There is Real Power in Jesus

30 October 2025  Luke 13:31-35

“Behold, your house will be abandoned.” Luke 13:35

The “consensus of scholarship” is that Mark is the earliest gospel, and was written after A.D. 70. Matthew and Luke were written in the late 70s or early 80s, and John in the 90s, perhaps early in the second century.

They have arrived at this conclusion mostly because of the date of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans, which took place in A.D. 70. The “consensus of scholarship” is that any “predictions” of the destruction of the Temple in the New Testament cannot be actual prophecy, because actual prophecy doesn’t happen. Therefore, none of the gospels that predict the destruction of the Temple – as Luke 13:35 does – can have appeared prior to A.D. 70.

Why, however, should any Christian scholar accept the assumption that actual prophecy is impossible? If we were to accept that, then we would have to admit that there are no supernatural acts – Jesus’ miracles of healing would be impossible, as well as the various feedings of multitudes, and all His exorcisms. By that reasoning, there was no immaculate conception, no virgin birth, and most significantly no resurrection from the dead, and what St. Paul most dreaded becomes certainly the case: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins” (I Corinthians 15:17).

Arius was a heretic from the old days who said that Jesus was a creature, not God. He was created the same way we are, and his role is to mediate between people and God. Jesus, on the Arian model, is not a God, nor is he truly a human being, but something in between who kind of connects us to God. God Himself is not accessible to humans – He is too high and too pure for the likes of us, so He rules in majestic isolation, reaching out to us only through mediators like the not-quite-God, Jesus. But we can’t really be connected to Jesus either because we have nothing in common with Him – He is less than God, but more than us. So, Jesus is pretty isolated, too – too much like God to have communion with us, but not enough like God to have communion with Him.

And that’s what we’re stuck with if real acts of power are impossible – no healings, no incarnation, no resurrection. We can’t have a relationship with God because we are simply too far away from each other. We can’t get to God, God can’t get to us, and we’re all, practically speaking, atheists.

So maybe Jesus really did prophesy the destruction of the Temple, and maybe the gospels were written in the 50s and 60s A.D. rather than the 70s and 80s. And if they appeared that early, so close to the earthly life of Jesus, maybe they are more credible than the cultured despisers think. There really are real works of real power, there is a real heaven, and all those young adults out there now, who are gasping for a more purposeful now and a more meaningful future, have something eternally reliable to hold on to.

Behold, our house is not abandoned. Come and see.