Jesus In India — Page 63
CHAPTER ONE 53 world as a test of faith and sincerity would have been made appar- ent and evident to all. Faith would not have remained faith, and, in the sight of every believer and denier, the nature of the next world would have become an evident and open fact, like the exist- ence of the moon, the sun, and the alternation of day and night. In that case, faith would no longer be that valuable and worthwhile thing, possessing which could give one hope of receiving a reward. If the people and past prophets of Israel whose number reaches into the hundreds of thousands, had really been brought to life at the time of the crucifixion and had in fact come back to the city alive; and if this miracle, that hundreds of prophets and hundreds of thousands of saintly people were all brought to life at the same time, was really shown to prove the truth and divinity of Jesus, the Messiah, the Jews would have had an excellent oppor- tunity to inquire of their prophets, saints, and other ancestors, whether Jesus, the Messiah, who claimed to be God was indeed God, or was he a liar! One can easily imagine that they could not have missed this welcome opportunity. They must have inquired as to what type of person this was, for the Jews were very keen to compare notes with the dead if they could be restored to life. Thus, when, hundreds of thousands of the dead were restored to life, and flocked to every street in the city in their thousands, how could the Jews have let go of such an opportunity? They must have inquired, not from one or two, but from thousands; and when the dead entered their respective houses there must have been great commotion all over the place, for many hundreds of thousands of them had been brought back to life. In every house there must have been great excitement, and everybody must have been questioning the dead as to whether the man Jesus, who called