Jesus Christ Our Salvation

And He said to them, “Why are you troubled?

And why do doubts arise in your hearts?

Behold My hands and My feet, that it is

I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does

not have flesh and bones as you see I have”….

Then He said to them, “Thus it is written,

and thus it was necessary for the Christ

to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,

and that repentance and remission of sins should

be preached in His name to all nations, beginning

at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you,

but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are

endued with power from on high.”

Luke 24:38–39,46–49

            It is the love of God that is so great that He in His mercy and grace saves those whom He has enabled and drawn to Himself. We know that as sinners we need salvation, and many have succumbed to a teaching that is contradictory to Scripture, that is, they can save themselves. Somehow they can muster up enough faith to believe in Jesus Christ. How? If man is not totally depraved, a sinner that needs salvation by Him who is the creator and only One who can truly save a person, then all that person would need is information. But information does not save a person. Many people have information about God, His Son, but do not come to believe. How does a person know that God is drawing them, enabling them? Do you have a desire above all else to know Him, to serve Him, to live for Him? Are you becoming formed in the image of His Son: “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). There are those who scoff at the Christian religion, and in some ways they have every right to do so for there has been many atrocities done in the name of Jesus Christ and many false teaching are occurring and have occurred in the name of Jesus Christ. Do we fall upon such error done in the name of Jesus Christ so that the Christian religion is anathema? Is the Christian religion based on supposition and not facts? Read this:

· Number of manuscripts.

In all of the ancient Greek and Latin literature, the Iliad by Homer ranks next to the New Testament in the greatest number of manuscripts in existence.

There are in existence over 5,000 complete or partial Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (the original language in which it was written). In total, there are over 24,000 extant manuscripts of the complete NT or portions of it, if copies in different languages are included. Notice in the following table some of the distinctives of the NT when compared to one of the most reliable writings in ancient literature, the Iliad.

Work	When Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	No. of Copies	Accuracy of Copy
Homer (Iliad)	900 BC	400 BC	500 yrs.	643	95%
NT	40-100 AD	125 AD	25 yrs.	5,000	99+%

Bruce Metzger, textual scholar, has compared the accuracy of the NT to that of other works of antiquity using various textual tests. He has determined that of the 15,600 lines in the Iliad, 764 of them are in question while of the 20,000 lines of the NT, 40 are in doubt (about 400 works). These are the accuracy figures in the table. Furthermore, none of the questionable words profoundly affects the message of the NT text.

·        Interval of time between original and extant copy.

Was the time between when the events occurred and their writings of them so long that it resulted in alterations in oral tradition i.e. folklore?

To test this we need to compare the time interval between the earliest copies of the writing in existence and when they were actually written. How does the NT compare with other literature? We will look at one of a few main examples.

Author	Works	When Written	Earliest Copy	Time Span	No. of Copies
Caesar	Gallic Wars	100-44 BC	900 AD	1000 yrs.	10
Livy	Roman History	59 BC - 17 AD	-		20
Plato	Teratalogies	427-347 BC	900 AD	1200 yrs.	7
Tacitus	Annals	100 AD	1100 AD	1000 yrs.	20
Pliny the Younger	History	61-113 AD	850 AD	750 yrs.	7
Thucydides	History	460 - 400 BC	900 AD	1300 yrs.	8
Aristotle		384-322 BC	1100 AD	1400 yrs.	49

            Now! Ask yourself the question: What am I basing my facts upon? Can I offer any proof that the record does not show that Jesus Christ lived? Did not Jesus Christ upon His entrance into the world, His death, and his resurrection and ascension change the world? Are there those men and women who have converted to Jesus Christ and have their faith in Him and in His promises just foolish? Or, should Christians just be apathetic and silent and not preach the Gospel? Does not the Gospel change a person for the better and the more they know about the history of the Christian religion their faith grows even more. Facts alone will not save a person, it is God, and then this is by the Holy Spirit operating in the lives of the children of God. How does one come to believe? It is by faith and that is the gift of God: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that HE is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

            This is the mission of this blog, to aid us to seek Him diligently.

For everyone practicing evil

            Hates the light and does

Not come to the light, lest his

            Deeds should be exposed.

But he who does the truth comes

            To the light, that his deeds

May be clearly seen, that they have

            Been done in God.

                                    John 2:20–21

Be Assured; God Loves You

Richard L. Crumb