I asked a friend last summer if he really was an atheist, and he replied that he just never saw any need for religion. I thought back on my life as an undergrad at Berkeley, when I would have agreed. But later as a grad student at Cornell, I realized I didn’t want to die. It’s not that I loved Cornell more than Berkeley; I liked both equally. My point is the ultimate pandemic is not Covid-19 or some unknown mega-virus, it is death. There is no vaccine or scientific cure for death, and never will be. With each breath we all get closer to death.
In the book of John, one of the 4 biographies of Jesus in the Bible, it is recorded that Jesus raises a man named Lazarus who was dead in a tomb for 4 days.
He miraculously brings a man back to life. It happened in Bethany (near Jerusalem) and garnered broad attention from the public as well as His critics among the religious rulers – so much so that on Palm Sunday people sought out to see Lazarus as well as Jesus.
This raising is different from the eternal life he promises. He said at the time to the man’s sister Martha “I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and he who lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
What does ‘believing’ mean, and what is biblical faith? Here’s a 2-minute summary to consider this Easter Sunday.
You have heard of the 10 commandments. And how Moses received those from God 4000 years ago. People got a view that Religion is a system of rules. And even today, many have the idea that being a Christian – or “believing in Jesus” – means we follow the commandments or try to act like Jesus in order to earn God’s favor and “work our way” into heaven – kind of like karma. So you may find it interesting that belief or faith in the Bible is NOT that – not in the Old or New Testaments.
In the New Testament, the model of Christian faith is not Jesus, but it is Abraham, the “father of the Jews”, who lived over 2000 years before Christ. The New Testament quotes the Old Testament where we read that Abraham “believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Jesus explained the 10 commandments extend past overt actions like “do not lie or do not murder” to our inner thought life. Picture someone who makes you angry, or who you hate. Jesus likened this to murder. He said we should even love our enemies. Picture your enemies – someone who has hurt you, intentionally. Do you love them? Can you?
Hence, Jesus said, “only God is good.” All the rest of us fall far short.
Google when it started had a motto “don’t be evil”. That ideal falls far short of God’s goodness. God’s goodness is a willing of goodness to others, not passively good, but proactively. And God is much more than “good” as we think of it. The Bible says that God is completely good and moral.
The God of the Bible also claims to be perfectly just. We see injustice in the world, and that makes us upset. And we often blame God. God assures us he will punish the wrongdoers and make it right. Both the Old and New Testaments affirm that lawbreakers will be punished and justice will be done.
But, as we saw before, only God is good. Hence, lawbreakers include all of us.
On the other hand, we all have heard the tenet from the Bible ‘God is love’. God loves us, and doesn’t desire death for us; so how to resolve this tension between love and justice? If God is infinite in power, these are infinite forces in direct opposition. A solution should be astonishing, and it is. It is called the ‘gospel’. Which means ‘good news’. God provides a substitute to die in our place for our law breaking. He dies for us.
Jesus taught that his purpose was to die for the sins of the world.
Have you ever heard this before?
The people asked Jesus. “What are the works that God requires?” Jesus said “the work of God is this. Believe in the one He has sent.”
And so, in less than 2 minutes, we come back to the question posed at the outset. What is a saving belief?
It is not about what you or I can do (obey commandments, perform good deeds, etc.), but it is what Jesus has done.
Martha’s answer to the question posed to her was straightforward. “Yes, LORD. I believe you are the Messiah.” She affirms He is both her rescuer (Messiah) and ruler (LORD). This belief is not merely an intellectual assent. She’s acknowledging her need for a rescuer, and making a commitment of trust and loyalty, with all her mind, heart and soul.
Similarly, we read in the New Testament that Abraham “was fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness.’ The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
Then and now, the Resurrection is offered as an historical fact that the author of life has conquered death by His love, laying down His life for us and taking it up again. Faith is trusting that He paid for my law breaking and has the power to give me eternal life. Based on the Resurrection and its prophecies in the Old Testament, and its eyewitness testimony in the New Testament, I am persuaded that God has the power to do what He promises.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Happy Easter!