He lives because the Bible says that he does.
You are likely familiar with the old hymn “He Lives” that is often sang during Easter time. The story behind this hymn is that a pastor, Alfred Ackley, was moved by his experience of sharing the gospel with a young Jewish boy and his consternation at a liberal preacher saying the resurrection doesn’t matter. He penned the hymn out of frustration and wanted folks to know that his personal experience bore testimony to the risen Lord.
There is so much to this that I want to affirm. We need to have a living and active faith and relationship with the living Lord. There is a very real sense in which our evidence for the gospel is subjective. Our testimonies are personal. There are times in my own life when my faith is wavering where I look back upon the Lord’s faithfulness to me. In those moments my faith is strengthened.
But there is also something terribly missing in Ackley’s presentation. I understand why one might not say, “I believe in the resurrection because the Bible says it is true”. To say such a thing would likely charge us with circular reasoning. Folks in our day are more apt to unquestioningly believe a personal experience over a bold statement of objective truth. But if we cater to this mindset we forfeit so much. We end up dropping anchor in the choppy waters alongside the Oprah’s and Osteen’s over our world. It’s ultimately a shaky foundation.
If you don’t have the song in your head, go read through the lyrics of He Lives. Now, let me ask a question. Could one who is a deranged maniac, obeying the voices in his head telling him to murder an entire family, speak of a similar experience? How does he know they are real? Well, he knows they are real because he hears them. They reside in his heart. They walk with him. They talk with him.
Do you see how shaky that foundation is?
Again, that’s not to say there isn’t a very real value to our subjective experiences. But they are not decisive. They are valuable only when anchored to the objective truth of the gospel.
Look through your Bible and see how the apostle Paul engaged with those who had never heard the gospel. Consider Acts 17 at Mars Hill. Paul doesn’t talk about his feelings or his experiences—he speaks of objective and verifiable truth. And he just proclaims it. He doesn’t appeal to his own experience and say, “Guys, trust me, I’ve felt this Unknown God in my heart”.
Michael Patton is correct when he claims that Christianity is the world’s most falsifiable religion. But I think that scares us. For some reason we get a bit scared to put Christianity under the microscope. And so out of our fear we drift into the shaky waters of a subjective faith. And in doing so, we are subtly betraying our lack of confidence in the power of God’s Word.
Sure they might accuse me of circular reasoning. Sure the infidel might mock our gospel. But I’ll just dig in further and keep lovingly and graciously proclaiming the truth of Scripture. Long ago I became convinced, alongside Spurgeon, that “if they do not love to hear [the Bible], there is all the more reason why [the Bible] should be preached to them. The gospel has the singular faculty of creating a taste for itself.”
You ask me how I know he lives…
Because the Bible says so. And, though it’s not popular to say so in our day in age, that’s enough for me.
The Bible, by claiming to record historical events–a la the Resurrection, opens itself up to scrutiny that other religious books don’t allow. But that shouldn’t scare us! The Bible is God’s revelation to us and has stood up to attacks for millennia.