth. Many of them will also acknowledge that this man Jesus suffered a horrific death by crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Empire. Yet how many people believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead?

For many, the idea that Jesus walked out of his tomb three days after being nailed to his cross is simply ridiculous. For such folks, the resurrection is one of the most outrageous claims in the entire Bible. Who in their right mind really believes that a man can truly die and then return from the dead? For a skeptic, then, the resurrection has to be hoax: either Jesus did not really die, or he did not really rise again. To maintain otherwise – to believe in a real crucifixion and a real resurrection – would be as crazy as to believe the world is flat.

Is the resurrection then just an elaborate hoax, or is it literal history?

The first thing that we should ask ourselves is this: by what standard will I judge? What evidence would I be willing to accept?

Here the example of a “flat earth” is actually very helpful. Very few of us today believe that the world is flat. But why not? Is it because we have each flown into outer space and witnessed firsthand that our planet is a spheroid? No, of course not. We believe the earth is round not on the evidence of personal observation, but on the evidence of reliable testimony. Credible witnesses tell us what they have observed, and we have no evidence that demonstrates they are wrong. Therefore, we believe them.

But if we are willing to be convinced by this secondhand standard regarding the shape of our world, why would we not be willing to accept it regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ? If the testimony of the New Testament is reliable, and there is no evidence to prove it wrong, then it is the skeptic and not the Christian who runs the risk of being a spiritual “flat-earther.”

But is the testimony of the New Testament reliable?

Everything indicates that it is. When the first reports came in that Jesus had been raised, even the Bible admits that the apostles were skeptical. The reports “seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them,” (Lk 24:11). Even after ten of the apostles had seen Jesus alive, an eleventh – the famous “Doubting Thomas” – refused to simply go along with the story: “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe,” (Jn 20:25). It was not until a week later – when Thomas saw Jesus for himself – that Thomas confessed his skepticism had been wrong. Having seen Jesus alive again firsthand, he joined the other apostles to become the credible witnesses who provided the reliable testimony recorded in the New Testament.

But think about what this means. If the resurrection were a hoax, why would the New Testament record that even the apostles had their doubts? If it were all just an elaborate scam intended to deceive people, why would the New Testament open the door to doubts in this way? Such reporting is not the stuff of fabrication. But it does have the believable ring of truth. It tells us that the apostles were real people, and that the idea of resurrection was not a piece of popular folklore easy to swallow.

What about contradicting evidence?

The obvious piece of contradicting evidence would have been the body of Jesus. If anything could have proved the resurrection a lie, it would have been a body. But what is so often overlooked is the fact that even the enemies of the Christians don’t argue with them about the resurrection. When two of the apostles are put on trial, the Jewish leaders never asked, “Where did you stuff the body?” The empty tomb is not even questioned! The New Testament tells us the reason for this is that the chief priests had already bribed Roman soldiers – who had witnessed the resurrection – to lie about it (Mt 28:1-15)! Even the enemies of the infant church knew there was no body in the ground to exhume. The fact of the empty tomb was undeniable and glaring. It remains so today.

Perhaps the most significant line of evidence is the way in which the New Testament hangs everything about Christianity on the fact of the resurrection. The apostle Paul puts it most clearly: “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain,” (1Cor 15:14). Do you understand what Paul is doing here?

Paul is taking a titanic risk. He is laying everything on the reality of the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Show me the body,” says Paul in essence, “and I will admit it is all a fraud.” Christianity crumbles if Christ is not raised. Why is this such a compelling piece of evidence? Paul wrote this letter in the first century, less than thirty years after the crucifixion. If he knew that Jesus’s body was secretly buried somewhere, would he have written such a dangerous statement? If he knew that the resurrection was a hoax, wouldn’t he have hedged his bets in some way – just in case some clever skeptic found the body? For that matter, there were just as many skeptics in Paul’s own day as in our own! If the body of Jesus was in the ground to be found, would it not have been found and displayed publicly?

But the enemies of the church have never produced the body. There is no evidence that contradicts the testimony of the New Testament. The New Testament itself displays an honesty not found in a piece of mythology. All this points us toward an inexorable conclusion: the testimony of the New Testament is reliable. And if so, then we are drawn to an even more significant conclusion…

The literal resurrection of Jesus Christ was no hoax. The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is literal history.

To learn more about the significance of what the reality of Jesus’s resurrection means for all of life, join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!

For nearly twenty centuries, the Christian Church has claimed that Jesus Christ was no mere man, but rather is both God and man. From the ancient creed of Athanasius to the Reformation catechism of Westminster, the Church has claimed that Jesus Christ was, and continues to be, “God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.”

Yet for many modern people, this claim seems absurd. Most will admit that a man called Jesus lived in Palestine some two thousand years ago. Yet most will insist that whoever this Jesus may have been, he cannot be as the Church has claimed. For such skeptics, the question thus becomes: who is the historical Jesus?

A range of alternative theories have been proposed. In the twentieth century, Rudolf Bultmann attempted to “demythologize” the Gospels by denying the historicity of everything in them which he deemed objectionable to modern man. His goal was to find the historical Jesus, but by the time he was finished Bultmann concluded that he did not have enough left over to tell him anything substantial. In the twenty-first century, Dan Brown has attempted to do something similar on a more popular level. In his novel The Da Vinci Code, Brown has one of his characters make the bold claim that the deity of Jesus Christ was fabricated by the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325.

Aside from these more complicated proposals, the most popular explanation for the historical Jesus among those who deny the Bible was that Jesus was simply a good moral teacher. In sense he was like Buddha or Confucius: an inspiring guru, but certainly not the God of the universe.

What do all of the above proposals have in common? They claim to be open-minded, but in reality they are closed-book. All of them refuse to open the Bible and take what it says about Jesus on its own terms. Assuming in advance that the Bible cannot possibly be true, they have no choice left but to cast about for some alternative explanation of the identity of Jesus. The results are often creative – but they are hardly credible.

The only credible way to answer the question of the historical Jesus is to answer it from the primary sources – the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What do we learn when we take this approach?

What we see is that dispute about the identity of Jesus is nothing new. His opponents said he was demon-possessed (Jn 8:48). The crowds thought he was an Old Testament prophet brought back to life (Lk 9:7-9). His disciples confessed him to be the Christ – the promised Messiah of Israel (Mk 8:29). Jesus himself claimed to be the Son of God (Mt 26:63-64), equal to the Father (Jn 10:30).

It is this latter claim – Jesus’s claim to be God – that rules out the most popular alternative explanation to his identity. C.S. Lewis explained the significance of this in 1943 in his book Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Lewis’s conclusion stands to this day. The Bible does not permit us to write Jesus off as simply a “great moral teacher.” He was either a liar or a lunatic – or he is the Lord of the universe, God in the flesh. There is no alternative.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church believes what the Bible says about Jesus. Together with the historic Church, we confess that the historical Jesus was, and continues to be, “God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.”

There is no question more relevant to human life today than the question of Jesus. If Jesus is who the Bible claims he is, then every issue of human life and destiny depends on having the right relationship to him. Do you have this right relationship?

To learn more about the historical Jesus according to the Bible, join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!

For many people today, Bible-believing Christianity seems like a ridiculous proposition. “After all,” they will say, “The Bible is full of errors.” But is it?

To begin, it should be admitted that if the Bible is full of errors, then the critics are correct: Bible-believing Christianity would be as ridiculous as every other religion. A religion based on a work of fiction is nothing but a dangerous fairy tale. So if the Bible contains errors, the Christian is ultimately no better off than the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Muslim, the Wiccan – or the Jedi.

But are there errors in the Bible? No. The historic position of the Christian Church, and the position of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church today, is that the Bible is inerrant – without error in the original. We confess that the original documents of the Bible in the original languages, though written through men, were directly inspired by God and thus protected from any error.

To many people today, this position seems antiquated and absurd. Skeptics may point out that the church no longer has the original documents of the Bible – only copied manuscripts, some of which disagree. They may further point to various places in the Bible where they perceive a contradiction or an error. These objections should be taken seriously. How do those committed to the inerrancy of the Bible respond?

To the first objection, it is true that what the Church has today are not the original biblical documents, but collections of copied manuscripts. But what manuscripts! The Hebrew Old Testament was preserved over many centuries by a group of scholars known as the ‘Masoretes’. The Masoretes were extraordinarily careful scholars. For example, at the end of each book they included a postscript listing the number of verses, the number of letters, the middle word, and the middle letter! This made it easy for copyists to check the accuracy of their work. The diligence of the Masoretes is unrivaled in the preservation of ancient literature.

For the Greek New Testament, approximately 5000 whole or partial manuscripts exist today. No other book from the ancient world is so well-attested. By careful study and comparison of these manuscripts, biblical scholars have been able to reconstruct the original text with great certainty. At those few points where questions still remain over the original reading, the various possible readings affect no fact or doctrine.

In sum, no ancient text has been so well-preserved as the Bible.

To the second objection, the first thing to be noted is that many alleged difficulties in the Bible only appear as such to those who assume in advance the impossibility of the supernatural. For example, many modern critics deny the reality of the biblical miracles. Why? “Because miracles are impossible!” But this is not an argument or evidence. It is an assumption. And this assumption is just as much a faith commitment as the faith which believes in miracles! Skeptics assume that the Bible is erroneous, and so they find errors. On the other hand, Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant, and so they seek resolutions to difficulties.

Are there difficulties in the Bible? Yes. Yet these difficulties do not mean that the Bible is full of errors – they only mean that Christians and honest skeptics have a full investigation before them! And there are tools available. One excellent resource is the New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer. Another time-tested resource is John Haley’s Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible.

Are there errors in the Bible? No. Yet Christians committed to the inerrancy of the Bible do not shun the hard questions. Rather, we seek honest answers – from both skeptics and the Scriptures.

Want to experience honest, rigorous Christianity for yourself? Join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!

First and foremost, an Orthodox Presbyterian is a Presbyterian Christian who believes what the Bible says, and seeks to live by it. Why Presbyterian? The Bible teaches that God has entrusted the oversight and care of his church to godly men called ‘elders.’ The Greek word for ‘elder’ is presbyteros (Presbyterian).

But what is an ‘Orthodox’ Presbyterian?

The word ‘orthodox’ is derived from a combination of two Greek words: orthos (straight) and doxa (notion). It means “correct doctrine” or “straight teaching.” The name indicates both the history and commitment of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was organized in 1936 after a long struggle against false teaching in the mainline Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA). During the 1920s, the PCUSA had begun openly to permit ministers who did not believe they were bound to such key articles of the Christian faith as the inerrancy of the Bible or the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. To this day, the PCUSA continues to deny these and other clear teachings of the Bible.

Is there an alternative to the PCUSA for Bible-believing Presbyterians today? Yes.

Today, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) continues to confess the historic Christian faith – including such key articles as the inerrancy of the Bible, the full deity of Jesus Christ, his death as the only substitute for sinners, and his bodily resurrection from the dead.

Another helpful way to think about the OPC is to substitute the word ‘original’ for ‘orthodox.’ The OPC is committed to the original faith and practice of Bible-believing Presbyterian Christians: historic worship, traditional values, and biblical preaching.

To read more about the OPC, visit: What is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church? Or, to experience the OPC for yourself, join us for worship at Resurrection OPC this Sunday!