Following on from our Deconstructing God preaching series, we are publishing a series of articles addressing some of the big questions raised by our secular culture against the Christian faith. In this first post, Lead Pastor Matt Sparks considers the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
For many, the miracles recorded in the New Testament are a sign that this document ought to be filed in the ‘Fiction’ section of the library.
Without question, the most significant miracle that occurs in the Bible is the resurrection of Jesus. Who in their right mind believes a story about a dead Jew who apparently ‘rose again’ from the dead?
If you find yourself sceptical of the claims regarding someone rising from the dead, you’re not alone. In Luke’s Gospel, the women deliver the news of Jesus’s resurrection to Jesus’s other disciples. Luke narrates their reaction: “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11). Even the first followers of Jesus found it difficult to believe.
Yet many in the centuries to follow have found the resurrection of Jesus entirely believable. Sir Lionel Luckhoo, the Guinness World Record holder for the attorney with the most consecutive murder trial acquittals (245), said this:
“I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”
This begs the question: Why are people so confident in the resurrection? Here are seven reasons why the resurrection is believable.
1. The disciples weren’t expecting a resurrection
In the first century, nobody really expected a resurrection like Jesus’s resurrection.
The Greeks were dualists. They believed that the material world was inferior to the immaterial world. For them, a physical/material resurrection was incomprehensible—the idea that the material world could be redeemed was not part of their framework.
By contrast, Jews did believe in physical resurrection, but with a huge qualification… Fundamental to the Jewish hope of resurrection was the belief that resurrection would happen for all of God’s people at the end of history. The last thing they expected was for one individual to rise in the middle of history.
Luke’s Gospel records these expectations in the minds of Jesus’s early followers.
After the Jewish Sabbath, Jesus’s followers went to the tomb in order to prepare Jesus’s body for the traditional burial process (Luke 24:1). When they arrived, the body was gone. Luke records that they were “perplexed” (Luke 24:4). This reveals their expectations: they weren’t there to celebrate a resurrected body… they were there to prepare the body for burial, to mourn the loss of their crucified Jesus.
2. Women were the first eye-witnesses
All four Gospels record that women were the first eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. To modern readers, this doesn’t seem remarkable. However, given the historical setting in which the Gospels were written, this is a big deal.
In the first century, a woman’s testimony was inadmissible in a Jewish court of law. Consider what this would have meant for early readers of the Gospels. If you were making up a story about the saviour of the world that you wanted early readers to believe, you wouldn’t have written women into the story. It would hinder your cause.
Historians note that, in many ways, this is an embarrassing fact for the history of the Christian movement. But this is exactly the type of fact which gives the Gospels more (not less!) historic authenticity. It suggests that the Gospels aren’t the product of later Christian conspirators who wanted to create a believable story, but rather are the faithful preservation of eyewitness testimony.
3. Jesus predicted it
Twice in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus predicted his death and resurrection (Luke 9:22, 18:32–33). The angels even remind the women that Jesus told them this would happen (Luke 24:5)! Even though it came as a surprise to them, it shouldn’t have.
Some predictions are easy to make. If I say, “In 2020, the Parramatta Eels will win the Grand Final”, It may or may not happen. If it does, no-one will hail me a prophet. Others things are impossible to predict, simply because they’re impossible in nature. No-one who predicts a resurrection can make it happen by fluke!
4. The disciples were radically transformed from fear to boldness
When Jesus was crucified, most of his closest friends fled. John’s Gospel in particular makes note of how scared the disciples were at the time (John 20:19). As his followers, the disciples had every reason to think that they could meet the same fate: death by crucifixion.
Yet in the short time that followed, the disciples go from being fearful deserters of a crucified Jesus to emboldened proclaimers of a resurrected Lord. That’s a radical transformation in such a short space of time.
The question becomes: What explains this transformation? It might be tempting to suggest that maybe the disciples simply lied. The only problem with this is that most, if not all the disciples, were martyred for their teaching about the resurrection. Who in their right mind dies for what they know is a lie? There’s nothing to gain and everything to lose.
This change is best explained by the fact that the disciples believed they saw Jesus risen and alive.
Chuck Colson, one of the people at the centre of the Watergate scandal, said this about the resurrection: “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because twelve men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for forty years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled twelve of the most powerful men in the world—and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me twelve apostles could keep a lie for forty years? Absolutely impossible.”
5. There are very early records of the resurrection in ancient literature
The resurrection of Jesus is not a late, created idea. It’s an early-attested belief. We have incredibly early sources that record that people both believed in, and taught about, the resurrection from a very early moment. The Gospel of Mark is perhaps the earliest Gospel written (39–65AD), and it tells of the resurrection of Jesus (Mark 16:1-8).
Even earlier, Christians passed on a creed-like summary of belief. It dates to 33-36AD, which is incredibly early in terms of ancient testimony. Paul records it in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5, writing 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 [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to…” And Paul goes on to speaks of hundreds more people.
Some might say that the resurrection is the stuff of legend or myth that emerge from centuries of re-telling the story of Jesus. This claim contradicts the manuscript evidence. The surviving witness suggests that the basic facts of Jesus’s life—including his resurrection from the dead—are not late, legendary ideas, but are rather historical events believed in from an incredibly early time.
6. Jesus’s own family worshipped him
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence—for me at least—is that Jesus’s own family worshipped him. Jesus’s half-brother James and his mother Mary both worshipped him.
Think about that for a second. I’m not sure what it’d take for you to worship one your siblings, but I’ve seen enough of my younger brother’s life to know that I will never bow my knee. Yet the people who knew Jesus the most were happy to worship him as God. That seems inexplicable unless something occurred which provoked them to do so.
7. The alternative theories don’t stack up
To be fair, there are alternative theories about what happened that first Easter. If “resurrection” is one theory, thinkers and sceptics have been quick to articulate other theories.
Any explanation must to account for three historical facts: (1) Jesus really died under Roman crucifixion; (2) the tomb in which Jesus was buried was empty; and (3) the disciples (and others) had experiences which led them to sincerely believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. As I see it, the following three alternative theories fail to adequately account for these facts:
Theory #1: Someone stole Jesus’s body
This theory fails to explain why the disciples were able to maintain such a bold belief in the resurrection.
See, if the disciples stole the body, they’d have known they were promoting a lie. And lies are pretty terrible motivators for martyrdom (see reason #4).
If the Romans stole the body, then they could have simply produced it publicly to squash the “rumours” of resurrection being spread by Jesus’s early followers. However, no such body was ever produced. This theory doesn’t stack up.
Theory #2: Mass hallucinations
This theory presumes that mass hallucinations are possible. However, mass hallucinations are not accounted for in medical science. Individual hallucinations are well-documented, but there is no evidence to suggest that they can be a group phenomenon.
By contrast, the amount of people to whom the resurrected Jesus appeared was in the hundreds (1 Corinthians 15:1–12). Given what we know about hallucinations, coupled with the fact that the witnesses were in the hundreds, this theory isn’t compelling.
Theory #3: Jesus had a twin brother who died on the cross in his place
This theory is fraught with speculation and shouldn’t be taken seriously. There is no ancient source which suggests Jesus had a twin brother. There is simply no evidence for this.
In seeking to explain the three pieces of evidence which survive from early Christianity, I think that belief in the resurrection is truly rational. Christianity is not blind faith. It’s faith on the basis of good evidence. You have reason to believe this.
More than that, the resurrection of Jesus resonates with the longing of our hearts. We live in a world which is obsessed with anti-aging, which longs for immortality, and which fears the doom of death. If the resurrection of Jesus happened, then we know that such a longing isn’t irrational, fantastical, or wrong. Rather, it’s the very longing that God has placed in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and it’s the destiny of all those who follow Jesus.
The resurrection isn’t just rational to believe in; it’s the basis for a hope which conquers the grave!
Got Questions?
If this article has sparked interest for you, Anchor Church regularly runs a course called Alpha for people who are interested in exploring the big questions of life, faith, and meaning.