Video Transcript: Tall Tales about Jesus

Well, did you know that Jesus after his resurrection, came to the Americas and communicated with people here in the Americas? Oh, well, did you know that Jesus never died at all, but that somebody else was crucified instead of him? 

Did you know that Judas was the only disciple who really understood Jesus and did exactly what Jesus wanted him to do? Well, there are a lot of stories about Jesus, a lot of tall tales. And we're going to look at some of those today. And we're going to think about how we can know the truth about Jesus, and not just rely on tall tales. 

Jesus died in Japan, you can read the headline, Jesus came to the nation of Japan, from the land of Israel. And while he was in Japan, he learned quite a bit there in Japan, Jesus learned about the Kingdom of God. And when he returned to Galilee, at the age of 33, he began to preach about that heavenly kingdom, namely, Japan. Well, when opposition arose there in Israel, Jesus left Galilee, and returned to the town of Shingo near a beautiful lake Towanda, and Jesus brother is Isukiri was crucified instead of Jesus. Jesus, back in Japan became a rice farmer. He got married, and he raised the family. He died at the age of 106. And he's buried there. And if you don't believe that, you can go to the burial site and you can buy souvenirs, that proves it. 

If there are souvenirs for sale, it's gotta be true, right? Well, not necessarily. But if buying souvenirs or leaving donations is what you want, and you want to visit Jesus tomb, you can pick your location, not just Japan, you can go to Kashmir, in India, the awkward es sect of Islam teaches that Jesus died and was buried in Kashmir, and it tells you the location and you have the opportunity to leave donations behind. Here's how the story goes. 

The Ahmadiyya sect of Islam says that Jesus was crucified but that he didn't actually die. He only swooned while he was hanging there on the cross. And then when he was taken down from the cross and placed in that nice, cool tomb, he revived and then a special anointment a special ointment was applied to him and he was cured of his wounds. After that Jesus fled Palestine, since they obviously didn't like him very much because they had crucified him after he survived that he fled he journey to India to what's today called Kashmir. And there he died of natural causes in his old age, and he was buried there. Another name for Jesus they say was used Youza Asouph you can leave donations at his burial place.

Now there are about 20 million people who follow this particular view of who Jesus was and how he ended up. If that's not what you want, you can go with mainstream Islam, mainstream Islam says that Jesus didn't die at all. The Koran, which by the way, was written about 600 years after the fact, says that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he did amazing miracles, and that he was a great prophet. 

The Quran borrows certain things from the New Testament accounts. But the Quran also says some other things. The Quran says that Jesus did not claim to be God's Son, and that he was not crucified. God would not let his prophet suffer such pain and disgrace. The Quran teaches that only people who have lived an awful life would go through that kind of pain and disgrace somebody else. Judas was made to look like Jesus and was crucified. 

That's what Islamic tradition says, Jesus Himself, being a great prophet of God went directly to heaven, and Jesus is coming back, he will return to the earth and judge the world and he will establish Islam worldwide. That's according to Islamic tradition about Jesus.

So Jesus wasn't God and he never died at all. Now, Mormons The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has its story of Jesus after Jesus's resurrection, he came to the western hemisphere to the land of bountiful and there he visited the neophyte people, and he shared the gospel, the Mormon gospel with them. And he commissioned 12 apostles there to spread his good news and he blessed children. He showed people, his wounds his hands and feet, and so on. And so the Mormons have their story of Jesus and what he did after his resurrection a long ago in the Western Hemisphere. 

The Hindus and the Buddhists they have their account of Jesus to Jesus is such a captivating figure that almost nobody can ignore him completely once they've heard about him. If they won't believe the truth about him, they will often at least have their own account. Many Hindu shrines and Hindu homes include an image of Jesus. It's not that they honor Jesus as Lord and Christ and as the unique Savior of the world. But some Hindus fit Jesus into Hindu thinking. And they make him an avatar, or one among the millions of Hindu gods. And he's one more choice on the menu. 

Now, some Buddhists such as the Dalai Lama see Jesus as a fully enlightened Buddha, as a higher level Bodhisattva, whose aim was to share Buddhist enlightenment with others. So here we have some more stories of Jesus, and Jesus is made to fit into their existing concepts and their ideas of religion. 

The Davinci Code has sold millions and millions of copies. And that gives an account of Jesus which says that he married Mary Magdalene, and their descendants ruled on the throne of France. And Jesus was a prophet and was considered to be a prophet by those who knew him, but was not divine. Now, Dan Brown, an English teacher, who got into writing books claims that this is based on ancient documents that everything that the Davinci Code says about Jesus is actually rooted in ancient texts. 

He says that church leaders just made up Jesus deity, the idea that Jesus was God, and doctrine, the Trinity, they made it all up at the Council of Nicaea, in 325, but before that, Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet, a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. So that's the DaVinci codes take on who Jesus was. 

Now, there are still other documents that we need to think about. Some of those documents are in what we call the Bible. And let's just look at a couple of the gospels that are in the New Testament, and check that claim that Jesus was considered divine only after the year 300 Or so the gospel of Mark was written within two decades of Jesus's resurrection two or three decades. Here's what the gospel of Mark says at its very beginning, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, okay, the Son of God in the very first verse of the gospel of Mark. 

And this is, while many, many people who knew Jesus are still alive 300 years later, the evil spirits who ran into Jesus, according to the Gospel of Mark would say, You are the Son of God, they were very frightened of Jesus, because they knew who he was. The high priest, when Jesus was on trial asked, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? I am, said Jesus, and all through his ministry, Jesus had been going around acting and talking like he was God, he would say to people, your sins are forgiven? 

How did he have the right to say that someone's sins are forgiven unless he was the one that all sins are committed against, namely, God, and the Jews who heard him say, Your sins are forgiven, said Who can forgive sins, but God alone, they knew what Jesus was declaring that he had the authority to forgive sins. And when Jesus was on trial before the high priests, he said, in very plain terms, I am the Christ, the son of the blessed of God. 

When Jesus died, the captain the centurion, who was overseeing these things said, Surely this man was the Son of God, because he saw the sun go dark, he felt the earthquake, and something convicted him that this was the Son of God. Now, these things were written just a few decades after Jesus's resurrection, let me remind you of that when many eyewitnesses were still alive. So clearly, the Davinci Code is just a lot of rubbish in claiming that Jesus deity wasn't invented until the year 325, at the Council of Nicaea. Let's look at another document in the Bible. The Gospel According to St. John, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

The Word became flesh. and dwelt among us. Can't get much plainer than that. The word who existed before creation was God, the word he's speaking of Jesus, and this word became flesh and dwelt among us. I am the father Arwen, said, Jesus. Now that wasn't very subtle. They got to the point Jesus was claiming to be one with God the Father, and they said, You a near man claimed to be God, and they took up rocks to try to kill him. 

Now, throughout the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus saying things like, I am the good shepherd, the Old Testament, it says in Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd. When somebody says, I am the good shepherd, what is saying I am the Lord. And the Gospel of John, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. In Psalm 27, the Bible says, The Lord is my light and my salvation. So when somebody says, I am the light of the world, what's he saying? I am the Lord. 

And so you get it all the way through John, whether he's saying it directly, or indirectly, by claiming titles for himself that are applied to God in the Old Testament scriptures, Thomas, after Jesus resurrection, wanted to touch him before he would believe it, and that he said, my Lord, and my God, and near the end of John's gospel, he says, the purpose why he wrote it, these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have a life in his name. 

Now remember, the Gospel of John two was written within decades of Jesus death and resurrection, not centuries later. These are the ancient documents which tell us who Jesus really was, and what he said. 

Now, Dan Brown in the Davinci Code was right when he said that there are some fairly ancient documents that contain some of the ideas that he mentioned, but they're not ancient enough. 

Most of those documents that said Jesus was only a prophet were written hundreds of years after Jesus, from our perspective, they may be ancient, but from the time when Jesus walked the earth and taught, it was a long, long time afterward, written by people who rejected the truth that was being taught by the apostles. 

Now, one such gospel was the Gospel of Judas. It wasn't written by Judas himself, but it's labeled the Gospel of Judas. And it was written about 150 years or so, after Jesus's death and resurrection. And in the Gospel of Judas, we learned that Judas was a hero, not a traitor. Judas alone among the 12 disciples understood Jesus, knew what Jesus was really up to. Jesus secretly told Judas his real message, the physical world is evil. Bodies are bad. And people have an inner divine self, which needs to escape the prison of the body to fulfill its divine destiny. 

Now, the Gospel of Judas actually comes out of a group of people called the Gnostics and the Gnostics were anti physical things. They were anti body, and they wanted Jesus teaching this stuff. And so they also favored secret messages, not the things that were written in the public documents of the Gospels or that were publicly proclaimed as the message of Jesus. But stuff you really wouldn't know, unless you were in the inner circle. 

And so Judas is the hero and Jesus tells Judas his real message, Jesus told Judas to hand him over to die, to help him sacrifice his physical man and liberate the true spiritual self, the divine being within. So Judas did Jesus a big favor. He got rid of Jesus body for him. Jesus, therefore did not die to pay for our sins, He died to get rid of his body and to get rid of his humanity. His body, He didn't rise, hey, bodies are bad, according to the Gnostics and Resurrection would be a tragedy, a calamity, a disaster. 

So the Gospel of Judas has Judas as the hero, Jesus dumping his body, never to take it back again, and so on and so forth. Now, let's just think about how much since that makes we hear about Gospel of Judas and some people try to take that seriously. What if we had stories about Abraham Lincoln, and they were called History of booth. 

And in this history of booth, written 150 years after the time of Lincoln, it was claimed that John Wilkes Booth was one of the very few people who really understood and loved Abraham Lincoln. And that booth has been misunderstood for all these years and that Lincoln actually asked John Wilkes Booth to walk up behind him in the theater and shoot him in the head. 

Now, who would spend any time at all listening to such a low A story written and made up 150 years after the actual events. Well, the Gospel of Judas was written 150 years after the actual events. And it's just a bunch of gnostic nonsense. It's like somebody claiming to have secret knowledge from 150 years ago. 

Now, did you know that the Gnostics had a particular set called the Canaanites, and they made a hero out of Cayen, the murderer of Abel, as well as making a hero out of Judas. That's kind of like if you have these publishers of history of booth, who said that the assassin Booth was actually a great hero. And that came from a group called the Arnold Knights because they were devoted to Benedict Arnold as a great American hero. 

So well now, what do you take this stuff seriously, if somebody came along, it's a John Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Abraham Lincoln and Benedict Arnold, the man who betrayed the army of George Washington, were a great American heroes. You can't believe this stuff. And yet, in the realm of teaching about Jesus, there are some who actually say, oh, we can't just fake the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we've got to pay some attention to these other gospels, even though the gospels were written hundreds of years later, and are full of nonsense. 

Now, there are some early non biblical stories about Jesus not as early as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but fairly early, you know, within 100 years or so. And then, of course, many more come along after that. And some of them are kind of piously meant they were written by people who were probably genuine Christians, although they certainly were not God's word. 

There's an Infancy Gospel of Thomas, for instance, it's different from something else that's called the Gospel of Thomas. But the Infancy Gospel of Thomas gives us some childhood tales, and it doesn't really directly deny key doctrines about Jesus. 

Have you ever wondered what it was like when Jesus was young? I mean, the Bible doesn't give us much detail. It tells us a few stories about his birth. And then it gives us a quick snapshot when he was 12 years old, and in the temple, and his parents couldn't find him. And then they found Him in the temple, and they had a conversation about Jesus being about his father's business.

But between Jesus birth and age 30, we don't read nearly as much as we'd like to about Jesus. Well, some of the other writings make up for that gap. And I mean, they do make it up. One story has the Lord Jesus as a boy making clay birds, and then some bad boys come along to pick on him, and they're gonna smash those birds that Jesus made out of clay, Jesus claps his hands together, and the birds fly away, and the boys can't smash them. Take that, you know, it's a great story, everybody would love to have divine power to show up the bullies and make their birds fly. 

And this story actually is picked up on in the Koran, six centuries later, and is recorded as part of the Quran. And there are earlier documents that mentioned this story as well. In another story, there are there's a bully who picks on Jesus, what happens, Jesus strikes him dead? Well, maybe some of us when we're seven years old, and getting picked on feel likely, we'd like to strike somebody dead. 

But I kind of have a hard time believing that Jesus just smoked, some bully who was being mean to him, given all that we know about it from the real gospels. So there were some books that had maybe some pious intentions, or were trying to fill in a few gaps about Jesus's life, where God hasn't told us what happened. And we shouldn't take those details as being true, but they weren't necessarily denying that Jesus is divine, or that He died and rose again or denying the doctor, the Trinity. 

There were some other non biblical books, though, that were just flat heretical. They denied central truths of the faith. The Gospel of Judas, obviously, is one of those. It teaches the Gnostic heresy. The Gospel of Thomas, which gets quite a bit of publicity, in some academic circles, was also a Gnostic text and not a Christian one. 

And there are some genuine sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas sayings that are also appearing in our Bible, but they often get a different spin in the Gospel of Thomas. And then there's a whole bunch of other stuff attributed to Jesus that he really didn't say.

Now, unfortunately, it's just a habit that people don't want to take what the Scriptures that God has revealed, say about our Lord Jesus, and they want to add new things. Muslims say that David and Moses and Jesus had writings revealed by God and those should be accepted, but then Muslims also add the Koran written 600 years later, and the Quran adds to biblical writings and then it also corrects they say alleged corruptions that crept into the Bible over the years. So in lip service, Muslims will say yeah, the most of the writings of the Bible were God given but wherever they differ from the Koran, the Koran is right and the Bible is wrong because those things in the Bible got changed or corrupted over the years. 

Now you tell me what's more likely to be accurate when it tells about Jesus documents that were written by eyewitnesses about Jesus, or stuff that was written 600 years later by the followers of Muhammad. Roman Catholics. Unfortunately, in accepting the scriptures also add other things that are ranked with equal authority. The books called the Apocrypha or their Deuterocanonical books are some books that were written between the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament in about that 400 year gap. 

And Jewish people in the Old Testament times leading up to the time of Jesus did not recognize those books, as scriptural and the early Christians, though they saw much benefit in those books didn't recognize them as on a par with the Old Testament books or the New Testament writings. But in the controversy between Roman Catholics and Protestants especially during that time, the Protestants quite clearly insisted on the Bible only, and the Roman Catholics said that the Apocrypha had to be included. 

They also said that holy tradition has authority on a par with the Bible. And the Pope's pronouncements when he makes pronouncements ex cathedra from the chair, are to be considered infallible, and from God Himself, in other words, on the same level as scripture, and in effect, adding new binding pronouncements from the Lord. 

Christian scientists added their own book science and health with a key to the Scriptures. by Mary Baker Eddy had a little bit in common with the Gnostics that really everything is spirit and your body is mostly imaginary. Well, the Mormons added the Book of Mormon, they accept the old the New Testament with their own spin on it, and then they added the Book of Mormon. 

So they have a new New Testament, another testament of Jesus Christ, the Seventh Day Adventists hold to the deity of Christ and the Trinity as do the Roman Catholics. So they hold on to some important orthodox things, but they to add to the Bible. 

Now, here's an official statement, we consider the biblical canon closed, however, now, right, there's your problem. You'd better just stop with we consider the biblical canon clothes never add, however. But however, we also believe, as did Ellen G. White's contemporaries, that her writings carry divine authority, both for godly living and for doctrine, and therefore we recommend that as a church, we seek the power of the Holy Spirit to apply to our lives more fully the inspired counsel contained in the writings of LNG white, and that we make increased efforts to publish and circulate these writings throughout the world.

And the Seventh Day Adventists believe that their worship of God on Saturday and their adherence to the teachings of Ellen G White mark them as the true Remnant Church of the last days, they have added to the biblical canon, even though they say they consider the Canon close. 

Now, some of the books that have come and been added to the Bible and have offered some tall tales about Jesus claim to have been delivered directly by angels, the Book of Mormon says that God has a body it says that God the Father had sex with Mary and that's where Jesus came from. It teaches salvation more by good behavior than as the totally free gift from God. The book was written 1800 years after the New Testament was written, but Mormons believe it because they say that Joseph Smith claimed he got it from the Angel Moroni. And if an angel brings you a message, you gotta believe it, right? A similar claim about the Koran that was written 600 years after the New Testament. It denies that Jesus was God. It denies that he died on the cross. But an angel brought up Muhammad claimed that he heard it from the angel Gabriel himself. Now, if an angel speaks to you, What more proof do you need? 

Now it's possible as we think about these claims that we just say, well, Joseph Smith just lied when he said an angel spoke to him or he just made it up. Or you might say, well, Muhammad just dreamed it up. Well, that's one possibility to consider. But another possibility is that he really did get a visit from an angel. The wrong kind of angel. What does it say in the Bible? Galatians one, Verse eight says, even if we are an angel from heaven, should preach to a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. So the Apostle Paul said even if an apostle so lightly, or even if an angel came with a different message, then let him be damned. 

Just let him go to hell, because that's a false gospel. If it contradicts the revealed gospel of Jesus Christ from the eyewitnesses, as we find it in the scriptures, Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So even if you have Angel testimony, do not believe it. If it conflicts with the what the Word of God says about Jesus Christ, because there's more than one kind of angel. 

There are the holy angels of God, and there are the fallen angels led by Satan. Satan is a counterfeiter Jesus is such a gripping figure. And Satan is such a busy counterfeiter, that all sorts of stories exist about Jesus, as we've seen, the New Testament Gospels, what do they emphasize? Well, a lot of different things, but two main things. One is who Jesus is, he's fully God, and at the same time, fully human. 

And secondly, Jesus atoning death and his victorious resurrection are the key to our forgiveness, and to eternal life. And since these are so central, to who Jesus is, and what we need for our salvation, that's exactly what Satan goes after. Jesus divine person and his saving work are what we need the most. And therefore, what Satan denies the most frequently and ferociously. 

And you'll see again and again, a denial either that Jesus is fully God, or in some of these cults, that Jesus is human at all, or that he had a real body, or as an Islam denying that even died at all, or in other cults, that his death really had no purpose in terms of paying for the sins of people. And then you have still others who deny that Jesus rose again, Satan will make up all kinds of stories, but not just for fun, but mainly to distract from these things, who Jesus is, and what he has done for the salvation of people. 

Who do we believe well, we maybe ought to check in with the people who were there, who saw Jesus who heard Him who touched him, who knew him and wrote it down. The apostle John was Jesus closest friend. And he lived with Jesus, he was close to Jesus. And he said that which front was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. 

The Apostle Peter said something similar. We did not follow cleverly invented stories, when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses get that eye witnesses of his Majesty. We didn't make this stuff up. We were there. That's what John and Peter are telling us, and when we have eyewitnesses, we should take to heart what they have to say, the New Testament, eyewitnesses were trustworthy people. And they were speaking from firsthand experience, not from Gossip, not from rumors from centuries past, not things they made up, but their own encounter with the living in flesh, Jesus Christ. 

And not only that, on top of that, they have the Holy Spirit's inspiration and guidance, to take what they knew as eyewitnesses, and to write it down, and to do it in a totally trustworthy way. So that everything they wrote about Jesus is 100%. True, you have the eyewitness factor, you have the Holy Spirit factor. And those two things are what set the New Testament documents apart from all the other documents. 

And those documents are ancient, there are tons of ancient manuscripts that corroborate the accuracy, and the faithful transmission of those documents. Jesus Himself said, when the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who goes out from the Father, He will testify about Me and you also he says to his apostles, you also must testify for you have been with me from the beginning. 

So there you have it, that double witness, the witness of those who were there from the beginning, and were eyewitnesses of all that Jesus seven dead and witnesses to His resurrection. And then that witness of the Holy Spirit, the comforter, so don't believe the tall tales about Jesus, believe the witness of those who are there and believe the witness of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, testifying to Jesus Christ himself. You