The Resurrection is central to the Christian faith. If Jesus rose from the dead, this fact validates His Personhood, teachings, and the Bible which He quoted. If He didn’t rise, we are without hope.
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Jesus endorsed the entire Hebrew Scriptures: Matthew 5:17–18 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 4:4)
If Jesus didn’t
rise from the dead: 1
Corinthians 15:17–19 “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is
futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep
in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of
all people most to be pitied.”
1. Jesus was crucified.
2. His tomb was empty and no one was able to produce His body.
3. Many eyewitnesses testified that He had risen.
4. The circumstantial evidence also confirms His Resurrection.
5. No other theory has been able to account for these facts.
1. Jesus was crucified.
Even Bible skeptics have called this an “indisputable fact”:
· NT scholar, John Dominic Crossan: “That He was crucified is as sure as anything historical ever can be.” (Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 2007; 113)
· “Both Gerd Ludemann, an atheistic NT critic, and Bart Ehrman, who’s an agnostic, call the crucifixion an “indisputable fact.” (113)
· Tacitus, Roman historian (110 AD): “Jesus suffered the extreme penalty under the reign of Tiberius.” (113)
· “Josephus [the Jewish historian, 90 AD] reports that Pilate ‘condemned him to be crucified’…Even the Jewish Talmud reports that ‘Yeshu was hanged.’” (113)
2. Jesus’ tomb was empty, and no one was able to produce His body.
If Body à No Resurrection à No Christianity
No Body à Explanation Needed à Disciple Stole It
All early reports, even Jewish ones cited an “empty tomb”! However, there are no reports of anyone producing His body, although the Jews and Romans had every reason to produce it – (Crosson)
Roman guard:
· “Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, "Tell them, 'His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.' And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure." So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.” (Matthew 28:11-15) - Illogical
Justin Martyr (150 AD) wrote in his “Dialogue with Trypho” that the Jews still sent ambassadors throughout the Mediterranean, claiming that the “Disciples stole the body.” à They had no better explanation
Against Disciples Stealing Body:
· Scared
· Given up faith (Emmaus Rd)
· No motive to deceive and to risk martyrdom.
· Apostles’ accounts not Fabricated
· Roman guard.
No Evidence against Empty Tomb:
· “Gary Habermas determined that about 75% [of historians] on the subject [of the empty tomb] regard it as an historical fact.” He adds, “All the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor [of the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history” (Strobel, 123).
· It is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions." (D. H. Van Daalen, The Real Resurrection (London: Collins, 1972), p. 41)
· No credible theory apart from resurrection can account for empty tomb.
3. Many eyewitnesses testified that He had risen.
· The Disciples believed that Jesus had appeared to them. All 27 books of the New Testament based on conviction that Jesus rose!
·
Church
Fathers. Clement (95 AD)
wrote: “Therefore, having received orders and complete certainty caused by
the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the Word of God,
they went with the Holy Spirit’s certainty.” (1 Clement 42:3)
· Church Father Polycarp (110 AD) wrote: “For
they did not love the present age, but Him who died for our benefit and for
our sake was raised by God.” (Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians
9:2)
Apostolic testimonies credible:
·
The
testimony of women: Jewish historian Josephus (90 AD) wrote: “But let not the
testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their
sex.” (Strobel, 124)
·
Michael
Licona, 85: The Apostles “were willing to endure persecution and even
martyrdom….They wouldn’t have suffered for their testimony of the Resurrection
unless they were convinced that it had actually happened.
·
Martyrdom
– No for a False Story
·
The
Apostles presented themselves in a very unfavorable light in the Gospels –
Abandoned Jesus. Truth > Personal Welfare
·
No
evidence of collaboration – Rough Edges
·
No
other apparent motive to invent.
· Troubling teachings:
o “Sell all you have”
o Jesus attacks leadership
o “Pluck out eyes
o Gentiles “Dogs” - Racist
o Praised faith of 2 Gentiles
o “Why have you forsaken me”
o Jesus didn’t know when He’d return.
o Abandoned Jesus
o Competed for best positions
o Jesus never complemented them.
·
Gospels
– No names vs. Gnostic Gospels; credited to no-counts – Mark and Luke; No
self-promotion
·
Agnostic
Will Durant (The Story of Civilization, Vol III: Caesar and Christ):
“The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance; in essentials the synoptic
gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the
enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New
Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient
worthies, for example Hammurabi, David, Socrates would fade into legend.
Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they
record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition
of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus’
arrest, Peter’s denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the
references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as
to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of
bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can
doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in
one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty
an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far
more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. After two centuries of Higher
Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ, remain
reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature of the history of
Western man.”
·
Bart
Ehrman: “The oldest and best sources we
have for knowing about the life of Jesus…are the four Gospels of the NT…This is
not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the NT
and in its historical worth; it is the view of all serious historians of
antiquity…it is the conclusion that has been reached by every one of the
hundreds (thousands, even) of scholars. (“Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci
Code,” p. 102)
·
Jesus’
Apostles - Jerusalem where thousands came to faith
·
Nicodemus
and Joseph
·
There
is no record of any Apostle ever recanting.
·
Paul
reported (55-57 AD): “For I delivered [this early report) to you as of first
importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance
with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the
twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time,
most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he
appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to
one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)
Scholars: Gary Habermas had consulted over 2,000
scholarly sources on the Resurrection and concluded that “probably no fact was
more widely recognized than that the early Christian believers had real
experiences that they thought were appearances of the risen Jesus.”
(86).
·
Atheist
Gerd Ludemann conceded: ‘It may be taken as historically certain
that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus
appeared to them as the risen Christ.’” (Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened
to Jesus?, trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1995), p. 80.)
·
Unbelieving
Jewish historian, Paula Fredriksen: “The Disciples’ conviction that they had
seen the risen Christ…is historical bedrock, facts known past
doubting.” (Strobel, 119)
·
Fredriksen:
“I know in their own terms what they saw was the raised Jesus. That’s what they
say and then all the historic evidence we have afterwards attests to their
conviction that that’s what they saw. I’m not saying that they really did see
the raised Jesus. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what they saw. But I do know
that as a historian that they must have seen something.” (119) Hallucinations?
·
NT
scholar James Dunn: “It is an undoubted fact that the conviction
that God had raised Jesus from the dead and had exalted Jesus to his right
hand, transformed Jesus’ first disciples and their beliefs about Jesus.” (Christian Research Journal, Vol.39,
No.2, 14)
·
Jewish
scholar Pinchus Lapide:
· Michael Licona “After Jesus’ death, the disciples endured persecution, and a number of them experienced martyrdom. The strength of their conviction indicates that they were not just claiming Jesus had appeared to them after rising from the dead. They really believed it. They willingly endangered themselves by publicly proclaiming the risen Christ.” (CRJ,16)
·
Sean
McDowell: “From the Apostles forward, there is no evidence for an early
Christian community that did not have belief in the Resurrection at its
core. The centrality of the Resurrection can be seen by considering the
earliest Christian creeds, the preaching in Acts, and the writings of the
apostolic fathers.” (CRJ,14)
4. The
circumstantial evidence: Why there must have been the Resurrection.
·
Conversion
of Apostle Paul: Licona concludes, “He had nothing to gain in the world –
except his own suffering and martyrdom – for making this up.”
· Jesus’ family: “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21; John 7:3-5). James and Jude became believers.
· 3000 came to believe in Jerusalem (Acts 2:41). Witnesses of Crucifixion
· Disciples fled and abandoned their faith.
· Early Church worshipped on the Sunday – convinced Resurrection Day
· Early Church practiced baptism and communion.
· Origin on Phlegon: "the greatest eclipse of the sun" and that "it became night in the sixth hour of the day [noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea." (Wikipedia). Thallus (52 AD) by Africanus (221 AD)
5. No other theory has been able to account for these facts.
William Lane Craig wrote:
· C. F. D. Moule of Cambridge University concludes that we have here a belief which nothing in terms of prior historical influences can account for--apart from the resurrection itself. www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/rediscover2.html#text17
Since Jesus rose from the dead:
· Jesus Identity as the Son, Bible, and all He taught - validated
· We can dwell in His Light of Truth – hope, joy, love, confidence, and boldness.
Hebrews 10:19–22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
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