Sunday, September 02, 2007

Testimony Signed in Blood

It has become fashionable in the West to deny the deity of Jesus. Many say that Jesus was "a good man", but draw the line at saying that He was the Son of God.

The first disciples of Jesus, on the other hand, attested to His deity with their lives. All but one were martyred confessing faith that Jesus is the Son of God. One was crucified upside down, another on an X, another dragged by horses through Alexandria, another stabbed. Others were beaten to death, stoned, shot with arrows or beheaded. Only one died peacefully.

Men do not give their lives for something they known to be untrue. The disciples knew it to be true, and they "signed their testimony in blood," as Alvin Schmidt put it.

Surely there was a time when His disciples must have wondered. When He was arrested and crucified, the remaining 11 must have been terrified. The New Testament records that "everyone deserted him and fled" and that the disciples locked their doors when they met "for fear of the Jews."

What had happened to the miracles and the Kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming, they must have wondered. But something happened to change their terror into faith that sustained them even to the point of death.

That something was that they met the resurrected Christ.

It is possible even today to meet this same Jesus that the disciples believed in so strongly that they were willing to die for. If we repent of our sins, and ask Him into our lives, He will come. He will speak to us, comfort us, heal us, lead us.

He has for me, and He will for you.

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