Where Are the Books?
John the Apostle said, “I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
“Seen and borne witness” — This is the very essence of the Christian faith: we have personally experienced something in our own lives and families that has changed the very nature of reality for us. The object of a Christian talking about his faith is not to convince another to intellectual assent of some rational facts; it is giving first-hand testimony of what was seen and experienced.
“This is the Son of God” — This is the very essence of Christian truth: Jesus Christ is God come to earth as a human. He is divine and human. Mystery though it be, it is the “line in the sand.” Either he is or he is not. If he is, it changes everything in reality.
Daniel Poling was a nationally known religious leader and military chaplain in the 1940s and 50s. One day his teenage son Clark came into his office and said, “I don’t believe the virgin birth!”
Poling writes in his autobiography, Mine Eyes Have Seen:
I had no “prepared text” for him; I had to speak out of my knowledge of him rather than from the wisdom of books or the creeds of the Fathers. Again I was first of all my boy’s father, and I said, “Well, then that settles it. If you don’t, you just don’t. You cannot make yourself believe anything even if you greatly desire to believe it, any more than you can make yourself happy or make yourself fall in love. But, are you sure, very sure, you are ready to say that?Intellectually sure?”
Clark’s brow contracted. “What do you mean by that, Dad?”
“I mean that unless you have read the books, unless you have listened to the masters of thought in this field — unless you are both intellectually and spiritually sure that you are justified in your conclusion — your affirmation that you do not believe will bring you unnecessary confusion and embarrassment. Now, are you still ready to say it?”
The boy grinned and said, “Where are the books?”
John, the Master of Thought in the field of knowing Jesus, ended his book with this motivation: “Jesus did many other things in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ…This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”
This is the essence of the Christian faith: that we have seen and know that Jesus is the Christ, God in the flesh, come to us in order that he may bring us to himself. Christianity is most certainly not a blind faith or spiritual preference. Nor is it merely a matter of personal belief. It is not true for me because it’s what I choose to believe. I believe it because it has been tested, examined, scrutinized and on the basis of the evidence, found to be true.
What conclusion have you come to be about Jesus? Are you. intellectually and spiritually justified in that conclusion? Have you read the books?