Show me a mission, then evidence

Today we had a very interesting discussion in Bible class. We have been studying through the defense of the Christian faith and have finally progressed from the defense of God and the Bible to the defense of Jesus Christ. In class, we watched several news casts about Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda and his claim to be Jesus. This spurred an excellent discussion in class about the students' reactions to his claim. After analyzing different things he said that completely contradict what we know in the Bible, several students mentioned something very interesting. When the interviewer asked Miranda why he thinks he was chosen to be Jesus on earth, he says he doesn't know. The students commented that he seems to have no purpose, no mission, no goals. In fact, he doesn't even know why he is Jesus. We compared this with Jesus of Nazareth. He made it very clear from the very start of his ministry that he had a purpose, a mission, and a goal. He knew clearly why He was on this earth--to seek and save the lost. Everything in his ministry to others was with that mission in mind. He had focus and direction.

We then discussed that this man showed no evidence of his being Jesus. The interviewer asked him if he could perform miracles, walk on water, etc. He responded, "Not exactly." This launched us into a discussion of the role of evidence in proving a claim. One student said that if he didn't perform miracles then that proved that he wasn't from God. So I countered that with, "Then if he could do miracles, does that prove that He is divine? What about all the faith healers that perform all those so called 'miracles'? Just because they can do these things, does that prove that they are from God?" Of course they said no. So then I asked them where does "evidence" come into play and how can we know when that evidence confirms the divinity of the individual.

This led us to look to Jesus' example in how he used evidence in his ministry to prove his divine nature. We looked at Jesus standing before Herod. Mrs. White states that Herod was anxious to see Christ "prove His claims by working a miracle." While Jesus had done this on many other occasions, he refused to do it now. Herod insisted, "If Thou canst work miracles for others, work them now for Thine own good, and it will serve Thee a good purpose. Again he commanded, Show us a sign that Thou hast the power with which rumor hath accredited Thee. But Christ was as one who heard and saw not.... Herod promised that if Christ would perform some miracle in his presence, He should be released...." DA 729-730.

So here we see that Jesus refused to heal because it would only satisfy idle curiosity. In addition, it would prevent Him from fulfilling his mission to seek and save the lost because Herod would have released Him. Thus, any type of evidence shown would have gone against Christ's purpose--so he refused to do it.

Then we looked at the story of the man sick with the palsy in Matt. 9. I asked the class if Jesus' main goal was to heal the man physically or spiritually. Of course it was spiritually. So instead of healing the man, Jesus forgave his sins. But when the Pharisees cried blasphemy, Jesus knew he needed to give some evidence that he could indeed forgive. So he told them, "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." Notice why Jesus gave evidence in this circumstance and not in the one with Herod. Jesus had to emphasize his mission as one who could forgive sin. But since nobody can see whether sins are actually forgiven, Jesus then gave them proof that they could see--a healing miracle. We see this occurring over and over in Jesus' ministry: the evidence was always for one reason alone--to prove his mission, his goal, his purpose.

So that leads us back to the role of evidence. Evidence is never just for the sake of evidence--it is to prove mission. When you look at these faith healers, one must ask themselves "what is the mission? and how does this 'evidence' concur with the mission." The fact is that these healings seem to be for the sake of healings alone--not for the sake of the gospel message in healing the soul of sin.

So our class discussion concluded with one main idea that distinguishes Christ from all other so called 'Christs' and faith healers. He had a very clear-cut mission and purpose. And any evidence that he ever gave was only for the sake of proving that he could fulfill that mission.

Mrs. White sums it up beautifully in one final statement about Christ before Herod: "The mission of Christ in this world was not to gratify idle curiosity. He came to heal the brokenhearted. Could He have spoken any word to heal the bruises of sin-sick souls, He would not have kept silent. But He had no words for those who would but trample the truth under their unholy feet." DA 730

For myself, I am thankful that in the life of Jesus physical evidence was provided that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus could and did fulfill the mission that all this evidence pointed to--that He indeed can save and forgive my sin!