Truth For Life

Host: How can we be certain that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are historical fact, not simply fabricated stories like we find in Greek mythology? Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg points us to evidence that supports the reliability of the Gospels.

Alistair Begg: Mark chapter 1, verse 1. "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It’s written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way. A voice of one calling in the desert. Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’"

"And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River."

"John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message. After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." Amen.

Alistair Begg: Father, help us now as we turn to the Bible, that you will be our teacher, that the Holy Spirit will enable us to think properly, to respond humbly, and that we might find that as it were Christ stands in the midst of us not only as the one who orchestrates our praise but also as the one who preaches the word home to our hearts. Only you, oh God, can accomplish this and it is to you we look in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Alistair Begg: In 1975, in a book that John Stott had penned in conjunction with a missionary conference, he wrote as follows: "Nothing hinders evangelism more than the widespread loss of confidence in the truth, relevance, and power of the gospel." Let me give that to you again. "Nothing," he wrote, "hinders evangelism more than the widespread loss of confidence in the truth, relevance, and power of the gospel."

Alistair Begg: If the polls that came out around the holiday period are to be believed, then we are confronting a situation in contemporary America that is unlike much that has gone before. It has been understandable that those who have rejected the New Testament, who have turned their back on the Bible, have very little to say to their friends and neighbors about who Jesus is and what he has done.

Alistair Begg: And such a loss of confidence in the gospel in that arena is no surprise. But if the polls are accurate, then they are suggesting to us that within the present framework of contemporary Christianity, there has been and continues to be an erosion of conviction on the parts of those professing faith, as it relates to the exclusive claims of Jesus and as it relates in essence to the truth and the relevance and the power of the gospel.

Alistair Begg: Now this should be a matter of concern for us, that we would examine our own hearts, that we would consider ourselves, that we would think first of all about where we stand in relationship to these things. Particularly if we have committed ourselves to this particular church, if we have identified fully with our stated purpose, that we were hoping under God to see unbelieving people becoming the committed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Alistair Begg: If we are committed to that, it is clearly of the utmost importance that we both know the good news, that we know the gospel, and that we stand able and prepared to share it with others.

Alistair Begg: To help us to that end, we're beginning this morning a series of studies in the Gospel of Mark. Mark's Gospel is the shortest, it's the first, and arguably, it is, if you like, the most missionary-oriented of the Gospels. I say that because Mark chooses to leave out a significant amount of material which Matthew and John and Luke include. It's not that Mark is securing for us only the most important parts—that couldn't be—but rather he seems to be zeroing in, as he writes his Gospel, on the information concerning Jesus that is of vital importance if a man or a woman is going to believe in Jesus. So that it is a useful exercise for some who are wondering about the claims of Christ to read this Gospel through.

Alistair Begg: And for those of us who profess faith in Christ, to become increasingly aware of it and to be able to identify with the evangelist's purpose.

Alistair Begg: Now you should also know that Mark is breaking new ground when he writes his Gospel. Before Mark, there was no such thing as a Gospel. People would have said to him, "And what is this thing that you've written for us?" Oh, he said, "It is the Gospel. It's the good news. It's the euangelion in Greek, which gives us our word evangelical."

Alistair Begg: It is a Gospel, he said, "I've written down all of the amazing things concerning Jesus, his life, and his ministry." And he is doing so not in an endeavor to provide a biography—indeed, none of the gospel writers are writing biographies—but in order to be persuasive so that those who read the record he provides may come to believe in Jesus.

Alistair Begg: And it is for that reason that along with the other gospel writers, he gives a disproportionate amount of time and space to the events that relate to the passion and the resurrection of Jesus. In Mark's Gospel, virtually a third of his Gospel is given to the closing weeks of the life of Christ.

Alistair Begg: What I want to do is to start, if you like, out on the circumference of this issue and then move into the center. First of all, by giving consideration to the nature of the Gospels themselves, some general comments regarding the Gospels. Then to look specifically at the author of this Gospel and his purpose. And then we will find ourselves at the core of things and able to begin to give consideration to these opening verses.

Alistair Begg: Some of this will be material that is familiar, and therefore we will be thankful for the reminder. For others of us, this will be completely new material and therefore we might be glad of the discovery.

Alistair Begg: Let me give to you a quote under general comments on the Gospels, a quote from the person who taught me New Testament theology, who is now in heaven, Donald Guthrie, and this is what he wrote: "The Gospel writers were not literary men and were not setting out to be. They themselves had experienced a remarkable transformation as a result of the stupendous events they related."

Alistair Begg: Now, that is a very important point to notice. That we do not have in Matthew and Mark and Luke and John a group of potential literary experts that liked to sit around and discuss and write books and pamphlets and contribute to theological journals, to put it in contemporary terms. No, they weren't like that at all.

Alistair Begg: These were ordinary men who had encountered the extraordinary power of Jesus and who determined under the direction of God's Holy Spirit to write down the events as they had experienced them or as they had had them recounted to them, so that others might in turn come to believe in Jesus.

Alistair Begg: Each of the Gospels is based on eyewitness accounts. Each of the Gospels is based on eyewitness accounts.

Alistair Begg: And these eyewitness accounts are confirmed by contemporary historians of both Roman and Jewish origin. In other words, people who were not Christians, people who had no design to advance the claims of Jesus, when they write in the historical period that is alongside these gospel records, they affirm certain things.

Alistair Begg: For example, if you read them, you will discover that they affirm the fact that Jesus' followers worshiped him as God, called him Messiah, and that this Jesus of Nazareth was executed in Judea when Pontius Pilate was the governor.

Alistair Begg: Now, you say, "Is that important?" Well, actually, it is important, especially when you find yourself on the receiving end of questions and criticisms by friends who believe that when we affirm the truth of the Bible, we are just advancing a cause that has no substantiation at all.

Alistair Begg: So the gospel eyewitness records are confirmed by Roman and Jewish historians. Also these gospel records appear within about 30 years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. So, in other words, they appear in the lifetime of people who saw and heard Jesus.

Alistair Begg: Therefore, they appear within a timeframe that would allow people to say, "That never happened," or "I was there and it is not as you have reported." The people were alive either to affirm the accuracy of these gospel records or to deny them if they found there were falsehoods.

Alistair Begg: Grandfield says, "The survival of such folks"—that is, people who are the contemporaries of the gospel writers—"the survival of such folks must have set limits to the community's freedom to invent and embellish." Because people could easily have said, "You know, hey, we knew Levi. You've written in here that Levi was a tax collector and he met Jesus and there was a big party at his house and he was a transformed man. We knew Levi. He was as bad a rascal on the day he died as on the day he was doing the tax collecting. He was a fiddler to the end." Or, "Who put that stuff in your gospel about Zacchaeus, that little man? We knew Zacchaeus. There's no change in Zacchaeus." Nobody came forward to say that.

Alistair Begg: No one came forward to say that what happened in a kind of transformative way in the town of Sychar in Samaria did not happen, that there was a lady who had met Jesus at the well and as a result of her testimony and her changed life, many in that community actually became the followers of Jesus. Nobody steps forward to say, "No, no, no, no, it didn't happen."

Alistair Begg: And the absence of that is significant.

Alistair Begg: Now your friends will say to you, "Doesn't the fact that the writers, Mark in this case, doesn't the fact that Mark had a vested interest, if you like, in presenting Christ, cause him inevitably to fabricate the evidence?"

Alistair Begg: That's what is often leveled, isn't it? People say, "Well, you know, he wanted to do this and therefore it was in his best interest in order to do these things."

Alistair Begg: But you don't find that's the case. In fact, what you discover is that, and let's just use Luke as an illustration, since we can do this helpfully, turn to Luke chapter 3 just for a moment.

Alistair Begg: Luke chapter 3 and the opening verses. What I want you to notice here is that the gospel writers, far from fabricating, were at pains to tie the details of, if you like, the gospel drama into the historical and geographical framework of their time.

Alistair Begg: Now you remember from our study in Luke that Luke tells us at the very beginning that he had done a very careful investigation of all these things, and he had written them down in an orderly account so that people might know the certainty of the things they've come to believe. There's no sense of invention in that, there's no sense of embellishment in that, there's no notion of somebody sitting around on a rock and dreaming up amazing things and then just writing them down.

Alistair Begg: And true to his case, this is how he sets the framework for the appearance of John the Baptist on the stage of human history. Luke chapter 3, verse 1: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip, the tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert and he went into all the country preaching the good news."

Alistair Begg: He's quite striking, isn't it? And people say, "Well, what you have in the New Testament Gospels is legend." I've read legend, you've read legend as well. This doesn't read like legend. This is not legend.

Alistair Begg: He's writing down here historical data, verifiable data, challengeable data. And the historical, geographical, political context in which the Gospels are written is provided for us in part so as to take away the leg of that stool in argument.

Alistair Begg: And furthermore, if the gospel writers had been determined to embellish or transform things, don't you think they would have changed the way they come across? What interest do they have in describing themselves as a bunch of cowards that ran away when Jesus was arrested? Don't you think they would have said, "And we went away and we had a retreat, and we planned what was going to happen after Jesus was raised from the dead. And after a couple of days, when he was raised, as we fully anticipated, we all went out and had an amazing preaching series in the streets of Jerusalem." No, no, they said, "We all buzzed off and we locked the doors because we were frightened that somebody was going to come and get us too."

Alistair Begg: If you're writing something that is a fabrication, it's surprising to put it in such a fashion.

Alistair Begg: And, and I'll say this is the last thing. The manuscripts that we have, and there are numerous manuscripts, not just hundreds, but thousands of bits and pieces of manuscripts. The manuscripts that we have date closer to the events of the life of Jesus than anything else that is in existence in secular history.

Alistair Begg: For example. If you've done history at college, I will be surprised if you have ever been on the receiving end of somebody suggesting to you that we have every reason in the world to doubt the existence of Julius Caesar.

Alistair Begg: It hasn't happened.

Alistair Begg: In fact, they will have affirmed the writings of Julius Caesar without question. They will affirm the writings of Tacitus. Of that most difficult name to pronounce, Thucydides. Taken for granted that all that is said about these individuals and written of these individuals is absolutely verifiable data, is material, if you like, fixed points material from which we can build a construction of social history.

Alistair Begg: Well, interestingly. The closest manuscript that you can get to Tacitus is 800 AD. To Caesar 850 AD. And Thucydides 1300 AD.

Alistair Begg: Well, what do we have in relationship to Jesus? Well, we have in Manchester University the John Rylands Papyrus, as it's known, because of the archaeological discovery. And that is a fragment of the Gospel of John dated AD 130. So that within a relatively few decades of the passing of Jesus, we have materials that confirm the writings of these Gospels.

Alistair Begg: "But," says somebody, "if that is the case, why is it that the New Testament documents are constantly called into question? Why is it that you don't turn over Newsweek and find a huge front page addition of Newsweek or Time Magazine questioning the existence and the validity and the accuracy of the writings of Julius Caesar?"

Alistair Begg: Well, one, because nobody really cares. And two, because it wouldn't sell. And three, because frankly it's irrelevant to somebody living in the 21st century.

Alistair Begg: But the Bible outsells every book in the world and continues to do so. The rise of the gospel in South America and in the Southern Hemisphere in general is significant and compelling. Men and women continue to give their lives because they are unprepared to deny the claims of Jesus of Nazareth.

Alistair Begg: And men and women recognizing this peculiar authority which attaches to this book resist it like the plague. And behind that is the activity of the evil one, who in Genesis 3 came as the serpent to Eve, and what was his question to her? "Did God really say?"

Alistair Begg: "Is this, are you going to base your response," he says to Eve, "on a word from God, did God say this?" And the evil one from then until now is behind every attempt to undermine, to countermand, to diminish confidence in the verifiability, the accuracy, and the compelling impact of the truth of God's word.

Alistair Begg: And the reason that people do not want to turn to the Bible is because they are unbelievers, and unbelief is sin, and it is sin which clouds our vision and prevents us from believing the gospel.

Alistair Begg: Now, I take time on that because I think it is absolutely fundamentally important. Because in the thoroughfare of life, in everyday interchange, if you tell somebody, for example, tomorrow that you went to church and they said, "And what were you studying?" and you say, "Well, we started to study the Gospel of Mark." And they say, "Well, why would you even waste your time on that?" You say, "Well, it makes me, what did you say? It makes me feel good?" Or "I feel so much better when I do?" That's not going to cut any ice at all. A person will say, "Well, funnily enough, I'll tell you what makes me feel good, reading the plain dealer and drinking three big cups of coffee. I don't have to go somewhere with Mark's Gospel to feel good. I've got a ton of ways of feeling good." So that's not going to go.

Alistair Begg: What are you going to tell them? You are going to tell them that, "In the Gospel I discovered that Jesus loves me." In fact, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." They say, "Well, isn't that a children's song?" Yes, it is a children's song. But the reason I know is because the Bible tells me so. So this Bible better be a trustworthy, reliable document. Because if I am basing my life, my destiny, on who Jesus is and what he has done, and this is where I discover that, this is of fundamental importance.

Host: You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg, and we'll hear more about the authenticity of the Gospels tomorrow.

Host: Our pattern here at Truth For Life is to teach through the Bible verse by verse because we have an absolute confidence in its authority and sufficiency. We trust that God's spirit works through the teaching of his word to bring unbelievers to saving faith and to deepen the relationship between Jesus and those who already believe.

Host: And your giving is what makes it possible for these daily messages from God's word to be produced and distributed to a worldwide audience through radio, podcasts, various streaming platforms, and of course, on our website and our mobile app. Think about it, because of your giving, right now there's someone listening to Truth For Life for the first time who could be unexpectedly having a life-changing encounter with God.

Host: Would you please join us in this Bible teaching, gospel sharing mission today? You can give a one-time donation online at truthforlife.org/donate, or better yet, partner with us by committing to giving an amount of your choosing each month. Sign up to become a Truth Partner at truthforlife.org/truthpartner or call us at 888-588-7884.

Host: And with every donation, keep in mind you're helping to deliver sound biblical teaching to a global audience. And when you give today, we want to say thanks by offering Alistair's brand new book titled "We Will Be Changed." As believers, our lives should be marked by spiritual fruit, and it's easy to get discouraged when you're struggling to love the unlovable or to be patient or kind when you're being pushed to your limits. If you can relate to that, and who can't, you will appreciate Alistair's brand new book "We Will Be Changed: Nine Inner Glories the Spirit Is Cultivating In You." In the book, Alistair reminds us that spiritual growth comes from God's spirit, not from self-effort, and he encourages us to reflect on the many ways we can see God at work.

Host: So ask for your copy today. Again, the link is truthforlife.org/donate. Thanks for listening today. Did you know that Mark actually never identifies himself in the Gospel? So how do we know that he is actually the author? Find out when you join us tomorrow.

Host: The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.