by James Thomas Lee, Jr. 11/06/96 Copyrighted 1995 by James Thomas Lee, Jr. Copyright Number: TXu 704-227
Chapter 14. Criterion Three - The Void Satisfied {209 words}
a. Looking at the Early Church {132 words}
b. A Church Under Condemnation {159 words}
c. A Waive of Persecution {413 words}
d. The Reality of Their Ordeal {224 words}
e. A Couple of Lingering Questions {224 words}
Chapter 14. Criterion Three - The Void Satisfied {209 words}
The third condition which is required to demonstrate God's existence in a current setting is the reverse of the second. Namely, if God exists NOW, then the godly must not feel that that same something or that that same Holy Spirit is missing in them. Like the second, this criterion is also difficult to show because one must once again try to generalize and explain the feelings and actions of others, a task which is never easy. To accomplish such an ambitious objective, the history of the early Church will be examined. The aim will be to find evidence within the godly of an atypical, inner peace and joy. If such characteristics can be found, then their presence should be sufficient to show an indwelling of the above-mentioned Holy Spirit. The reasoning behind this inquiry is very straightforward. If the behavior of those without the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit reveals something lacking, a point that was just seen in condition two, then the behavior of those with the indwelling of God's Spirit should reveal something gained!
We begin the examination of this criterion by considering the early Church and by taking a second look at the Roman Government of that period. When the New Testament Church was born, people who sought the Lord stirred up Roman officials. By law, no one was permitted to seek or worship any being other than Caesar. According to Roman authority and custom, Caesar was the chief ruler and leader over all. Many of that era even elevated him to the place of the gods. But Christians and Christianity, in general, held to a much different and much higher calling than to just that of a mere mortal. Caesar, in their eyes, was a powerful ruler, but nothing more. He certainly was not and is not God!
The Roman leaders became highly agitated by the defiant attitude of the early, zealous Christians. Because of the Christian determination and zeal to seek God first, the leaders of that Government sought to kill the spirit of the early New Testament Church. To do that, they sought to kill the people of the early New Testament Church.
Interpretation of Roman Law meant extreme, cruel punishment, even the ultimate penalty of death to anyone who professed to follow the Lord. In reconsidering the earlier passage presented with Criterion One, the same passage which showed the Apostle Peter before the Sanhedrin being defended by Gamaliel, that whole episode had occurred because Peter and the other Apostles had been worshipping and preaching Christ. Those men had been caught up in the Roman Government's battle against Christianity, and by law, any offender, including Christ's Apostles, could be tortured, persecuted, or even destroyed for not putting Roman idols first!
In his book, Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World, Mr. John Foxe reported that the Government had used all sorts of cruelty to stop the growth of the Church. In the process, many Christians were killed simply for exercising their newfound, unshakable faith. However, while many died horrible deaths, the New Testament Church still flourished, a point which again reinforces the first criterion of survivability. Even though the Romans tried diligently, they simply could not stop the Lord's work! Concerning just a very few of the many thousands who were killed, Mr. Foxe writes about the following:
These accounts of real people during extremely stressful circumstances are troubling. To imagine that any person could be so poorly treated just for worshipping the God of the Bible is disturbing. Yet, consider the many naive individuals who embark on their journey to church each Sunday without ever realizing the tremendous costs which have been borne by others who once tried to do the same.
While the above instances are only a small sample of the many Christian martyrs, they do demonstrate the unique quality, faith, and testimony of those who possess the Holy Spirit of God. Those men and women of the past were able to look beyond the temporal pleasures of this world and see past the immediate ordeal of their own persecution and suffering. As a result, they were more willing to die for their Lord than to deny Him and fall down before Roman idols. The witness of their actions tells us that they really were different and that they really did possess that something which the ungodly do not have. Those people were willing to and did pay the ultimate price for their faith!
The account of these early martyrs raises a couple of important questions. First, did those people actually possess something unique, something which had come to them from their God? Were they really partakers of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, or were they merely caught up in some special movement, one for which they were willing to die? The second question pertains to whether or not naive, present-day Christians would, like those just mentioned, also be willing to make the same or a similar sacrifice for their faith? In other words, has this willingness to surrender all, even one's life, also survived the Ages? To answer these two questions, we must proceed to the next two portions of this discussion. We must first go to criterion four, which says that if God exists NOW, then He must have the ability to improve or make better all who follow Him. After that, we will proceed to the final section of this part of the discourse and examine the final conclusions about knowing whether or not God is real.
1. John Foxe, Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World (New Jersey: Barbour and Company, Inc., 1985), page 30.
2. Ibid, page 34.
3. Ibid, page 34.
4. Ibid, page 38.
5. Ibid, page 53.
6. Ibid, page 64.
Chapter 15. Criterion Four - A New Creature in Christ
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