JESUS

Okay, I'l1 grant that miracles are possible. But how do you know Jesus rose from the dead? Just because it's possible doesn't mean it happened.
We know it from historical evidence, just as we know anything else about historical events.

Let's set a little background to the kind of evidence we'll look at. This should help us assess the evidence more reasonably.

Numerous times during the last three years of His life, Jesus predicted that He would be crucified (He said it would be to pay for the sins of the world) and that, following the crucifixion, He would rise again from the dead. A little over a week before His death, for instance, He told His closest followers. »Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man (this was a special title Jesus gave Himself) will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up« (Matthew 20:18‑19; similar predictions by Jesus are recorded in Matthew 12:40; 16:4; 17:22,23; Luke 9:22,31; 24:6,7; Mark 10:34, Matthew 26:32; Mark 9:9).

One curious thing is that His disciples did not understand these predictions. After one extraordinary event, Jesus instructed His disciples »not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man should rise from the dead. And they seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead might mean« (Mark 9:9‑10).

Though they had trusted Him completely before His death, after He died they were completely discouraged. They did not expect Him to rise from the dead.


Once, while two of His followers were walking together along a road after His death, they were approached by a fellow traveler, who noted their discouragement. They explained that they were discouraged because of Jesus' death. »Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?« asked one of the disciples of the stranger. The stranger asked. »What things?« And the disciples explained to him, »The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him up to the sentence of death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel« (Luke 24:17‑2 1). They “were hoping"-their hope was gone by now, but before they had hoped. Jesus' death had destroyed all their hopes in Him.


THEN something happened. The stranger responded, »... foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory'?« Then the stranger explained to them that throughout the Jewish Scriptures‑the Old Testament‑there had been predictions concerning the Savior's death and resurrection. Finally, the stranger disclosed Himself to them: it was Jesus Himself, though they had been kept from recognizing Him (Luke 24:31).


Were they just seeing a vision? No, because before the stranger revealed who He was, they watched Him break bread and give it to them.


Shortly after that when these two rejoined the other disciples in Jerusalem, they heard that Jesus had appeared to another of them Peter (Luke 24:34). While they were all together, Jesus Himself »stood in their midst. But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself, touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'... And while they still could not believe (See, the disciples were skeptics, too! Just like you, they weren't about to believe in Jesus' having risen from the dead without solid evidence!) it for joy and were marveling, He said to them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them« (Luke 24:36‑43).


One of the disciples, Thomas, was particularly skeptical. Even after the living Jesus had appeared to many of His followers, and they had all told that to him, Thomas refused to believe, since he hadn't been there with them to see and touch Jesus for himself. Even though the other disciples said, 'We have seen the Lord!» he responded, «Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the places of the nails, and put my hand into His side (Jesus had been pierced through the side with a spear by a Roman soldier to make sure He was dead), I will not believe» John 20:25). Eight days later the disciples were all gathered together again, and Jesus appeared among them. He walked up to Thomas and said, «Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.» Finally the skeptic was won over, and Thomas said to Jesus, «My Lord and my God!" (John 20:26‑28).


When Luke began the second of his two books in which he described, first the life and teachings of Jesus, and then, the lives and teachings of the disciples after His death and resurrection, he impressed on his reader, a man named Theophilus, how strong were the reasons to believe in Jesus:


»The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God« (Acts 1:1‑3).


The disciples of Jesus were not gullible! They required »many convincing proofs« before they would believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. And once they had seen those proofs, they committed themselves to telling the whole world about Him.

This all sounds good. but all these people were his best friends. I don't see any reason to believe they didn't just dream up the story.

That's always possible. But remember, we're talking about good reasons here, not just possibilities. The truly scientific mind goes in directions pointed to by strongest evidences, by probabilites, not mere possibilities,

Actually, while the disciples could have made all this up, it's highly unlikely that they did. First, they themselves tell us that they were merely confused by Jesus' predictions of His resurrection. They didn't expect to see Him alive again, so why should they have made up stories that He did? Second, as we discussed earlier, no one dies a martyr's death for what he knows to be a lie.


There's a third reason to believe the disciples didn't make up the story. The Jewish religious leaders rejected Jesus. If the disciples had made up a story about His rising from the dead, and then had begun to preach that story around Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders could have ended the whole thing quickly by exhuming the body of Jesus and bringing it out in public.


Then there's a fourth reason to believe they didn't make up the story. One of the apostles, named Paul, was not among the first followers of Jesus. In fact, during the first few years after Jesus' death and resurrection. Paul (who was then called Saul) actively persecuted the followers of Jesus, casting some in prison, having others beaten, and sending some to their deaths. He was the most bitter and dangerous enemy Christians had.


One day something changed Saul completely. While he was on his way to Damascus to persecute more Christians, "suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord’ And He said,' I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise, and enter the city, and it shall be told you what you must do...”’ (Acts 9:3‑6). Saul was blinded by the experience, and three days later Ananias, one of the Christian believers there, came and restored his sight to him. From that day forward, Paul became one of the strongest of the apostles, preaching the gospel all over the Roman empire, withstanding tremendous persecutions and hardships for the sake of Jesus, and finally dying a martyr's death, all because he insisted that Jesus had risen from the dead and appeared to him.


In one of his letters, Paul summed up the evidence for Christ's resurrection this way: »... I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not 1, but the grace of God with me« (1 Corinthians 15:3‑ 10).


So you see, I don't think it makes much sense to say the disciples just made up the story of the resurrection of Jesus. It's possible, but it's so unlikely that I'd hate to stake my life on it.

You said the Jewish leaders didn't find the body in the tomb. Couldn't they have gone to the wrong tomb?

It wouldn't have been only the Jewish leaders, then, who had gone to the wrong tomb. Jesus' disciples must have made the same mistake, because several of them were so skeptical of the reports of others that they, too, went to the tomb to check whether the body was there. The first among Jesus' followers to go there were the women who had been involved in putting Him in the tomb in the first place just 36 hours earlier. I think it stretches credulity for us to think they made such a silly mistake that quickly afterward.

Besides, the Jewish rulers had made arrangements with the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to have a group of Roman soldiers stationed at the tomb, since they knew of rumors that Jesus might rise from the dead, and they wanted to be sure no one stole the body to fake a resurrection. The guards, the Roman authorities, and the Jewish leaders certainly knew the right tomb. And even if they hadn't known it, it wouldn't have taken long to check the other tombs in the area, find the body, and end the preaching of the resurrection.


Of course, too, the idea that these people were thinking of the wrong tomb doesn't explain the actual appearances of Jesus after His death and burial.


Well, maybe he never really died on the cross. Maybe he just became unconscious, and woke up in the tomb.

Again, that's a possibility, but highly unlikely. When he was reported dead, the Roman authorities instructed a soldier to run a spear through His side, directly under His heart, to make sure it was true. The Roman soldiers who performed crucifixions, were professional executioners the likelihood they would have been fooled is pretty slim.

Even if He had merely lost consciousness and later revived, that wouldn't explain the stories of resurrection. Because He was Himself a Person of absolute honesty. He would have corrected the disciples for teaching that He had died and risen again. And sooner or later He would really have died, and that would have crushed the disciples' hopes again.


Resuscitation doesn't really explain the nature of His appearances to the disciples, either. David Friedrich Strauss, a nineteenth‑century skeptical historian and philosopher who never believed in the resurrection of Jesus: wrote of the impossibility of the resuscitation idea:


It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grave, 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, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship. (David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus for the People, second edition, London: Williams and Norgate, 1879, volume 1, page 412.)

Maybe someone stole the body, and the disciples just thought it was a resurrection when they found the tomb empty.

Again, this doesn't explain the appearances of Jesus to the disciples. And they gave their lives because they refused to deny the truth of their testimonies of those appearances.

Besides, who would have stolen the body‑or could have, for that matter? The Romans had no motive to steal it; when the disciples began preaching the resurrection, they would have had plenty of motive to bring the body out into the open if they had stolen it. So the Romans didn't steal it.


The Jewish leaders also would not have had a motive to steal it. Their best motive was to see that it stayed in the same tomb‑that's why they asked the Romans to guard the tomb. Even if they had stolen the body, they, too, could have brought it out later to end the preaching of the resurrection.


In that polarized society, there was really only one other major faction‑the followers of Jesus. They had no motive to steal the body. Their own writings tell us they were disheartened after Jesus' death, not determined to find some way to perpetuate their movement. They hadn't even understood His predictions that He would rise from the dead. And then, of course, we're stuck with the paradox of people dying for what they would have known to be a lie. Besides, the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb were tough, well‑trained fighting men, hardly likely to be overcome by untrained fishermen and others without proper fighting weapons.


You see, there are possible explanations for the empty tomb other than the resurrection of Jesus. But they're all highly unlikely. As intelligent people, we make decisions based on probability. And the highest probability is that Jesus really did rise from the dead. The easiest way for you to know that is to meet Him yourself‑to pray to Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to you, to become your Lord, to forgive you for your sins, and to restore you to friendship with God.


I suppose I can believe the historical probabilities are strong that Jesus rose from the dead and is who he said he was. But I still just can't believe it. After all, this isn't absolute proof. Since you can't prove scientifically the resurrection of Jesus or that he is God, I don't think it's intelligent to believe in him. After all, you're asking me to commit my life to him‑for that I want absolute proof.

Then you're asking more proof about this than you do about pretty much anything else in your life. Every day you commit yourself totally to something that you don't have absolute proof will be worthy of that commitment. When you ride in a car, do you have absolute proof it won't develop a gas leak, catch fire, and explode? When you go up an elevator in a building, do you have absolute proof it won't come crashing down because the cable has broken, and leave you dead? Of course not. You only have varying degrees of probability.

Remember what I said earlier about our making decisions based on probability? Sometimes the stakes in the matter are pretty high, and those high stakes can lead us to trust ourselves to something even if the evidence for it isn't very strong. I'm not saying the evidences for Christianity aren't very strong; I think they're quite strong indeed. But even if those evidences weren’t that strong, I think you'd have good reason to trust yourself to it, because the stakes are so high. Jesus says if you don't believe in Him, you will be lost forever, consciously suffering separation from God because of your sins