He was raised in a Christian home, baptized as a child into the church of his parents. His wife’s parents were killed during a war-time pogrom for possessing Christian icons in their home. Yet, this man went on to be the leader of the strongest Communist nation in the world, admitting publicly at various times that he was an atheist. While others wondered if he might not be secretly more religious than his public position would allow him to admit, he held fast to the godless belief system entailed by his political persuasion. After his Communist government collapsed, he opened up a little more, confessing to be a pantheist, saying “Nature is my god.” However, now at the age of 77 years old, the British newspaper Telegraph reveals this week that Mikhail Gorbachev is finally comfortable admitting that he is in fact a Christian[1]
Once upon a time in
We have come to expect that each year around the major holidays, certain traditions will recur like clockwork. There will be picnics at the fourth of July, parades at Thanksgiving, countless reshowings of The Grinch at Christmas. But in recent years, a new Easter tradition has come about. During the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, one can expect numerous documentaries to air on television which seek to debunk the Christian faith by arguing against the historicity of the claim that Jesus is risen from the dead. Belief in the resurrection is not an optional or insignificant element of Christianity. You will recall that the Apostle Paul says in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” No less than 104 times in the New testament, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is addressed. And here in this text we read this morning, he says that the resurrection is an essential component of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, it should come as no surprise that this doctrine finds itself under attack perennially. The critics of Christianity understand perhaps more than many Christians that if they can undermine our confidence in the resurrection, they can effectually neuter the Christian faith of its power. And this is not a new phenomenon. Opponents of Christianity have sought for two millennia to debunk the resurrection, without success.
Think of it like this. Hinduism teaches that
So, is it true? Did Jesus in fact rise from the dead. My thesis is that He did, and in what follows, I will seek to present convincing evidence of support for that claim.
I will remind you that Paul is writing here in our text to the Corinthian Christians, a church which had become so distracted, so divided, so deceived by many unnecessary things, that he deemed it fitting to remind them of the truths that matter most. And so he says here that they must know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it centers around the fact that Christ died for our sins according to Scripture, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to Scripture. If the message of Christianity is that Jesus died and was buried, then Jesus is no different than any other human being who has ever lived. But we claim that He was different, and His death was different than any other death experienced by man. Jesus died for our sins, a claim that He made Himself and that others made concerning Him. But these claims are hardly believable unless some proof can be offered that demonstrates He was able to atone for those sins and be vindicated by God following His suffering. This proof is found in His resurrection.
Historian Kenneth Scott Latourete writes, “It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted his followers out of the despair into which his death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had risen from the dead and they had seen him and talked with him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus himself would probably have been all but forgotten.” Similarly, H.D.A. Major has written, “Had the crucifixion of Jesus ended his disciples’ experience of Him, it is hard to see how the
Now you will notice that Paul does not say here that Christ was risen and that we should just take his word for it. No, rather, he seeks to validate the resurrection of Christ by pointing to evidence that supports that claim. So many times people think that becoming a follower of Christ means taking an intellectual flying leap, checking your brains at the door, and foolishly buying into an unbelievable myth. You have heard it said by many that Christianity is a just crutch for weak-minded people. However, the fact is that God does not expect us to follow along in spite of evidence. God has given us evidence to confirm that our faith is rightly focused. It is not a leap in the dark, but a step toward the light. The evidence for belief in Christ and His resurrection is as strong as any other historical fact. Consider the evidence found in this passage alone:
I. The Evidence of Scripture (v4) (according to Scripture)
Luke 24:44-48 records that when the Risen Jesus appeared to His disciples, He said to them: "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from
So, in referring to the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, Jesus says in essence, “The whole OT testifies to this.” The Hebrew Bible that we now call the Old Testament, was divided into three parts: Torah (Law), Nevi’im (prophets), and Kethuvim (writings). Therefore it became known as Tanakh: an acrostic based on the consonants TNK for those three divisions. Jesus Christ is saying to His followers that for centuries, it had been prophesied that I would come, and I would die, and I would rise again.
It is widely agreed by many scholars that the book of Job was the first book of Scripture written down. In this ancient book, Job declares a great affirmation of faith in Job 19:25-27-- "And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26 "Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes shall see and not another. My heart faints within me.”
You recall how Jesus answered the Jews who wanted a sign:
& Matthew 12-- 39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Jesus, Peter, and Paul all referred to Old Testament scriptures in discussing the resurrection. Genesis 22, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Hosea 6:2 are among their favorites. And these passages indicate that support for the resurrection of Christ can be found in every portion of the Old Testament. Genesis is from the Torah, the Law; the Psalms are from the Kethubim, or the Writings; Isaiah and Hosea are from the Nebiim, or the Prophets. Now some will accuse of a logical fallacy here, claiming that we are using a circular argument. They will say that we cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible. However, these have misunderstood what the Bible is. The Bible is not one book written by one man or assembled by one committee. The Bible is a collection of writings that were penned over the course of 1500 years by various people from all different walks of life, most of whom never knew each other. And the Old Testament writings which we hold to be authoritative were collected in the form we now have them before the time of Christ. And so the early Christians were not pointing to their own writings to validate Scripturally the resurrection of Jesus, but rather were pointing to treasured writings of ancient
And these Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures, written centuries before, affirm that in time God would send a Messiah, would not only die, but would rise again. But there will still be some who believe in the Scriptures, and who say that this is evidence is not sufficient. So, what evidence shall we give to them?
II. The evidence of eyewitnesses (v5-7)
We could say anything we want about a person after he has died. We can even say that he is risen from the dead, but that would be easily disproven. Just go dig up the grave and see if it is empty. If it is empty, that is still no guarantee. There are other explanations that could suffice to explain the empty tomb. We might also say, “I will believe it when I see him face to face.” We criticize Thomas for his skepticism, but we must say we would be just as skeptical about the claim that someone who was dead was no longer. Two words of the text we have read today are crucial: He appeared. And the eyewitnesses to whom He appeared are powerful evidence that He is risen indeed.
A. The Abundance of Eyewitnesses (5-8)
In Deuteronomy 19:15, a principle is given to cover matters of government and judgment: “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.” If two or three witnesses is enough to confirm a thing, then how much more sure is something witnessed by no less than 640 eyewitnesses?
In verses 5-8, we read of no less than 514 eyewitnesses: Cephas (Peter); The Twelve; More than 500 Brethren at one time; James; and Paul himself, in an unnatural encounter on the
B. The Availability of Eyewitnesses (v6)
“Most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.” In speaking of sleep here, Paul does not mean sleep like some of you are wanting to do now. Rather, he is speaking euphemistically of death, as was common in his day. Obviously by our own day, all of these have died, but when Paul wrote this letter, he indicated that most of those who had seen Jesus after His resurrection were still alive and could be consulted about the matter. Any person in
The testimony of eyewitnesses is powerful! In fact, as Luke compiled information to send to his dear friend Theophilus, he said that Jesus had, “presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing (or, infallible) proofs” (Acts 1:3).
The evidence of Scripture and the evidence of eyewitnesses ought to be enough to convince anyone of the reality of Christ’s resurrection. But if spiritual evidence and eyewitness evidence are not enough, then perhaps practical evidence will be, as we see …
III. The Evidence of Changed Lives (v8-11)
“Last of all,” Paul says, “as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” For much of Paul’s career, people doubted his claim to be an apostle. They said he hadn’t even seen Jesus, so how could he call himself an apostle. But Paul said that Christ appeared to him last of all, “as to one born at the wrong time.”
Do you recall how Paul’s life was changed as he met Jesus? We find him first in Acts 7:58, in hearty agreement with the martyrdom of Stephen. So convinced was Paul that these Christians were blasphemous heretics, he began persecuting the Church with great intensity. Acts 8:3 says that he began ravaging the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women and putting them in prison. Acts 9:1 says that he was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. So he sought permission to pursue them violently and that permission was given.
But then Saul (which was his Hebrew name) met Jesus. After this encounter on the
So he says in 1 Cor 15:9-10 that he is not fit to be called an apostle because of his past, but God’s grace made him an apostle through that encounter with the risen Christ, and compelled him to be the most fervent laborer in God’s Kingdom-building work.
And we might point to hundreds and thousands of other godless people whose lives have been radically altered by meeting Christ. Josh McDowell was an intellectual young man who ambitiously set out to disprove the resurrection of Christ, but soon found that he could not, and he became a follower of Christ. Today is one of the world’s most influential evangelists. C. S. Lewis was an atheist with no appetite for the things of God, until he encountered Christ in a personal way. Following his conversion, Lewis was asked by the BBC to air a series of talks on the Christian faith for all
Thus far, we have considered theological evidence: long before the birth of Christ, His life, His death, and His resurrection were prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures. We have considered testimonial evidence: over 640 eyewitnesses to the Risen Christ are mentioned in Scripture, and Paul invited his readers in his day to contact them for further inquiry, since most of them were still alive that point. We have considered existential evidence: lives that underwent radical change through an encounter with Jesus Christ.
In addition to this, we have the testimony of the empty tomb as a evidence of the resurrection. I have already said that an empty tomb by itself is no evidence. But, an empty tomb with no other reasonable explanation is. Some have attempted to suggest many other theories of how the tomb of Jesus became empty.
It has been suggested that Jesus’ body was stolen by his disciples, and they made up the story of his resurrection. This was, in fact, the first alternative theory ever offered to explain the empty tomb. The chief priests, the elders, and the soldiers who guarded the tomb of Christ concocted this explanation when the tomb was found to be empty on that first Easter Sunday (Matthew 28:11-15). Yet people continue to advance this theory as if it was cutting edge scholarship. But, if it was all a lie, why then did so many of the earliest Christians die for their belief in the resurrection? You say, “Well, people die for lies all the time.” We need only think of Islamic terrorists who kill themselves and multitudes of others for Mohammed’s lie that death in jihad will transport them instantly to a heavenly garden to be attended to by 70 virgins. And how about the followers of cults who have committed mass suicide in obedience to their leader’s demands? Indeed, people die every day for the sake of a lie, but all do so believing that lie to be the truth. No one dies for a lie that they know is a lie. And if the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus, then they would have certainly known that His resurrection was a lie. And if they had known it was a lie, do you think they would have suffered and died for Him?
John suffered imprisonment and exile at
Others have said that the body was stolen by the political and religious leaders of Jesus’ day. This is an even more ridiculous suggestion. First of all, they had no motive for stealing the body, and if they had stolen it, they would have surely put the body on display in order to prove that the resurrection did not occur. But that did not happen.
Others have said that the disciples went to the wrong tomb. While that was a possibility for the initial group that went to the tomb, the fact remains that the tomb was owned by Joseph of Arimathea, who could have then pointed them to the right tomb, or otherwise, the religious and political leaders of the day would have. Most certainly, this does not explain the empty tomb of Christ.
Still others have said that Jesus did not really die. They say that He merely fainted on the cross, but after being placed in the tomb, he regained consciousness and escaped from the tomb. I would remind you that we are talking about an individual who was beaten, whipped, and scourged beyond recognition; He was nailed to a cross with spikes in his wrists and feet; He was pierced in the side by a spear, breaking his pericardial sack and causing blood and water to flow out. Now, am I supposed to believe that this person did not really die, but rehabilitated himself to the point that within three days (with no food or water, mind you) he could move a massive stone, fight off an entire regiment of soldiers, and present himself alive and well to his followers? With all due respect, I believe that it would take much more faith for me to believe that than to believe that He rose from the dead.
There simply are no other believable theories as to how that
Sir Edward Clarke, a once prominent English attorney for King’s Court said, “As a lawyer, I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter day. For me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the high court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling.”
Historian Thomas Arnold said, “The evidence for our Lord’s life and death and resurrection may be and often has been shown to be satisfactory. It is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece as carefully as every judge summing up on an important case. … I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is better proved by fuller evidence than the great sign that God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”
In John 11:25-26, Jesus said, “"I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.” And after that statement, He asked a very important question: “Do you believe this?” Do you? If not, why not? I suggest that if you do not believe it, it is not because of the evidence, but rather in spite of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment