Q & A - Was Jesus Wrong?

Transcript Q&A – Was Jesus Wrong?

[Before the discussion starts, details about Reasonable Faith chapters are discussed. The actual podcast discussion, and this transcript, picks up at the 6 minute 40 second mark.]

Kevin Harris: Let’s turn now to some questions that we get a ReasonableFaith.org, Dr. Craig. We take time doing these podcasts to answer some questions that we get.

This gentleman who is asking this is 17 years old. He is a Christian. He is seeking God. He says your work has really helped him in his relationship with God. But here is a 17 year old young man who is asking about some age old questions on the meaning and purpose of life and why God created us.

Dr. Craig: These are the most fundamental questions that a person can ask. I remember as a 16 year old before I came to know Christ in a personal way, I was deeply troubled by the question of the meaning of my existence and why I was here. I think that the answer to that question from a Christian point of view is beautifully expressed in the Westminster Catechism when it asks, “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer is: to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The purpose of our existence is to know God. In being in a personal relationship to God, the ultimate source of infinite goodness and love, we find the fulfillment of human existence. It is what we were made for. Only an infinite good could satisfy our deepest longings for infinity, forever. Any finite good, no matter how wonderful, after enough time would become boring and cloying and even annoying. Only an infinite good could satisfy our deepest longings forever. That is what God is. So God has created us to know him and to be in relationship to him, to enjoy him forever.

Now what is interesting about that is that it means that God didn’t create us out of any need in himself. It wasn’t as though God was lonely without creation and needed company and so created us. God, in the tri-unity of his own being, is in eternal fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – an eternal fellowship of love and knowledge and will. The wonder of creation is that God would make finite persons in his image and invite them into this intra-trinitarian relationship. Not for his benefit, but rather for the benefit of those finite persons themselves. So God created us for our good, that we could have the wonderful good of knowing him, the infinite source of goodness and love; not out of any need or want on his own part.

Kevin Harris: I’m glad you are saying that because I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said that God must have been really lonely out there and he created us for companionship and for fellowship and things. Which is only half-right. God doesn’t lack anything. He is complete. So he creates us – are you saying out of his desire? He is free to have a desire but it is not a need. [1]

Dr. Craig: Right.

Kevin Harris: It is just more of an expression.

Dr. Craig: That’s right. It is an expression of God’s love, his self-giving love, that he would create finite creatures so that they might have the wonder and joy of this intra-trinitarian fellowship that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have enjoyed from eternity. We become adopted sons and daughters of God who are in relationship with the persons of the Trinity. So when you think about it, Kevin, creation just as much as salvation is by grace alone. It is an act of God’s grace, his unmerited self-giving favor, that he would bestow this grace upon us to be able to know him.

Kevin Harris: Life has purpose and meaning because of God, because of Christ. That is good news.

Dr. Craig: Yes, exactly. Now this would be the general purpose and meaning of human existence. But in addition to that, there is also going to be a specific purpose for your life, the reason for which you exist. God will have a vocation or a calling for you to fulfill in life. Part of the wonder of walking with Christ is finding that vocation for which he has called you and finding fulfillment in carrying out the work that he has given you to do during the years that he’s given you on this planet.

Kevin Harris: Let’s go to another question, from someone much older than 17.

A deist – clear that up for someone who may not be familiar with the term.

Dr. Craig: Well, he has already, in a sense, said some things that are self-contradictory. If he is a deist, that means he believes that there is a God who has created and designed the universe – a personal, transcendent creator. Therefore, he is not a secular humanist. A secular humanist doesn’t believe in God. So this person is not a secular humanist; he is in fact a theist of sorts. He believes that there is a designer and creator of the universe who has made us, but he doesn’t think that this God has revealed himself in any particular religion. He is not the Christian God. He is not the Muslim God. He is not a Hindu God. He is a sort of God of nature, as it were. The creator and designer of the world, but not the God of any specific religion. That is very different from secular humanism.

Kevin Harris: He goes on to say,

I’ll give you the kernel of what he says. He says,

Now, both of these books, Dr. Craig, I’m sure you are familiar with Dale Allison’s book as well as Albert Schweitzer’s. They are both liberal views of the historical Jesus.

Dr. Craig: Right. What Allison and Schweitzer both thought was that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who believed that the end of the world and the Kingdom of God was going to come either during his lifetime or at least the lifetime of his hearers and that this did not eventuate. This is a serious problem for followers of Christ. It is often called the delay of the parousia. The parousia is the Greek term for the second coming of Christ. The question is: why is the second coming of Christ delayed? Why has it not happened? Did this mean that Jesus of Nazareth was mistaken in thinking that the parousia, or the second coming, would occur within the lifetimes of those who heard and followed him.

Kevin Harris: That is this questioner’s dilemma.

Dr. Craig: Yes, it is.

Kevin Harris: It apparently led him, according to him, away from the Christian faith because Jesus was wrong about the end of the world. It did not occur during the lifetimes of the disciples or his own lifetime.

Dr. Craig: Right. That seems to be the difficulty. One thing to notice, Kevin, is that we need to put this in context. Very often I find with objectors that an objection or a doubt that they have looms so large that it gets completely out of proportion with everything else. [2] It is like holding your thumb up close to your eye so that your thumb looks bigger than a skyscraper that you see on the horizon. Very often I find doubters allow their doubts to get all out of proportion with the context. He said the case for Christianity is weak, and yet he said nothing about the evidence for Jesus’ radical personal claims and especially for the evidence for his resurrection. If we are persuaded that the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is very powerful and convincing, then we have good grounds for believing that Jesus was in fact who he claimed to be. That will then provide a context in which we will look at these claims about the second coming and ask ourselves, “What in the world was going on here? What did he mean by these claims?” We will attempt to interpret them in a way that makes sense of them. But they will be taken in the context of a very convincing case for the divinity of Jesus provided by his miracles, his radical personal claims, and his resurrection. So I think it is important before we address his specific question, to set the evidential context lest this objection appear to be the only thing that needs to be taken into consideration in considering the identity of Jesus.

Kevin Harris: So what would you think then? Is there a possibility, even if Christ rose again and backed up his claims, he was vindicated by God, that he could have been wrong about the end of the world?

Dr. Craig: Some New Testament scholars have suggested this. Robert Gundry, for example, has said that this is possible in light of the incarnation. That Christ’s humanity was so dominate that he was mistaken about the date of the parousia.

But I don’t think we need to go that far, Kevin. When you look at the statements of Jesus about his return, what you notice is that he says no one knows the date of his return. He says, “I don’t know the date of my return. It could be anytime.” He gives certain parables that suggest that it will be a long time before his return. For example, the parable of the bridegroom who is delayed in coming to the wedding and returns only later at midnight, after everyone has retired and gone to bed. He talks about those who were asleep when the bridegroom finally arrived. Or he talks about the man who goes into a far country and gives his estate to be managed by his servants. And it takes him a long time before he returns. One of the slaves, while his master is delayed, says “My master is delayed in his coming” and he begins to beat the other servants and treats them disrespectfully. There are a number of parables like this that Jesus gives that suggests a long delay before his return and need to be set along side of those few passages in which you have expressions of Jesus that taken in and of themselves in isolation might suggest that he expected his return to be within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. So, again, there is evidence on both sides.

What about those passages where Jesus seems to speak as though his return might occur within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses? I think that it is probably the case that when you read these sayings in their original settings that they were not intended to indicate that Jesus would return within the lifetime of those who were hearing him. I say that on the basis of a passage in Matthew 10 where Jesus gives the charge to the twelve disciples to go on a mission preaching throughout the towns of Israel. This passage actually sharpens the problem for us. It makes it more acute. And by doing so I think it gives us good grounds for thinking that these sayings in their original context didn’t have the implications that they might appear to in the context in which we find them today. In Matthew 10 it says he sends the disciples out to the cities of Israel, to preach and cast out unclean spirits, and heal people of every disease. And he says, “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles. Do not enter a city of the Samaritans. Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” So this is a tour of preaching that is only going to be through the cities of Israel. He describes what will happen – how the disciples will be persecuted and encounter opposition, and so forth. Then in verse 23, we find this astounding statement, “When they persecute you in this city, flee to another, for assuredly I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” [3]  So here it sounds as though the second coming of Christ, the return of the Son of Man, is going to occur before the disciples even complete their preaching tour of the towns of Israel. And yet we know that didn’t happen. Luke goes on to talk about how they returned from this preaching tour and Jesus continues to work with his disciples. What this suggests to me is that in the original context in which these saying were given, they didn’t have the implication that they appear to have to us today who read them in a quite different context. In the original context, these things did not mean that Jesus was going to return during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses anymore than this saying in Matthew 10:23 meant that the parousia was going to occur before the disciples had gone through all of the towns of Israel on their teaching tour.

So we need to remember what kind of literature the Gospels are. The Gospels are compilations of the sayings of Jesus. Very often, these sayings of Jesus will appear in different literary contexts today than they did in the original contexts in which they were given. I think we have good grounds for thinking – based on his parables about the long delay, based upon his sayings that no one knows the time of his return – that in their original context these sayings were not meant to imply that the parousia would take place within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. It might. But, not necessarily. Every generation needs to be prepared to be the last. [4]