Why I am a Christian

3 REASONS MAY BE GIVEN

Reason 1:

The first relates to the New Testament documents, both the Gospels and the letters, which in my estimation are to be trusted as foundation documents of the Christian faith. They are a product of the faith of the early church, which again was built on the apostolic witness to the resurrection. This faith – one for which the first disciples of Jesus were willing to be martyred, is a historical fact – which needs to be accounted for. 

That in preaching Jesus as risen from the dead, the first disciples were wilfully deceiving, is to my mind out out of the question. 

Were they deceived? 

I find the claim that they had a type of subjective experience (e.g. hallucination), which misled them, completely unconvincing. The most natural course is to accept the resurrection of Jesus as fact. 

I would recommend anyone who wishes to pursue the evidence for the truth of Christianity, to get hold of, and read a copy of Lee Strobels The Case for Christ, published by Zondervan 2013 (which I confess to not having read, it being published decades after I had the need for such books – but it is something of a classic, you can check it out on Amazon). 

In saying this, I do not wish to leave the impression that faith can be compelled by evidence, and that such evidence exists. Faith is reasonable, insofar as reason and evidence can take you.  But in the last instance faith requires a willingness to trust that which is unknowable without it – that God exists – that he is real, and that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and rose again on the third day for our justification. Real faith is a work of the Holy Spirit. It comes when you take that trust and say, “God help me!”  “Jesus help me! I want to believe. Help my unbelief!”

Reason 2:

The second reason relates to the witness of the Holy Spirit: Having taken a step of faith the evening before (basically, as referenced above) – walking across the courtyard to breakfast, I became aware of a presence that had filled my life – that had not been there before. I was a student at Durham University – Grey College, and this was my first term. It was December 3rd 1974. 

I had not previously thought of myself as being alone – but in a real sense, I now realised that I had been of course – in the last instance alone – alone without God – alone in the universe. That had now changed. I knew him – or I knew now that I was known by him. Everything was made new – my life and thinking were radically changed. I had to tell everyone I met – from fellow students to university lecturers – that God was real, and that Jesus was alive! 

Christ was there, in my life. And from that time until this – 45 years, the presence of Christ has never left me. I need him! And thank God, he is still there! 

What I am describing for you is of course the work of the Holy Spirit, of whom Jesus testified (John 14,16-20, see also Romans 8,15-16)

Reason 3:

The first two reasons are sufficient for me! The Word (the Christian code for the Bible) and the Spirit and the grace of God, have kept me in the faith all these years. But there is a third reason which gives me great intellectual satisfaction and confirmation! It is this:

If you read through the Old and New Testaments, you will find that it is a very realistic view of humankind that is presented. Even the Bible´s greatest heroes, Abraham, Moses, Samson, David, and Peter are seriously flawed individuals. Abraham was a liar, Moses a murderer, Samson a womanizer, David a bloodthirsty murderer and adulterer and Peter lacked backbone.

Crucially, in Romans 1,18-32, the story of Adam and Eve is lurking in the background of Paul´s thought as he describes humanity without God: The archetypal sin of mankind he sees as idolatry – the substitution of the true God by mankind, for a no-god (himself) – to use the words of one of my professors, CK Barrett.   

This explanation of the way things are with us, resonates powerfully with me.

A threefold cord is not easily broken, Proverbs 4,12