It is Easter morning. I wake up and I smile because it’s a wonderful day of celebration. And then almost immediately my mind begins to wander. Why am I celebrating today? WHAT am I celebrating? Oh the resurrection of Jesus. Wait a minute….The WHAT? The resurrection? You mean I really am going to be celebrating the actual coming to life of a man that had been put to death on a cross not two days before, in a brutal Roman execution? That man, dead on the scene on Friday, and buried without any medical attention (why would there be…he was dead after all!)…that man was alive again and not just that…but alive and walking around?
Every now and then I think that Christians are certifiably insane, that this whole thing is just completely nuts. And so I have to ask myself from time to time whether I really believe this, and if so…WHY.
So I’m going to tell you. I’m going to tell you that I do believe it. And I’m going to tell you why. In condensed form, of course. Because this is a blog post and not a book. As always, your mileage may vary with all this, but this is why Ibelieve it’s true.
Let’s consider the alternatives first. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, either it was known at the time that He did not rise from the dead, which would make the story a fabrication, or it was not known at the time that He did not rise from the dead, which would simply make the story wishful thinking and a myth.
Let’s begin by asking the question of whether the resurrection story was actually claimed from the beginning. Some critics argue that the resurrection was a later Christian addition to the story, perhaps as late as the middle second century. Here’s how we know that criticism is false. First, consider the text of 1 Corinthians 15:1-5: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 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.”
In this passage we see that Paul is claiming to be passing on something that he himself had received. Therefore this belief preceded the ministry of Paul. We know that Paul had his ministry in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s in that first century. Second, scholars believe that what Paul is citing is actually the first Christian statement of faith, or creed. So it must have been around in that form for a while before Paul heard it. Third, the consensus among scholars and historians is that 1 Corinthians was written in the early-to-mid 50s AD. If Christ died between 30-33 AD, that means that at most approximately 25 years lie between His death and the writing of 1 Corinthians. Keep in mind that Paul did not write 1 Corinthians at the moment of his conversion. At least a decade went by. So Paul’s belief in the resurrection had to precede the writing of 1 Corinthians. The creed, passed down from the disciples, preceded even that. For this to be formally put in a creed means that the belief in the resurrection came earlier than the creed itself. So right off the bat we are talking about a belief that was a mere few years from the actual events, at most.
In addition, we have the discovery of ossuaries (burial boxes) in Jerusalem, dated in the middle first century, with inscriptions on them praying that Jesus would raise these dead people to life. Why would there be such a prayer if there had been no belief in the resurrection in the first place?
Furthermore, we have the logic of it all. If the disciples did not believe that the resurrection happened, why go through everything they went through? History tells us that the disciples gave up everything they had (family businesses, wealth, etc.) and ultimately died brutal martyrs’ deaths themselves. The Jewish historian Josephus reports that James was stoned and clubbed to death for his faith. Peter was crucified upside-down by Nero. Simon the zealot was killed in Persia for not bowing to the sun god. Matthew may have been stabbed to death in Ethiopia. Andrew was crucified. The list goes on. These men died promoting the belief in the resurrection. They had opportunities to recant, but they never did. They faced beating and brutal execution because they claimed that the resurrection happened, and because they believed in Jesus.
So we have textual and archaeological evidence that the belief in the resurrection was present right from the beginning. We have the historical stories of the disciples giving up all they had and ultimately dying horrible martyrs’ deaths for this belief. Clearly then, if nothing else, the disciples BELIEVED that Jesus actually rose from the dead, and they were willing to bet their lives on that.
Therefore, one thing we cannot conclude was that the belief in the resurrection was a later Christian addition, a myth that rose up over time. It was the quintessential Christian belief. In Acts 17, Paul is preaching in Athens to a group of people totally unfamiliar with the Jewish religion. And it is recorded that Paul said, “he times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (vs. 30-31) The response was not surprising: “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.” So some thought it was ridiculous. Others believed. And others weren’t convinced, but were curious enough to want to talk more about it.
So the belief in the resurrection was present right from the beginning. Even if you think the gospels are largely fanciful stories, history tells us that the belief in the resurrection of Jesus was the seminal event in the origin of the church. It simply will not do to claim that it was a myth that arose over generations. But, of course, the fact that it was believed from the beginning doesn’t mean that such belief was TRUE. It could all have been erroneous belief. Perhaps the first disciples believed something that was false. It wouldn’t be the first time that people died believing in a cause that turned out to be wrong. People don’t generally die for something they KNOW is false, unless they had something to gain by it. The disciples, of course, lost everything and so had no reason to believe what they knew was false, but it is possible that they were misguided. They could have believed something that wasn’t true…by mistake.
So let’s think about that possibility. Could the disciples have simply been wrong in their belief? Yes, it’s possible. But consider:
· Jesus’ tomb must have been empty for a reason OTHER than that Jesus rose. In other words, Jesus’ body must have been taken by someone. And as we just saw, there’s no way it was the disciples themselves that would have stolen it, since they all died martyrs’ deaths, and people don’t die for what they know is false. So someone ELSE must have stolen the body. But who? What scenario makes any sense? The Romans? Why in the world would they – who were supposed to be guarding the tomb from tomb raiders – turn around and remove the body? The Jews? Why would THEY? They were the ones who wanted Jesus dead and buried and not alive. The belief in the resurrection was the last thing they wanted. There’s no good alternative. No motive. No angle. No legitimate possibility.
· No body was ever produced, but why? Christianity was quickly a thorn in the side of both Jewish and Roman leaders. If either of them had removed the body, producing it would have squelched the fledgling faith in its crib.
· The claims of seeing a resurrected Christ must have been total hallucinations. It’s one thing for one person to think he saw something (but really didn’t). It’s another for disciple after disciple to claim to have seen Jesus, sometimes individually and other times as a group. They were all on the same page on this. This is not a normal phenomenon, for entire groups of people to experience the same hallucination.
· Their experiences were so powerful that they literally died proclaiming that this was true. This is no small point.
· They believed so strongly in the resurrection that when they retold the story (as we see in the gospels), they made it clear that it was women who found the tomb first. Now in that culture women had no standing whatsoever. No rights. Their testimony wasn’t even admissible in court. If the disciples were making all this up, there’s no chance they would have placed women in a central role in the discovery of the empty tomb. That would have undermined the credibility of their story. But they were included in the story, and why? Because that’s what happened.
When all that is put together, all I can conclude, in an effort to take all this seriously, is that the tomb was really empty, the belief in the resurrection was present from the very beginning and turned these scared men into bold proclaimers of a risen Jesus, and that there’s no other legitimate explanation that takes the facts into account. None of this proves that the resurrection happened, and as I said, your mileage may vary on all this evidence. But to me, this is powerful and compelling stuff. This reminds me that the belief in the resurrection isn’t out of nowhere, and it’s not a Zeus-like myth. It’s rooted in historical events and historical facts and is – despite being an obviously fantastic claim – a reasonable thing to believe.
How about you? Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? If not, why not? If so, what difference does it make in your life?
