017. How would you prove that Jesus Christ is really the Son of God?

How would you prove that Jesus Christ is really the Son of God?

First of all, I would prove that He rose from the dead. Of this there is abundant proof. I have given it elsewhere (in The Bible and Its Christ) and will not repeat it here. The fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead proves beyond a question that He is the Son of God. When He was here upon earth, He repeatedly declared that He was the Son of God, the Son of God in a unique sense, the Son of God in a sense in which no other man is the Son of God. In Mark 12:6 He taught that while the prophets, even the greatest of them, were servants, He was a Son, an only Son. In John 5:22-23 He taught that all men should honor Him even as they honored the Father. In John 14:9 He went so far as to say: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Men hated Him for making this claim to be the Son of God, they put Him to death for making this claim (Matthew 26:63; Matthew 26:66), but before they put Him to death for making this claim He told them that God would set His seal to the claim by raising Him from the dead. It was a stupendous claim to make, it was an apparently absurd claim, but God did set His seal to it by raising Jesus from the dead. By doing this God Himself has said more clearly than if He should speak from the open heavens today:

“This Man is what He claims to be. He is My Son. All men should honor Him even as they honor the Father.”

Jesus Christ proves Himself to be the Son of God by the claim He made to be the Son of God and by the way in which He substantiated that claim by His resurrection from the dead. But He also substantiated it by His character, by its beauty and strength and nobility. The character of Jesus Christ is well nigh universally admitted. Jews nowadays admit that. The most notorious infidels have admitted it. Even Col. Ingersoll once said:

“I wish to say once and for all, to that great and serene Man I gladly pay the homage of my admiration and my tears.” But here is this Man, whom all admit to be a good Man, a Man of honor and of truth and of nobility, claiming to be the Son of God. Certainly a Man of such character was what He claimed to be.

He substantiated His claim furthermore by the miracles which He performed. Herculean efforts have been put forth to discredit the Gospel stories of Christ’s miracles, but these efforts have all resulted in utter and lamentable failure.

He substantiated His claim by His influence on the history of the world. It needs no argument to prove that Christ’s influence upon the history of the world has been beneficent immeasurably beyond that of any other man who ever lived. His influence upon individual life, domestic life, social life, industrial life, political life, it would be foolish to compare with that of any other man, or that of all men put together. Now if Jesus Christ was not divine as He claimed to be, He was a blasphemer and an impostor or else a lunatic. It is easy to see that His influence upon history is not that of a lunatic, or that of a blasphemer and impostor. Then certainly He must have been the Son of God as He claimed.

I would furthermore prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God by pointing to the fact that He possesses divine power today. It is not necessary to go back to the miracles Christ performed when upon earth to prove that He has divine power. He exercises that power today and any one can test it:

1. He has power to forgive sins. Thousands can testify that they came to Christ burdened with an awful sense of guilt, and that He has actually given their guilty conscience peace, absolute peace;

2. He has power today to set Satan’s victims free. He sets the one chained by drink free from the power of drink, the one chained by opium free from the power of opium. You may say various cures do this, but the cases are not parallel. These various cures use drugs, Christ a mere word. Christ sets free not only from vices but from sin. He makes the impure man pure. He makes the selfish man unselfish, the devilish man Christlike. He recreates men and women. The divine influence that Jesus Christ is exerting today over the lives of countless men and women proves beyond a peradventure that He is the Son of God. I know Jesus Christ is divine because of the divine work that He, and He alone, has wrought in mv own life.