The Skeptic
The Skeptic
"This is the condemnation; that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil" (John 3:19).
A good many years ago, commenting upon this habit of some unbelievers, a Scotsman said, "It is very easy to solve an insoluble problem if you begin by taking all the insoluble elements out of it. And that is how a great deal of modern thinking does with Christianity. Knock out all the miracles; pooh–pooh all Christ’s claims; say nothing about Incarnation; declare Resurrection to be entirely unhistorical, and you will not have much difficulty in accounting for the rest; and it will not be worth the accounting for. . ."
We have never found an honest skeptic. Some men claim to be honest skeptics, but before probing very deep the truth comes out. If a man is an honest skeptic he will soon cease to be a skeptic. A man might claim to be a skeptic about the multiplication table, but if he were an honest skeptic, he would soon learn that six times seven are always forty–two… and his honesty would lead him to certain definite fixed conclusions, and he would find himself no longer a skeptic. With the dishonest skeptic, it is quite another matter. If you ask him to count out the eight times seven to see for himself, he will add a piece from his pocket or do away with a piece to make the answer come out according to his preconceived bias.
The honest man must admit that Christ stands out above the whole race and that every succeeding generation has been passionately addicted to the problem of explaining Him. Someone has said, "Where did this Man, so fair, so radiant, so human and yet so superhuman, so universal and yet so individual, where did He come from? And where did the Gospel, which flows from Him, and which has done such things in the world as it has done, where did it come from? ‘Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?’" If it is true that Jesus Christ is either mistakenly represented in the Gospels, or that He made enthusiastic claims which cannot be verified; and if it is true that the faith in a resurrection on which Christianity is suspended, and which has produced such fruits as we know have been produced, is a delusion; then all I can say is that the noblest lives that ever were lived in the world have found their impulse in a falsehood or a dream and that the richest clusters that have ever yielded wine for the cup have grown upon a thorn. This Man, when He claimed to be God’s Son and the world’s Savior, was no brain–sick enthusiast; and the results show that the Gospel that His followers proclaim rests upon no lie."
Dr. Barnhouse shows us the heart of the skeptic and warns us how to deal with him. Let wisdom and conviction of the truth of God’s Word guide us.
Further Reading: Matthew 12:23-37
