THE RESURRECTION

 

 

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.

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.