The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Introduction

Without the resurrection of Christ, Christianity is nonsense (1 Cor. 15:14). When I was attending a church in Manchester, a member of the youth group came to me in tears because her father, who was a lay reader in the church and who was preparing young teenagers for confirmation, did not believe in the resurrection of Christ.

Evidence for the Resurrection

Reading: 1 Cor. 15:1-8.

A. The Empty Tomb

Although the four Gospel accounts of what happened at the tomb of Christ on the Sunday after the crucifixion differ on certain points, all four records maintain that the stone was rolled back and the body was gone.

Several explanations have been proposed as to why the body was not found in the tomb by Mary Magdalene and her companions:-

1. At the time, the Jews circulated the idea that the disciples themselves had stolen the body of Christ (Matt. 27:64; 28:11-15). But there are two problems with this idea:-

(a) Such a scheme would have required a daring ringleader with skill and imagination.

(b) Such a deception is inconsistent with the character and subsequent behaviour of the disciples.

2. Joseph of Arimathea moved the body to a more suitable resting place. However, if he was a secret follower of Christ, would he not have told the disciples? If he was not a secret disciple then he surely would have told the Jewish authorities? Whichever was his position, he would surely have spoken up to someone when the disciples started proclaiming the resurrection.

3. The Roman authorities had no motive for moving the body but if they had, they would have produced the body when the resurrection was proclaimed.

4. The Jewish authorities, it is claimed, may have moved the body so that the tomb could not become a place of pilgrimage for Jesus’ disciples and a potential trouble spot. However, the same argument applies: to deal with the excitement caused by the disciples preaching a resurrected Christ, all they had to do was produce the body.

5. The body was taken by grave robbers. However, the grave clothes were arranged oddly (John 20:6-8).

6. The theory that Jesus was not actually dead when he was buried does not hold water, either. Pilate definitely asked whether or not Christ was dead before releasing his body to Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:44-45). The soldiers did not break his legs because he was already dead (John 19:31-33) but one of them thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, anyway (John 19:34). Blood and water came out. If Jesus had been alive, strong spurts of blood would have come out. What came out was watery blood. This is evidence of massive clotting of the main arteries and is exceptionally strong medical proof of death. Jesus was buried in a rock tomb, wound tightly in strips of cloth, with 75 lbs of weights on him and a stone slab at the tomb entrance. On this theory, Strauss says, “It is impossible that a being who had been 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 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”.

7. Did the women mistake the tomb? Perhaps in the dawn they went to the wrong tomb where a man told them, “He is not here” (Mark 16:6). The same verse of Scripture, though, continues, “He has risen!” and in the following verse the women are instructed to tell the disciples and Peter (cf. Matt. 28:6-8). But anyway, if the women had mistaken the tomb and ran off thinking Christ had risen since he was not in the tomb, the Jews would only have to produce the body to discount their claims.

8. Was the story of the women at the tomb a deliberate lie? This and the ‘moved body’ theory can be answered together: Jewish opponents of the early church never challenged the resurrection message by showing the body or denying the story of the empty tomb. The emptiness of the grave was acknowledged by both opponents and disciples alike. The guard’s lie verifies that the grave was empty (Matt. 28:11-15). Also, in a culture where a woman was not considered to be a person but rather a chattel, any such deliberate lie would surely have involved men!

B. The Resurrected Lord

It must not be thought that the women witnessed only an empty tomb. Mary Magdalene saw the risen Christ himself (Matt. 28:9-10; John 20:11-17; Mark 16:9).

Others saw the risen Christ:-

1. Peter (1 Cor. 15:5a)

2. The two on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:13-35)

3. The ten and the eleven in Jerusalem (John 20:19-20, 24-29; Luke 24:36-49) and then in Galilee (Matt. 28:16-17; John 21:1)

4. Paul (Acts 9:3-7; 22:6-11; 26:13-18; 1 Cor. 15:8) and he had been violently opposed to the Gospel

5. James the brother of Christ (1 Cor. 15:7)

6. More than five hundred others (1 Cor. 15:6)

The fact that James joined the disciples as an apostle after the resurrection when before the crucifixion he would have nothing to do with Christ is very odd. Something happened to make him change his mind. Paul tells us that Jesus appeared to James and so James, as well as Paul, changed from being hostile to the Christian movement to actually being a great leader of the new religion.

The outlook of the disciples changed. Before the resurrection they were a spineless company of cowards who had deserted their Lord and fled. After the resurrection, they had become preachers, unafraid to tell anyone, even those who were persecuting them, that Jesus had risen from the dead. They were prepared to die for their belief and some did. No one will suffer torture and death for a myth. The disciples sincerely believed what they preached.

The early part of their ministry was in Jerusalem where if the resurrection was not true, evidence would have been available to invalidate their claim. They did not water down their preaching but preached Christ crucified, Christ risen. If any watered-down Christianity had been preached, surely the tomb would have been venerated as the final resting place of ‘Jesus the great moral teacher’. The teaching of the early church is recorded as a sort of creed in 1 Cor. 15.

The Christian church traces its origin to 30 AD in Judaea from the resurrection of its founder. Indeed, our years are counted from the birth of Jesus (although the monk who calculated the year made a mistake). The Christian Sabbath is traced back also to the resurrection of Jesus. Only something very significant indeed could have induced the Jews – who comprised the vast majority of the early church – to change their Sabbath (to which they were fanatically attached) to another day.

The allegation has been made that all those who said that they had seen Christ after he had risen were suffering from hallucinations! The idea can easily be discounted. As a rule, only the more highly strung and imaginative people are liable to hallucinations and this is hardly a fitting description of 500 hundred people and the various disciples who all saw the ‘hallucination’. Also, hallucinations are individual affairs where no two people experience exactly the same phenomena. They usually concern some expected event whereas the disciples and certainly the 500 were not expecting Jesus to be raised. Hallucinations usually happen at specific times of day but the appearances of Jesus Christ occurred at a variety of times. Hallucinations occur over a long period but these suddenly stopped (except for Paul’s) after forty days.

Jesus Christ has changed the lives of millions of Christians over the two millennia since his resurrection.

Significance

We see this in two passages:-

1. Reading: 1 Cor. 15:12-22: It is the whole basis of our faith. Without the resurrection we are still in our sins and our faith is pointless. Jesus is a prototype. Somehow we are represented “in Him”.

2. Reading: Rom. 6:3-14: If we are “in Christ” we are represented in his death and similarly we are represented in his resurrection (v. 5).

God’s Way

In the natural, our ways are not God’s ways (Isa. 55:8). I would never have permitted pain. God has a different way of doing things. For instance, there must be pain before we can have relief from pain. John 12:24-5 says “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

A former rector of a church I once attended said “The death of Jesus Christ is the basis of our faith”. I thought to myself, “That is true but it is only part of the truth”. The truth is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the bases of our faith.

So What?

1. As God’s way of doing things is different than our natural way, we need to consider his way. He does not always want to protect you from suffering but often he would rather be with you in it. For some, to us odd, reason he has chosen to work together with us. He wants our co-operation. I believe that when we pray for his protection, we are saying we are not self-sufficient beings but that we need our Lord. When we acknowledge our need, then he swings into action. Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Sometimes God’s answers are “rocket answers”, often they are “tortoise answers” but he does answer. Basically, God wants a death and resurrection in your life and my life – he wants there to be a death to self, and for us to be alive to him.

2. God wants you and me to be prepared to change. In microcomputers there are several types of memory. Two of these are ROM (Read Only Memory) and RAM (Random Access Memory). The content of ROM cannot be altered by the programmer or the user; the contents of RAM can be altered by the programmer or the user. It is good to remember what Jesus did. But if that is all we do, it does us no good. We do not need ROM where we can let our memories just read about it. We need to have RAM where we allow God to access our memory. With God it is not random-access memory but rather a God-access memory. He does not want us just to think about Jesus’ death and resurrection but to let God have access to our memories and to let the resurrection of Jesus Christ change us.

3. Jesus in his death and resurrection…

(a) … REDEEMED us: Gal. 3:13a: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…”

(b) … Made ATONEMENT for our sins: Rom. 3:25: “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished”.

(c) … Gained for us the VICTORY over death: 1 Cor. 15:57: “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”.

(d) … Is EXALTED: Acts 2:32-33: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear”. We are seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6).

We participate with him in all of these things.

Conclusion

2 Cor. 5:15: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”