Was Jesus God in Human Form? Responding to Rick Gedeon

The deity of Jesus, or the doctrine of Jesus being God in human form, is at the very core of the Biblical worldview.  Jesus specifically claimed and taught that he was the 2nd member of the Trinity (see The Trinity: Biblical or Unbiblical?).  Naturally, there are people who claim that Jesus never claimed to be God; that's to be expected.  What's really sad though is that there are people who call themselves followers of Jesus who claim that Jesus never once proclaimed to be God.

One such person is Rick Gedeon, the pastor/head of the Columbiana Restoration Church Of God.  In a YouTube video titled John 5: 44 and 10:36: Jesus never claimed to be God!, Rick tried to prove that Jesus never claimed to be God by looking at John 5:44 and John 10:36, and the verses that immediately preceded each one.  He would quote those verses to show that the Jews thought that Jesus was making a claim to deity, and that Jesus was supposedly correcting their incorrect interpretation of his statements.  We are going to analyze why the claims made by Gedeon are not true, and I am going to present different occasions where Jesus himself made claims to be God in various ways.

Responding To John 5:44

Returning to what pastor Gedeon said, let's take a look at his "evidence" that Jesus denied being God.  Let's read John 5:44 in context so that we can see what exactly Jesus said:

John 5:41-44:  "I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.  I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.  How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" 

According to Gedeon, when Jesus said in verse 44 that the Jews didn't seek the glory that comes from the only God, he was supposedly correcting the Jewish leaders' faulty understanding of what Jesus said in John 5:17.  Let's read what Gedeon is talking about:

John 5:16-18:  "So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.  In his defense Jesus said to them, 'My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.'  For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."

According to Gedeon, when Jesus called God his father in verse 17, the Jewish leaders incorrectly understood that Jesus was making himself equal with God (which would make him God), and Jesus was simply correcting their understanding at the end of verse 44 by stating that there is only one God.

Looking at verses 41-44 of John 5, I already see a claim Jesus made that proves that he is God:  Notice in verses 41-42 how Jesus told his Jewish listeners that he knew them and that they did not have the love of God in their hearts.  The question we should be asking is, how could Jesus possibly know the hearts of his listeners so well that he knows that they have no love for God if he was not God? Wouldn't he have to be able to see into their hearts like John 2 says he could?

John 2:23-25:  "Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.  But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.  He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person."

As we can see from this passage in John 2, Jesus in his first coming knew what was in each person, and that's why he knew all people.  This is why in John 5 it was perfectly logical for Jesus to say to the Jewish leaders that he knew them, and that he knew that they had no love of God in their hearts.  How does this prove that Jesus was claiming to be God?  King Solomon said the following in 1 Kings 8 as part of a prayer of dedication directed to God in the presence of the whole assembly of Israel:

1 Kings 8:37-40:  "When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of the afflictions of their own hearts, and spreading out their hands toward this temple— then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know every human heart), so that they will fear you all the time they live in the land you gave our ancestors."

According to what God told Solomon in 1 Kings 3:12 and what 1 Kings 4:29-34 says, King Solomon was the wisest man who has ever lived and will ever live, and it is this King Solomon who says that only God knows every human heart.  Let's see what the Psalmist had to say:

Psalm 44:20-22:  "If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart?  Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

So according to verse 21 in Psalm 44, God knows the secrets of the heart, which is something that no human being can ever know.  Jeremiah provides us with some interesting information:

Jeremiah 17:10:  "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”

According to the prophet Jeremiah, God searches the hearts and examines the minds of all people, and rewards each person according to what they deserve.

So let's put all this together in reverse order:  According to 1 Kings 8:37-40, Psalm 44:20-22, and Jeremiah 17:10, God searches the heart and examines the mind, he can see the secrets of the heart, and God is the only one who knows every human heart.  Since Jesus claimed to know that the Jewish leaders he was talking to had no love of God in their hearts, and John 2:23-25 states that Jesus knows all people and what is in each person, it it quite clear that Jesus is making a claim to be God in the exact passage that Gedeon is trying to use to show that Jesus never claimed to be God.  

Response to John 10:36

Much like John 5:44, Gedeon only looks at the verses immediately before his proof verse to make it seem like Jesus was refuting their incorrect understanding of his statements.  Let's look at the entire context so we can see where Gedeon's error is:

John 5:22-39:  "Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.  The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.'

Jesus answered, 'I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.  My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.  I and the Father are one.'


Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, 'I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?'


'We are not stoning you for any good work,' they replied, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'


Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your Law, "I have said you are 'gods'"?  If he called them "gods," to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?  Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, "I am God’s Son"?  Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.  But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.'  Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp."

Now that we know what the entire context for this verse is, let's look at Gedeon's argument:  Gedeon asserts that in response to what Jesus said in verses 25-30, the Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus because they understood that he was claiming to be God (verses 31-33).  According to Gedeon, what Jesus said in verses 34-36 was a correction of the Jew's incorrect understanding that Jesus was claiming to be God.  There are problems with this argument, naturally.

First off, Gedeon conveniently ignores the rest of Jesus' quote that appears in verses 37-39, where Jesus essentially says that they should believe his claim to be God on the basis of evidence before he claims yet again to be one with the father, causing the Jews to try to stone him yet again.  If Jesus was supposedly trying to communicate to them that he is not God, then why would he right away speak in such a way that they understood that he was claiming to be God in human form?  That seems awfully deceptive if it were true.

Fortunately for us, there is one instance in the gospels where Jesus performed a miracle specifically to support his claim to be God in human form.  If you've read chapter 6 of Another Inconvenient Truth, or if you've read my old blog post Faith in Jesus: Blind or Evidence-based?, then you know that I am referring to Mark 2:

Mark 2:1-12:  "A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.  They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.  Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ^'Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?'


Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, 'Why are you thinking these things?  Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up, take your mat and walk"?  But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.' So he said to the man,  ^'I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.'  He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!'”

Notice how in verses 6-7, when Jesus told the paralyzed man that his sins were forgiven, the teachers of the law understood that Jesus was making a direct claim to deity.  How they come to this understanding?  They probably had Isaiah 43 in mind:

Isaiah 43:25:  "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more."

If you know the context of Isaiah 43, then you know that verses 14-28 are the words that God wanted Isaiah to tell to the people of Israel.  What you will also notice is that the context around verse 25 doesn't change the meaning of verse 25 when it's taken out of context.  What does this mean?  It means that in Isaiah 43:25, God is claiming to be the one who forgives our sins, and by implication, God is the ONLY one who forgives sins.  The teachers of the law understood it that way, and since they rejected Jesus, they viewed Jesus' forgiving the man's sins as a blasphemous claim.  
 
Notice how in verse 8 of Mark 2, it says that Jesus knew they were thinking this in their heart; doesn't that sound familiar?  It should, because as we saw when I dissected John 5:36, it is once again stated that Jesus knows what is in the hearts of his listeners, an ability that only God has.

Also notice how Jesus responds to their accusation.  Jesus tells them that he wants them to know that he has the authority to forgive sins (which only God has the authority to forgive sins), and then he performs the miracle of healing a paralyzed man. 

In short, when we look at the immediate context of John 10:36, we find that Jesus was telling them that he was God, and that they should believe his claim to be God in human form on the basis of the evidence, evidence like what we see in Mark 2:1-12.  

Conclusion

So, after looking at Gedeon's supposed evidence from the gospels that Jesus denied being God in human form, it turned out that Jesus was claiming to be God in the very context that Gedeon was pulling his verses from.  These kind of arguments are what you would expect from Muslims and Muslim apologists, not someone who claims to be a follower of Jesus.  By denying that Jesus claimed to be God, pastor Gedeon has identified himself as a heretic. 

Aside from showing that the context around Gedeon's proof verses has Jesus saying and doing things only God can do or say, there are other passages in the Gospels where Jesus makes a claim to deity.  For example, we read the following in Matthew 21:

Matthew 21:14-17:  "The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.  But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' they were indignant.

'Do you hear what these children are saying?' they asked him.

'Yes,' replied Jesus, 'have you never read, "From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise^"?'

And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night."

As we can see, the children at the temple were worshiping Jesus, and the religious leaders were upset by that.  They wanted Jesus to stop, but Jesus referred to Psalm 8 to justify allowing the children to worship him.  In Psalm 8, children are praising God, and yet Jesus refers to that psalm to justify allowing children to worship him!  It's almost like Jesus considered himself to be God.  

We find another instance of Jesus making a claim to be God in Matthew 11:

Matthew 11:27:  "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

What a claim by Jesus!  Jesus claims that not only is he so incomprehensible that it takes God the father to fully understand and comprehend him, but that he is the only one who can fully understand and comprehend God the father, and that he can choose who he wants to reveal God the father to.  It almost sounds like Jesus was making himself equal with God, which is the very thing Jesus was doing in John 5:16-18.  

In response to the question, "Did Jesus ever claim to be God?", the answer is a resounding yes.  He claimed to be able to see into everyone's heart (John 5:41-44, John 2:23-25), which something that only God can do.  Jesus claimed that people should believe his claims to be God on the basis of the evidence (John 10:22-39), evidence such as when he performed a miracle to prove to the teachers of the law that he had the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12), which is something only God can do (Isaiah 43:25).  Jesus referred to a psalm where children are worshiping God (Psalm 8) to justify allowing children to worship him (Matthew 21:14-17).  Finally, Jesus claimed that he was so incomprehensible that only God the father could fully comprehend him, and likewise that he was the only one who could fully comprehend God the father, making himself equal with God (Matthew 11:27). 

Treasure of Wisdom & Knowledge: the new online apologetics store!

For those of you who might be following the blog, you may have noticed that there is a new widget on the sidebar of the blog titled Treasure of Wisdom & Knowledge, and you may have wondered what that was.  I can tell you right off the bat that this widget is not one provided by Blogspot, and it's not affiliated with Amazon.  This widget is for apologist Justin Derby's latest venture.

Treasure of Wisdom & Knowledge is an online store dedicated to spreading the apologetic defense of the Way, which you can find here. The inspiration for the name of the store comes from a passage in the New Testament which was brought to my attention some time ago by an old James White YouTube video:

Colossians 2:1-5: "I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is."

Now that you know my online store is dedicated to, you're probably wondering what kind of products you can expect to find in TWK.  At this point, the three ICS meetings that have been filmed by Derby Productions thus far have been added to the site; of course, I am talking about Whales & Fairy Tales, In Search of Leviathan, and Men, Apes, And The Bible.  If you're looking for quality video presentations about various topics in the Creation vs Evolution debate to buy and share with your friends and family, then the previously mentioned DVDs are a great place to start.

Also in the TWK store is Another Inconvenient Truth, the apologetics book that I wrote in back in 2014.  After the first edition was released exclusively for Kindle, the newly-released second edition will be available as a paperback in TWK.  If you're looking for a book that introduces you to the world of Christian Apologetics while discussing the most controversial topics in American Society, then this is the book for you and your family and friends.

Please help me share this store with as many people as possible.  You can share this blog post in your social media accounts, or if you're looking to do something easier, you can share the following link:

http://tw-k.ecrater.com/

In the next blog post, I will be discussing the evidence supporting the divinity of Jesus, and his claims to be Yahweh in human form.

Was Jesus Radical?!

Jesus of Nazareth has been a very popular man ever since he walked on this earth roughly 2,000 years ago.  There is one particular phenomena that has occurred regularly during my time as a follower of the Way:  Whenever a follower of the Way points out to someone that a belief that they have is wrong on the basis of evidence and/or what the Bible teaches, they might accuse you of being divisive, and they may even tell you that you're not being Christ-like, and that Jesus would never do something like that. 

This type of experience has happened to me more than once, and I have felt the need to set the record straight on how offensive some of the things that came out of Jesus' mouth were, and they went far beyond telling someone that their belief is wrong.

How Jesus Treated The Jews Of His Time

Back when Jesus was performing his ministry in the first century, the Jewish people had certain beliefs about themselves that were the result of their religious pride:  First off, they claimed to love God more than anything, and that they followed his commands.  They claimed to know scripture better than anyone, and since they were the physical blood descendants of Abraham, they claimed on that basis to be God's chosen people.  Let's how Jesus addressed those beliefs.

For starters, Jesus directly refuted their claim to love God more than anything during a response to their persecution of him for healing a man on the Sabbath in John 5:

John 5:41-44:  “I do not accept glory from human beings,  but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.  I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.  How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?"

What?!  Jesus told people who claimed to love God more than anything else that they had no love for God in their hearts?!  Why would Jesus do that?   Doesn't he know that it's not Christ-like to say stuff like that?  (sarcasm intended)

When it came to their claim to following God's commands, Jesus not only pointed out that they didn't know scripture, but that they actually broke scripture in favor of man-made traditions.  Here is one example passage for the Jews not knowing scripture:

Matthew 21:12-17:  "Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.  'It is written,' he said to them, '"My house will be called a house of prayer,^" but you are making it "a den of robbers."^'

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.  But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' they were indignant.

^'Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.

'Yes,' replied Jesus, 'have you never read, "From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise"?'

And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night."

Jesus took it a step further in Matthew 15:

Matthew 15:1-9:  "Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ^'Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  They don’t wash their hands before they eat!'

Jesus replied,  'And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?  For God said, "Honor your father and mother^" and "Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death."  But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is "devoted to God,^" they are not to "honor their father or mother" with it.  Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.  You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.^"'

^{How is that for a response!  When the Jews claimed to know scripture better than anyone, not only did Jesus tell them that they don't know scripture, he also said that they intentionally set aside scripture in favor of man-made traditions!  Talk about a one-two punch in the "offensive speech" category!}

^{Now, to see how Jesus addressed the Jews' claim to be God's chosen people on the basis of the fact that they were the physical descendants of Abraham, we need to look at a whole account in John 8:}

^{John 8:31-47:  "To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'}

They answered him, 'We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?'

Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word.  I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.^'

'Abraham is our father,' they answered.

'If you were Abraham’s children,' said Jesus, 'then you would do what Abraham did.  As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.  You are doing the works of your own father.'

'We are not illegitimate children,' they protested. 'The only Father we have is God himself.'

Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.  Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!  Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?  Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.'”

That had to hurt!  In response to their claim to be God's children on the basis of being the descendants of Abraham, Jesus said that even though they were the descendants of Abraham, they not only were not the children of God, but that they were actually the children of Satan!  Of all the things I've shown so far, this had to be the most offensive thing to their ears.

Let's recap:  The Jews of Jesus' time believed that they loved God more than anything, and that they followed his commands.  They claimed to know scripture better than anyone, and since they were the physical blood descendants of Abraham, they claimed on that basis to be God's chosen people.  In response to that, Jesus pointed out to them that they had no love for God in their hearts, they didn't follow his commands, they didn't know scripture, and that they were actually the children of the Devil.  Other than Jesus repeatedly claiming to be God in human form, is it any wonder that they wanted to kill him?  That kind of speech that Jesus used on them would have him condemned by today's Christians in today's society.  Maybe Jesus would say the same things about them?

Jesus Taught That Young Earth Creationism Is True

Contrary to what theistic evolutionists and old-earth creationists tell us, Jesus had a teaching in both Matthew 19 and Mark 10 that can only be true if Young Earth Creationism is true.  Here are the teachings:

Matthew 19:1-6:  When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan.  Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?'

^'Haven’t you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female,^" and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh^"?  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.'"

Mark 10: 1-9:  "Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?'

'What did Moses command you?' he replied.

They said, 'Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.'

'It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,' Jesus replied. ^'But at the beginning of creation God "made them male and female.^" "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.^" So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

As we can see in Matthew and Mark, Jesus is clearly saying that man and woman (Adam and Eve) were created at the beginning of creation.  In order to understand why that teaching can only be true if Young Earth Creationism is true, please watch the video blog below:

How is this radical and possibly offensive?  The humanist and evolutionists who control the academic culture in our society, as well as the Christians who believe their lies, cannot stand the idea that the Earth and universe are only 6,000 years old because it offends their tender religious belief that the Earth and universe are billions of years old.  For Jesus to teach something that can only be true if Young Earth Creationism is true is HIGHLY inconvenient to them.

Jesus Taught That The Old Testament Is True

Something else that Jesus taught which offends humanists, evolutionists, and compromised Christians is that the Old Testament is 100 percent true and accurate.  I give lots of examples of Jesus doing this in Another Inconvenient Truth, but here are a few for your consideration:

Jesus affirmed the story of Jonah and the great fish, as well as the Queen of the South visiting King Solomon:

Matthew 12:38-42: “Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, 'Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.'

He answered, 'A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.'"

  

Jesus affirmed Noah, the ark, and the flood as a historical fact in relation to his second coming:

 

 

Matthew 24:36-41: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left."

Jesus affirmed the story of Moses and the burning bush as historically accurate:

Luke 20:34-38: “Jesus replied, 'The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.'”

Conclusion

People in this day and age really don't like being told that they're wrong about something, and they don't seem to care about the evidence that goes behind someone like me telling them that they're wrong.  For instance, I was recently talking with a girl who claimed that she was a follower of Jesus who was dedicated to pursuing Truth, but she didn't believe in set doctrines.  She told me that apologetics was not part of her faith and was totally unnecessary.  

I pointed to her that she was wrong to believe that because in John 3:12, Jesus taught that if we can't trust him when he talks about this reality, then we can't trust him when he talks about anything non-material, including the gospel and salvation.  Since apologetics is dedicated to proving that we can trust Jesus and the Bible when it talks about this reality, I pointed out to her that she should be bothered by the fact that what she believed about apologetics contradicts with what Jesus taught about apologetics.  

After that, she got mad and accused me of being judgemental before she stormed out of the conversation.  As part of my last message to her, I told her that what I had said to her was nowhere near as offensive as the things Jesus told the Jews of his time.  The Jews of Jesus' time believed that they loved God more than anything, and they claimed to know scripture better than anyone, and since they were the physical blood descendants of Abraham, they claimed on that basis to be God's children.  

In response to that, Jesus pointed out to them that they had no love for God in their hearts, they didn't follow his commands, they didn't know scripture, and that they were actually the children of the Devil.  I told her that telling her that her belief about apologetics was wrong is NOTHING compared to being told that you don't love God, don't know scripture, and that you're a child of the Devil like Jesus told the Jews of his time.

I'm hoping at this point that you can see how radical and offensive of a man Jesus was to people in his first coming.  As someone who tries to model his speech and actions after Jesus, I can safely say that if Jesus were walking the streets of America today, he would be just as hated as he was 2,000 years ago.

The Evidence That God Exists

As many of us know all too well, the leaders of America's academic society are quick to pronounce that God does not exist, and they use the tax-funded religion of Evolution to explain God away.  I do my best on this blog and in my work as an apologist to disprove evolution/atheism, and the reason I do that is because if evolution/atheism isn't true, then the only alternative is the Biblical worldview.  Even Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist and evolutionist, agrees with me on page 230 of his book The Blind Watchmaker after he talked about how the major animal forms appeared out of nothing in an instant in the supposed "Cambrian era" without a trace of evidence of evolution having taken place:

"Both schools of [Evolutionary] thought agree that the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation, and both would reject this alternative."

In my book Another Inconvenient Truth, I show how the Cambrian Era problem supports the Young Earth Creation position, but I think at this time, it's important that we give an apologetical defense for how we know that the God of the Bible exists.

Growing up, I was always told that you can't use science to prove that God exists.  As you will see from watching the video below, we can prove that the God of the Bible exists through science because he has effects on this reality that we can detect through observational science.

In conclusion, please watch the pilot episode of my apologetics show, The Way, down below.

Did Dinosaurs Live on the Earth Millions of Years Before Man Did?

When I was growing up as a child, one of the supposed evidences disproving the Bible that atheists liked to use is the existence of dinosaurs; They told us that dinosaurs lived on the Earth millions of years before humanity came into existence.  Recently, I encountered someone else who tried to use that same argument on me.  It was at that moment that I knew that I needed to address this topic.

The Bible Talks About Dinosaurs

The first problem with this objection is that the Bible clearly talks about dinosaurs.  When you tell the average person that the Bible specifically talks about dinosaurs, they will look at you like you have three heads.  They might even say that the word "dinosaur" doesn't appear in the Bible, so the Bible can't possibly be talking about dinosaurs.  The first problem with that is that the word dinosaur didn't exist until the mid 1800s; before that they were called dragons.  Secondly, God describes two different dinosaurs at the end of the book of Job.  Let's start with a creature called Behemoth:

Job 40:15-24:  "Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.  What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly!  Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.  Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron.  It ranks first among the works of God, yet its Maker can approach it with his sword.  The hills bring it their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby.  Under the lotus plants it lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh.  The lotuses conceal it in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround it.  A raging river does not alarm it; it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth.  Can anyone capture it by the eyes, or trap it and pierce its nose?"

The belly is the biggest part?  It has a tail like a cedar?  It has big bones?  It's the biggest creature that God made?  That sure sounds like the Brachiosaurus to me.

God describes another dinosaur-like creature in Job 41:

Job 41:  "Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?  Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook?  Will it keep begging you for mercy?  Will it speak to you with gentle words?  Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life?  Can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?  Will traders barter for it?  Will they divide it up among the merchants?  Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears?  If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!  Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering.  No one is fierce enough to rouse it.  Who then is able to stand against me?  Who has a claim against me that I must pay?  Everything under heaven belongs to me.

I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form.  Who can strip off its outer coat?  Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?  Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth?  Its back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.  They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.  Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn.  Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out^.  Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.  Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth.  Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it.  The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.  Its chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone.  When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing.  The sword that reaches it has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin^.  Iron it treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood.  Arrows do not make it flee; slingstones are like chaff to it.  A club seems to it but a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance.  Its undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.  It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.  It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had white hair.  Nothing on earth is its equal—a creature without fear.  It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”

It lives in the water?  It has armor-like skin?  It has big teeth?  It has tightly-sealed scales on its back?  It leaves a trail in the mud?  Just the sight of it terrifies people?  According to AIG, that could either be Sarcosuchus imperator or Liopleurodon. 

On top of that, this creature could breathe fire.  That's right; fire-breathing dragons are not fictitious.  While Kent Hovind thinks that Leviathan was a T-rex (a position I disagree with), his seminar on Leviathan shows that fire-breathing dragons are not the products of science fiction. 

The most important thing to remember is that the same Bible that teaches that the Earth and universe are roughly 6,000 years old (read Just How Old Is The Earth & Universe? and watch the video at the end of this post to see why the YEC position is true.) is the same Bible that I'm pulling these descriptions of dinosaurs from.  This logically leads to the conclusion that dinosaurs and man lived together at the same time in the "recent" past.  Is there any evidence suggesting that this is true? 

Soft tissue in dinosaur bones shows that dinosaurs and man lived together in the recent past

Just over 10 years ago, the scientific community and academic world received a big shock when they found living tissue inside some dinosaur bones.  National Geographic wrote a story about it when it happened, and this is how they opened the article:

"A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil has yielded what appear to be the only preserved soft tissues ever recovered from a dinosaur. Taken from a 70-million-year-old thighbone, the structures look like the blood vessels, cells, and proteins involved in bone formation. Most fossils preserve an organism's hard tissues, such as shell or bone. Finding preserved soft tissue is unheard of in a dinosaur-age specimen.

'To my knowledge, preservation to this extent—where you still have original flexibility and transparency—has not been noted in dinosaurs before, so we're pretty excited by the find,' said Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

The findings may provide new insights into dinosaur evolution, physiology, and biochemistry. They could also increase our understanding of extinct life and change how scientists think about the fossilization process.

'Finding these tissues in dinosaurs changes the way we think about fossilization, because our theories of how fossils are preserved don't allow for this [soft-tissue preservation],' Schweitzer said." 

Although the article would go on to talk about how this discovery would give new insights into evolution, their admission that there is no natural explanation for how the soft-tissue could survive for millions of years serves as strong evidence that dinosaurs and man lived together just a few thousand years ago.  What happens if you try to say that in the academic world?  This scientist and former teacher for California State University, Northridge found out the hard way a couple years ago:

"Attorneys for a California State University, Northridge scientist who was terminated from his job after discovering soft tissue on a triceratops fossil have filed a lawsuit against the university.

While at the Hell Creek Formation excavation site in Montana, researcher Mark Armitage discovered what he believed to be the largest triceratops horn ever unearthed at the site, according to attorney Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute.


Upon examination of the horn under a high-powered microscope back at CSUN, Dacus says Armitage was 'fascinated' to find soft tissue on the sample – a discovery Bacus said stunned members of the school’s biology department and even some students 'because it indicates that dinosaurs roamed the earth only thousands of years in the past rather than going extinct 60 million years ago.'


'Since some creationists, like [Armitage], believe that the triceratops bones are only 4,000 years old at most, [Armitage’s] work vindicated his view that these dinosaurs roamed the planet relatively recently,' according to the complaint filed July 22 in Los Angeles Superior Court.


The lawsuit against the CSUN board of trustees cites discrimination for perceived religious views.


Armitage’s findings were eventually published in July 2013 in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.


According to court documents, shortly after the original soft tissue discovery, a CSUN official told Armitage, 'We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department!'”

Since there was no natural explanation for how soft tissue could survive for millions of years, did that mean that the evolutionists wouldn't try to find some way to make it fit into the evolutionary paradigm?  Fat chance.

The new evolutionist fairy tale

The very same Mary Schweitzer who found the original soft tissue in the T-rex fossil in 2005 has given us the new evolutionary fairy tale to explain this away.  In a North Carolina State press release from the fall of 2013, we read the following:

"Mary Schweitzer, an NC State paleontologist with a joint appointment at the N. C. Museum of Natural Sciences, first announced the surprising preservation of soft tissues in a T. rex fossil in 2005. Her subsequent work identified proteins in the soft tissue that seemed to confirm that the tissue was indeed T. rex tissue that had been preserved for millions of years. But the findings remained controversial in part because no one understood the chemical processes behind such preservation.
Schweitzer’s latest research shows that the presence of hemoglobin – the iron-containing molecule that transports oxygen in red blood cells – may be the key to both preserving and concealing original ancient proteins within fossils. Her results appear in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
 
'Iron is necessary for survival, but it’s also highly reactive and destructive in living tissues, which is why our bodies have proteins that transport iron molecules to where they are needed but protect us from unwanted reactions at the same time,' Schweitzer says. 'When we die, that protective mechanism breaks down and the iron is turned loose on our tissues – and that destructive process can act in much the same way formaldehyde does to preserve the tissues and proteins.'”

The new evolutionary fairy tale, according to Schweitzer, is that iron provides the mechanism for soft tissues to be preserved for millions of years.  That seems kind of odd considering the destructive nature of iron, but in the right situation, iron acts as a preservative.

What is the observational evidence that iron can preserve soft tissue for millions of years?  The NC State press releases tells us the following:

"Schweitzer and her team noticed that iron particles are intimately associated with the soft tissues preserved in dinosaurs. But when they chelated – or removed the iron from – soft tissues taken from a T. rex and a Brachyolophosaurus, the chelated tissues reacted much more strongly to antibodies that detect the presence of protein, suggesting that the iron may be masking their presence in these preserved tissues. They then tested the preservation hypothesis by using blood vessels and cells taken from modern ostrich bone. They soaked some of these vessels in hemoglobin taken from red blood cells, while placing other vessels in water. Two years later, the hemoglobin-treated soft vessels remained intact, while those soaked in water degraded in less than a week.


'We know that iron is always present in large quantities when we find well-preserved fossils, and we have found original vascular tissues within the bones of these animals, which would be a very hemoglobin-rich environment after they died,' Schweitzer says. 'We also know that iron hinders just about every technique we have to detect proteins. So iron looks like it may be both the mechanism for preservation and the reason why we’ve had problems finding and analyzing proteins that are preserved.'”

So what we have here is a seemingly valid experiment where Schweitzer showed us that iron works as a preservation mechanism for up to two years.  That's all well and good, but there is absolutely nothing in this experiment that proves that this mechanism of preservation can last for millions of years.  It's one thing to see something be preserved for two years; it's a completely different matter to extrapolate that into saying that it could last for millions of years.

You see, the first step of the scientific method is that you have to observe the natural phenomenon in question happening in action.  Once you've seen it happen in action, then you make your hypothesis, set up experiments to test your hypothesis, analyze the results, and come to a conclusion.  The problem with the idea that iron can preserve soft tissue over millions of years is that NOBODY has ever witnessed it happen first-hand.  There isn't one person who can say, "I was here millions of years ago when this was first buried, I can see that the soft tissue is still there after millions of years, and I know that iron is a preservative in a hemoglobin-rich environment, so therefore iron has preserved this soft tissue for millions of years."  Such a person doesn't exist.

This isn't just true with dinosaur fossils; it applies to the entire theory of evolution.  Nobody has ever seen one family of animals evolve into another; nobody has ever seen life come from non-life; nobody has ever seen a planet or star form; nobody has ever seen the origin of elements higher than hydrogen, and no human being has ever seen the origin of time, space, and matter.

In fact, as I have stated in Another Inconvenient Truth and in other places, evolution violates the Law of Entropy.  The way evolution is taught today is that the entire physical universe and everything in it, when left to itself over time, will become more complex and ordered.  According to the Law of Entropy, the physical universe and everything in it, when left to itself over time, will wear down, break down, and fall into disorder. Since the Law of Entropy is the most established law in all of science (the need for food, water, and sleep are the effect of the Law of Entropy on human beings), evolution simply cannot be true.

Conclusion

The sad thing about this whole ordeal is that when Schweitzer's NC State press release came out in 2013, all the major media outlets picked it up and tried to convince everyone that Schweitzer had proven how soft tissue could be preserved for millions of years.  This was their sad attempt to convince people to keep believing in the lies of evolution and billions of years.

However, as I have shown by looking at Schweitzer's 2013 press release, she actually did not prove that soft tissues could be preserved for millions (and billions) of years, so the problem that was outlined in her original 2005 discovery still stands.

As Kent Hovind once said, one way to prove that the biblical worldview is true is to prove the impossibility of the alternative.  Since there is no evidence that evolution is true or that iron can preserve soft tissue for millions/billions of years, the existence of dinosaurs fits nicely into the Biblical worldview and doesn't present any problems for followers of Jesus.