John 3:16, 18..."16) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life... 18) He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Either Jesus was the biggest con artist of all time or He was who He said He was, the Son of God (John 10:30 ). Whatever you or I might think about Him, whether we agree or disagree, we must agree on one point; that His impact on all peoples since He walked the earth has been astounding. Time has been associated with Him; all people regardless if they believe in Him or not use the calendar year which revolves around the timing of Jesus.

No other leader in history has had such a positive impact on their followers. No other leader in history has ever sacrificed their own life for the life of their followers and to top it off, His non-followers. That includes those who were putting Him to death. As He was being tortured and in the severest of pain while nailed to the cross, He still asked for forgiveness for those who had mocked and severely beat Him, and nailed Him to the cross; "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."  (Luke 23:34)

If this was all an act by a con-artist, why wouldn't He have admitted to Pontius Pilate in the biblical account found in John 18 through 19, that It wasn't true, that He never said He was the Son of God? It is clear in this passage that Pilate did not want to crucify Jesus, that he gave Jesus every opportunity to refute the claims and just say it was a misunderstanding and Pilate would have let Him go. But, Jesus was adamant even with Pilate the one who could crucify Him or let Him go, that it was as Pilate asked, He is the Son of God.

And what about the disciples of Jesus, the ones who deserted Him the night the Roman soldiers came to arrest Him (John 18:1-11 ). How can you explain why they would suddenly come back into Jerusalem and start preaching that Jesus had been resurrected just as He said. If they had not seen Jesus after His resurrection why wouldn't they save their own lives by just going back to their obscured lives and not risk the same fate as Jesus? The Jewish Pharisees got what they wanted, Jesus crucified; so Jesus' disciples were no longer a problem for them if they would have just went away quietly. There was no reason at this point to follow-up by trying to have the disciples arrested. And, the disciples would have had no reason to try to keep alive a story that they now would have realized was false.

Concerning the missing body of Jesus; sure the disciples were prime suspects for the bodies disappearance, but what would they have gained? If Jesus was a con artist and they did steal the body to keep the con going, then chances are, they would have done nothing but assure that they themselves would've met the same fate. In this case, if they would have just stayed in obscurity, it would have been their best chance to saving themselves. By stealing the body and then going out in public to preach Jesus' resurrection, if it weren't true, it would have certainly brought on the wrath of both the Jews and the Romans for a cause that was a fraud.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, once realizing the body was missing, knew that this was the worst case scenario that could possibly result, because this is exactly what Jesus said would happen. They must have been in a quandary in what to do. Do they go after the disciples and accuse them of stealing the body and risk not finding Jesus' body and magnifying their problem, or do they leave the disciples alone and hope that either the situation just goes away or that the body of Jesus is found? My guess is if the disciples would have went into obscurity, the Pharisees would not have pursued them, because there would have been a greater risk to their cause, and would have helped keep the spirit of this Jesus alive in the minds of their followers.

Was this just a big con job?

Just considering Jesus and the disciples, if Jesus was a fraud and was crazy enough to die a most excruciatingly painful death, then He would not have been resurrected, and His disciples would have no basis to conclude that what Jesus led them to believe was true. There surely would have been at least one out of the twelve disciples that would have refused to jeopardize his own life, including the lives of family, to publicly preach a story that they couldn't be sure was true. Most likely, at least some, if not all the disciples would have just stayed in obscurity to save their own lives.

But, they didn't, not one of them! They boldly came out of hiding after Jesus appeared to them, preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God. This boldness, I'm sure, helped people believe that the Christ was truly resurrected. For, who in their right mind would be bold enough or better yet, crazy enough to risk crucifixion of themselves for a story that wasn't true. It just doesn't make any sense; what would they get out of it?

Evidence of Jesus

There is no real physical evidence to confirm Jesus; since God wants us to seek Jesus in faith, I do not believe physical evidence is even remotely possible to find, even though archaeologists continue to search for any shred of evidence they may find today. There are also no surviving Roman records from the first century that would have recorded Jesus at least in census' taken. There are also no Jewish records that refer to the first century Christian church, which is no surprise, because the Jewish Pharisee's would not have wanted to give Jesus or the Christian movement any type of credibility at all.

What we do have are writings from Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who was born in Jerusalem a few years after Jesus' crucifixion, somewhere around 37 A.D. Josephus' original name was Joseph Ben Matthias a member of the Jewish Pharisees. These writings are his own writings and not related to the Jewish Pharisees, which he was a member of.

There is some ambiguity revolving around his involvement in the Jewish revolt of Rome in 66 A.D. But, after being taken captive by the Roman general Vesparian in 67 A.D., he prophesied to Vesparian that he (Vesparian) would soon become emperor of Rome. This prophecy probably saved the life of Josephus, since Vesparian would have normally sent prisoners off to the emperor Nero and ultimately executed. But, Vesparian kept him prisoner with him.

Upon his release years later, he took on the family name of Vesparian which was Flavius. Which would lead you to believe he became close to Vesparian. He stayed in Rome until his death sometime around 101 A.D. He devoted much of his time to his writings which included mention of Jesus and the first century Christian church.

In his publication, "History of the Jews" published in 93 A.D. Josephus was writing about the Jews of Judea being governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. The following entry was written about Jesus:,

"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

This excerpt is based on the translation of Louis H. Feldman. It has also taken on much criticism, because many critics cannot fathom how a Jewish Pharisee could have exalted Jesus as messiah in his writings. They feel that Christians have secretly added this paragraph or updated the paragraph to help authenticate Jesus.

In 1995, important information had surfaced in reference to Josephus' quote about Jesus. It was discovered that an earlier description of Jesus by Josephus was very much similar to the one in question. It was established in 1995, that this similarity was to close to give credibility to the accusation of the critics. Further study showed that Josephus' description was based on a Jewish-Christian gospel that has since been lost.

In this computer age, much of ancient writings, including Josephus, have been added to computerized databases. With search queries, this excerpt from Josephus has been broken down and compared by scholars, to other ancient writings to find similarities. A link to the New Testament book of Luke 24:19-24 has been uncovered by computer search results based on the original Greek language used in the two texts.

In conclusion to the study of Josephus' writings describing Jesus, scholars have asked themselves, if an historian were to try and get an explanation of who the Christian's and Jesus were, he would have most likely have used a prior source, which Josephus did in many other of his writings; that source being quotes in early Christian writings. This would explain the praising nature of Jesus in the writings. The scholars also concluded through computerized studies that are in-depth and in comparison to many ancient writings including Luke 24:19-24, that the word "Messiah" was probably not used in Josephus' original manuscript and that that word was added later by transcribers through their own interpretation.

This writing in Josephus' "History of the Jews", is very strong circumstantial evidence in favor of Jesus. The Historical writings of Flavius Josephus are highly regarded and when compared to other historical writings available, are accurate. 

So, Who Was This Jesus Anyway?

John 1:1-5… “1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2) He was with God in the beginning.

3) Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. 4) In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5) The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood."

Since I am writing this for the benefit of those who may be beginners to Christianity, the best place to start is the beginning, and the Apostle John has made life easy for me by starting the book he wrote, the New Testament book of John, with a synopsis of the history of Jesus from the beginning.

As we see here, Jesus wasn't always called by that name, He was given the name of Jesus by the angel Gabriel in the account in Luke 1:31, when Gabriel came to Mary, Jesus' mother, to give her the good news, that she will bare God's child.

In verse one above, we see that Jesus' original name was the Word. That name may sound strange to us, because I know I've never came across anyone with that name, but as we will see, that name was perfect and fitting for that person of the godhead. The meaning of godhead, for those who may not understand the term, refers to the state of being God or the God Family. We can interpret this as a family--more than one person, because we read in Genesis 1:26, God said, "Let us make man in our image", "our" being plural, meaning more than one.

There are three person's in the godhead referred to as the Trinity, the Father as number one, the Son as number two, also referred to as the Word or Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as third, that is the Spirit of God who will come to live inside those who accept Jesus as their savior. To learn more about the Holy Spirit click here.

We know the Word is separate from God, because as we continue on in verse one we also see that the Word was with God, or you might say, He was one person in the God family. As verse one continues we get a little confused as to the way John words the description of the Word, it goes on to say that, "and the Word was God". What's going on here? The Word "Was with God", "was God" —Confusing?  Not really.

Let us say for example, your last name is Jones, in the Jones-head or Jones family you may have a husband who carries the family name of Jones into the family, a wife who took on the families name of Jones and a child who adopted the family name by being born into the Jones family. So you can say, even though our vernacular may not use this type of terminology, that the child is with Jones because he is a member with the Jones family, and the child is Jones, because his name is Jones and he is also a singular person of the Jones family.

In verse two we learn that the Word was there with God or the Father, in the beginning. What beginning? Well, the only beginning that this could be referring to is the beginning of time as we know it as described in the beginning of the book of Genesis. How do we know that? There are many references to this including but not exclusive to, Psalm 102:25 , Isaiah 40:21 , Matthew 19:4 , Mark 10:6 , & Mark 13:19 , Hebrews 1:10 , just to mention a few. We also know this to be the beginning that John is referring to here, because God had no beginning of His own, God always was.

This concept is probably the most difficult concept for mankind to understand. We cannot comprehend not having a beginning but, without the Holy Spirit we also cannot comprehend the spirit world, which is where God resides and the concept of time doesn't exist at least not that we can comprehend. For example in Psalm 90:4 we read, "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night."

In verse 3 of John chapter 1, John explains that, "through Him (the Word) all things were made; and without Him (the Word) nothing was made that has been made." If we look back at Genesis 1, and we read all the verses starting with verse 3, we see that everything God was creating, He spoke into being. That by which He spoke was the Word, who would later become Jesus in the flesh. The Bible doesn't explain in detail how this happened, just that it did. Just by God speaking, the Word (the one who would become Jesus) created all that God commanded.

In Verse 4, we get to learn what this means to mankind, it reads, "In Him was life, and that life was the light of man." The word "life" in this verse is not used in reference to the physical condition, but is used in reference to the spiritual condition. When I look up the word "life" in the dictionary (I use my handy Encarta online), we find fourteen possible definitions, and all fourteen definitions refers to the physical condition. For example, the first definition I found is, "existence in physical world: the quality that makes living animals and plants different from dead organisms and inorganic matter. Its functions include the ability to take in food, adapt to the environment, grow, and reproduce."

I have come up with my own definition that would work for "life" here in the spiritual condition, "eternal existence in the spiritual world; the grace of God that makes living man different from dead man. Its function includes a choice between light and darkness. The light is life and darkness is death."

The Encarta definition will work well if we use it in reference to the word "life" as it is used in Deuteronomy 30:19, which reads, "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death; blessings and cursing. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."  Here Moses had just finished telling the Israelites God's commands that determine life and death. "Life" is used here in terms of the physical condition and is a representation of the spiritual condition. He's telling the Israelites if they live according to God's laws they and their children will live physically. If they live contrary to the laws God established, they die physically with no hope (at this time) of eternal life. 

We must keep in mind that this was the Old Covenant, before Christ's sacrifice. At this time in history in verse 19, mankind's life was limited to the physical; because of man's sinful nature, everlasting life of the spiritual condition was still out of reach. But, in John 1:4, God through John, is referring to His over-all plan for mankind and is referring to everlasting spiritual life. The "life" that Christ surrendered his life for. Verse 4 goes on to say that, "and that life was the light of men". The word "light" here, represents knowledge; that knowledge is Jesus Christ, and having faith in Him.

In verse 5 we read, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." The word "understood" here shows further, that the word "light" refers to knowledge. You can have a light in a room, but still have darkness if you do not understand how to turn that light on. Unless you have the knowledge that the switch on the wall will turn the light on when you switch it, that light will be of no use to you. In a spiritual sense, that light is the Word, the Word is Christ! How do we know it is Christ? Let's drop down to verse 14, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

This verse ties everything together in a powerful way. Jesus Christ was the Word who became flesh and lived among us as a light in the darkness. The darkness here is representative of a sinful world or spiritual death, a world where Satan reigns (John 12:31 ). Jesus is the light or everlasting life; if you have knowledge of Him (the switch that turns the light on, if you will), than, by having knowledge of Him and accepting Him in faith (the action of turning on the switch) you will have turned on the light and will now see. Then, you will have life and this life refers to both physical and spiritual, both present and eternal.

The problem with the Christian church today is that it basically teaches that we are believing for the future life in the Kingdom of God; eternal life. For the here and now or present life, we just have to accept the lot in life that we have been handed. But, this is not true and Jesus said so himself in John 17.

 In John 17, Jesus has just finished the Passover meal with His disciples and He is teaching and preparing them for their ministry with some final instructions. Here in chapter 17, Jesus begins to pray for the disciples, in verse 9, Jesus says, "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me." In verse 12, He goes on, "While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one (Judas Iscariot) doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled." In verse 15, Jesus continues, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."

In the verses above, Jesus is clearly praying for the disciples, but in verse 20, Jesus begins to pray for all believers, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message." How amazing is that? Jesus has prayed for you and me personally some 2000 years ago. In verse 23, Jesus states, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." Jesus prayed for those who "will" believe in Him. He did not just say the disciples or their immediate followers, He was talking about all believers in the ages to come, as well.

You see, God wants everyone who accepts Jesus as their savior to prosper in finances, in health, in families, and in every way possible in life. In Jeremiah 29:11, God says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV)"

We don't have to wait for the next life to be filled with a life of joy and peace in our hearts. We do have to wait for this world to change in that way, but within our own lives we can have it now! Listen to the commission Jesus gave to his disciple in Mark 16:15-18, it reads, "And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

Because of what Jesus did for us, we are blessed with all these signs, if we put Jesus in our hearts and study God's Word daily and live our lives according to faith and not by the insecurities of this world. If we honor God, with not just our worship, but with everything and give back to God just a portion of which God blesses us with--God says in Malachi 3:10, "Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."

Yes, we can have it all! Thanks to Jesus, the one who bore our sins to redeem us from a punishment He didn't deserve, but we did--Romans 3:25 says, "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished."

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