Over the past century, mainstream media has launched a relentless attack on the deity of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible. The latest example is National Geographic’s special publication Jesus: An Illustrated Life. The false Christ presented herein did not come as the fulfillment of Bible prophecy, was not the eternal Son of God, was not infallible, did not die as the Lamb of God by a vicarious, substitutionary atonement, and might or might not have been born of a virgin and risen from the dead. According to this report, the Gospel of Luke was written in about 80 AD; Daniel was written in about BC 200 (after the fulfillment of many of his prophecies); Jesus learned His skill with the Scriptures from the rabbis; Jesus’ baptism was His anointing as the Christ; Jesus “may have been inspired by prophets such as Amos, Micah, and Hosea”; Jesus thought the kingdom of God “would come about as a grassroots movement”; Jesus’ healings “involved some exchange of energy” which is “a core concept of various schools of non-Western or holistic medicine”; the recording of the miracles in the Gospels might be the product of “oral transmission and redaction”; Jesus probably could not read Hebrew; the Pharisees “genuinely welcomed” Jesus’ opinions, ”believed his ideas had merit,” and “had considerable sympathy for what Jesus was trying to accomplish”; Jesus was “in many ways a man of His time”; Jesus “developed a quite different view of God” from the Old Testament view; there are “discrepancies between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John” and “perhaps the most trustworthy account is that of Mark” which “may have been based on a separate Passion tradition known as the ‘Cross Gospel’”; Jesus “was not aware” that the money changers had been relocated from the Mt. of Olives to the temple; Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13-14 are not Messianic prophecies but are “beautiful, rousing poetry”; Mark’s description of Christ’s trial “is probably more accurate than the fully developed trial described in the later Gospels”; Jesus “died of asphyxiation, compounded by shock and loss of blood.” These tired liberal views have been refuted, but the fundamental issue is not evidence, but unbelieving skepticism. In fact, the unyielding skepticism of this age is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and is therefore further evidence of the Bible’s supernatural inspiration. “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming…” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
(Friday Church News Notes, May 6, 2022, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)