Lord’s Supper Meditation – Exchange of Natures

A Twilight Musing

           In the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper are figures of the exchange of natures between Christ and ourselves:  In the bread is seen His assumption of our flawed humanity; in the wine is seen our divinely enabled appropriation of His perfect life.  However, in order to appropriate His action on our behalf we must experience something of the sublime tension created by the merger of Holy Spirit with mortal body.

           Satan’s greatest weapon against mankind has always been the dichotomy between body and spirit brought about through sin.  Moreover, fallen man has developed spiritual antibodies that resist the reintroduction of that divine Presence to which originally Adam and Eve were perfectly adapted.  Consequently, Satan’s first temptation of the Second Adam, Jesus, was the suggestion that He turn the stones into bread, an action which would have fed the body at the expense of the soul and would have reinforced their isolation from each other.  Jesus refused, not because the body of was of no worth, but because, for the time being, it had to be radically denied in order that the Spirit of God might once more flourish there and restore it to its former glory.  In that refusal, Jesus paved the way for us to reject obsession with the body, the too-narrow view of ourselves which keeps us from the life-giving Word of the Father.   But at the same time, if we are to drink the burning cordial of Jesus’ blood, which God desires to pour into us, we must first borrow strength from the body of Jesus’ incarnation, which He sanctified to be a fit vessel for the life from above.

           Thus, partaking of the Lord’s Supper should be a somewhat wrenching experience; for in eating the bread we acknowledge the right and ability of Christ to invade and transform the physical world, and in drinking the wine, we voluntarily accept the elixir by which the composition of our corrupted being is changed.  Our partaking of Christ may—indeed, should—entail the pain of sacrifice, but it is also the pain of fulfillment, conducting us from the futility of the Old Adam to the restored life of the New Adam.

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 Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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The Moral Argument as a Scientifically-Minded Approach to Understanding God

Last week, an experienced and prominent physician told me that faith was utter nonsense, and that only empirical study has value. He expressed irritation at people of faith, any faith, who “obstinately cling to things they say are true and happened thousands of years ago because they say they are true and are unwilling to consider proof.” I asked him what he would think of a group that agrees with him about the value of explaining faith, that craves intellectually rigorous and defensible answers and seeks them out, but that comes to different conclusions from his because we value many types of evidence. He is a researcher, after all – could he with any intellectual honesty brush aside the conclusions of people as intelligent as he and better studied in a particular area? What did he think of this new thing I described; what did he think of apologetics?

“I think,” he replied after a pause, “apologists sound like scientists. I would tell you that if they, if you, seek intellectually defensible answers, then you are in the realm of science. You have moved beyond faith at that point, which means that you make more sense to me, but that you cannot come to any conclusion that does not have facts.”

I do not agree with this doctor’s extremely exalted view of science. I noticed his consistent and mistaken notion of faith, and his narrow view of what constitutes evidence. I thought of how very modern is the notion that science and theism are at odds, and of everything I know about the historical validity of the Resurrection. Data flooded my brain and arguments poured into my mind, but not onto my lips. The Spirit formed more simple words.

“You know from whence scientific study arose, don’t you?” I asked. “This entire way of studying the world, the observation and thinking that you value so much, began as a quest for knowledge of God. Your statement that we are in the realm of science by professing faith is a foregone conclusion. Science arose and has been sustained in the realm of faith.”

“Quite right,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, “but…” A knock from the next patient sounded on the door.

Time will tell whether this conversation continues, but in the meantime, it is worth replying that I believe the researcher is correct in his assessment of apologetics as being like science in some real respects. If we think specifically of moral apologetics as a study of human behavior and a quest to best explain that behavior, we see how both fields look for trends and seek to explain them. Clinical researchers often criticize me for the assertion that apologists could possibly think like scientists – apologetics is too soft, they say, there’s too much philosophy and not enough numbers - but they’ll stay for a conversation of trends.

These critics hold a deficient notion of philosophy, in my opinion, but both sides tend to agree that there is proof in actualized human behavior, outside of what we read in books or theorize about in laboratories or classrooms, whether we have gone to the trouble to assign numbers to the behavior or not. The intellectual curiosity shared by apologists and scientists creates great potential for fruitful interaction. Is it a surprise, then, that scientist Francis Collins, former lead of the Human Genome Project and current Director of the National Institutes of Health, credits the moral argument with his conversion from atheism to Christianity?[1]

Collins adopts the position in Language of God that science cannot fully reveal God or answer our questions about God, because claims concerning God go beyond what modern scientists consider empirical evidence. The discussion mirrors a debate that has long raged in history over whether historians are justified in exploring claims of miracles, including those surrounding Jesus Christ and the Resurrection, and the theme here is the same – what are the limits of empirical study and where do they fall? Are there limits?

Though apologetics often starts with reason apart from special revelation, when it comes to things beyond human understanding in the given moment, we can look to the Bible for ways of knowing. In the Scriptures, we find these truths:

1.      God made man in his image (Gen 1:26-28).

2.      Creation as an image, then, constitutes a relationship between God and man.

3.      God crafted man from the dust of a world created by God (Gen 2:7), rather than “poof!”ing man into existence.

4.      Therefore, the dust is important to man's nature.[2]

5.      Man, then, has a relationship both with God and with the dust.

6.      Conversely, the study of this dust must be at root a study of God and of humanity.

7.      Therefore, the things that we learn in the study of this dust are things we learn about God and about humanity.

8.      Finally, our reactions to the study of this dust, and the things we learn about God through study of the dust, are indicative and reflective of our relationship with God.

That last bit? That is the moral argument manifest in scientific study. What a fitting conclusion for the subjects of a God who created and then “saw” that creation was good (Gen 1:4). The NET Bible tells us in translation notes that the verb “saw” in this passage carries the meaning “reflected on,” “surveyed,” “concluded.” God created, God observed, and God drew a conclusion. Sounds a lot like science, to me. We are justified, then, in immersing ourselves in science for the sake of drawing closer to God, and we are justified in upholding the moral argument as, in certain respects, an empirical and even scientifically-minded approach to understanding God. Much work remains to be done, but given these conclusions I believe that yes, expansively empirical apologetics can be developed and effectively deployed in the world of modern science. The moral argument is a powerfully salient example.

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[1] Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006), 22.

[2] There are many perspectives on imago Dei, and the specifics of any given interpretation of what it means to be made in God's image influence how we might explain this relationship between man and the dust from which he was formed. Look for more discussion in blogs to come.

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Jan Shultis is a Naval Academy graduate, author of two books, and Associate Editor at moralapologetics.com who plans to pursue her DMin at Houston Baptist University. After 14 years in uniform serving around the U.S. and in Afghanistan, she founded a faith-based non-profit focused on veterans, law enforcement, first responders, and families that supports warriors in need throughout Texas, with a special focus on ministry in local courts and jails. Jan brings to the Moral Apologetics team additional professional experience in biotechnology, public relations, and ethics curriculum development. Jan shares that she is extremely excited to spearhead the Center’s innovative exploration of the organic connections between moral apologetics and moral injury, including but not limited to military veterans. She is local to Houston and looks forward to contributing to the Center’s robust on-campus presence at HBU

Meditation on the Lord’s Supper – Drinking the Blood

A Twilight Musing

One is made to wonder why the major activity of group worship for Christians involves the symbolic drinking of blood, since the eating of blood with meat was forbidden under the Mosaic Law (Lev. 7:26) and was offensive to many early Christians (Acts 15:20).  Under the Old Covenant, to have eaten the blood of animals, even as a part of the ritual of sacrifice, would have desecrated the sacrifice because there was no power in that blood; it was efficacious only in foreshadowing the shedding of Christ’s blood.  But with the sacrifice of Jesus, the perfect and final Sacrificial Lamb, and His subsequent resurrection, the blood of sacrifice was sanctified and its power made available to us.  Though Christians are still to abstain from the blood of animals, to drink symbolically of the blood of Christ is not sacrilege but a source of life in Him.  His shed blood did not represent merely the giving up of life, as it did in the animals, but also the restoration of life, both in Jesus and in the lives of those who have come to believe in Him.  

And so when we drink the fruit of the vine as if it were the blood of our Lord, we are identified with the shedding of His blood; we are crucified with Christ so that we may be raised in His likeness.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Lord's Supper Meditation: The Real Presence of Christ

 A Twilight Musing

           The Catholic doctrine of the Lord's Supper holds that it re-enacts the sacrifice of Christ on the cross each time it is observed, even to the point of the substance of the bread and wine being turned into the actual body and blood of Christ.  Protestants have correctly rejected that doctrine in its most literal form, but the idea has relevance to what happens to each of us in the observance of this symbolic feast.  If we give ourselves over to the action of God's presence in our lives as we partake of the Lord's Supper, He will enable us repeatedly to sacrifice our bodies so that they are put to death and renewed in service to Him. 

           Perhaps this idea could be used to focus our thoughts more effectively on what it means to die with Christ and to be raised to "newness of life."  I think the most memorable scripture to encapsulate this concept is Gal. 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."  When we take the bread, we are renewing our acceptance of the death of our bodies through identifying with what Jesus did on the cross.  Though we continue to exist in these fleshly shells in order to serve Him on this earth as long as He chooses, they are not the real "us."  Paul goes on to say, "The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God."  Imprisoned as we are by "this body of death" (Rom. 7:24), the only way that we can describe our existence on this earth as life is by faith that God has instilled His life in us through what Christ did on the cross.  Thus, as we partake of the wine, we affirm anew that though we are dead, yet we live through the life-giving blood of Christ.  He empowers us to transcend these sinful and frail bodies and to complete joyfully and purposefully whatever He has set for us to do while we are yet in this world.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Communion Meditation: Drinking the Cup Anew

A Twilight Musing

“I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29).  With these strange words Jesus ended His last Passover with His disciples, and He concluded the institution of a new ceremony by which they were to remember Him and look forward to being finally united with Him for eternity.  Jesus’ statement is open to several interpretations, and perhaps the richness of the passage does not limit it to just one viewpoint; certainly its usefulness in helping us appreciate the Lord’s Supper is varied. 

In the sense that the feast was not to be fully significant until it became a regular observance after the death and resurrection of Christ and after the powerful manifestation of the Kingdom of God on Pentecost, Jesus did indeed “drink it new” with His disciples as they realized that He was yet with them in a new and even more powerful way.

But Jesus was no doubt also looking forward to the perfection of God’s Kingdom when He will have gathered all His own unto Himself in the everlasting communion of the New Heavens and the New Earth.  At that time, John assures us, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (I John 3:2). 

Perhaps, however, we should also consider that this drinking anew really applies every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, for in doing so we renew our faith in Him, and He renews His power in us.   Thus each temporal “new” is a foreshadowing of the perfect, eternal “new” in the Presence of the Father.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Why God May Place More on Us Than We Can Endure

Have you ever heard the phrase, “God will not place more on you than you can endure.” Another way of phrasing the statement is by saying “God will not place more on you than you can bear.” Christians are known for such platitudes. These cliches are well-intentioned as they do not come from malice. Rather, they come from an attempt to condense Christian truths into short, memorable memes or Twitter-worthy statements. But is it true that God will not place more on us than we can bear/endure?

A careful reading of Scripture shows this not to be the case. For instance, Paul writes to the Church of Corinth, “We don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction that took place in Asia. We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us. We have put our hope in him that he will deliver us again 11 while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many” (2 Cor. 1:8-11).[1] Did you catch the phrase in verse 8, “We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength.” From the passage of Scripture, it can be adduced that Paul and his companions were allowed to be tested in a manner that was beyond their ability to handle. This counters the thought behind the aforementioned platitude. It appears that the benevolent God of creation does allow his children to endure hardships that exceed their ability to stand for three reasons.

Affliction Provides the Ability to Comfort (1:3-4, 6-7)

Back in verses 3-4, Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). He continues by saying, “If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort” (2 Cor. 1:6-7). Paul says that their afflictions serve as an example to others. By their suffering and affliction, they are better able to minister to the suffering and afflicted.

Paul denotes a truth that was foreign to the Greco-Roman world in that suffering is not always a bad thing. David Garland writes, “Suffering comes for anyone who preaches the gospel in a world twisted by sin and roused by hostility to God. If God’s apostle experienced so much distress in carrying out his commission, then we can see that God does not promise prosperity or instant gratification even to the most devoted of Christ’s followers.”[2] Roman philosophy presented a different view of their gods. Roman philosopher Cicero believed that the gods produced health, wealth, and security, certainly not affliction.[3] Oddly, many modern Christian circles resemble Roman philosophy more than Christian theology.

Since God is the epitome of the Good, he holds good reasons for permitting afflictions, even those that overwhelm us. Later, the faithful child of God will realize that they were only able to minister to those in need because of, not despite, the afflictions they were allowed to endure. The late Dr. Randy Kilby used to say at Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, “You have to get under the spout where the glory comes out.” By that, he noted that the child of God can only spiritually give what they have been given. Thus, the comfort they receive from God can be used to minister to others in need.

Affliction Portrays God’s Strength (1:5)

Furthermore, Paul holds that overwhelming affliction demonstrates God’s strength working through the believer. Paul writes, “For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows” (1:5). God may allow a person to experience overwhelming problems so that God’s strength is shown through that person. Paul held out hope that as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also the blessings of God will overflow. Paul noted to the Roman Church that “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). That is to say, faithfully enduring hardships while remaining faithful to Christ produces a wealth of rewards that will be fully demonstrated in heaven.

It is often thought that the most important Christians in heaven are those who have the fattest wallets, the fanciest suits, and the biggest homes. However, God’s kingdom is an upside-down kingdom as fully illustrated in Jesus’s Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). On the one hand, the story holds that the man faithful man named Lazarus—though he was poor, downtrodden, and abused by the world—would be greatly rewarded in eternity. On the other hand, a rich man who had everything that money could buy but who neither had any love and compassion for his fellow man nor God landed in the most precarious of eternal circumstances.

But why did a good God design the world in this manner? Paul later answers the question in 2 Corinthians. In chapter 12, he describes an instance where he pleaded with the Lord to remove a thorn in his flesh. He begged the Lord three times to remove his affliction. However, the Lord responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Consider why God chose Israel. The Hebrew people were not mighty like the Egyptians or Philistines. However, through Israel, God’s power was exhibited to the world (Gen. 12:1-3). Bethlehem Ephrathah was chosen as the birthplace of the Messiah even though it was a small and minute town on the edge of nowhere (Micah 5:2). As the prophet Zechariah noted, “‘Not by strength or by might, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of Armies” (Zech. 4:6). Overwhelming affliction may be used by God to demonstrate his power through his vessel to others as an evangelistic tool.

Affliction Promotes Divine Trust (1:8-11)

Finally, affliction promotes divine faith and trust in the Sovereign God. Verse 9 is critical in understanding the passage. Paul denotes that “we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead” (1:9). If a person relied only on one’s strength, where is the need for faith in God? For example, with great practice, a person can become a pool shark. They can run the table on their adversaries. The person trusts in one’s skill set to help the person succeed in the game. However, overwhelming affliction creates a dire need to trust One higher. Since enduring hardships with trust in God produces the fruit of endurance, proven character, and divine hope (Rom. 5:30); it is actually a good thing that God allows us to face overwhelming situations where one’s trust must be placed in the God of creation. Certainly, it will not seem like a good thing while enduring the circumstance. But when God comes through as only God can, then trust is developed. Trust is crucial in healthy relationships. It must be remembered that through the process God is still working out everything for the good of those who love and trust him (Rom. 8:28). The endgame is the most important. Just as parents teach their children hard lessons to help them grow, so God must teach and train us to be the people he desires us to be by permitting hardships in our lives.

Conclusion

I must admit, I have used the phrase “God will not place more on us than we can bear” in my early days as a pastor. While at the time it was thought that the statement was positive and encouraging, it does not necessarily mesh with the teachings of Scripture. In some circles, it is believed that God only provides riches, health, and blessings for his children. Ironically, such belief systems find a home more in the camp of Roman philosophy rather than Christian philosophy. The goodness of the Anselmian God—that which nothing greater can be conceived—may require him to place his children in circumstances that are far beyond what they may endure to produce future blessings that would have only come through their trials of fire. Through the trials of Joseph, God led him to success in Egypt which would eventually be used to save his family and nation from certain doom as a famine ravaged through their land. Through the heartaches and despair of Job, he encountered God in a personal fashion and was eventually blessed double from what he previously owned. Through the horrific execution of Jesus, salvation was offered to the world, and death was defeated. With this in mind, the words of one of my mentors ring true. When facing overwhelming trials, rather than asking, “What are you doing to me, God?” we should rather ask, “What are you doing for me, God?” Therefore, rather than saying, "God will not place more on us than we can endure," perhaps we would be better served in saying, "God will not place more on us than he can endure."

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2007, 2020).

[2] David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, New American Commentary, vol. 29 (Nashville: B&H, 1999), 62.

[3] See Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.36, 87.

Lord’s Supper Meditation: Divine Food

A Twilight Musing 

           When we commune with God through His Son in the Lord’s Supper, we do well to ask ourselves whether we are really hungry for the food offered there.  While our physical bodies need earthly food, for those who have been re-created in Christ another dimension of life has been added.  Jesus’ promise of satisfaction to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matt. 5) is surely partly applicable to the Lord’s Supper, where the communicants partake of heavenly food that sustains their souls. 

We acknowledge our inability to feed ourselves spiritually every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper together, and we admit that we are all needy creatures, not worthy even to have the crumbs from God’s table.  But that attitude puts us in the right frame of mind to realize how privileged we are to be invited to sup together with Jesus. 

           The fare God offers here goes beyond even the miraculous manna in the wilderness and water pouring out of a rock. The new person in Christ must be fed by the Holy Spirit, who will produce in him or her the proper characteristics of the healthy new life: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).  If these qualities are manifested in our lives, we know that we have truly communed together at the Lord’s table.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Communion Meditation: Discerning the Body and Blood of Christ

A Twilight Musing

            “For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.  It follows that anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord.  A man must test himself before eating his share of the bread and drinking from the cup.  For he who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment on himself if he does not discern the body.”  (I Cor. 12:26-29, NEB)

            People sometimes fearfully abstain from partaking of the Lord’s Supper because they feel themselves unworthy.  But it is not these people who are most likely to desecrate the body and blood of the Lord; rather, it is those who partake of the elements with hardly a second thought as to what it means who stand in danger of eating and drinking judgment on themselves.  When Paul warns of the consequences of partaking unworthily (“That is why many of you are feeble and sick”), he may be speaking of physical illness, but he is certainly speaking of spiritual infirmity.  The experience of the Lord’s Supper is so vital and so full of power that one cannot encounter it—any more than he can encounter Christ—in a spirit of mere neutrality.  If he fails to see the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine in a way that strengthens faith, hope, and love within him, he is hardened to the Blessed Presence of his Savior in a corresponding degree to the benefit he might have received. 

Being confronted with Christ demands a decision, and one cannot ignore Him without endangering his spiritual health.  To fail repeatedly to “discern the Body” in Christ’s memorial feast is progressively to commit spiritual suicide.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Lord’s Supper Meditation: Connecting with the Father

A Twilight Musing  

            Jesus’ last discourse with his disciples (as presented in John 14-17) is permeated with references to His Father, as is his whole life.  He makes it clear that the Father is the source of everything that the Son is bringing to the world, and that the Son has no significance except as an interpreter of and an avenue to the Father.  All things are bound up in the Father, for from the Father Jesus proceeded, and to Him He was to return (Jn. 16:28).  Paul says that in the consummation of all things, Christ will “hand over the kingdom to God the Father,” so that “the Son himself will be made subject to Him . . . so that God may be all in all” (I Cor. 15:24-28).  In the account of the Last Supper in Matthew 26, Jesus noted that this last partaking of the wine with them looked forward to the time when He would “drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.“  In view of this complete focus of Jesus on His Father, how should we understand the focus on Jesus and His death (“Do this in remembrance of me”) in our observances of the Lord’s Supper?

            First, our only link with the Father is through the incarnate Son of God, that form in which He was most distinct from God the Father, and the only form in which He could experience the redemptive death necessary for the deliverance of humankind.  Secondly, God, the Father, was in Christ, reconciling Himself through the death of His Son to the world of fallen humans.  So in partaking of the Lord’s Supper, we receive both the Father and the Son, and if the Supper is properly observed, we depart having received anew the grace of the Holy Spirit that enables us to walk in newness of life.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Benefits of Active Listening and Moral Apologetics for the Chaplaincy Ministry

For the first article after having been named a Senior Contributor for MoralApologetics.com, it is only appropriate to acknowledge the tremendous benefit that moral apologetics has served in my present ministry as a clinical hospice chaplain. In September of 2020, I joined a team of nine other individuals who care for patients and their families at the point of death. Numerous individuals have inquired, “How do you do that? Don’t you stay depressed all the time? Isn’t that a heavy job?” Yes, the job can be intense emotionally and spiritually. A fellow chaplain told me that the average duration of a clinical hospice chaplain is generally 2-3 years because of emotional burnout. Ironically, I have found the job to be a blessing. I have seen God move in powerful ways to change lives and to impact people in ways that I was never prepared to see.

Two skills have served as a tremendous benefit for helping me help those most in need. By no means am I saying that I have these skills mastered. I am still learning. Nonetheless, I digress. The first is a skill acquired from my chaplaincy training. Fellow chaplain Jason Kline taught me the benefits of a practice known as active listening. Active listening is a technique that carefully listens to what the person is saying and observes non-verbal cues that communicate what the person is feeling and thinking. More on this in a

While active listening is a tremendous tool, it becomes even more powerful when coupled with training in moral apologetics. This writer was highly honored to participate in Dr. David Baggett’s final course at Liberty University before he made his trek to Houston Baptist University. Truly, Liberty’s loss is HBU’s gain. For me, I wanted to take the course because I had already befriended Dr. Baggett but never had him as a professor. Even if Baggett taught a class on the benefits of chocolate ice cream, I would have taken it because I wanted to say that Dr. Baggett was my professor. Nonetheless, it could not have been more appropriate that the class was on moral apologetics. Furthermore, nothing could have prepared me for the enduring benefits that stemmed from this deeply philosophical and apologetic overview of the moral apologetic landscape. The field of moral apologetics prepared me in numerous ways to be able to help patients as a clinical chaplain and deal with the intense situations that I have encountered in my brief time in the profession. As a caveat, HIPAA laws do not permit the use of personal stories and examples in the chaplaincy field. Thus, this article will only speak in generalities as it pertains to the benefits of both active listening and moral apologetics to the task of chaplaincy ministry. As the article will show, the benefits are not only found in chaplaincy.

Benefits of Active Listening

As previously noted, active listening is a technique whereby a counselor actively participates in the conversation by observing both verbal and non-verbal cues that speak to the person’s emotional, spiritual, and physical condition. Healthline.com suggests that active listening requires eight tasks: 1. Give the person your full attention. 2. Use body language (show them you are interested in the person, don’t just say it). 3. Avoid interrupting the person. 4. Don’t fear the power of silence. 5. Reflect on the person’s communication, don’t parrot them. 6. Validate the person’s feelings. 7. Ask thoughtful questions. 8. Avoid passing judgment or offering advice.[1] All of these tips work well within the framework of moral apologetics. The eighth tip may sound counterintuitive to the apologist’s task because the apologist wants to guide the person to a personal relationship with Christ and/or strengthen his/her relationship with Christ. However, strategically asked questions can provide the same result and will allow the client to own the information for oneself. Furthermore, this fits well into the abductive argument for moral apologetics. Marybeth Baggett avers that the abductive approach “relies on and encourages bridge building, which isn’t helped by treated difficult questions as easier than they are.”[2] It just so happens that active listening works well within the abductive approach. From the brief time this writer has served as a clinical chaplain, it has been observed that the practice of active listening brings about four tremendous benefits.

1.      Encourages dialogue. Just as Baggett argued for the abductive moral argument, so also active listening encourages dialogue. There is a distinct difference between dialogue and monologue. Monologues occur when a person gives a lecture. While this is nice in the university setting, it is not preferred for one-on-one communication. If the counselor or apologist only gives the person what-for, enshrouded in the ideology of “telling it like it is,” the listener will quickly turn off his/her ears and will no longer engage in the conversation. The conversation will quickly devolve and end. However, the effective communicator is willing to hear what the other person says and how they feel. Speaking as an apologist, this is something that is missing in many circles these days.

2.      Identifies personal concerns. Active listening encourages the person to speak about their personal issues and concerns. The counselor and apologist will quickly learn why the person believes what they do. More often than not, a person’s experiences help shape one to become who they will be. Recently, an A&E documentary on the life of WWE legend Rowdy Roddy Piper spoke to the tragic events of Roddy Toombe’s early life that led to his self-destructive habits. Active listening helps to identify and detect those issues.

3.      Allows for self-assessment. The best counselors and apologists are those that can lead individuals to own the information for themselves. This is the very tactic that Jesus used. For example, Jesus asked the disciples who others said that he was before asking them poignantly, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15, CSB). Simon Peter owned the information for himself which came from Jesus’s strategic inquiry.

4.      Reveals personal biases and worldviews. In correlation with the second point, active listening reveals what the person believes. Non-verbal communication can serve as a huge help. Does the person wince or squirm when more difficult theological or spiritual questions are asked? What does this say about the person’s beliefs? Did the person have experiences that led them to their current spiritual reservations? Knowing the seven major worldviews is of immense value as it helps one know the foundation upon which the person’s belief system is based.[3]

Benefits of Moral Apologetics

As was shown, active listening is a powerful technique used to engage and develop a conversation with others. However, questions cannot be one-sided. Sometimes people want to know why a loving God would allow their loved one to suffer. Why is God allowing them to endure hardship and suffering? Simply answering, “Just believe God and all will be well” is not enough. Furthermore, the counselor and/or apologist needs to have a goal in mind. In the case of the moral apologist, the goal is to teach and move a person to accept the good moral nature of an Anselmian God.[4] The use of active listening within the framework of an abductive moral apologetic makes for a powerful means to assist those suffering from moral doubt for the following reasons.

1.      Provides confidence to handle the most difficult situations. Nothing can prepare someone for the outpouring of emotions when tragedy strikes. Different people mourn in different ways. Some may become loud and boisterous, whereas others become depressed and guarded. Having a moral apologetic background grounds the counselor and apologist with the confidence needed to stand amid the turbulent chaos. Like CPR for the EMS worker, ingrained moral apologetic truths become second nature to the trained moral apologetic counselor and apologist and can be quickly accessed.

2.      Grounds a person’s confusion and doubt. Eventually, the counselor and apologist will face a situation that causes them to wonder about why a certain instance occurred. This is natural. The person suffering through the tumultuous time is asking the same question with sevenfold intensity. Nonetheless, the tools in the moral apologist’s toolbox are readily available to assist both the counselor and client during the most difficult of days. Holding fast to God’s benevolent nature anchors one’s emotional and spiritual state.

3.      Reminds of the loving character of God amid the storms. Moral doubt has led many to dark places. Habermas estimates that 70-80% of doubt comes from emotional doubt.[5] Moral apologetics affords the ability to focus on the benevolent nature of God even in a world full of evil and despair. In the end, God’s moral nature is the best explanation for knowing that moral good exists and the intrinsic moral value held by all people, as they are made imagio Dei. Baggett and Walls word it well, noting that “God’s nature as the best explanation of moral good, and the fact that he has created us in his image, constitute an excellent explanation both of why we cannot avoid making moral judgments about the world and of why we cannot escape seeing evil as a problem if there is indeed a gap between the way the world is and the way it ought to be.”[6] Rather than leading the counselor and client away from God because of their moral plight, moral apologetics equips them to come closer to God during the occasion because of the goodness of God and the necessity of God as the best explanation as to why one can make moral claims in the first place.

4.      Acknowledges a better day to come. Hope can help a person through the most decadent times. Viktor Frankl reminisces on the power of hope after having survived the torturous Nazi death camps. He recalls, “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.”[7] What hope does materialism offer with one’s suffering? Nothing. Moral apologetics acknowledges that a benevolent Anselmian God holds the very best in mind for his children’s future. While things may appear grim at present, a better day is coming. As I hope to show in a book I am currently writing—if God is that than which nothing greater could be perceived, then the final hope for his children is that than which nothing greater could be anticipated. The believer has hope for a perfect world created by a perfect God.

Conclusion 

Quite honestly, this article has only skimmed the surface of the great depths that the combination of active listening and moral apologetics extends to the counselor and apologist. However, this combination is not only limited to chaplaincy, but it can also be useful for every field and profession. From the academic professor to the local pastor and everyday Christian, these practices can enrichen one’s life and relationships. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the practice of active listening disarms a person from being on edge from thinking that he/she must prove one’s intellectual prowess. In most cases, the active listener allows the other person to do the most talking. Additionally, the strength from having a moral apologetic background encourages both counselor and client alike that they are not defined by the bad situations endured, but rather they are defined by a God who loves them and cares for them more than one could ever realize. What could be better than that?

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About the Author 

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics, and a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain and a Senior Contributor for MoralApologetics.com.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

[1] Crystal Raypole, “Active Listening: Why it Matters and 8 Tips for Success,” Healthline.com (December 15, 2020), https://www.healthline.com/health/active-listening.

[2] David Baggett and Marybeth Baggett, The Morals of the Story: Good News about a Good God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 51.

[3] See Brian G. Chilton, Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics: Bridging the Essentials of Apologetics from the Ivory Tower to the Everyday Christian (Eugene, OR: Resource, 2019), 40-43.

[4] That is, “God is the ground of being without whom nothing else can exist.” David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, God & Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 64.

[5] Habermas in Chilton, LMOCA, 75.

[6] Baggett and Walls, God & Cosmos, 96.

[7] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston, MS: Beacon, 2006), 74.

Lord’s Supper Meditation: Children of the Father

A Twilight Musing

            Jesus’ last discourse with his disciples (as presented in John 14-17) is permeated with references to His Father--as is his whole life.  He makes it clear that the Father is the source of everything that the Son is bringing to the world, and that the Son has no significance except as an interpreter of and an avenue to the Father.  From the Father Jesus proceeded, and to Him He was to return (Jn. 16:28).  Paul says that in the consummation of all things, Christ will “hand over the kingdom to God the Father,” so that “the Son himself will be made subject to him,” and “God may be all in all” (I Cor. 15:24-28).  In the account of the Last Supper in Matthew 26, Jesus noted that this last partaking of the wine with them looked forward to the time when He would “drink it anew with [them] in [His] Father’s kingdom.”  What is to be made of the complete focus of Jesus on His Father as it relates to the institution of the Lord’s Supper?

            Perhaps the key to answering this question lies in Jesus’ emphasis in His last discourse to His disciples on the oneness of Himself and His Father, and the corresponding oneness He prays that His disciples will have after He leaves them (Jn. 17:11, 20-23).  The identification between Father and Son is so close that Jesus can tell His disciples that “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).  So when Jesus, in instituting the Lord’s Supper, told His disciples to “do this in remembrance of me,” He was inviting them (and us) to remember also that through Jesus’ sacrifice, His Father has become our Father, too.  Consequently, we have received “the spirit of sonship,” whereby the Holy Spirit “cries out with our spirits, “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15-16).

            So when we partake of the Lord’s Supper, it is a remembrance not only of what Christ did for us, but of the new and ongoing relationship with the Father which His death and resurrection restored.  Jesus is not only our Savior, but our elder Brother, the exemplar of submission to the will of our Father.  Moreover, just as people were able to see the Father in the Son, so we are, through the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ within us, to reflect the Father and the Son.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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How the Resurrection Impacts Theology

In September of 1993, my grandmother, Eva Chilton, passed away from a long battle with congestive heart failure. She was the first of my grandparents to pass. My grandmother was a kind, loving woman who used to play board games with us grandchildren. Her smile was illuminating, and her laughter was infectious. Having grown up in church, my young ears heard numerous stories about the afterlife and divine promises. However, being the ever so skeptically minded person as I am, I wanted to know if those promises were true. How could I know that my grandmother was okay?

Previously, I had read a story in Guideposts magazine about a person who prayed that God would send a sign after their loved one’s passing to confirm that the loved one was okay. The article noted that God sent a lightning bolt to verify that the loved one was okay. My mind began to ponder that if the prayer worked for that person, surely it would also work for me. Thus, a few days before my grandmother’s passing, I asked the Lord to do the same for me. I asked for God to send a lightning bolt to assure me that my grandmother was okay when she passed. It was in late September which was not as conducive for lightning storms in the foothills of northwestern North Carolina, as opposed to the balmy, humid months of July and August. That is not to say that lightning storms never happen in late September, just that they are not as likely.

The day came when my grandmother passed. The family met in my grandparent’s home. It was an old house built in the early 1900s. The shutters were filled with asbestos insulation, fine as long as you do not perturb it. An old closet had been transformed into a bathroom, replacing the former outhouse used years before the home’s indoor plumbing was installed. The front of the home led into a large living room which was closed during the colder months due to the woodstove being on the other side of the home. A door led to a bedroom to the left. Across the living room was a door that led into a family room/bedroom. To the left of the family room was the kitchen which led out the back door. The kitchen and family room normally received the most traffic.

On this evening, I found myself in the quiet confines of the living room and peering outdoors into the empty darkness of the sorrowful September night. Everything seemed much darker on that evening because my grandmother was gone. However, the darkness would soon be replaced with brilliant colors of white and blue as two lightning bolts struck on either side of the house. A bolt hit near to where I was sitting, while another bolt hit on the other side of the home where my grandfather and Reverend Gilmer Denny, a pastor friend of the family, were sitting. Outside of losing power for a few brief seconds, nothing in the home was damaged. After a few minutes of initial shock, the Spirit of God reminded me of the prayer that had been previously appealed. At least to my teenage mind, the sign confirmed that my grandmother was just fine. She was in her heavenly home.

Even though this story is told 28 years after it occurred, the memory still vividly resonates in my mind because of the impact it made on me. In like manner, the resurrection of Christ impacts our theological framework. The apostle Paul taught that if the resurrection were not true, then people would be most pitied, the Christian message would be untrue, and Christian teachers would be found to be liars (1 Cor. 15:12-19). But if the resurrection is true, then, everything changes. Paul notes, “But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:20-22).[1] The resurrection’s veracity impacts the totality of a person’s theological worldview. Much could be said of this issue, but to constrain the article’s scope, only three theological areas of impact will be described.

The Resurrection Impacts the Theological Views of the Afterlife and Eternity

If the resurrection is true, then one has firsthand evidence that life exists beyond the grave. 1 Corinthians 15:20 holds that Jesus’s resurrection serves as the firstfruits for those who have already passed. The aspect of firstfruits refers to the Jewish practice of taking the first and best portion of a harvest and giving it to God.[2] The people were to bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest for him to wave the sheaf before God (Lev. 23:10-14). Figuratively, Jews understood that this taught them to place God first in all that they said and did. In the NT, it was understood that Jesus represented the best of us all. In like manner, just as Jesus had risen from the dead, so shall others be raised from the dead. Life exists beyond the scope of this world. The proof of the afterlife is found in an empty tomb and by the transformed lives who have encountered the One who defeated death.

The Resurrection Impacts the Theological Views of Purpose and Value

If there is a resurrection and an afterlife, then that must indicate that people have an innate purpose and value. God’s creation is important. Even more, the human race bears the divine imprint—otherwise known as the imagio Dei. As such, no life is a mistake. No person is without value and purpose. This writer spoke at a church on one occasion where a mother and father were in attendance, along with their numerous foster children. The mother said that because she was unable to bear children, she wanted to share her love with children who did not have parents. The message was on Jeremiah chapter one. The point was made that God foreknows each person before the person is born, just as was the case with the prophet Jeremiah. The point continued to note that because of God’s foreknowledge and calling, no one is worthless and without value. Furthermore, every life has a purpose. One of the children began crying as she looked at her mother. The mother wrapped her arm around the child. After the service, the mother expressed her appreciation to me for the message. She said that the child’s biological mother had told her that she was a mistake and was worthless. However, the mother emphasized that God had given her a purpose in this life and that her life was highly valued.

The resurrection of Christ confirms the value and worth of each person. If the resurrection is true, then, retrospectively, the atoning sacrifice of the cross is confirmed, and the mission of Christ is validated. The resurrection is God’s stamp of approval for the mission of Christ. The mission of Christ is evidence of God’s benevolent love and compassion for all of humanity. For Christ was not sent to condemn the world, but rather that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17)—emphasis again on the world, not just the frozen chosen.

The Resurrection Impacts the Theological Views of Ethics and Virtue

If the resurrection confirms that there is an afterlife and that human beings hold purpose and value, then, practically, the resurrection impacts ethics and value. If the resurrection is true, then how people treat one another matters. Why? Because the resurrection confirms the message of Jesus. Ben Witherington notes that “Jesus expected his audience to respond to his works in faith and with repentance. This suggests that his duty was more than just performing acts of compassion. Rather, he was calling God’s people back to their source in view of the inbreaking dominion of God … the power of God must be used to help people.”[3] Jesus commanded his disciples to love others and to even pray for those with whom they differ (Matt. 5:44). Doing good for others is not only commanded and exhibited by Jesus, but it also illustrates the kingdom of God to those in need and compels others to enter this domain.

This article comes on the heels of seven months spent in clinical chaplaincy ministry. Quite honestly, God’s power has been exhibited more in these past seven months than was personally experienced in the past 20 years of pastoral ministry. Prayers have been answered in remarkable ways; people have expressed their deepest appreciation for the work being done; people have had encounters with God; and souls have come to know the Lord. Those things occur in pastoral ministry, but not to the level that has been witnessed in chaplaincy ministry. Why is that? Perhaps it is because chaplains find themselves on the front lines of ministry. Rather than sitting in an office, quarantined from the quagmire of human experience, the chaplain finds oneself in the trenches with those most in need. Chaplaincy has taught the value of Jesus’s teaching, firsthand, that when a cup of water, or a good deed, is given to one who thirsts, it is also given to Jesus (Mark 9:41). This is not to discredit pastoral ministry in the least. I have many fond memories of the pastorate. Who knows? God may use me there again in the future. Nonetheless, the point simply advocates that to demonstrate the love of God, believers must be willing to serve those most in need without judgment. In other words, believers must be willing to get their hands dirty. Christ died and defeated death to give life to humanity. That means that every person is worth saving. That also means that every person is of dignity, worth, and value. The book of Revelation portrays a scene where individuals from every tribe, nation, and tongue surround the throne of God while giving him praise (Rev. 7:9). If true, then the resurrection allows no room for racism or favoritism based on socioeconomic standards. The resurrection demands a superior ethical and moral code to be held by each believer.

Conclusion

The article began with a story of a lightning bolt that fixated my attention heavenward. Later in life, two other lightning bolt experiences transformed my life. The final experience will be shared another day. Insofar as this article goes, the second lightning bolt experience occurred when the resurrection of Jesus was understood to be a historical fact. My life has been transformed just as has the lives of countless others. The resurrection not only serves as the linchpin for the Christian worldview, but it also validates the entire theological framework upon which the biblical worldview is built. Christians may differ on modes of baptism, Bible translations, and styles of singing. However, a Christian cannot deny the historical resurrection of Christ. If the resurrection is denied, then the entire foundation for the Christian worldview collapses, and the walls come tumbling down. Paul verifies that very line of thought in 1 Corinthians 15. Yet if the resurrection did occur, then everything changes. A person may find it revolutionary to acknowledge that Jesus’s resurrection is not some comic book tale told on framed color-filled pages. Jesus’s resurrection is a historical fact that validates the afterlife, ethical values, and human purpose. The world’s woes will not be solved by political pundits and legislation. Rather, the solution is found in an empty tomb and on an occupied throne at the right hand of God the Father. But one day, the throne will be unoccupied as numerous other tombs are left emptied. That is all because the resurrection is true.

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics, and a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

Brian is a Senior Contributor for MoralApologetics.com

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2017).

[2] A. Boyd Luter, “Firstfruits,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, John D. Barry, ed, et al (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[3] Ben Witherington, III, The Christology of Jesus (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990), 176.

Divining the Absence

The question haunts many, if not all, of us: “What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun.... For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” What fascinates is not only the query itself, but the question within the question: Why does this question arise in one creature of the solar system, Homo sapiens, and, why is the creature burdened by it?

Ancient Israel’s King Solomon is uniquely positioned to raise such a query. His material resources know no bounds. Solomon, like few others, has the opportunity both to live life to its ultimate, and the brilliance to contemplate it. Dominating the region from the Euphrates to the Gaza, King Solomon’s daily board consists of a thousand bushels of fine flour and meal, thirty oxen, and one hundred sheep plus deer and fowl. His annual gold income of 50,000 pounds amounts to $1.4 billion dollars. With over one thousand women in his possession, he can enjoy the company of a different woman every day for nearly three years. His wisdom is reputed to have surpassed the wisest from Egypt to the East.

After contemplating an experiment toiling and pleasuring with his materiality, his conclusion is as startling as it is counterintuitive: “Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Bring to mind Solomon’s question: “What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?” The word ‘gain’ means profit or surplus; it is the amount of value gained exceeding value expended. ‘Toil’ is work and labor but more broadly portrayed in Ecclesiastes as the human struggle for a satisfying and fulfilling life. The temporary gain Solomon finds for all his toil is “pleasure in all my toil.” Specifically, “what I have seen to be good and fitting” is “to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils.” From the ancient philosopher Epicurus to guitarist Dave Matthews, “eat, drink and be merry” is a common rule for making the most of our toiling lot. Certainly, we like-minded laborers are one with Thomas Jefferson whom Daniel Webster observes “enjoys his dinner well, taking with meat a large proportion of vegetables.” Today we may alter it to “taking with our French fries and salad a large proportion of ribeye steak!”

 For the time being, Solomon concludes, the most gain this natural, cosmic order can offer is taking pleasure in fulfilling natural biological needs. The difference between us and the other creatures, like the grey squirrel or white-tailed deer, is we are aware of enjoying the satisfaction that results from our toil. So far, Solomon’s conclusion agrees with modern-day, non-theistic naturalism. The sole return Homo sapiens can expect for the sweat of the brow is of this natural world; this is all there is. There is nothing more.

Solomon foresees naturalism’s viewpoint as inadequate. “What do people gain from all the toil?” Not enough. “All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied,” laments Solomon. Does the pleasure of eating and drinking not just offset, but provide a surplus of benefit to the pain and suffering of the struggle to secure fulfilling existence? Truth be told, eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves is but unsatisfying satisfaction! Like no other creature in the universe, given the satisfaction of eating and drinking, some of us have a taste for something more – something beyond the givenness of this fixed natural order.

 Given the assumptions of naturalism—(a) the natural order is a closed system; (b) there is no reality – no God – outside of it; and (c) humans are creatures of this natural order—we would expect Homo sapiens, like every other creature, to have its needs met within the natural order. The fact that humans seek something beyond the satisfaction of natural needs raises its own question: “Why”? Why are some of us, even one of us, unlike other animals, not satisfied with only the fulfillment of natural, bodily needs? Could our unfulfillment be due to not having enough of this natural world? Apparently not. John D. Rockefeller, whose net worth was one percent of the US economy, could have anything and everything in any amount. Yet he confirmed Solomon’s experience. “His eyes were not satisfied with riches” when he said enough money was having “just a little bit more.”

Others like mid-twentieth century, sultry jazz singer Peggy Lee croons the human quest when she sings, “Is that all there is? ... As I sat there watching I had the feeling that something was missing. I don’t know what, but when it was over, I said to myself, ‘Is that all there is to the circus?’” Mega rock singer Bono of U2 attests to the human search for something absent when he wails, “And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

Why do humans bear witness to the absence of ultimate fulfillment when they enjoy complete, bodily satisfaction? Why even raise the question, “What do people gain from all the toil?” Like a carpenter’s dovetail, the “tail” of absence attractively fits the “pin” of the presence of the supernatural God. The abiding absence is the beautiful entre to supra-natural fulfillment in the God of eternity. The question and its question within have an appealing reply in the supply of an eternal God. He is the countervailing reality needed to offset the troubled striving for the fulfilled life. God provides an abundance of true “profit” and surplus exceeding the painful and grievous struggle for fulfillment in this temporal world. Solomon sees it through a glass dimly: “God has also set eternity in their heart …. Fear God.” The satisfaction of real gain and advantage from life’s toil anticipates the summons of the Coming One, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

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Tom is currently a retired Elder in the Virginia Annual Conference. He has pastored churches in Virginia, California and England. Studying John Wesley’s theology, he received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Bristol, Bristol, England and his Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary. While a student, he and his wife Pam lived in John Wesley’s Chapel “The New Room”, Bristol, England, the first established Methodist preaching house. Tom was a faculty member of Asbury Theological Seminary. He has contributed articles to Methodist History and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. He and his wife have two children, daughter Karissa, who is an attorney in Richmond, Virginia, and, John, who is a recent graduate of Regent University. Being a part of the development of their grandson Beau is a rich reward. Tom enjoys a good book by a crackling fire with an English cup of tea. His life text is, ‘Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire, to work and speak and think for thee’

Meditation on the Lord’s Supper: Organ Transplant and Blood Transfusion

           Modern medicine has made possible some marvelous operations to mend and heal the body.  Knees and hips, and even a heart can be replaced.  Perhaps we can make a spiritual application of these wonders by seeing how the Great Physician works in mending and healing His people when they take the Lord’s Supper.

           When we take the bread of Communion, we can think of the promised exchange of our mortal, decaying carcass for the perfect, eternal housing manifested by the risen Christ, “who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).  As we eat the bread together, we share in the marvel of that total “transplant,” not only as a future event, but as a present renewal of our fleshly being by the power of the Holy Spirit God has placed within us.

           In partaking of the wine of Communion, we affirm together that spiritually speaking, the function of the life-blood flowing within us is no longer merely to sustain   our mortal bodies.  In experiencing the powerful cleansing of the sacrificial blood of Christ, we have undergone (and continue to undergo) the equivalent of a complete transfusion, becoming thereby “new creatures.”  Our dominant spiritual genes are now not those of the first Adam that doom us to death, but those carried by the “new blood” of the crucified Jesus in which we have assurance of eternal Life.

           Thus we need to come to the Communion table fully aware of our being maintained as meaningful beings only through the continual life supporting treatment of the Master of Health, being continually renewed by His grace so that we can walk in wholeness, to His glory.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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The Moral Argument and Christian Theology, Part III: Glorification

In earlier installments we discussed our deep need for forgiveness and moral transformation—justification and sanctification, respectively—but there is one more step: Not just to be wholly forgiven and radically transformed, but for the process to culminate. We need the good work that has been begun within us to be completed, which God promises to do at the day of Christ Jesus for those who trust him. And so what we are talking about now is the Christian category of glorification, when we are entirely conformed to the image of Jesus, morally beautified to the uttermost, every last vestige of sin having been excised and expunged.

This answers to a deep intuitive recognition of a third basic moral drive or need, or maybe aspiration—yet one, once more, beyond the reach of our own capacities without divine grace—the hunger to be perfected, turned into the best versions of ourselves, delivered entirely from the power and consequences of sin. Christianity assures us, and we have principled reasons to believe, that this is no Pollyannaish pipe dream, but a reality we can look forward to with a hope that will not disappoint.

Interestingly, Immanuel Kant thought that human beings would never achieve a “holy will,” which he considered reserved for God alone. The process of moral perfection was thus something at best approached asymptotically—we get closer and closer throughout eternity but never fully arrive at it. It is a process that is never completed, he thought, so this served as the basis of his argument for immortality, since the process must continue forever.

Christian theology, I suspect, suggests that Kant was both right and wrong. He was wrong to think we will not be perfected. The Christian doctrine of glorification is about the process of sanctification reaching an end point. Ultimately sin will be completely defeated within us, and we will find complete deliverance from its power and consequences. That is a glorious hope.

Still, Kant was also likely right that there will remain a movement, a dynamism, even after the point of glorification. For one thing, the prospect of beholding the glory and beauty and goodness of God is an unending process. For another, once full deliverance from sin comes is when the fullest life for which we were created can really begin, which even the present life already intimates at.

A. E. Taylor wrote eloquently about this in his Faith of a Moralist. Here is just one example:

The moral life does not consist merely in getting into right relations with our fellows or our Maker. That’s only preliminary to the real business: to live in them. Even in this life we have to do more than unlearn unloving. We have to practice giving love actual embodiment. This is continuous with what is morally of highest importance and value in our present life…. Heaven must be a land of delightful surprises. We should have learned to love every neighbor who crosses our path, to hate nothing that God has made, to be indifferent to none of the mirrors of His light. But even where there is no ill-will or indifference to interfere with love, it is still possible for love to grow as understanding grows.

Combining all the discussions of our last three installments, what we have here is a three-pronged moral argument based in God’s grace. It is by God’s grace we can find the forgiveness we desperately need for having fallen short of the moral standard, which we all do. It is by God’s grace we can be set free from both our subjective feelings and objective condition of guilt, and it is by God’s grace that we will be eventually entirely conformed to the image of Christ and delivered completely from sin’s power and consequences. From first to last, what answers our deepest moral needs—for forgiveness, for change, and for perfection—is the astounding grace of a good God perfect in holiness and perfect in love.

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

Communion Meditation: The Assurance of Hope

A Twilight Musing

            Hope is generally an undervalued quality of the Christian life, but its ability to focus our faith and bind us together puts it high on the list of virtues in Scripture.  It is mentioned twice (vv. 4 and 13) in the first thirteen verses of Romans 15, and it is at the heart of the prayer that concludes that passage: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  In the previous verses, Paul has has been urging unity in the Body of Christ through following the sacrificial example of Jesus, and he marvels that Jesus’ servanthood has brought hope even to the Gentiles.  Now Paul pulls these themes together by praying that God’s diverse people, now one in Christ, may “overflow with hope.” 

            As we meet once again to partake of the Lord’s Supper, we should reclaim the element of hope inherent in it.  When Jesus instituted it, He emphasized that it is both a celebration of his imminent presence with us and a looking backward and forward; it is a remembrance of His death “until He comes.”  Christian hope is the embodiment of our assurance, as we look steadfastly at Jesus, that neither His suffering nor ours is in vain; that servanthood leads to glory; and that death is not final.  Just as He endured the limitations of human existence and emerged victorious, we too can, through the power of the Holy Spirit, experience the wonder of God’s ability and willingness to help us break down all the barriers that threaten to tear us apart in our purely human capacity. 

            And so let us pray the prayer of Romans 15:13 together, in unity, as we partake of the bread and the wine: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Multiple Source Attestation for the Resurrection of Jesus

Historians use various methodologies to determine the credibility of a historical story. One criterion is called the “criterion of multiple attestation.”[1] Reginald Fuller calls the criterion the “cross-section method.”[2] The criterion states that a story is authenticated if it is repeated in more than one source. As noted in a previous article, historian Paul Meier indicates that two or three sources render a historical fact “unimpeachable.”[3] Thus, it must be asked, how many early sources mention the resurrection of Jesus? Amazingly, nine early sources speak of the resurrection of Jesus.

Source #1: The Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew serves as a source for the resurrection. Critical scholars date the material of the Gospel to AD 70. However, good reasons suggest that the Gospel may have been penned in the 50s. Nonetheless, even if the Gospel was late in its composition, the material undergirding the Gospel was much earlier. According to tradition, the First Gospel was composed by Matthew, the tax collector and disciple of Jesus, in Antioch of Syria. Matthew 28 describes the resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene and her encounter with the angels of God (Matt. 28:1-10), Jesus’s instruction for the disciples to head to Galilee (28:7), the report of the guards to the elders, and their attempt to quiet the soldier’s reports (28:11-15), and the resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples in Galilee where he commissioned the disciples to the gospel ministry (28:16-28).

Source #2: The Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark serves as another early source. While often assigned to the 60s or 70s AD, critical scholars are beginning to ascribe earlier dates to the Second Gospel, some even claiming AD 40 as a possible date for composition.[4] Regardless of the date granted to the Gospel, the sources behind the Gospel are even earlier than the text. Tradition holds that John Mark, the spiritual son of Simon Peter, collected the teachings of Peter concerning Jesus and compiled them into the Second Gospel. Most likely, he published the Gospel in Rome. The 16th chapter of the Second Gospel has been the center of debate. The earliest manuscripts end the chapter after verse 8. Even still, the first few verses denote Mary Magdalene’s experience, along with a group of female disciples, who approach the tomb of Jesus, find it empty, and are told by the angels of God that Jesus had risen (Mark 16:6). Then, they are told to inform the disciples and Peter that Jesus would meet them in Galilee (16:7). Then, the women are shown fleeing the tomb, astonished and amazed (16:8). Even if the resurrection appearances of Jesus are not described in the first 8 verses, they are certainly assumed. Jesus was proclaimed to have risen and was said to meet the disciples in Galilee. Mark most likely compressed the resurrection story to provide as much information with the limited space available.

Source #3: The Gospel of Luke

The Gospel of Luke serves as a third source. Written most likely in the early 60s, even though some scholars afford it a date in the 70s or even 80s. Despite the date, it must again be remembered that the material behind the Gospel dates earlier than the written text. Tradition states that Luke, an inseparable companion of Paul,[5] wrote the Gospel in Antioch of Syria after carefully examining eyewitness testimonies. Concerning the resurrection of Jesus, Luke describes the women’s encounter with the empty tomb and risen Jesus (Luke 24:1-8), the original disbelief of the disciples (24:9-11), Peter’s run to the tomb, and his amazement with the emptied linen cloths (24:12). Then, Luke reports Jesus’s appearance to Cleopas and another unnamed disciple (perhaps Cleopas’s wife) on the way to Emmaus (24:13-35), Jesus’s appearance to the Twelve (24:36-49), and Jesus’s ascension in the vicinity of Bethany (24:50-53).

Source #4: The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John was the last of the four Gospels to have been written. Conservative scholars argue that the Gospel was written by John the apostle c. AD 85 while he was serving as a pastor to the Church of Ephesus. Ironically, critical scholars are beginning to argue for an earlier date. Regardless of the date, as with the other Gospels, the material behind the Fourth Gospel predates the text itself. The Fourth Gospel is the only Gospel to grant two chapters to the resurrection story. John’s Gospel describes Mary’s trip to the tomb (20:1), her report to Simon Peter and the apostle John (20:2), Peter and John’s trip to the empty tomb and their bewilderment at the emptied linen cloths (20:3-10), Mary’s encounter with the risen Jesus (20:11-18), Jesus’s evening appearance to the Eleven disciples without Thomas (20:19-23), Thomas’s encounter with risen Jesus (20:24-29), John’s report of additional signs that Jesus performed after his resurrection (20:30-31), Jesus’s encounter with the disciples by the Sea of Galilee/Tiberius (21:1-14), the reinstatement of Peter into the ministry (21-15-19), Peter’s question about John’s ministry and Jesus’s rebuke (21:20-23), John’s testimony of authorship (21:24), and John’s testimony of the limitations of the Gospels’ ability to record all the deeds of Jesus (21:25).

Source #5: The Sermon Summaries of Peter

It is agreed by numerous scholars, such as Max Wilcox in his Semitisms of Acts, that the sermon summaries in the book of Acts constitute early material. As the name implies, the messages of the apostles have been summarized and compressed to help with early memorization and transmission. Peter’s summaries are found in Acts 2:14-40; 3:12-26; 4:5-12; 10:28-47; and 11:4-18. In these powerful messages, Peter boldly proclaimed, “Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him. God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death” (Acts 2:23-23). Additionally, Peter said, “God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this” (Acts 2:32). These summaries provide a powerful early source for the resurrection.

Source #6: The Sermon Summaries of Paul

Paul’s sermon summaries also serve as a source even though they are preserved in the same book. Because they originate with a different person, Paul’s messages serve as an additional source. Paul’s sermon summaries are conserved in Acts 13:16-41; 17:22-31; 20:17-35; 22:1-21; 23:1-6; 24:10-21. One of the most compelling of Paul’s sermon summaries is found in Acts 13. Paul proclaims, “When they had carried out all that had been written about him, they took him down from the tree and put him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and he appeared for many days to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people” (Acts 13:29-31). This summary is particularly interesting because it not only describes the resurrection event but also denotes the existence of an empty tomb.

Source #7: The Sermon Summary of Stephen

Stephen was the very first martyr of the Christian Church. He was a man of great wisdom and Spirit (Acts 6:10). Stephen’s message is preserved in Acts 7:1-53 and 7:56. While he does not necessarily mention the resurrection in the larger portion of his message, he confirms the resurrection of Christ before his death as he cries, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56). For this reason, Stephen’s message can also be used as an early source for the resurrection.

Source #8: The 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 Creed

Scholars hold that the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 dates to no later than two years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Some even hold that it dates to within months of the resurrection event. The 1 Corinthians 15 creed describes Jesus’s resurrection appearances to Peter, the Twelve, a group of over 500 individuals, James, and Paul. This early creed serves as a powerful source for the resurrection, even affording additional appearances of Jesus not found in the other source material (e.g., the private appearance to Peter, James, and a group of over 500).

Source #9: The Romans 10:9 Confession

Romans 10:9 is believed to be an early confession of the church. It describes the criteria necessary for one to receive salvation. The confession reads, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). The essentials of Christ’s death, deity, and resurrection of preserved in this simple formulation. Romans 10:9 also serves as an additional source for the resurrection event.

Conclusion

Paul Meier holds that two or three sources for an event imply the event is beyond dispute, or unimpeachable. If two or three early sources cause an event to become beyond dispute in antiquity, then what does it say about an event when nine said extant sources denoting the event’s authenticity remain? The sources presented represent early material, in some cases extremely early material, which argues that something mysterious happened to the body of Jesus on the first Easter Sunday. This mysterious resurrection experience transforms every aspect of one’s life when it is accepted as fact. It can bring about a new relationship with God and can provide great comfort when one realizes that death has been defeated. Outside of its miraculous nature—which, quite honestly, is the only reason some people deny its authenticity—there are no good historical reasons for denying the resurrection of the Nazarene. To borrow the phrase from Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, it takes more faith to deny the resurrection of Jesus than to accept its authenticity.

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

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[1] David Alan Black and David S. Dockery, Interpreting the New Testament: Essays on Methods and Issues (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 133.

[2] Reginald H. Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology (New York: Scribner’s, 1965), 96-97.

[3] Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1997), 197.

[4] Maurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 259.

[5] Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.14.1.

Meditation on the Lord's Supper: Betrayal

Judas Iscariot (right), retiring from the Last Supper, painting by Carl Bloch, late 19th century

A Twilight Musing

1 Cor. 11:23 (NIV)

    For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread . . . .

29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.

           How strange it is that Paul's account of the institution of the Lord's Supper is introduced by saying it was "on the night in which [Jesus] was betrayed."  Why not say "during the last Passover meal with His disciples"?  or "on the night before He died"? Perhaps it is because the context of the account has to do with the integrity of fellowship in the Body of Christ, the church.  Just as Jesus was being betrayed during an intimate moment with His disciples, so the Corinthians were "sinning against the body and blood of the Lord" at the very moment when they should have been closest to Him and to each other. They were in a sense betraying the Lord just as Judas had, because they failed to recognize the meaning of Jesus' death.  Their affections were elsewhere.  We, like Judas, miss the whole point of the Incarnation of the Son of God when our hearts are not committed to the communion which He offers us.

           The self-examination called for in this passage does not primarily concern the most common sins, but rather cautions us against the particular danger of focusing on our differences, rather than on the body and blood which draw us together in Christ.  The spiritual blessing of partaking of the Lord's Supper comes from our discerning that Christian fellowship is made real only when we give Jesus our undivided attention.  To do otherwise is to betray our Master, along with Judas, whose heart was not in the room of fellowship with Jesus, but outside, where he finally went to satisfy his own individual desires.

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Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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Reasons to Accept the Empty Tomb

Gary Habermas is no stranger to those who study the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection. He is a world-renowned scholar on the resurrection who serves as a Research Scholar who teaches in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University’s School of Divinity. Habermas’s claim to fame is his six minimal facts concerning the resurrection of Jesus. His minimal facts are not the only facts available to defend the resurrection. However, they do serve as the six facts that over 90% of historical scholars accept as valid. Surprising to some, he also adds a seventh minimal fact which holds greater than 75% acceptance among historical scholars. The seventh minimal fact is that the tomb was discovered to be empty on the first Easter Sunday.[1] Yet, one may ask, is there any evidence that the tomb was discovered empty on the first Easter Sunday?

            The historian holds solid historical reasons to accept the empty tomb as a historical fact. Stemming from the research I conducted in one of Habermas’s classes, I would like to submit to you twelve reasons to accept that the disciples discovered the tomb to be empty on the first Easter Sunday morning. 

1. The Gospel was first preached in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus was crucified, which would have made it easy for an inquirer to check the tomb. If a person desired to invent a story, the last place they would tell the story would be in the very location where the event supposedly occurred. The enemies of Jesus would only need to check the tomb to see if it was empty.

2. If Jesus’s disciples had only hallucinated, Jesus’s body would have still been in the tomb.[2] Because Jesus’s body was never retrieved and Christianity continued, then one must assume that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Hallucinations cannot account for an empty tomb.

3. The message that Jesus had risen from the dead is extremely early. The creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 dates early (within months to a couple of years after Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection) and to the Jerusalem church.[3] Given that the resurrection message began in Jerusalem and that it began early, people could have easily checked to see if the tomb was empty. Some may inquire, “Would the people have known where the tomb was located?” To answer that question, see the next point.

4. Joseph of Arimathea was a popular person in first-century Israel. Being a prominent member of the Sanhedrin (Mk. 15:43), everyone would have known where his tomb was located, and where Jesus’s body was placed. Remember, the crucifixion of Jesus was a very public event. The tomb was not found very far from the crucifixion site.

5. That women were reported to be the first to have seen the tomb empty strengthens the case for an empty tomb as the testimony of women was not trusted as much as the testimony of men.[4] This has been mentioned before, and for good reason. The women’s testimony not only strengthens the resurrection message, but their testimony also intensifies the validity that the tomb was found empty.

6. Jewish authorities did not respond to the claim that Jesus’s tomb was empty. Rather, they concocted a rebuttal which argued that the disciples stole the body (Mt. 28:11-15). Ironically, their rebuttal actually strengthens the claim that the tomb was found empty.[5] Why concoct a story that the body of Jesus had been stolen if the body of Jesus was placed in a shallow grave, as suggested by John Dominick Crossan, or still remained entombed?

7. The early creeds of Acts 13:29-31 and Acts 13:36-37 indicate more clearly than 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 that Jesus was buried in a tomb, raised, and appeared without experiencing bodily decay.[6] The book of Acts contains sermon summaries that are almost as early as the 1 Corinthians 15 creed—depending on the date given to the creed. These texts denote that the body of Jesus was no longer found in the tomb.

8. Historian Paul Meier indicates that two or three sources render a historical fact “unimpeachable.”[7] The empty tomb is verified in four sources Mark, M (Matthew), John, and L (Luke),[8] with 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 and Acts 13’s sermon summary adding two more. Historically, the more sources one holds, the greater probability that the event in question occurred. In this case, at least 6 sources suggest that the tomb was empty, doubling what historians would call “unimpeachable.”

9. The Jewish and Roman leaders never produced a body which at least implies an empty tomb.[9] If they were opposed to Christianity and possessed the body, why would they not expose it? Even if the Jews wouldn’t, the Romans would squelch what would be perceived as a new uprising.

10. While the empty tomb does not enjoy unanimous support from scholarship, a strong majority still consider the empty tomb hypothesis valid including Michael Grant, James D. G. Dunn, and Thomas Torrance.[10] Habermas notes that over one-hundred contemporary scholars accept at least some of the arguments for the empty tomb.[11]

11. The story of Jesus’s burial is simple without any form of theological development. Its simplicity argues for the empty tomb’s authenticity.[12] Signs of legendary development are simply not found in the empty tomb hypothesis.

12. The resurrection story and the empty tomb are part of the pre-Markan passion story which is extremely early which precludes any time for legendary development.[13] Legendary claims do not apply to the empty tomb hypothesis. This suggests that the tomb was not something that came later in the Christian story but was rather found at ground zero.

Conclusion

The twelve points noted in this article are not the only lines of defense that could be construed. However, they strongly indicate that the story of the empty tomb was not something that developed over time, but it was rather a component that accompanied the earliest stories of the Messiah’s resurrection. Perhaps time will see more contemporary scholars accepting and adopting the empty tomb as part of the historian’s scholarly consensus. But even if they do not, 75% of the scholarly agreement is strong. Furthermore, the historical data concerning the empty tomb hypothesis cannot simply be ignored. No matter the consensus of agreement, the empty tomb is as steadfast a historical fact of antiquity as any other. If the Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains the actual burial place of Jesus, then not only can it be known that Jesus’s tomb was found empty, but it can also be visited. If people realized that the tomb was literally found empty, then maybe churches wouldn’t.

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About the Author

Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University and is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as a clinical chaplain.

https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104

© 2021. BellatorChristi.com.

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[1] Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 158.

[2] Gary R. Habermas, The Risen Jesus & Future Hope (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 11.

[3] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove; Nottingham, U.K.: IVP; Apollos, 2010), 227-228.

[4] Habermas, 23.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1997), 197.

[8] Habermas, 23.

[9] Ibid., 25.

[10] Ibid., 24.

[11] Ibid., 45, fn127.

[12] William Lane Craig, “The Empty Tomb of Jesus,” In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History, R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas, eds (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1997), 250.

[13] Ibid., 254.

The Moral Argument(s) and Christian Theology, Part II: Sanctification

The first installment of this series covered forgiveness. To be made right or reconciled with a holy God involves forgiveness for the many ways in which all of us fall short. More than this is required, but such forgiveness is an ineliminably important part of this process. Mercifully, because of God’s provision in Christ, forgiveness is available for those who seek it.

Another part of a reconciled relationship with God has to do with the next step or stage of salvation—still tied to the theology of “justification,” but usually more associated with what theologians call “sanctification.” Intimate and organic connections obtain between justification and sanctification, but rather than offering an exegetical analysis, we are using these categories as a way to connect the parts of Christian salvation with aspects of the moral argument. After our conversion to Christ, we are still left with a moral gap—the space between where we are morally and spiritually, on the one hand, and where we need to be, on the other. We have a long way to go. That gap needs to be closed. To be forgiven without being changed leaves too much undone.

Another way to put it is like this: we need more than our sins to be forgiven; we need our sin problem itself to be taken away. A documentary concerning the issue of nutrition and physical health I saw a few years ago may be helpful here by way of analogy. One of its basic claims is that doctors do not really produce health. About the best they can do is remove some barriers that impede and stand in the way of health. What actually produces health is the properly functioning body—a healthy immune system, a body, properly treated and fed, doing what it was meant to do.

This is most clearly seen when it comes to chronic diseases. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies cannot fix such problems. What they can do is provide medicines that help alleviate and manage certain symptoms and make life more comfortable for the patient, even while the affliction persists, managed to one degree or another. Although medical practitioners are rather limited in what they are able to do, the body is remarkably resilient in its ability to ward off diseases, recover from various injuries, and heal itself. This is why proper nutrition and exercise are so important, because they enable the body to do what it does best. Chronically undernourished or sedentary bodies eventually become impaired in their ability to perform their proper functions.

The point of the documentary was well made: there is a crucial difference between genuine health, on the one hand, and merely improving conditions, on the other, however much a blessing the latter can be. Another fitting analogy would be the distinction between pulling out a weed versus killing its root. The former is at best a temporary fix; the underlying problem will recur until the latter step is taken.

A similar distinction holds in the arena of morality. One option is merely to deal with symptoms, settling for marginal moral improvements, avoiding hurtful consequences by our actions. True achievement of integrity, virtue, and holiness, though, requires considerably more. In light of what seem to be some deeply entrenched patterns of selfishness and moral weakness endemic to the human condition, we need powerful resources to meet the moral demand and effect the needed change in our character.

Benjamin Franklin once tried to do this on his own, setting himself to the formidable task of achieving moral perfection. In “Arriving at Perfection,” an excerpt from his Autobiography, he wrote about his plans to conquer all imperfections that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead him into, but “I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employ’d in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason.”

Immanuel Kant recognized that we fall short of what morality requires, and so he said we need to have moral faith: the belief that the moral life is possible. But in light of our moral malady, this requires radical transformation. Can we be transformed? This is a second great existential moral need, after forgiveness. Perhaps owing to his Lutheran upbringing, Kant was quite sure that human beings have a deep moral problem, a tendency to be curved inward on themselves, an intractable ethical taint, a deeply flawed moral disposition in need of a revolution. Kant saw clearly that the moral demand on us is very high, while also recognizing that we have a natural propensity not to follow it.

Malcolm Muggeridge once said that the depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact. In Kant, the parallel suggestion seems to be not just that we happen to fail to meet the moral demand, but that our failure is inevitable. We have a problem, one too deep for us to solve on our own. Humans are not essentially good. We are broken, deeply broken, and need to be healed at the root, not merely the symptoms removed. Like Clay Jones puts it, all of us are born Auschwitz-enabled—the people responsible for such unspeakable atrocities of history were not, as human beings go, preternaturally bad people. They were garden variety human beings who, when certain circumstances presented themselves, behaved deplorably. All of us have that hideous potential. Moral ugliness lurks in each of our hearts. There is something in need of radical fixing deep within us. We need major moral surgery.

The moral standard remains obstinately in place, but because of our moral weakness, corrupt characters, irremediable selfishness, intractable egoism, and the like, we are unable to meet that standard. An axiomatic deontic principle is that “ought implies can” in some sense, and yet we seem to be obligated to do what we simply cannot. How can this make sense? Augustine offered the crucial insight: God bids us to do what we cannot, in order that we might learn our dependence on Him.  We cannot live as we ought in our own strength alone, but we can by God’s grace, with divine assistance.

So, even without sugarcoating our brokenness, there is great hope. Christianity says the needed resources for transformation are available. Although we cannot meet the moral demand on our own, God himself has made it possible, if we but submit and allow Him to do it through us. It may well require a painful process, but it is possible.

Having started his book Mere Christianity with talk of the moral gap between what we are and what we ought to be, Lewis then explained his reason for doing so. His explanation is telling. The passage can be found in his concluding paragraph of Book 1:

My reason was that Christianity simply does not make sense until you have faced the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. … It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realized that our position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the Christians are talking about. They offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. They offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the Moral Law and yet also a Person. They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how God Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God.

God can do more than merely ameliorate the symptoms of our chronic moral malady. In the face of our urgent need to become not just better people, but new people, and our desperate need for a revolution of the will and for radical moral transformation, the death and resurrection of Christ is indeed “good news.” This issue of transformation, again, is the theological category of sanctification. Just as God answers our need for forgiveness, God’s grace in sanctification answers our need for radical moral transformation.

By the way, biblical holiness is not just individual, but social. And here one like Paul Copan has done us a great service by bringing a historical twist to the moral argument. He has shown how historically it has been Christ followers who were largely responsible for such significant social advances as building orphanages, arguing for the inherent dignity of the handicapped and infirmed, fighting for women’s suffrage, standing against foot-binding, and so forth. This investigation gets into historical contingencies, but it remains an important empirical consideration, one that brings to mind John Wesley’s refrain that there is no holiness without social holiness.

Having discussed our need for and God’s gracious gift of both forgiveness and transformation, next time we will discuss a third deep existential and spiritual need, namely, to be morally healed completely, saved to the uttermost.

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David Baggett is professor of philosophy and Director of the Center for Moral Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

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