One of the most important differences between Biblical Christianity and most other belief structures (including atheism) is that, by its very nature, Christianity discourages becoming mythologized. That is one reason that twenty centuries after the fact, Jesus is still God, but ‘Jupiter’ is a planet in the solar system.

Mythological religious figures are larger-than-life, have supernatural power, are somewhat mischievous, and their deeds tend to grow with time. One could say that about Zeus, one could say that about Mohammed, or one could say that about Charles Darwin.

Jesus Christ was larger than life in His humility. No mythological god ever washed the feet of his servants. Jesus did not exercise His Personal power, but always accredited it to God the Father.

Jesus was kind and friendly, but deadly serious – no one could accuse Him of being mischievous. And Jesus Christ was the same yesterday as today.

There are no eyewitnesses to the life and times of Zeus or Jupiter. The Koran contains no eyewitness accounts – it was compiled after the death of Mohammed from oral tradition.

Charles Darwin was not the committed atheist his followers claim, but rather, he was the son of a preacher who attended Divinity School.

And, according to an eyewitness to his death, Lady [Elizabeth] Hope, he underwent a ‘deathbed conversion’ in which he renounced atheism.

Darwin’s followers call that a ‘myth.’ That’s my point. There are more written eyewitness accounts of the life and times of Jesus Christ than of any major historical figure of antiquity. (And more eyewitnesses to His last words, “tetelestai!” meaning, “paid in full” than there were to Charles Darwin’s.)

Any attempt to mythologize Jesus Christ runs into a brick wall of eyewitness testimony. Jesus Christ has been mythologized by cults, but that is why they are called cults. Because they introduce an element of unprovable myth to a life already marked by proven miracles well attested to by multiple, unrelated eyewitnesses.

In Jesus’ day, Jerusalem was a relatively small, close-knit city, many of whose residents could trace their genealogy back to Adam. Everybody knew everybody, or they knew somebody who knew somebody – like in many small towns today.

There is a story in which Jesus was preaching in a crowded synagogue. A paralytic, desiring to be healed, couldn’t be maneuvered through the crowd, so instead, they tore a hole in the roof and lowered the guy down. (Like THAT wouldn’t be the talk of the town, in and of itself – the text says he was a paralytic from birth, and well known to his neighbors.)

Having lowered the guy down from the roof (picture it from the perspective of the audience) to Jesus, Jesus says to the guy, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.” And he does! He picks up his bed, and walks out through the crowd.

The Gospel of Mark, which related the story, was already in circulation sometime around 45 AD – fifteen years after the fact. (There is little reason to doubt the healed paralytic was still alive and telling his own story, as well.)

It is fair to assume that Jesus had at least as many enemies as He had friends. But there are no contemporary records denying that event took place. Why? Too many eyewitnesses were there to see what really happened.

One cannot mythologize Jesus for several reasons:

1) the incredible detail of the written eyewitness record;
2) the contemporary acceptance of the Gospels as fact; and,
3) when it comes to the life and times of Jesus Christ, no myth is necessary.

No myth could possibly add to the truth.

Assessment

Those are the reasons why Jesus can’t be mythologized. There is also a reason why few, outside of the cults, have tried. There is no motive. To be saved, one must accept Jesus Christ as He is.

A Christian’s motivation is a sincere belief in heaven and hell and an equally sincere desire to keep his fellow man from ending up in hell. A mythologized Jesus cannot save anyone.

On the other hand, atheism has no eternal power, demands no eternal accountability, and therefore, has no absolute truth. Consequently, it is built entirely on a foundation of mythology.

Let’s examine just a few examples of atheist mythology (with acknowledgment to Vox Day’s brilliant book, The Irrational Atheist.)

Day takes on the most specious arguments offered by the three best-selling atheist authors of our time: Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins.

Myth: Atheists make up a smaller percentage of prison inmates than their religious counterparts.

Fact: Surveys show that those who profess no religion are four times as likely to be incarcerated than Christians.

Myth: Cities in Blue States are safer than Red-State cities.

Fact: The safest cities in “Blue” states are in “Red” counties. The most dangerous cities in “Red” States are in “Blue” counties. (It all depends on how you frame the facts.)

Myth: Richard Dawkins claimed in his book, The God Delusion, that religions are responsible for the destruction of religious art and literature.

Fact: Vox Day counters by pointing out the 41,000 churches destroyed [by] the Soviet atheists, and thousands of Buddhist temples destroyed in Tibet, North Korea, and Vietnam, as they attempted to persecute religious belief out of existence.

Myth: Hitler was a Christian.

Fact: Hitler was a baptized Catholic who was heavily involved in the occult, Theosophy, Arianism, etc., who hated Christians and planned to replace Christianity with Aryanism, an atheistic religion based in racial eugenics.

Myth: Atheists are rational, and therefore would never commit atrocities.

Fact: Most of the dictators of the 20th century were atheists. The Soviet Union was an officially atheist state.

According to Day,

“…the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them.”

Myth: Morality is a function of democracy in which the majority, rather than God, establishes fundamental morality.

Fact: Both Hitler and Hamas were elected in free and fair democratic elections. Moral democracy is no guarantee of a ‘moral majority.’

The late Christopher Hitchens wrote, in his book, God is not Great, that “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence,” as his ‘evidence’ that he believed proved God is a myth. (Now he knows better.)

Day identifies fifty-one statements made by Hitchens for which his book offers no supporting evidence. (Therefore, by Hitchens’ own logic, his book can be dismissed much more easily than the Bible.)

My favorite chapter title is Day’s “Occam’s Chainsaw” in which he applies the logical principle of “Occam’s Razor” to the logical contradictions offered by Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris, et al. In it, Day tackles the various logical problems inherent in the atheist arguments, including those rooted in lack of evidence, hallucination, temporal advantage, fiction, unfairness of hell, God’s character, moral evolution, etc.

Bottom line? It takes far more faith in the face of the contradictions, inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, and outright mythology of atheism than it does to accept the premise of a loving God who is intimately concerned with the spiritual well-being of His creation.

“For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day” (2nd Timothy 1:12).

Marantha! (Come, Lord Jesus)

This Letter was written by Jack Kinsella on April 19, 2008

(Jack died in 2013.)

Lamentations 3:21-24: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope; the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in Him.” (ESV – all emphasis is mine)

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, 20-21: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come…. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

Galatians 2:16; 20-21: “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified…. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

Prior to our Savior’s sacrifice at Calvary, God allowed the blood of bulls, goats, birds and whatever as a temporary measure to cover sins. Hebrews 10:3-4: “But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Then Hebrews 10:14: “for by a single offering He has perfected for all time, those who are being sanctified.”

Our Savior covered all sin for everyone who would receive and accept Him as their forever Savior, and Hebrews 10:18 states, “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

The blood of our Savior shed at Calvary reached back to the Creation of this earth and will reach forward to the day that time on this planet ends. All who were in the will of God prior to Calvary will spend eternity in Heaven. All from Calvary to the end of this earth who will have become a part of the Savior’s precious flock will be with Him forever.

Unfortunately, there have been, and always will be, false prophets and antichrists throughout human existence here. They will tweak God’s word by saying we must do works or make certain offerings to have eternal life. Ephesians 2:8-9 plainly states: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.”

During His ministry on Earth as a human, Jesus made it known that He had no illusions as to how many people would end up being truly saved. Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life; and those who find it are few.”

The “hard” part Is getting away from Satan’s favorite line: “Did God Really Say?” (Genesis 3:1). It worked in the Garden of Eden, and it still works even today. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing; but to us who are being saved, it is the Power of God.”

Satan also tries to convince us that we have sinned so badly that God will never forgive and forget our sins, so we might as well live any way we please.

We’re told in 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should fail, but that all should reach repentance.”

Psalm 103:11-12 is an absolute promise from the Father that never changes. “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.”

There are people today who profess to be “religious” but do not accept Jesus as their Savior. John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 dispute this completely.

Paul states in Philippians 2:9-11, “Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name; so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Jesus told us there are only two paths, and each one leads to a different outcome for all eternity.

The “broad path” will end up in the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20:11-15. All who end up at this judgment will spend eternity in the lake of fire with the devil and all his demons (Matthew 25:41).

The “narrow path” leads to the Judgment Seat of Christ found in 2 Corinthians 5:10; “For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body; whether good or evil.” At this judgment, we will gain or lose rewards for what we have done, but our outcome is still forever with Jesus in Heaven.

One other point that is sometimes hard for people to understand: God will force no one either way. It’s absolutely our choice as to which eternity we will enter. God knows that humans are fallible, and we will all sin (Romans 3:10; Romans 3:23, and Romans 6:23). He has provided 1 John 1:8-10 as our pathway to forgiveness.

First and foremost, we must be honest with our Heavenly Father. Admit we have sinned, and ask Him to forgive us. For all who will have believed in and have accepted Jesus as their Savior, God is faithful and just to forgive us.

This is one major reason that our best move is to call on Jesus to be our Lord and Savior before the end of this age takes place, and definitely before we take our last breath on this earth. God has promised that all true believers will not go through the tribulation (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, and Revelation 3:10). While the world will go through the worst time ever, we will be with our Jesus in our new, immortal, forever bodies, and have a mindset like He has.

We do not know the day or hour the Rapture will take place, but it will happen. In fact, it’s most likely to be the next prophesied event before the tribulation takes place. When the Father and the Holy Spirit release the antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2), then all those whom the Holy Spirit indwelt must be removed to keep us from that wrath.

Our greatest wish is that all loved ones have Jesus as their Savior before this happens. Today would not be too early to receive and accept Jesus as Savior (Romans 10:9-13). It’s the best decision and the most important decision anyone will ever make.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

huebshman46@gmail.com