AP

LORD OF HISTORY YET TESTED BY HISTORY

            The triune God who made heaven and earth and to whom all flesh shall come in the judgment is clearly the Lord of all history. No man can show Him his counsel for He consults with no man (Isa.40:13-14). As the eternal Son of God, Christ too is Lord of all, and so bears the name ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ (Rev.19:16). Who can debate with the Lord who says to the Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’ (Ps.110:1)?

In His infinite wisdom, God cannot be questioned. Even poor Job, struggling with the issue of his own terrible suffering, is not given an answer that is immediately comforting. Rather, he is put back on his heels: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? … Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding?’ (Job 38:2,4) Suffering may have been thought to have warranted a softer answer, but none is given – at least none is given at first.

What about predestination? Surely it requires some sensitivity to soothe troubled minds. No, it fares no better: ‘Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ”Why have you made me like this?”’ (Rom.9:20) God does not, as it were, stoop down to us on these two issues – suffering and predestination. He simply proclaims His Lordship.

            Yet elsewhere He does stoop down, and appears to make Himself vulnerable, if we can put it like that. In the context of the crushing loss of life in World War I, the English Free Church minister, Edward Shillito, wrote a poem, ‘Jesus of the Scars’ where he penned the lines:

            But to our wounds only God’s wounds speak;

            And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

It is a little like the message of the book of Hebrews, that Jesus suffered and was tempted, and so is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb.2:18; 4:15). Christ lifts us up to God by descending first to us.

            As Paul sets out the fact of Christ’s rising from the dead, he makes much of the number of eyewitnesses who saw the Risen One (1 Cor.15:3-8). The Lord of history allows Himself to be tested by history. It is almost as if the God with wounds is exposing Himself to the wounds of would-be historians. C. F. D. Moule, a Cambridge New Testament scholar who died in 2007 as he was nearing 100 years of age, argued: ‘If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with?’ In other words, if the resurrection did not happen, what other explanation was there for the explosion of Christian faith? Sinners need more than a convincing argument to enter the kingdom of God, but a confrontation with the facts of hard history is a factor along the way to salvation.

This is not the case with Muhammad, to use him as a contrast. He is not said to have performed any miracles or signs (Surah 6:37), for the Qur’an itself is the sign: ‘Is it not sufficient for them that We have sent down to you the Book (the Qur’an) which is recited to them?’ (Surah 29:50-51) Yet there are two passages in the Qur’an which are usually interpreted as miracles. First, there is the supposed night journey of the prophet to ‘the inviolable and far distant place of worship’, which is said to be Jerusalem (Surah 17:1). Secondly, there is the even more mysterious – or bizarre – reference to the moon’s being split in half (Surah 54:1). There are two challenges to any historian!

The apostle Paul could speak boldly to Festus regarding the death and resurrection of the Messiah: ‘this has not been done in a corner’ (Acts 26:26). The Lord of history is not answerable to history but is open to history. Muhammad, on the other hand, has extraordinary claims made concerning him, yet is not open to history.

God in Christ is tested yet also the standard of all tests. The resurrected Lord tells Thomas: ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe’ (John 20:27). All shall be judged by the Christ who has risen from the dead, never to die again; but we are called to investigate His claims. Examine by all means, but let examination lead to humble worship.   

– Peter Barnes