Jack Clark
The world asks Christians tough questions, and we ask equally tough questions of ourselves.
In this book thirty contributing authors of seventeen denominational backgrounds and an agnostic share their understandings about fifty-seven challanges to our faith including such hot button issues as war, abortion, homosexuality, what it means to take up our cross, what sin is and what it can do, why we are convinced of God's existence, and why we believe the resurrection wasn't faked.
There are thirty contributing authors who individually ask questions and give their views about the answers - Nine are clergy and twenty-one laypersons. Sixteen have been teachers - from grade school to university level. There are two certified Christian counselors, a certified lay speaker, a former journalist, three delegates to their church's annual confrences, two local lay leaders, and one district lay leader. Jack Clark, the co-ordinating contributing author, is a recently retired family doctor who has written two other books on faith and two books on history.
How can anyone continue to exist after the death of their physical brain? (Jack Clark's answer)
Jesus commented to a group of Sadducees who were questioning him about the resurrection of the dead. He said, “You do not know the Scriptures or the power of God… Have you not read what God said to you? ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” God had used the present tense verb – not the past tense. God in the original quotation and Jesus in his explanation indicated that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive!
I’ve thought a lot about the reasons for the cross and the resurrection. Obviously the main reason was to show to us that Jesus, God’s Christ, had paid the ransom for our sins. Christ himself said that another very important reason was that it would draw all men to him. This may seem really strange. I think he was saying that if he could show the unfathomable depth of his love and the mind-blowing ability to continue his life after his physical death that many would be convinced that he has the power not only to forgive our sins but also to offer us eternal life.
Understanding how I could exist forever as an individual after my physical death has always been extremely difficult for me. The existence of my mind (myself) apart from my physical brain has, at times, seemed beyond the realm of possibility.
Finally a sense of peace flowed over me when the Holy Spirit gave me an understanding beyond my own abilities. I fully understood the significance of Jesus Christ’s saying that he was going to the Father to prepare a place for me and for everyone who has faith in him. I accepted the affirmation inherent in Jesus’ speaking about our future in Heaven. You may remember that he said, “If it were not so, I would have told you”
There it is. It’s just that simple. Jesus is one with the Father. There is no way he would break the commandment about lying. I still don’t understand how it can be. I only understand that since Jesus said it, it most certainly is so.
