A Cunningly Devised Fable? Series

I wish to begin our message with a quote. Virginia, minister once stated, “We have closed our minds to such trivial considerations as the question of the resurrection of Christ. If you fundamentalists wish to believe that nonsense, we have no objections, but we have more important things to preach than the presence or absence of an empty tomb twenty centuries old.”(1)

If you find this statement appalling then just listen to this: Hal Lindsay reveals to us that, “One of the very first exposés of the beliefs of our future ministers was made by Redbook magazine in August of 1961. The publishers hired one of the top pollsters in the nation to survey a full representation of our seminaries which are supposedly preparing men for Christian service in the Protestant churches. Here [is just one] of the results: Of the ministers in training . . . fifty-four percent rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.”(2) I would like to hope that opinions have changed for the better since 1961, but you have to wonder.

Why do so many people wish to disprove the resurrection? The reason why is because the resurrection is the foundation of our faith. In the resurrection, whenever Jesus overcame death, He defeated sin, so that all who will believe in Him will overcome sin and death just as He did, and be made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21), and be able to live in the presence of a holy God for all eternity in heaven.

If the resurrection can be proven false, then all we believe in will come toppling down around us. “The importance of Christ’s resurrection [can] be seen when we consider that if He arose the gospel is true, and if He arose not it is false.”(3)

In 1 Corinthians 15:14-18 Paul stated, “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up – if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.”

If there is no resurrection then all who have died will remain dead in the ground, and we are still left dying in our sins. That is a pretty dismal and hopeless thought.

In our message this morning I am going to ask the question, “Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ a cunningly devised fable?” thus, the title of our message with a question mark: “A Cunningly Devised Fable?”

What we are going to do this morning is look at a common argument made against the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then look at some simple proofs of the resurrection. It is my hope that by the time this message is over we will come to realize that the resurrection did indeed happen, and that it is far from being a cunningly devised fable.

A Worn Out Argument (Matthew 28:11-15)

11 Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. 12 When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” 15 So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

Does this sound somewhat familiar to you? The main argument that many people use to refute the resurrection, is they say that Jesus’ disciples came and stole His body from the tomb. It’s been said that “if the tomb was empty it would seem that there are only three possibilities: that friends took the body away, that foes took the body away, or that Jesus arose.”(4) It seems as though many people choose to believe in the former two arguments.

I wish to state that this is a worn out and overused argument. It has been used since the very day of Jesus’ resurrection, for around 2000 years! If you want to believe that the disciples stole Jesus’ body away, at least take a look at what the Bible has to say about it.

Right here in the Bible, written nearly 2000 years ago, we are warned that people would try to say that Jesus’ body was stolen, and we are told that this is a common saying even today – that is, the day in which this particular gospel was written. However, it has been perpetuated so long, it’s a rumor that’s still being told even in our day and time in 2018.