This ThinkSpace just kept growing – here’s Part 3! Is there actual evidence to support belief in God and the truth of the Holy Bible? Hold onto your hat – God has provided many ways to confirm both. Not only that, we’re still discovering more!
As I talked about in Part 2, the last piece for me to connect my heart and mind to full faith in God was more information from outside the Bible as evidence that, as a physical human, I could relate to. When I found it, I hopped off the fence on God’s side for good. There I found even more reasons to believe that were custom-tailored for my life and the way I think: fresh discoveries, personal revelations, and relevant wisdom that put today’s culture in perspective.
Before we begin, if you aren’t a believer or still on the fence about making THE decision to become a Christian, now’s a good time to ask yourself a revealing question. How will you respond if you keep reading and experience a “knowing” in your own soul that there’s something to this? That tangible evidence to support faith in God DOES exist. Would you still reject it – or embrace it and become an open-hearted seeker for more?
Let’s dig in, beginning with the jaw-dropping, life-changing, last puzzle piece of proof for me that made all the others fit together. Maybe for you too:
The incredible prophecies about the Messiah, all fulfilled by Jesus Christ alone.
Did you know that actual mathematical probability exists that rules out coincidence or chance that Jesus fulfilled even a small percentage of the prophecies written about Him, hundreds – even thousands – of years before His birth? Here’s a summary I wrote about a way we can visualize this, from a book by Peter Stoner called Science Speaks.* Can’t make this up!
The chance that one man could fulfill eight prophecies written hundreds of years before his birth by random coincidence is 1 in 1017, or 1 followed by 17 zeros, or 1 in one hundred quadrillion (100,000,000,000,000,000). To help us comprehend what 1 in 1017 looks like, we would need to take that number of silver dollars and spread them out over the surface of the entire state of Texas. They would be two feet deep.
Next, we’d need to mark ONE of the silver dollars, add it to the others, then stir up the entire amount thoroughly and spread them out again all over the state. We’d then blindfold a person and tell them they could go anywhere in the state they chose, pick up only one silver dollar and say it was the one that was marked. The probability of this person picking up the marked silver dollar is the same as the prophets writing eight prophecies that would by chance all come true in one person hundreds of years later.
The true reality is, the Bible prophets like Isaiah, Micah, Zechariah, Hosea, and Daniel DID write eight prophecies about Jesus and they ALL came true! He was born in Bethlehem, entered Jerusalem on a donkey, was betrayed by a friend, His hands and feet were pierced, etc.
Now let’s hit warp speed. There were many more than eight prophecies written about Jesus long before His birth in a manger in Bethlehem. Let’s break down the chance that any one man could fulfill 48 prophecies to the letter by coincidence. The odds of that are 1 in 10157 (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). I did my own research and looked up what the name for this number would be and just so you know, it’s 10,000 quinquagintillion.
How big is this number? To visualize it, silver dollars are way too big. Using electrons, one of the smallest objects we know of, let’s lay them out single file, side-by-side. It would take 2.5 x 1015 of them to make a line one inch long. If we were to count these electrons in this one inch at the rate of 250 each minute – day and night – it would take us 19,000,000 years (for all of you math geeks, a cubic inch of electrons would take 19 million x 19 million x 19 million years to count – 6.9 x 1021).
Going back to visualizing the chance fulfillment of 48 prophecies with odds of 1 out of 10157, we again would mark one electron and stir it together with all of the rest. We’d blindfold a person and have them choose an electron at random. The odds that they would pick the right one are the same as the prophets making 48 predictions hundreds of years before a person would be born that would exactly fulfill EVERY one to the letter. The logical, yes logical answer is that only God could give the information to the prophets ahead of time to record about Jesus. This way, beyond the shadow of a doubt, every one of us could confidently know He was – and is – the Messiah the prophets foretold, the Son of God, the One and only Savior, “Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
One more thing. Conservatively, Jesus fulfilled AT LEAST 300 (not just 48) prophecies to the letter during His ministry on earth!**
We could dive into this topic and many others for days, but have to settle for a tiny tip of the iceberg in this short amount of time. Here are just two more topics for you to research on your own to build your faith and trust in the Lord…
The Bible is authentic, unlike any other book ever written.
- It was written over a time span of approximately 1300-1500 years, by people of different ethnicities from different countries.
- There were approximately 40 different writers with different personalities and occupations: kings, fishermen, military leaders, a tax collector, a doctor and others.
- It contains many forms of writing: history, poetry, legal, genealogies, biographies, prayers, letters – all telling one story about God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
- The Bible is written in three languages (Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic).
- Its message is unlike any other religion, teaching about the Trinity (God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons, yet One God). It also teaches that Jesus is in a category reserved for Him alone: God-man. He entered Earth as fully God and fully man to sacrifice His life to pay the penalty for the sins we have all committed, reconciling us to God the Father who is holy, through His life and death. The Bible teaches this is the only way of salvation, not by any works by any person, it is by grace alone, a free gift received by faith. Read Ephesians 2:8-9.
- Divine Authorship: inspired by the Holy Spirit (the third member of the Trinity), recorded by people. He supernaturally foretold events that came true, or are yet to come, as in the Book of Revelation – especially about Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Read more in 2 Peter 1:20-21, 2 Timothy 3:16, Psalm 119:142, and Hebrews 6:18.
Archaeology provides even more evidence and proof that the Bible is historically accurate.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls: Dating from the 3rd century B.C. to the 1st Century A.D., many scrolls were preserved, then discovered in the late 1940s, validating the accuracy and care God’s Word has been transcribed with from ancient times until now.
- The Flood: Fossil records reveal proof of the sudden death and preservation of many creatures in sediment under pressure, including dinosaurs. Sea creatures have also been found fossilized at high altitudes, supporting the Holy Bible which describes the flood as covering the earth.
- Specific Cities, Towns, Structures, and Other Details in the Bible Have Been Found Where it Says They Would Be: As an Art History major in college, this is another fascinating subject I’ve followed for many years. The trail of evidence planted thousands of years ago is still being discovered all the time. A fascinating resource and magazine can be found here for further study: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/
The title of this three-part series has been “Can’t Make This Up!” First, we thought about the Holy Bible – the Living Word of God. Next, our own choice to believe – or reject what it says. Finally, this sample of evidence is to encourage you that faith in God is never “blind faith.” He’s left evidence of His presence for us everywhere. I said at the beginning, you may read this and feel in your soul there’s something true here that you may not have fully considered before. Pray and ask God to open the eyes of your heart to Him. Start reading your Bible and find a church that teaches what it says accurately. You’ll find God’s love for you again, or maybe for the first time.
RESET HIGHER: What spoke to you most in this series? Drop me a comment below – I’d love to hear what you’ve been thinking. If you have an idea for a ThinkSpace, add that too! May God bless you this day and every day.
*You can find this content in chapter 9, Old Testament Prophecies Fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, PhD. Or visit https://SightlineMinistry.org/jesus-fulfill-prophecy
**You can find a list of many of these prophecies here: https://www.gotquestions.org/prophecies-of-Jesus.html
