The Reality of the Resurrection

Big Idea: The resurrection of Jesus Christ must either be history's most devastating deception or its greatest truth.

A few years ago, a man approached me and asked for some money. I’m usually cautious about spending money, especially with strangers. You really need to impress me to get my wallet out. But in this case, I was in a rush, and the man had an excellent story. He needed money to get out East, and so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, along with some cash.

You can guess what happened. A week later, a friend of mine who also gave him money spotted the man downtown. When confronted, the man admitted to being a scam artist who was skilled at deceiving people for their money.

Scams – defined in the dictionary as a fraudulent scheme or a swindle. Everyone here has likely been scammed by dishonest salespeople, unrealistic schemes, or someone who seemed in need of help.

A week before Easter, I propose that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either a cruel scam or the most significant event in history. It's either a scam that has fooled millions of devoted followers of Jesus Christ, causing some to give up their possessions and even their lives. Or it is the greatest historical event ever to have taken place in the history of this world.

If we determine that the resurrection of Jesus Christ did not happen, then Christianity should be seen as a faith based on a hoax. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote:

And if Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless... And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17)

We can flip this around and say that if Christ has been raised, then he is worthy of our trust and our faith. So there is a lot riding on this question. So let's look honestly at this question. Let's look at the evidence and consider what I think are the three most important questions about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Three Questions

Objections to the resurrection come in three broad areas. First, they wonder whether Jesus really died on the cross. Second, why his tomb was empty. Third, they try to challenge whether Jesus really did appear alive. Let's look at these three questions.

Did Jesus really die?

When we're talking about somebody coming back from the dead, we need to ask first of all if they really did die. We've all heard stories of near-death experiences. Isn't it possible that Jesus himself had a near-death experience, and appeared to die, but actually just fainted from exhaustion? Maybe he was given a drug that made him appear to die, but the cool, damp air of the tomb revived him. Some Muslims are taught that Jesus only appeared to die. This has become known as the swoon theory – that Jesus wasn't resurrected, but only resuscitated.

So let's ask ourselves: what does the evidence suggest? What actually happened at the crucifixion? Could anyone have ever survived such an experience? Let's go back and examine what Jesus went through.

After Jesus was arrested, the Bible says that Jesus was flogged with a lead-tipped whip. Historians say Roman floggings typically consisted of thirty-nine lashes, though sometimes there were more, depending on the soldiers' mood. A whip of braided leather thong had metal balls woven into them, and sometimes sharp pieces of bone as well. The whip would strike the flesh, and these balls would cause contusions, which would break open with further blows.

A physician who examined Roman beatings described that the continued flogging would cause severe wounds that tore into the muscle, resulting in bleeding flesh. A third-century historian noted that during floggings, the victim's veins, muscles, and organs were exposed. In fact, many people died from this beating even before they were crucified.

Before Jesus was even crucified, he was already in serious to critical condition. Jesus would have barely survived the flogging. The Bible states that he was in poor condition while carrying the cross to Calvary.

At Calvary, Jesus would have been laid down with his arms stretched out on the cross's horizontal beam. The Romans used spikes that were five to seven inches long, and tapered to a sharp point. The Romans drove these sharp spikes through Jesus' wrists, directly through the median nerve, the largest nerve going out to the hand. The pain of hitting your funny bone, multiplied hundreds of times, would equal the pain of the nail piercing Jesus' median nerve.

Then the nails were driven through Jesus' feet, again crushing his nerves. And, as the cross was lifted, it would have immediately dislocated his shoulders. Once on the cross, crucifixion essentially became an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation. Medical doctors state that to breathe while on the cross, the victim had to push up with their feet to ease the strain on their diaphragm. But as they did so, the nail would tear through the feet. Every time the victim pushed himself up, his bloodied back would scrape against the coarse wood of the cross. Eventually, exhaustion would prevent the person from pushing up or breathing, leading to death by asphyxiation and cardiac arrest.

Medical experts and skeptics agree that Jesus could not have survived crucifixion. As one medical doctor in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated, "Interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge."

Imagine if Jesus had been resuscitated, no matter how unlikely that seems. What would he have looked like? He would have been in the most serious medical condition. He would have looked grotesque and unlikely to inspire confidence in the disciples. They would only be nursing him back to health. Scholars don't even hold to this theory anymore. So you can't explain away the resurrection of Jesus by saying that he didn't die and was only resuscitated.

This leads us to the next question.

How can we explain the missing body?

If Jesus indeed did die, how can you account for the empty tomb? The empty tomb symbolizes the resurrection and represents Jesus' claim to be God. What happened to Jesus' body? Can we know with any certainty?

Most crucifixion victims were left on the cross for birds to eat or dumped in a common grave, but Jesus' case was different. All four Gospel accounts state that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin. And all accounts record that there was an empty grave. The question is not, was there an empty grave? But rather, why is the tomb empty?

Let's look at some different possibilities. Isn't it possible that Jesus' grave might have been tampered with? Isn't it possible that somebody stole Jesus' body? Well, nobody today really believes the disciples stole Jesus' body. Regardless of the fact that Roman soldiers guarded Jesus' tomb with their lives at stake, it's clear that the disciples truly believed in the resurrection.

Look at the historical record. At the time of his death, they were despondent, they were afraid, they fled, they thought it was all over. A short time later, suddenly these same disciples are out, boldly proclaiming that Jesus is alive. Once cowardly men are suddenly going to their death proclaiming that he lives. Almost all of them were put to death for it. Ten of the eleven were put to death for their belief, six of them by crucifixion. Yet none disavowed their faith.

Friends, nobody willingly dies for something they know is a lie. If this were a charade, at least one of the disciples would have cracked up under pressure and told the truth. There was no motive for the Jewish or Roman authorities to have stolen the body. Historians unanimously agree the tomb was empty.

Some wonder if the emotional women who visited the grave accidentally went to the wrong one. Okay, that can happen. But it's hard to explain the angels and the graveclothes they find at the empty tomb!

The only convincing explanation for the empty tomb is that Jesus rose from it.

Sir Norman Anderson, a prominent legal scholar and former dean of the Faculty of Laws at the University of London, stated: “The empty tomb… forms a veritable rock on which all rationalistic theories of the resurrection dash themselves in vain.”

Jesus died, and the empty grave is an undisputed fact from the ancient world. Further, we have no plausible explanation for why the body might have disappeared, apart from the resurrection. And on top of that, the next question adds to the proof that Jesus rose again.

Were there any eyewitnesses?

It's one thing to have a missing body. It's another thing to actually see someone who was dead alive again! Although no one witnessed Jesus rising from the dead, we should consider whether he appeared to others afterward.

And the answer is clear, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians:

...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. (1 Corinthians 15:5-8)

Besides Paul's report, there are at least nine instances of Jesus appearing after his resurrection in the gospels and the book of Acts. Let's pretend we had a courtroom. We were going to call to the stand everyone who saw the resurrected Jesus. We were going to question them, cross-examine them. We were going to spend 15 minutes with each individual. We were going to do it around the clock, day and night. You know how long it would take. We'll be listening to eyewitness accounts all day today, tonight, and through Monday, Tuesday, and into Friday night at 8:00.

I wonder how many people, after listening to 128 hours straight of eyewitness testimony, could possibly walk away unconvinced. Never seen any case that has anywhere near the eyewitness testimony this does.

Some have suggested that all these people might have been hallucinating. Only problem is hallucinations are individual events that happen in our own brain, not shared with other individuals. That would be like me asking you, "How did you like the dream I had last night?"

Charles Colson was a legal advisor to President Nixon and part of the White House team involved in the Watergate cover-up. Listen to what he says: Here we were, the twelve most powerful men in the United States. All the power of the government was at our fingertips, but we could not keep a lie together for 3 weeks. The most powerful men in the world could not hold onto a lie. So weak is a man that we couldn't do it. Are you really saying that those powerless apostles, who faced stoning, persecution, and beatings in their own land for up to 40 years, never denied that Jesus was raised from the dead? Impossible, humanly impossible – unless they had seen the risen Christ face to face. Only a witness as remarkable as the resurrected Christ could have led those men to insist until the end that Jesus is alive.

Sir Edward Clarke, a British High Court judge with extensive trial experience, conducted a detailed legal analysis of the first Easter Sunday. And this is the verdict he reached:

To 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. As a lawyer I accept the gospel evidence unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate.

Friends, the evidence is overwhelming. Former atheists and agnostics, after examining the evidence, have changed their minds and become Christians. Convincing books have been written such as Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Know Why You Believe by Paul Little, and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

In a debate between an atheist and a Christian apologist about the resurrection, four out of five independent philosophers agreed that the apologist presented stronger evidence. During a debate between a Christian and an atheist chosen by the national spokesman for American Atheists, Inc., a poll was conducted among attendees who identified as atheists, agnostics, or skeptics. 82% walked out concluding that the case for Christianity had been the most compelling. Forty-seven people entered as nonbelievers and exited as Christians. Incredibly, nobody became an atheist.

Responding to Jesus

But let's be honest here this morning. These facts are useful for both skeptics with genuine questions and Christians who doubt the logic of their faith. Even if I present the strongest arguments, you might still leave without truly meeting Jesus Christ, the person behind those arguments.

You see, arguments appeal to the head. But the longest distance in the world is that distance between your head and your heart. You can have any intellectual belief about Jesus Christ, but remember that even Satan believes in the resurrection, and it hasn't benefited him.

So let me close this morning by talking about Jesus the person. Quite simply, Jesus is the most amazing person who ever lived. Despite never traveling more than 200 miles from his birthplace, he has had a global impact throughout history. Although he never went to college and lacks degrees, he provided us with a valuable blueprint for living, guiding how to interact with others and connect with God. He shared profound wisdom, found in the Bible, that surpasses human understanding.

Even though Jesus possessed amazing power, you never see one example of Him being arrogant. Despite his remarkable humility, he boldly confronted the corruption of his time. Jesus lived in a day of rigid religious rule-keeping. Yet his message was one of freedom, of grace, and acceptance. In a time of discrimination and prejudice, Jesus showed compassion to everyone: men, women, children, the wealthy, the poor, outcasts, the sick, and the elderly. He even extended compassion to the Roman soldiers who took spikes and drove them through his hands and his feet.

If he were to come in and be part of this community, do you know what he would be like? He wouldn't just hang out with the wealthy people; he'd hang out with the everyday people. He would be a father to orphans, a friend to the lonely. He would be your friend.

Romans 5:8 says: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

The Bible teaches us that Christ's death on the cross is the ultimate expression of his love. God loved sinners so much that he left heaven to live in a sin-contaminated, stench-filled environment. He lived a perfect life and submitted to, without exaggeration, the most awful death you could imagine. His back was scourged with whips of metal and bone that ripped his flesh right off. They drove spikes through his wrists and nailed him to a cross. They placed his feet one on top of the other, and a third spike was driven through the two feet and into the wood. He suffered unbearable pain.

That's how much Jesus loves you. The cross is the ultimate symbol of God's love for you and for me. Even when you were a sinner and had no interest in God, he loved you perfectly. You don't deserve it, but God loves you anyway. In fact, Jesus is here this morning, and is reaching out to you in love even as I speak.

No argument can compare to the simple truth that Jesus is reaching out with an irresistible love to everyone here this morning. Paul writes to Christians in Ephesians 1:4-5:

Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

I'm going to invite you to respond this morning by reacting to Jesus' love as we close this service.