UNIVERSITY "OVIDIUS" IN CONSTANŢA

FACULTY OF ORTHODOX THEOLOGY

SPECIALIZATION: PASTORAL THEOLOGY

REFERRED
TO
ENGLISH LANGUAGE

SCIENTIFIC GUIDANCE:
CONF. UNIV. DR. LILIANA MĂRUNȚELU

STUDENT
BOTA BOGDAN DIMITRIE LUCIAN
Year I

CONSTANŢA
2019

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 JESUS CHRIST
BEYOND THE BLIND FAITH
It is impossible to know clearly whether God exists or not, and how
He is if He does not take the initiative to reveal Himself to us. We need to
know how He is and what attitude he has towards us. Let's suppose we
knew there was, but that it would be like Hitler - capricious, cruel, evil and
full of prejudices. That would be a really terrible conclusion, would not it?
That is why we have to look at the horizons of history and see if there
is any clue about the revelation of God. Well ... there is a definite clue. In
an obscure village in Palestine, nearly two thousand years ago, a Child
was born in a stable. From now on, to this day, the whole world
continues to celebrate the birth of this Child, Jesus Christ.
He lived in anonymity until the age of thirty, when a three-year public
work began and was meant to change the course of history. He was a
good person, and he was saying, "The common people were glad to
hear Him," and "He taught them as one who had power, not as their
scribes taught them" (Matthew 7:29).

The Life of Jesus Christ

In the short time, however, it was clear that Jesus made some shocking,
dreadful statements about himself. He began to speak of his own Person
as much greater than a teacher or an exceptional prophet: He began to
say clearly that he was God. He put His identity at the center of His
teachings. The crucial question he asked of those who followed him was,
"Who do you say I am?" When Simon Peter answered, "You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God!" (Matthew 16: : 15-16), Jesus was not
shocked or rebuked. On the contrary, he praised him!
Jesus then declared the same thing openly, and those who obeyed Him
fully understood the words. That's why we read in the Bible: "That is why
they were seeking even more the Jews to kill Him, not only because he
unleashed the Sabbath day, but also because He was saying that God

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was His Father and was thus doing so with God" (Gospel of John 5 : 18).
Jesus once said, "I and the Father are one." At one time the Jews
wanted to kill Him with stones. He asked them what good deed they want
to kill. "The Jews answered him," Not for a good work we cast stones in
you, but for a blasphemy, and because you who are a man, you make
God "(John 10:33).
Jesus said he has qualities that only God has. When a paralyzed
man who wanted to be healed was brought up by the roof of the house,
Jesus said to him, "Son, your sins are forgiven." This caused a great
disarray among the religious leaders who said in their hearts, "Why does
he speak so? Blasphemies! Who can forgive the sins of men besides
God? "
In one of the great moments when life itself was jeopardized, the high
priest asked Him directly: Are You, the Christ, the Son of the Blessed
One? "" Jesus was silent and did not respond. The High Priest asked
Him again and said to Him, "Are You, the Christ, the Son of the Blessed
One?"
"Yes, I am," Jesus replied. "And you shall see the Son of man sitting at
the right hand of the power, and coming into the clouds of heaven." Then
the high priest broke his clothes and said, "What more do we need of
witnesses? You heard the hula. What do you think? "Everyone has
condemned Him to be punished with death" (Mark 14: 61-64).
His connection with God was so close that he believed that
someone's attitude towards Him had to God. So whoever knows Him
knows God (John 8:19; 14: 7). He who sees Him sees God (12:45, 14:
9). Whoever believes in Him believed in God (12:44, 14: 1). He who
receives Him receives God (Mark 9:37). He who hates Him hates God
(John 15:23). And whoever honors Him honors God (5:23).
Jesus Christ - Son of God?
If we take into account Christ's statements, we have only four
possibilities. It was either a liar or a madman, or a legend, or the Truth
itself. If we say that He is not the Truth, then whether we realize this or
not, we automatically declare that one of the other three options is true.

(1) There is a possibility that Jesus was lying when he said he was
God - so he knew he was not God, but he deliberately misled the
hearers to give authority to His teachings. Those who honestly
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 believe this are probably very few, if any. Even those who
disbelieve their divinity still regard Him as a great and integral
Teacher. What they do not realize is that the two statements
contradict each other. Jesus would no longer be a great and
integral teacher if he intentionally lied precisely to the most
important thing in his teachings: His identity.

(2) More moderate but equally shocking, the second possibility would
be that it was sincere, but it was self-effacing. How do we call today
someone who says about himself that he is God? I would call him mad,
and this would be the case of Jesus if He was wrong in this very
important matter. But if we look at his life, we will not find even a single
evidence of abnormality and imbalance - which usually characterizes a
person with such mental disorders. On the contrary, we see in Christ the
greatest possible self-control in moments of crisis.
(3) The third possibility - All His claims that God would be part of a
legend. More specifically, in the third and fourth centuries, His followers
were so enthusiastic that they attributed some words which He Himself
would have shocked to hear. And if he now returns to the earth, he would
repudiate it once.
The theory of the legend has been categorically refuted by numerous
discoveries of modern archeology. These have revealed, undoubtedly,
that the four biographies of Christ were written during the lives of
contemporary persons with Christ. Some time ago Dr. William F. Albright,
a world famous archaeologist, said there was no reason to believe that at
least one of the Gospels would be written after the 70th. For it is the
domain of incredible as a simple legend about Christ, written in the form
of a Gospel, has spread so greatly and had that gigantic impact he
had ... without relying on anything real.
It is as if somebody in our time starts to write a biography of former
US President John F. Kennedy, from which he states that he is God, that
he forgives the sins of men and that he will rise from the dead. Such a
story is so exaggerated that it would have no chance of "catching"
anyone, because there are still many people who really knew Kennedy.
This "legend theory" does not stand at all, given the early appearance of
Gospel manuscripts.

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 (4) The only option is that Jesus said the truth. However, from a certain
point of view, we can say that statements, words do not mean much. It's
easy to talk. Anyone can say anything. There were others who claimed
to be God. I could also claim to be God; and you could do the same, but
we all have to answer a question: "What evidence do we support in our
statements?" In my case, it would not take you more than five minutes to
disassemble your statement; probably the same thing you would take to
reject yours. But if we talk about Jesus of Nazareth, it's not that simple.
He had evidence in support of His claims. That is why he said, "But if I
do, even if you do not believe Me, do you believe at least these works,
that you may come to know and know that the Father is in Me and I am
in the Father" (John 10:38; ).

Evidence from the life of Jesus Christ

First: His character confirms his affirmations. Many lunatic asylum

seekers claim to be celebrities or deities, but their claims are denied by
their character. The situation of Christ is totally different. He is unique,
unique - like God.
Jesus Christ was sinless. His life was so rare that it could provoke
His enemies with the question, "Who of you can prove to me that I am
wrong?" (John 8:46). To this question I answered silently ... though he
was talking to people who would have liked to take his eyes off with
some flaw of character.
When we read about the temptations Jesus faced, we can not find Him
at all, confessing that He had sinned. He never asked for forgiveness,
though he told His followers to ask for forgiveness for their sins.
It is astonishing that Jesus did not have that sense of moral decay
that the saints and mystics of all times have witnessed. Because the
more people come closer to God, the more they are overwhelmed by
their defects, decay and mistakes. Indeed, the closer you are to a
stronger light, the more you realize ... you have to wash yourself. This is
true for ordinary mortals and the moral sphere.
Equally striking is the fact that the apostles John, Paul, and Peter,
who had all been taught since early childhood to believe that sin was
universal, all spoke of the righteousness of Christ: "He did not sin and in
His mouth was not found cunning "(1 Peter 2:22).
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 Pilate, who only was not a friend to Jesus, said, "What bad did he
do?" By this he recognized the innocence of Christ. And the Roman
centurion who testified to the dead of Jesus said, "Truly this was the Son
of God!" (Matthew 27:54).
The second: Christ has shown that he has power over the forces of
nature, power that only God, who had created those forces, could have.
He calmed down a storm and the waves of the Sea of Galilee. These
things so astonished the people present with him in the boat that they
exclaimed, "Who is this to hear even the wind and the sea?" (The Gospel
of Mark 4:41). He changed the water into wine, fed five thousand people
with five loaves and two fish, raised the only son of a widow who had
suffered from the dead, raised the daughter of a father destroyed by the
loss of his child. An old friend told him: "Lazarus, go out!", Inviting him
from the dead. It is very interesting that even his enemies did not deny
this miracle; on the contrary, they tried to kill Him. "If we leave it like this,
they will all believe in Him" (John 11:48).
Third: Jesus showed the Creator's power over diseases and bodily
affections. He made the lame to go, the men to talk, and the blind to see.
He also healed some congenital problems that could not be treated
psychosomatically. The most unusual healing was that of the blind,
described in the Gospel of John, chapter 9. Though the man could not
answer the questions asked by the religious rulers, what had happened
to him was enough to convince him. "I know one thing: I was blind, and
now I see." "From the time of the world, it has not been heard that
anyone has opened the eyes of a blind man from birth," he said (John
9:25, 32). For him the evidence was more than obvious.
Fourth, the supreme proof of the Divinity of Christ was His resurrection
from the dead. In the course of His life Jesus foretold his death five
times. He also foretold how he will die, and that three days after death he
will rise from the dead and be seen by His disciples.
This was certainly the great test: it was an easy statement to verify. It
either happened or did not happen.
Both the sympathizers and the detractors of the Christian faith admit
that the resurrection of Christ is the cornerstone of faith. The Apostle
Paul wrote: "And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is vain, and
your faith is vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14). Paul founded all his faith and life
on Christ's resurrection in the flesh. Whether he was raised from the
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dead or not. But if he had truly resurrected, then it was the most
sensational event in all mankind's history!

If Jesus is the Son of God ...

If Christ rises from the dead, then we know for certain that there is
God, we know how He is and how we can know Him personally. The
universe acquires meaning and purpose, and you may know God even in
our day.
On the other hand, if Christ has not risen from the dead, then
Christianity is just an interesting piece of museum ... and nothing more. It
has no real support. Although it is an uplifting idea, however, because it
has no real basis, it does not deserve to pack you too much. This means
that the martyrs who went to sing to the Lions and the contemporary
missionaries who gave their lives in Ecuador and Congo while presenting
the Gospel to others ... were naïve poor.
The deraeurs of Christianity concentrate their attacks most often on the
resurrection of Jesus, for it has been noticed that this event is the
essence of the matter. One of the most powerful attacks against
Christianity was initiated by a young British lawyer, Frank Morrison,
around 1930. He was convinced that the resurrection of Christ was just a
fancy fable. Realizing that he was the cornerstone of Christian faith, he
decided to make a service to the entire world, demonstrating once and
for all this deception and superstition. As a lawyer, he considers that he
has the critical capacity necessary for a precise filtering of evidence by
admitting evidence according to the strict criteria governing the conduct
of a lawsuit in contemporary justice.
However, as he researched this case, something amazing happened:
he discovered that this case was not as easy as he imagined. As a
result, the first chapter of his book Who moved the stone? is called "The
Book That Did Not Want to Be Written." Here he describes how, while
examining the evidence of the case, he convinced - though he did not
want it - to the reality of the bodily resurrection of Christ.

The Death of Jesus

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 Jesus died through a public execution on the cross. The leaders then
said that because of a blasphemy; Jesus said he died to pay for our sins.
After being terribly tortured, his legs and wrists were nailed to a cross
where he was allowed to hang, then dying by slow asphyxiation. In order
to make sure he is dead, the Roman soldiers put a lance in his ribs.
His body was then wrapped in soaked cloth with about 50kg of sticky
spices and was placed in a grave dug in the rock. After that, a 1 1/2 -
2ton boulder was rolled up at the entrance, blocking it totally. Since
Jesus had publicly announced that he would rise from the dead after
three days, several Roman soldiers were left as a sentinel. In addition,
the entrance to the tomb was sealed with the official Roman seal, thus
declaring the tomb the Roman property.
Despite all these precautions, three days later, Jesus' body was no
longer there. Only his funeral apparel remained there, keeping exactly
the shape of his body. The boulder that sealed the entrance to the tomb
was found on a slope, at a distance from the grave.

Was the resurrection of Jesus just a legend?

The first explanation of the resurrection of Jesus was that the disciples
stole his body! In Matthew 28: 11-15, we see the reaction of the religious
leaders when the guards brought the news - incomprehensible and
annoying - that the body of Jesus had disappeared. They gave them
money to the soldiers, telling them to tell people that the disciples had
come by night and had stolen their body while the soldiers were
sleeping. This explanation was so subdued that the Apostle Matthew had
not even bothered to find arguments against them! What judge would
you listen to by saying that you know that while you were asleep, did
your neighbor come into your house and steal your TV? Who knows
what's going on around him when he's asleep? Such a testimony would
cause laughter in any court.
Besides, we also deal with something psychologically and ethically
impossible. Everything we know about the disciples, about their
character, makes us realize that he would not have stolen the body of
Christ at all. If he had done so, he meant deliberately spreading a lie that
would deceive many people and cause them to die for thousands. Also,

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supposing that some disciples would have conspired to steal his body, it
was impossible then to conceal this from the other disciples.
Each disciple had to face an attempt: torture and martyrdom, for his own
statements and convictions. People are ready to die for what they think is
true, even if that is, in fact, a lie. But they will never be ready to die for a
lie, knowing it's a lie. If we can rest assured that someone is telling the
truth, this happens on the deathbed. And if the disciples had taken Jesus'
body, even though Christ was still dead, we could still not explain His so-
called appearances after the Resurrection.
A second hypothesis would be that the Jewish or Roman authorities
have moved the body there! But why? Since they had put the guards at
the grave, what was the point of moving his body? Also how do the
authorities keep silent when the apostles began boldly preaching in
Jerusalem about the resurrection of Jesus? Religious leaders fired with
anger and did everything in their power to prevent the spread of the
message that Jesus had risen from the dead: they arrested Peter and
John, beat them and threatened them, thus trying to close their mouths.
But he could have solved his problem very easily. If the body of
Christ had been with them, He could have shown Him in a parade on the
streets of Jerusalem. With one stroke he would have succeeded in
stifling Christianity in the face. The fact that they did not do this is an
eloquent proof that they did not have the body of Christ.
Another widespread theory is that women have missed the road,
going to another tomb because of the mist of the morning and because
they were torn and overwhelmed with pain. And then, in their annoyance,
they imagined that Christ had risen ... since the grave was empty.
However, this theory also falls for the same reason as the previous one.
If the women have wronged the tomb, how is it that the high priests and
the other enemies of faith did not go to the true tomb to take Jesus' body
out of there? Then, it is inconceivable that both Peter and John make the
same mistake ... and then, surely, Joseph of Arimathea, the owner of the
tomb, would have solved the dilemma. Besides, we should not forget that
this was not a public cemetery, but a private burial place. Therefore,
there was no other grave nearby to allow them to make this mistake.
To explain that the grave was empty, another theory has advanced:
the fainting. According to this theory, Christ did not actually die. His
death was mistaken, but in fact He had just fainted because of physical
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exhaustion, pain, and lost blood. And when he was seated in the cold
tomb, he rose again. He came out of the tomb and appeared to His
disciples, who erroneously believed that He had risen from the dead.
This theory is relatively recent; first appeared at the end of the eighteenth
century. It is interesting to note that of all the violent attacks on
Christianity throughout history, no such theory has been perpetuated
ever since. All the ancient testimony affirms the death of Jesus.
But let's suppose for a few moments that Jesus was buried alive and
faint. Can we believe he survived for three days in a wet tomb, without
food, without water, without any care? Had he had the power to get out
of the funeral clothes, push the heavy boulder from the grave's door to
one side, overcome the Roman guards, and walk miles on their own
feet ... on those feet that had been pierced with spikes ?! Such a theory
is even more improbable than the simple reality of Jesus' resurrection.
Even the German critic David Strauss, who does not believe in the
resurrection of Jesus, rejected this theory, believing it to be unbelieving.
Here are his words:
It is impossible that someone who just came out of the tomb, half
dead, who goes crawling, being weak and sick, in need of medical care,
dressing, careful care, and who, in the end, give up to the disciples the
impression that he has overcome the grave and death ... that he is the
Prince of life.
Ultimately, if this theory is correct, it means that Christ Himself has
involved himself in some obvious lies. His disciples believed and
preached that he had died and then resurrected from the dead. But
Jesus did nothing to break this conviction; on the contrary, encouraged it.
The only theory that provides a convincing explanation of the fact
that the grave was empty is the resurrection from the dead of Jesus
Christ.

What does the life of Jesus Christ mean to you

If Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, proving that He is God, then
He means He is still alive today. And he does not want only our worship;
wants to know Him and come into our lives. Jesus said, "Behold, I stand
at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I
will come to him, I will dine with him, and he with me "(Revelation 3:20).
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 Carl Gustav Jung said: "The main nuisance of our times is spiritual
nakedness." We all want our lives to make sense, to have depth. Well,
Jesus gives us such a rich, meaningful life, through a relationship with
Him. Jesus said, "I have come that the sheep have life and have
abundance" (John 10:10).
Since Jesus died on the cross, taking upon him all the sins of all
mankind, he is now able to give us His forgiveness, accept us as we are,
and call us to a personal relationship with Him.

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