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Jesus' Resurrection From The Dead
The resurrection of Jesus from
the dead is perhaps the greatest foundational doctrine of the Christian church.
Paul declared that if Jesus were not raised from the dead, then the Christian
faith was in vain (1 Cor. 15:14). Conversely, if Jesus were raised from the
dead, then we are at once confronted with an incontrovertible proof of Jesus'
Messiahship. Consider the following proofs for Jesus' resurrection from the
dead:
(1) Jesus' Fulfillment of Prophecy.
Isaiah 53 speaks of the Messiah's
resurrection. First he was killed "cut off" (v.8); then buried in a
"tomb" (v. 9); then God "prolongs his days" (through the
resurrection v. 10) and divides Him "a portion with the great"
(v. 12).
It has already been proven that
Jesus was "cut off" and buried in a rich man's tomb in fulfillment of
Isaiah 53. We can, therefore, be assured that He was also raised from the dead
in accordance with Isa. 53:10.
David also foretold the
resurrection of the Messiah in Psalm
16:10: "For thou wilt not commit my soul in the grave; neither wilt thou
suffer thine Pious One to see corruption."
Peter applied this prophecy to
Jesus' resurrection: "He, foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection
of the Messiah, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see
corruption" (Acts 2:31).
Jesus was raised from the dead as
the prophets foretold! This being so, credibility is immediately imputed to the
apostles' eyewitness testimony that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
(2) The Testimony of the New Testament Writers.
The testimony of the men who
wrote the New Testament was that Jesus was raised from the dead! On the day of
Pentecost, Peter, speaking in unison with the 11 apostles, testified to the
resurrection before an audience of over 3,000 Jews. They proclaimed, "God
has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of this fact" (Acts
2:32).
Paul in his letter to the
Corinthians summarized Christ's post-resurrection appearances:
For what I received I passed on
to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to
the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After
that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time,
most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared
to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also... (1
Cor. 15:3-8).
Hundreds of Christ's disciples
saw1 Him after His resurrection He truly is alive!
(3) The Empty Tomb.
The best evidence collaborating
the apostles' testimony of Christ's resurrection is that of the empty tomb. As
mentioned previously, Jesus was buried in a rich man's tomb in fulfillment of
Isa. 53. The angels were the first to proclaim that Jesus' tomb was empty (Matt.
27:5). The women who went to the tomb were the first to convey the news to
Jesus' disciples (Matt. 27:7-10). And the apostles were the ones to first go and
preach it. Even the Pharisees and the Roman guard tacitly admitted it when they
propagated the lie that the disciples stole His body. (Interestingly enough,
this theory is still propagated today by the anti-missionaries.)
As Peter preached that inaugural
gospel sermon on the resurrection (Acts 2), the tomb where Jesus' body had been
buried was only a ten-minute walk away. If the resurrection was a hoax, the
Pharisees and the Romans could have aborted Christianity at its conception. It
would have been a simple task to parade those first converts over to His tomb to
document the falsity of the apostles' claim. But the fact of the matter was that
the tomb was empty!
No one could stop the disciples
from starting the Christian church, simply because they were right in their
claim that when they came to Jesus' tomb on the third day, it was empty Jesus
had indeed been raised from the dead, just as the prophets had foretold.
Objections Considered
The truthfulness of a position is
further established by the weakness of the counter arguments. This
becomes evident as we scrutinize the objections to the resurrection of Christ.
We shall now consider the most common:
(1) The Disciples Stole the Body.
The Pharisees originated this
objection. They were the ruling religious party of Jesus' day. They were also
His fiercest enemies. The Pharisees were the ones who had Jesus crucified; and
once dead, they saw to it that His body was closely guarded. Since Jesus was a
threat to their prestige, pride, and power, the last thing the Pharisees wanted
to see was the establishment of His church. They were all too familiar with
Jesus' prophecy that He would be killed and raised again the third day. He had
boldly proclaimed this truth to them during His earthly ministry (John 2:19;
10:13-19). So when Jesus died, the Pharisees in haste went to Pilate, the Roman
ruler:
"Sir,” they said, '”we
remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I
will rise again.' So give the order
for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may
come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the
dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
“Take a guard,” Pilate
answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and
made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting a guard (Matt.
27:63-66).
The Roman guard that was
dispatched to protect Jesus' tomb against vandalism was an elite group of
fighting men whose very lives depended on successfully performing their duty:
George Currie, in speaking of the
discipline of the Roman guard, says, “The punishment for quitting post was
death, according to the laws (Dion. Hal, Antiq. Rom. VIII.79). The most famous
discourse on the strictness of camp discipline is that of Polybius VI.37-38
which indicates that the fear of punishments produced faultless attention to
duty, especially in the night watches."2
Though the Pharisees took every
precaution to make sure Jesus' body stayed in the tomb, their well-laid plans
were divinely frustrated. Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead and
slipped through their hands. When they were finally confronted with the news of
the empty tomb, they were powerless to do anything. So in desperation, the
Pharisees concocted a story hoping to salvage the situation.
After consulting together they "gave the soldiers a large sum of
money, telling them, 'You are to say, His disciples came during the night and
stole him away while we were asleep; If this report gets to the governor, we
will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble" (Matt. 28:12-14).
Apparently, this allegation was
so preposterous that it had absolutely no impact on the thousands of Jews who
obeyed the gospel. It only strengthened the claim of the apostles. By that time,
it was common knowledge that an elite Roman guard had been given the
responsibility of guarding the tomb of Jesus. The Pharisees' contention that the
disciples stole Jesus' body right out from under the nose of a crack Roman guard
was laughable. After all, only a few days previously, the disciples, in fear of
the Jews, cowered behind locked doors. The idea that all of the guards would
fall asleep simultaneously while on duty, risking their lives, was equally
absurd. What court of law would ever accept the testimony of someone who was
asleep during the time of the alleged incident? If the Roman guards had truly
been asleep, how could they have known it was the disciples who stole the body?
Such a plan only revealed the
depths of desperation to which the Pharisees had plummeted. Since they had
rejected the truth, they had no other recourse. To them, anything was better
than admitting the truth that Jesus had risen from the dead. Perhaps it was the
weakness of the Pharisees' allegation that woke up many from among their own
ranks to the truthfulness of the apostles' claim. For "many" of the
priests and members of the party of the Pharisees went over to the Christian
faith (Acts 6:7; 15:5)!
Sigal's Theory
Sigal concedes that Jesus' body
was laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. But he astutely observes that the
Roman guard wasn't sent to watch the tomb until the second day. Sigal then
surmises that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus could have stolen the body and
fled the country before the soldiers arrived to guard the tomb (Sigal, p.246).
(This seems to be a spin-off of Hugh Schoenfield's Passover Plot.)
First, we might ask, why would
Joseph put Jesus' body in his own tomb, then carry it away in stealth? This
makes no sense at all. What motive would these Jews have to perpetrate such a
high-risk crime and then keep it a secret, as Sigal suggests, from the rest of
Jesus' disciples?
Second, Sigal believes that the
disciples were deceived by the empty tomb into a false conviction that Jesus had
risen from the dead. But this would not explain their testimony that Jesus had
appeared to them.
Third, the Roman guard that was
dispatched to guard the tomb of Jesus placed a seal on the one-ton stone laid
across the opening. It's inconceivable that they would have neglected to inspect
the tomb to make sure the body was indeed there before they would assume such a
responsibility. If your life depended on the protection of an item behind a
door, wouldn't you open it to make sure that item was there before accepting
such a responsibility?
(2) The Disciples Were Liars.
Some skeptics have proposed that
the disciples merely lied when they gave testimony to Christ's resurrection.
(This is akin to objection number one.) This theory is nonsensical in light of
the facts.
First, this argument would not
explain the empty tomb. If the disciples lied, the tomb would have been occupied
and the Pharisees would have exposed them as frauds. Second, the disciples had
no motive to lie. As Paul Little observed, "Men will die for what they
believe to be true, though it may actually be false. They do not, however, die
for what they know is a lie."3 Of course, men might dare to risk
their lives in the propagation of a lie if there is reason to expect financial
reward, but the apostles had no such expectation.
Simon Greenleaf, regarded by most
students of law as the foremost authority on the law of evidence, who became
Royal Professor of Law at Harvard University, wrote in 1846:
The great truths which the
apostles declared, were, that Christ had risen from the dead...This doctrine
they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest
discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be
presented to the mind of man...As one after another was put to a miserable
death, the survivors only pursued their work with increased vigor and
resolution...They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of
their faith and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted;
and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and
terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted
in affirming the truths they have narrated had not Jesus actually risen from the
dead, and had they not known this fact...To have persisted in so gross a
falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all
the evils which man could inflict from without but to endure also the pangs of
inward and conscious guilt, with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good
conscience, and no expectation of honor or esteem among men...If then their
testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication.'4
Moreover, can you imagine gross
liars risking their lives in order to convince others to be honest, pure, and
truth-loving people? Yet these virtues are the very themes that permeated their
writings.
(3.) The Swoon Theory.
This theory was popularized
recently by Hugh Schonfield's book The Passover Plot. Its proponents claim that
Jesus was erroneously thought to be dead, taken down from the cross, put in a
tomb, and then was revived by virtue of its coolness. Later, after supposedly
rolling away the one-ton stone by Himself and walking fourteen miles to Emmaus,
He convinced His disciples that He had been raised from the dead. It is
interesting how the famous critic, David Strauss, though he did not believe in
the resurrection himself, was able to see the absurdity of this theory. He
states:
It
is impossible that one who had just come forth from the grave, half dead, who
crept about weak and ill, who stood in need of medical treatment, of bandaging,
strengthening and tender care, and who at last succumbed to suffering, could
ever have given to the disciples the impression that He was a conqueror over
death and the grave that He was the Prince of Life [an impression] which lay at
the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have
weakened the impression which He had made upon them in life and in death.5
This theory rejects the New
Testament historical account that Jesus was put to death by crucifixion and then
afterward had His side pierced through with the spear of a Roman soldier to
ensure death (John 19:33-34). The swoon theory also flies in the face of
non-Christian historical testimony. From the pen of Tacitus, the Roman
historian, we learn that Jesus was "put to death by Pontius Pilate,
procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius..."6
(4) Contradictions in the Gospel
Testimonies.
After citing numerous
"contradictions" in the resurrection account recorded by the Gospel
writers, Sigal states: "On the other hand, with the many discrepancies that
appear in the story, it is no wonder that the overwhelming majority of the
Jewish people dismissed the resurrection story as one more fabrication by Jesus'
followers" (Sigal, p. 253).
Isaiah supplies the real reason
for the rejection of the disciples' testimony regarding the resurrection:
"Who would have believed our report?" (Isa. 53:1).
The alleged contradictions in the
Gospels are only imagined. For those affected by the anti-missionary's one-sided
presentation, we offer the following as a plausible chronological listing of the
passages regarding the resurrection of Jesus: Matt. 28:1-15; Mark. 16:1-11; Luke
23:56-24:12; John. 20:1-18; Mark 16:12-13; Luke 24:13-35; Luke 24:36-43; John
20:19-23; John 20:24-29; John 21:1-24; Matt. 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-20b; Luke
24:44-53; John 21:25.
(5) Jesus was not in the grave three days and nights as He
prophesied (Matt. 12:40). Actually, He was only in the grave one full day
(Saturday) and part of two others (Friday evening and Sunday mourning). Many
have wrongly assumed that Jesus was crucified on Friday. As Ralph Woodrow aptly
explains:
Since Jesus was crucified on the
day before the Sabbath, we can understand why some have thought of Friday as the
day of the crucifixion. But the Sabbath that followed his death was not the
weekly Sabbath, but the annual Sabbath 'for that Sabbath was a high day"
(John 19:14, 31). This Sabbath could fall on any day of the week and that year
apparently came on Thursday. He was crucified and buried on the preparation day
(Wednesday), the next day was the high day Sabbath (Thursday), then Friday,
followed by the weekly Sabbath (Saturday). Understanding that there were two
Sabbaths that week explains how Christ could be crucified on the day before the
Sabbath, was already risen from the tomb when the day after the Sabbath came yet
fulfilling his sign of three days and three nights. A careful comparison of Mark
16:1 with Luke 23:56 provides further evidence there were two Sabbaths that week
with a common workday between the two. Mark 16:1 says: “And when the Sabbath
was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James, and Salome, bought sweet
spices that they might come and anoint him.” This verse states that it was
after the Sabbath when these women bought their spices. Luke 23:56, however,
states that they prepared the spices and after preparing them rested on the
Sabbath: “And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the
Sabbath day according to the commandment.” The one verse says it was after the
Sabbath the women bought spices; the other verse says they prepared the spices
before the Sabbath. Since they couldn't prepare the spices until first they had
purchased them, the evidence for two different Sabbaths seems conclusive.
Writing in Eternity magazine, its editor, Donald Grey Barnhouse, said: “I
personally have always held that there were two Sabbaths in our Lord's last week
the Saturday Sabbath and the Passover Sabbath, the latter being on Thursday.
They hastened to take his body down after a Wednesday crucifixion and he was
three days and three nights (at least 72 hours) in the tomb.” He cites
evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls which would place the Last Supper on Tuesday.
Not all tradition has favored a Friday crucifixion. He quotes from a Roman
Catholic journal published in France that "an ancient Christian tradition,
attested to by the Didascalia Apostolorum as well as by Epiphanius and
Victorinus of Petau (died 304) gives Tuesday evening as the date of the Last
Supper and prescribes a fast for Wednesday to commemorate the capture of
Christ."7
(6) The Hallucination Theory.
Sigal alludes to this theory when
he states: "The notion that post-resurrection appearances took place
resulted from a combination of myth and highly emotional expressions stemming
from deep yearnings of disappointment and guilt that the followers of Jesus felt
after his death...Paul, guilt-ridden and unstable, claims that while suffering
from a seizure he heard Jesus (Acts 9:4-5, 22:7-8, 26:14-15; 1 Cor. 15:8).
Certainly, this is not the most reliable verification for an appearance (Sigal,
p. 252-253).
McDowell succinctly exposes the
absurdity of this assertion:
Why is the hallucination theory
so weak? First, it contradicts various conditions which most psychiatrists and
psychologists agree must be present to have an hallucination. Unless the
appearances of Christ correspond to these essential conditions, referring to
them as hallucinations is meaningless.
The first principle is that,
generally, only particular kinds of people have hallucinations usually only
paranoid or schizophrenic individuals, with schizophrenics being the most
susceptive. In the New Testament, however, we have all different kinds of
people, from different backgrounds, in different moods, and from different
studies.
Second, hallucinations are linked
to an individual's subconscious and to his particular past experiences, making
it very unlikely that more than two persons could have the same hallucination at
the same time. Christ appeared to many people, and descriptions of the
appearances involved great detail, like those which psychologists regard as
determined by reality.
Christ also ate with those to
whom He appeared (Luke 24:41, 42; John 21:13). And He not only exhibited His
wounds (Luke 24:39; John 20:27), but He also encouraged a closer inspection. An
illusion does not sit down and have dinner with you, and cannot be scrutinized
by various individuals at will.
A
'hallucination' is a very private event a purely subjective experience void of
any external reference or object. If two people cannot initiate or sustain the
same vision without any external object or reference, how could more than 500 do
so at one time?8
The anti-missionary can't have it
both ways. Either the disciples hallucinated or they were gross liars. Since
both of these theories are proven untenable, we are at once confronted with the
inescapable conclusion: Jesus was raised from the dead in fulfillment of the law
and prophets.