A LITTLE MORE THINKING, A LITTLE LESS SHAKING
By Tom Taylor
According to Dan Brown’s novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” followers of Jesus when he was living on
Earth thought he was just a mortal man. No one believed he was the Son of God until Emperor
Constantine, at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., forced that doctrine on the church as part of a
political power play.
This assertion strikes at the very heart of Christian faith; but it’s only one of the supposed historical
facts in that novel which, according to news accounts, have “shaken the faith” of many people. The
novel, of course, went on to become a blockbuster movie and is now out on DVD; so I guess its
potential for shaking the faith has multiplied exponentially. But, at least for Christians, maybe its time
we did a little less shaking and a little more thinking.
Think about this. If Jesus’ followers believed he was only a man, why did all of his disciples die as
martyrs because they proclaimed him as Lord and God? (The exception was John, who was exiled to
a prison island for his witness to Christ’s divinity.) And why were early Christians by the thousands
thrown to the lions, or crucified, or burned at the stake because they worshipped Jesus alone; and
would not worship the emperor? Strange behavior indeed for people who believed Jesus was just a
man.
The New Testament scriptures also reveal from the very beginning Jesus is the Son of God. Brown
denies their authenticity of course; and he is correct when he says there were many other gospels
and books written about Jesus in the early centuries, including the Gnostic gospels from which he
derives much of his novel’s false premise. But for the early Christians, knowing and believing the
truth was a matter of life and death. They had certain tests to determine if a supposed “gospel” was
authentic. One was that it must have been written by, or approved by, an Apostle; that is, a known
Christian leader who had personally been with Jesus after his resurrection. At the risk of their lives,
the early Christians accepted and preserved the genuine accounts, most of which were written within
a few decades of Jesus’ life; and they rejected the later frauds, forgeries and myths Brown used in his
novel.
So how do we know which books are the ones accepted by the early Christians, at the risk of their
lives? In 303 A.D., the Emperor Diocletian decided the best way to get rid of those troublesome
Christians was to destroy all the copies of their sacred writings. Obviously, such a body of writings
was in existence at that time, or Diocletian’s order to destroy all copies would have made no sense.
Then when Constantine was converted to Christianity in 312 A.D., he rescinded the order and
stopped the persecution and murder of Christians. He asked a prominent Christian leader named
Eusebius, who had just been released from prison, to prepare for him 50 copies of the Christian
writings known to be authentic, which Diocletian had tried to destroy.
The scriptures Eusebius delivered to the Emperor Constantine were the exact 27 books we have in
the Protestant New Testament today, no more, no less. They are authentic historical documents.
Read them and see they present Christ as the Son of God who was crucified, and then rose from
death. Obviously then, the divinity of Jesus was the core and the dynamo of Christian faith from the
very beginning, not something tacked on by Constantine in 325 A.D. as Brown’s novel says.
Historical logic also argues against Brown. There were many religious sects in Palestine in the First
Century. Does anyone today know or care who was the founder, for instance, of the Essenes? If
Jesus had been what Brown says, an itinerant teacher regarded as only a man by his followers, we
would have never heard of him. Whether or not he married Mary Magdalene, or why Judas betrayed
him would not concern us in the least. (We would’ve never heard of Mary Magdalene or Judas
anyway.) The fact that, today, Jesus is the central person of the human race and the truth about him
is a matter of passionate concern for millions, is powerful evidence he is indeed the God Man whose
resurrection from the dead changed world history.
A third evidence for the truth of the Scriptures is personal. I have personally believed on Jesus as
the eternal Son of God. I have received him as my Savior; and I know the blood he shed on the cross
has washed away my sins; and he has made my life one of hope and joy, blessing and purpose. This
“evidence” would carry little weight – until you realize multiplied millions of people for two thousand
years have done and said this same thing, along with the millions of Christians today all over the
world.
So obviously it will take more than “The Da Vinci Code” to shake my faith in what I know from history,
logic and personal experience to be true.