The Case for Christ Part 2: Analyzing Jesus

1. The Case for ChristPart 2: Analyzing Jesus Chapter 10. The Fingerprint Evidence Did Jesus—and Jesus Alone—Match the Identity of the Messiah?

2. Fingerprint Evidence-Precision Identification • Thomas Jennings was hanged after being convicted in a 1910 Chicago murder case when four police officers testified that four fingerprints in the wet paint on a windowsill matched his and only his. This was the first case in which fingerprint evidence led to a conviction. Fingerprint evidence has become so reliable that a single print is able to lead to a conviction. • In the Old Testament there are several dozen major prophecies that form a figurative fingerprint that only the promised Messiah could match. Just as every fingerprint is unique, the descriptions of the coming Messiah are unique and sufficient to make his identification certain.

3. The Ninth Interview: Louis S. Lapides, M.DIV., TH.M. • Mr. Lapides has taught Bible at Biola University and has served as president of a national network of 15 messianic congregations. The major focus of his life has been working with Jewish students and adults. He is a completed or Messianic Jew whose testimony includes an enormous search for truth. At the time of the interview, he was the pastor of Beth Ariel Fellowship in Sherman Oaks, California. • While growing up in a Jewish home and attending Hebrew school, Lapides never heard about the Messiah.

4. A Spiritual Quest Begins • When Lapides’ parents divorced, he began a period of rebellion that included drugs and associations with the prominent social rebels of the day. A tour in Viet Nam compounded the problems in this dark period. While in the military, he encountered anti-Semitism and began to distance himself from his Jewish identity. He began to delve into Eastern religion and upon his return home, pursued becoming a Buddhist priest. Frustrated that he could not make up for his past wrongs, he became depressed and suicidal. • His spiritual quest continued as he experimented with LSD, various kinds of Buddhism, Scientology, Hinduism, and Satanism. By this time he knew Satan was real and the things he was involved in were not good.

5. I Can’t Believe in Jesus • On the Sunset Strip he encountered an evangelist chained to an 8 foot cross. As he challenged some Christians in the crowd with his eastern mystical ideas about people just needing to realize that they are God, they claimed, “When God creates something, everyone can see it.” So much for his eastern philosophy. • A pastor in the crowd asked him, “Do you know about the prophecies of the Messiah?” Unaware that such prophecies of Jesus could be found in the Old Testament, Lapides began to read for himself.

6. Pierced for Our Transgressions • When Lapides came to Isaiah 53, he recognized the crucifixion of Jesus in a text written nearly 700 years before the event. It was so astounding that he believed Christians must have rewritten the Old Testament. After comparing his Christian Bible with a Jewish Bible, he concluded the passages were authentic.

7. The Jewishness of Jesus • There are 48 major predictions in the Old Testament: • Isaiah predicts the virgin birth. • Micah predicts the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. • Genesis and Jeremiah specify his ancestry. • Psalms describe his betrayal, death by crucifixion (not invented yet) and his resurrection. • At this point Lapides decided to read the first page of the New Testament and in Matthew 1 the words “Son of Abraham, Son of David” leap off the page. Then Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son.” Then Matthew quotes Jeremiah. • Now consumed with amazement, he read through the gospels to Acts where Jews are discussing how to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. This brought him to an intellectual belief that Jesus is the Messiah, a deeply troubling situation.

8. Epiphany in the Desert • Alone in the desert, Lapides recalls the words someone had spoken to him, “You’re either on God’s side or Satan’s side.” He prayed to know for sure and God reveals himself to him in an unmistakable way. When his friends asked about the changes they observed in him, he said, “I feel whole.” • He met a Jewish follower of Jesus named Deborah, a member of the church of the pastor who had challenged him to read the Old Testament. They married and started the Beth Ariel Fellowship for Jews and Gentiles.

9. Responding to Objections • If the Old Testament prophesies so obviously point to Jesus, why don’t more Jews accept him? • Many Jews don’t read them. • Seminars try to disprove them. • Converts are ostracized, even disowned by friends and family.

10. 1. The Coincidence Argument • The chance of Jesus fulfilling 8 prophecies by accident is one in 100 million billion. To illustrate this, think of covering Texas with silver dollars two feet deep, marking one of them, and having a blindfolded person walk the state and pick UP ONLY ONE COIN and having that be the marked coin! • The chance of Jesus fulfilling 48 prophecies by accident is equal to the number of atoms in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the size of ours. • TRANSLATION: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE FOLKSJESUS IS THE REAL DEAL

11. 2. The Altered Gospel Argument • Did the gospel writers fabricate details? If so, there were living witnesses at the time that could have refuted such statements and some would certainly have had a motive to refute them. However, the Talmud, even though it makes derogatory statements about Jesus, does not claim the gospel accounts were falsified. If he had falsified his gospel, why did Matthew die as a martyr, shot through with arrows? Would someone die for his own lie?

12. 3. The Intentional Fulfillment Argument • Some skeptics claimed that Jesus manipulated his life in such a way as to fulfill the prophecies but how could he prearrange his birth? Daniel 9:24-26 foretold the appearance of the Messiah at the exact moment in history when Jesus showed up.

13. 4. The Context Argument • Do Christians take the prophecies out of context? A study of the context and wording in the original language shows they are true. Lapides challenges skeptics to honestly study the evidence and to ask God sincerely to show them the truth. He says that when he did this, it became clear to him that Jesus fit the fingerprint of the Messiah.

14. Everything Must Be Fulfilled • Strobel concludes this chapter with a list of people who began a quest to disprove the gospels, only to discover, as he did, that they are true. • “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” Acts 3:18 • “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Luke 24:44

15. Question for Reflection • Why are Christians so often associated with the word, “intolerant”? • What are some ways we, as Christians, can project tolerance without sacrificing the truth? • “People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.”