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.
RETURN TO QUESTION PAGE
Why
do I have to believe in Jesus to become God's friend? Why couldn't I achieve
that some other way?
If Jesus is who He said He is‑God‑then whatever He says is true. I've already
given you what I think are very strong arguments that Jesus is who He said He
is‑His resurrection being the strongest. So I think it makes sense to believe
what Jesus tells us. And He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no
one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6).
Our sins put us under God's
judgment. God is perfect, and He demands perfection of us. But none of us is
perfect, so we cannot meet those demands. Because God is just He requires
punishment on those who disobey Him. But Jesus said He had come to give His life
to ransom us from God's just penalty against sin (Matthew 20:28).
I don't understand why all that was necessary. Why couldn't God just accept
us as we are?
God made us to be His friends, but our sins make us repugnant to Him. The old
Jewish prophet Habakkuk prayed once to God, "Thine eyes are too pure to approve
evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor" (Habakkuk 1:13). So
mankind's sinfulness separates him from God. Yet God's love for us is so strong
that He promised He would send someone‑His only Son, in fact,‑to bear punishment
as our substitute, so that we could be set free from sin and its punishment and
become His friends again. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of God's promise to
send the Savior.
The price God paid to deliver us from punishment for sin was infinitely
precious‑His own Son. If there had been any other way for us to reach God, Jesus
would not have had to die. That He did die indicates that there was no other way
to make salvation possible. His resurrection proved He was who He said He was
and that His death did what He said It did, namely, paid the penalty for our
sins.
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