Day 4 — Was Jesus Real?

“Many have undertaken to compose an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”

— Luke 1:1–4 (BSB)

Every so often a post goes round claiming that Jesus never existed, that He was a legend invented later, like the gods of ancient Greece. If you’ve seen one, you might have wondered whether it’s true.

Start with how Luke begins his Gospel. He doesn’t say, “Once upon a time, in a land far away.” He writes like a historian. He knows other people have already written accounts. He has gathered material from “the initial eyewitnesses.” He has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning.” And he’s writing so that his reader may “know the certainty” of what he’s been taught.

Then Luke does something legends never do: he pins his story to dates and names you can check. When John the Baptist begins preaching, Luke dates it like this: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea.” Tiberius and Pilate are not characters from a fairy tale. Tiberius is on Roman coins and in Roman histories. Pilate is named by Roman and Jewish writers, and in 1961 a stone inscription bearing his name was found at Caesarea, on the coast of Israel.

It isn’t only Christians who mention Jesus, either. The Roman historian Tacitus, who had no love for Christians, wrote in the early second century that their name came from “Christus”, who had been executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century, mentions a man named James, whom he calls “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.”

That’s why almost every serious historian, whatever they believe about God, agrees that Jesus of Nazareth really lived, taught in Galilee, gathered followers, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. The question historians argue about isn’t whether He lived. It’s who He was.

And that’s where it gets interesting. Read the Gospels as if for the first time and the Jesus you meet there is not a soft, forgettable religious teacher. He forgives sins as if they were committed against Him personally. He calms storms. He says He will rise from the dead. He is gentle with outcasts and fierce with religious hypocrites. People who met Him walked away amazed, or furious, or worshipping. Almost no one walked away bored.

Luke wanted Theophilus to have certainty, not because Theophilus was told to switch off his brain, but because the facts could bear the weight. The same is true for you. Your faith isn’t floating in mid-air. It’s anchored in history: in a real man, in a real place, at a real time.

So don’t just take someone’s word for who Jesus was, not even this book’s. Read the eyewitness accounts yourself.

Think about it: If you’d never heard of Jesus before and read Luke’s Gospel for the first time, what do you think would surprise you most?

Try this: Start reading Luke’s Gospel today. It has twenty-four chapters, so a chapter a day takes less than a month. Every time Jesus says or does something that surprises you, write it down.

Go deeper: The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton — Chesterton tries to read the Gospels as an outsider seeing them for the first time, and finds that the Jesus there is far stranger and more startling than the mild figure people expect, so strange that only belief makes sense of Him. Start with chapter 12, “The Riddles of the Gospel”.

Lord Jesus, thank You that You really came, into a real place and a real time, and that people saw You, heard You and wrote it down. Help me not to settle for second-hand ideas about You. As I read about You, show me who You really are. In Jesus’ name, Amen.