The Resurrection of Jesus
A Brief Apologetic
The resurrection of Jesus is everything in Christianity. This is not to say that there are no other important teachings, there are. It is to say, however, that if the resurrection did not really happen then all the rest of Christianity is complete rubbish. The resurrection of Christ is the validation of all of Christ’s ministry and teaching and the same goes for the prophets and apostles who spoke of the Messiah (essentially the whole Old and New Testaments).
It is critical not only that Jesus died, but that he was raised again, bodily, from the grave. While it is true that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, his resurrection is proof positive that the Father accepted that payment. It proves Jesus’ claim to be who he said he was, the unique Son of God, the only means by which men can be saved, by faith in his name. If he had died and that was all, who could say if Jesus’ claims to take away the sins of the world were even true? But if he did rise, then who could deny his claims?
The apostle Paul speaks of the centrality of Christ’s resurrection in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians.
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 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.”
If Christ is not risen then, simply put, Christianity is false and completely worthless. We would be better off doing something else. But Christ has been raised from the dead and of this we can be sure. Paul also wrote the following:
“For I delivered 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.”
I would like to point out a few things that, it seems to me, often get lost in conversations like this. First of all, the above quotes are from a letter, from a real person, to real people, all of whom lived in the time of the event in question. The nature of the New Testament epistles (which means “letters”) is really odd in the world of religious Scripture outside of the Bible. Please feel free to fact check me on this. You can look at the Hindu Vedas, you can look as Islam’s Qur’an, you can check around wherever you like…this is an odd medium to be turned into “sacred Scripture” and yet the New Testament is dominated by it.
Letters from, and to, verifiably historical people, in known historical cities, who lived in the time of the events in question. Keep that in mind.
Second of all, the very truth of Christianity is hung upon a single historical event which was actually, at the time these letters were written, a current event. Paul emphasizes this point in what he wrote. He states emphatically that if the resurrection of Jesus did not occur then there is no point in Christianity. If Jesus only died and did not rise then the whole project is a failed one and we are still dead in our sins. Those who have died before “have perished” and we who believe all this are to be pitied for our foolishness. The resurrection event is Christianity.
How many other religions hang the entire truth of its beliefs on a single event that could be examined to see if it is true? Again, feel free to fact check me, the answer is Zero.
Third of all, Paul provides his readers with witnesses. Check it, verify it, examine and cross-examine the witnesses! As he states, this event had not taken place in a corner. Jesus was seen alive (after he had been publicly executed by Roman crucifixion, under Pontius Pilate, a verified real person) by individuals, small groups, and more than 500 people at one time, the majority of whom were still alive and could be spoken to when Paul wrote his letter. Paul encourages anyone who has any uncertainty to simply look into it and talk to people who saw it all first hand.
500+ eyewitnesses willing to testify to seeing someone, at varying places and times, after they were known to be dead, should be enough to convince anyone that Jesus was truly alive. It might make them wonder if he had ever really died (we will get to that), but it would be pretty hard to doubt that he was not really alive after being presumed dead.
But, again, I encourage you to look around. What other religion says, “the truth of our faith is built on a single historical event which can be examined and verified”? Go ahead and check, I’ll wait. None. They all prefer to make ethereal, non-historical, non-verifiable claims. In fact, most of them (all of them?) suggest that to be able to have certainty would be to cheapen the blind leap of faith that makes their religious experience meaningful. Christianity alone says, “Believe! Here is why you should and only a fool wouldn’t!” The Christian Scriptures are constantly referring you to evidence and reason. It assumes that you will want to know why, and it offers you answers.
Sure other religions are loaded with commands and claims about how to live and what “God says” and what God is like, but they certainly don’t attach the veracity of their religion to a single historical fact that can be investigated. To do so would be madness…unless it were all true. In fact, for the most part, most religions don’t attach themselves to history at all. Their proclamations are just detached words from wisemen, gurus, and supposed prophets. Yet the Judeo-Christian faith is a historically entrenched faith at every turn and is constantly supported and verified by archaeology, and extra-biblical historical documentation. How can you determine if Buddhism’s eight-fold path to enlightenment is true? I have no idea…I don’t think they do either. In fact I think they would say their claims transcend truth (which is a good way of saying “just believe me my guy, I know what I am talking about).
Paul also tells us in his letter that he considered himself, to whom the risen Jesus appeared last, to be “the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Which is fascinating because, as the account in the book of Acts attests, Paul was indeed a hot under the collar persecutor of Christianity. He was moving up the ranks of Jewish respectability and authority and he would have had absolutely nothing to gain by suddenly claiming to have seen Jesus alive, back from the dead. It literally cost him everything to say this. He became the persecuted instead of the persecutor and it ended with his beheading in Rome.
In fact there is more than one person mentioned by name in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians who did not believe in Jesus’ claims during his ministry. Paul is one, James is another. James is the brother of Jesus (half brother, technically but we can talk about the virgin birth another time). James and his siblings did not originally believe Jesus was really the Messiah he claimed to be. John, one of Jesus’ closest friends and his disciple reported in his Gospel “not even his brothers believed in him.” But Jesus, according to Paul, appeared to his brother specifically and later we see him as the head of the church in Jerusalem. James also wrote a letter, bearing his name, in which he refers to himself not as Jesus’ brother but as his “bondservant” or, translated more strongly, his “slave.”
What takes an unbelieving little brother, who thinks his brother is out of his mind (c.f. Mark 3:21), to a place where he is not even willing to name himself as a blood relative but merely a servant, a slave, to Jesus Christ? It would have to be something pretty remarkable…like rising from the dead.
Indeed the evidence for the resurrection is so strong that it leaves opponents of this historical claim grasping for straws. The vast majority of historians acknowledge, as historical fact, at least the following propositions:
Jesus was killed by Roman crucifixion.
Jesus’ tomb was found empty.
Jesus’ disciples believed they saw him gloriously risen from the dead after he had been crucified.
Paul (Saul of Tarsus) believed he saw Jesus alive after he had been crucified.
The disciples continued to proclaim their belief in Jesus’ resurrection despite torture and death.
Given these facts, what historical theory best accounts for them?
The Swoon Theory
One of the most popular theories trying to dismiss the resurrection of Jesus is the so-called “swoon theory.” This theory suggests that Jesus only appeared to have died on the cross but, in reality, he had only fainted. Presumably his respiration and heart beat were very low and he was mistaken for dead. This theory accounts for facts 2 and maybe 3. Beyond that it doesn’t fare too well.
The likelihood that Jesus survived the crucifixion is extremely low. The Romans took very seriously the responsibility to make sure those who were sentenced to death actually died. Remember that accounts tell us that Jesus side was pierced to ensure that he was truly dead. The soldiers who crucified Jesus would have been held responsible for anyone who was allowed to live after having been sentenced to death. Further, Josephus, a Jewish historian from the first century, reports that in his own day (later in the first century A.D.) three men who were friends of his were being crucified and that upon their being removed by his request (he had the favor of the Roman authorities) and being given the best medical care possible, two of the three died all the same.
Assuming we give them the notion that Jesus somehow survived, it is very hard to understand the rest based upon this theory. It is not just that Jesus was seen ‘not quite dead’ after his crucifixion, but that the disciples believed him to be risen from the dead in glory. It does not follow that a man who barely survives a crucifixion is in any shape to appear in perfect health only three days later, able to convince his followers he has undergone a radical resurrection. If Jesus managed to revive in the coolness of the tomb, move the massive stone sealing the tomb (on his own), and stumble into town to the door of his disciples they would have called for a doctor but they wouldn’t have claimed to see Jesus “risen from the dead in glory.” Certainly they would not have held this unto death without wavering.
Wrong Tomb Theory
Another popular theory advanced by critics is that Jesus’ followers simply went to the wrong tomb and found it empty and assumed Jesus rose from the dead. Well this accounts for fact 1 and 2, but it fails thereafter completely. How then did the disciples, and Paul who was an enemy of the church, come to believe they really saw him risen from the dead? Would an empty tomb alone really be enough to move them all to 100% certainty about Jesus being alive again? So convinced that they were willing to die? It seems highly unlikely. This theory does not account for the actual claims being made in history by people who could have looked into it more closely if there were any doubt.
Hallucination Theory
Well maybe they hallucinated the whole thing! This is another popular claim. But what of the empty tomb? If Jesus were really dead but the disciples hallucinated his resurrection, where was the body? This theory accounts for fact 1 and sort of 3 and 5, but otherwise it fails completely. All the Jewish and Roman authorities would have needed to do to end the uproar of Christianity growing in Jerusalem was to drag the body through the streets and the whole claim of his resurrection would fall away (same goes for the wrong tomb theory). Further, this theory has huge problems on other fronts. For one, hallucinations are extremely rare, visual hallucinations are the rarest of all (auditory and tactile being much more common) and they are most often experienced by the elderly after losing a long-time spouse (but even under those conditions most people don’t experience this at all).
Most of Jesus’ disciples were not elderly. Even though they would have desired to see him again it is unlikely that any of them would have actually hallucinated seeing him. Also, hallucinations are private mental experiences that cannot be shared. Like dreams, we cannot invite others to participate in them. Even if somehow hallucinations were induced (by drugs perhaps) there is no way to get everyone to see the same thing. But Jesus appeared to individuals, small groups, and one large group at different times and places. It cannot have been a hallucination. Paul would have been the last person to desire to see Jesus, accounting for his experience in this way is the least likely of all.
Other Theories
There are a number of other theories but I just spent some time on the most widely held ones. Others include Jesus had a secret twin, Jesus was an alien, and the disciples stole the body. If it were this last one, and this is the hostile theory which is recorded in the gospel accounts themselves, I am pretty sure at the point of beheading, crucifixion, being thrown from roofs, dragged to death through the streets, etc., (as is the case of the various apostles), someone would have said, “Enough is enough. We made it up!” I’ll let you run this and any other theories you’d like against all of the above widely accepted historical facts (by historians of every stripe, believing and unbelieving). In the end only one theory fits all the facts without any feats of acrobatic and contortionistic prowess, namely, that Jesus really rose from the dead, in history, after having been put to death publicly by Roman crucifixion.
There is one final consideration I will leave you with. If God exists then the resurrection of Jesus is certainly not too difficult a thing for him to accomplish. It simply establishes Jesus’ connection with the God who spoke all things into existence ex nihilo (out of nothing). Contrariwise, if Jesus rose from the dead, it also establishes all his claims about God and therefore proves that God exists. So take it either way you like but the evidence for the resurrection is actually quite impressive. Far more impressive than any other religion offers in favor of pretty much any of their claims.
So come to Jesus, as he bids, trust in him and be saved! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” He died and rose again, and all who trust in him will not be put to shame but will receive life everlasting. He is risen!1
All of this was a rather last minute “hey let’s do an Easter post” (completely off the cuff) and offer a defense of the resurrection. I commend you to learn more and read deeper about all of these matters in the following wonderful books:
The whole time I was thinking... he must have read Dr Gary Habermas 🤓