The Case For Christ

they could be in right standing with him. But all of a sudden,
after the death of this Nazarene carpenter, these Jewish people
no longer offer sacrifices. Second, Jews emphasized obeying the
laws that God had
entrusted to them through Moses. In their view, this is what
separated them from pagan nations. Yet within a short time after
Jesus' death, Jews were beginning to say that you don't become an
upstanding member of their community merely by keeping Moses'
laws.
Third, Jews scrupulously kept the Sabbath by not doing anything
except religious devotion every Saturday. This is how they would
earn right standing with God, guarantee the salvation of their
family, and be in right standing with the nation. However, after
the death of this Nazarene carpenter, this fifteen-hundred-year
tradition is abruptly changed. These Christians worship on
Sunday-why?
Because that's when Jesus rose from the dead.
Fourth, they believed in monotheism-only one God. While
Christians teach a form of monotheism, they say that the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit are one God. This is radically different
from what the Jews believed. They would have considered it the
height of heresy to say someone could be God and man at the same
time. Yet Jews begin to worship Jesus as God within the first
decade of the Christian religion. And fifth, these Christians
pictured the Messiah as someone who suffered and died for the
sins of the world, whereas Jews had been trained to believe that
the Messiah was going to be a political leader who would destroy
the Roman armies."
With that context established, Moreland went in for the
rhetorical kill, drilling me with his intense and unwavering
gaze. "Lee," he said, "how can you possibly explain why in a
short period of time not just one Jew but an entire community of
at least ten thousand Jews were willing to give up these five key
practices that had served them sociologically and theologically
for so many centuries? My explanation is simple: they had seen
Jesus risen from the dead."
While Moreland's point was extremely impressive, I saw a problem
in people understanding it today. I told him that it's very
difficult for twentieth-century Americans to appreciate the
radical nature of this transformation.
"These days people are fluid in their faith," I said. "They