The Christian faith is no stranger to skepticism. In fact the very first announcement of the resurrection of Jesus was greeted with unbelief. Luke says, “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not” (Luke 24:11).
Such doubt still persists today. There are still those who believe that Jesus never lived. Others will concede that he lived but that we do not have a true picture of him in the Bible. However, careful study and thought will reveal that these are untenable positions both historically and logically.
That Jesus lived is a historical fact unquestioned by most authorities. There are enough references to him in early Jewish and Roman history to assure this. H. G. Wells in The Outline of History acknowledges this fact. Of the gospels he says, “In spite of the miraculous and incredible additions, one is obliged to say: Here was a man. This part of the tale could not have been invented!”
It is also logically untenable to deny the reality of Christ. By common consent the character of Jesus surpasses that to be found in any other person who ever lived. No one has ever caught and held the attention of people as he did. Now, either Jesus is real or he’s the product of those who wrote history. If he did not speak the wisdom attributed to him, then it came from the minds of those who invented him, and they deserve the credit for it and all the good he has done. If the New Testament writers invented him, they deserve to replace Shakespeare as the head of creative genius. A man of ordinary ability can report what he has seen and heard as the Bible writers claim to do, but it takes a man of extraordinary ability to invent or create.
Who in the early church was capable of creating Jesus? As someone has said, “It would take a Jesus to forge a Jesus.”
We are left then with the impossibility of accounting for Jesus when we assume he actually existed. It is the only explanation for his influence and impact on history. Throw away your question marks about Jesus. Replace them with exclamation marks. Jesus lived! He is real!