JESUS’ RESURRECTION: MIRACLE OR MALARKEY?
INTRODUCTION: Jesus’ resurrection has been a topic of debate from the time it happened all the way up to now. For some, Jesus coming back from the dead seems too impossible. Street magician David Blaine was asked what he considered to be the greatest trick/illusion ever performed and he answered, “Coming back from the dead” in reference to what Jesus did, whom Blaine considers a magician. Was Jesus simply a magician? Or were his disciples magicians for being able to make his dead body disappear and never be found to this day? We as Christians believe in the resurrection but is there any evidence to support it? Can a good argument be made to show it actually happened? Let’s find out.
1) Was it all a big cover-up?
• Did the disciples steal the body? Matt. 27:62-66. Explain the slope and groove. They had to get past the guards, they had to break the seal, the heavy stone had to be moved. With all these factors it would have been nearly impossible for someone to come and steal Jesus’ body. Yet, that’s the story that got spread and unfortunately believed by many. Matt. 28:11-15.
Think about this: in John 20:6-7 it mentions Peter going inside the tomb and seeing Jesus’ burial cloths laying there, as well as finding the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head folded neatly and set aside. First of all, if the disciples came and stole the body, they wouldn’t have taken the time to strip the tightly wrapped burial clothes from the body. Besides, I think it would be a tad more convenient to carry a wrapped body than an unwrapped one. Second, they definitely wouldn’t have taken the time to neatly fold anything.
But let’s say that the disciples were able to pull off the ultimate grave robbery. Where’s the body? Since the validity of Christianity hinges on the resurrection, being able to disprove it would cause its influence to come to a screeching halt. Providing the body of Jesus would disprove the claim yet in all these years no one has been able to do it-and they never will; not because the disciples were that clever but because he is alive.
• Did they take the lie to their grave? Another factor to consider is the disciple’s ability to keep the lie going against such opposition. In Acts 5, Peter and John were brought in before the Sanhedrin and beaten for their allegiance to Jesus. In fact, historical accounts tell us that all the Apostles except John died as a martyr. If the resurrection was all just a hoax, the truth would’ve come out at the threat of their death. No one is willing to die for what they know to be a lie.
“Chuck Colson, in his book Loving God, tells how impossible this would be from his own experience. Colson was Special Counsel to the President during the Nixon administration. He and the other members of the Nixon cabinet were a highly committed group of men with a sense of destiny concerning Nixon’s term as President. They had each attained positions of great power and privilege. But after the Watergate scandal things began to fall apart. Colson describes the scene, “...even the prospect of jeopardizing the President we’d worked so hard to elect, of losing the prestige, power, and personal luxury of our offices was not enough incentive to make this group of men contain a lie; after just a few weeks the natural human instinct for self-preservation was so overwhelming that the conspirators, one by one, deserted their leader, walked away from their cause, turned their backs on the power, prestige, and privileges. If one is to assail the historicity of the Resurrection and therefore the deity of Christ, one must conclude that there was a conspiracy — a cover-up if you will — by eleven men with the complicity of up to five hundred others. To subscribe to this argument, one must also be ready to believe that each disciple was willing to be ostracized by friends and family, live in daily fear of death, endure prisons, live penniless and hungry, sacrifice family, be tortured without mercy, and ultimately die — all without ever once renouncing that Jesus had risen from the dead. This is why the Watergate experience is so instructive for me. If John Dean and the rest of us were so panic-stricken, not by the prospect of beatings and execution, but by political disgrace and a possible prison term, one can only speculate about the emotions of the disciples. Yet they clung tenaciously to their enormously offensive story that their leader had risen from his ignoble death and was alive — and was the Lord.”
The Apostles could have avoided persecution and death if they had said just one statement: “He is dead.” But they refused not because they were ignorant fools but because they knew He was alive!
2) Was it a bodily resurrection? 1st Cor. 15:1-8. Paul had to make this defense in 1st Cor. 15 because there were people who were negatively influencing the Corinthian believers to question the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
The people of Athens (a short distance from Corinth) had many objects of worship; even one to an unknown god just so all the bases were covered. Paul used that to explain to them who the one, true God was. They let Paul go on in his discourse until he mentions the resurrection of Jesus. Acts 17:31-32.
The Greeks could accept the immortality of the soul but a bodily resurrection was something many of them scoffed at. The Gnostics also believed in a spiritual resurrection but not an actual bodily resurrection. What makes it so difficult to believe in a bodily resurrection? It’s impossible without God. As it is with all miracles, man cannot do it. Trickery can try to duplicate it but eventually the secret will come out. No one has an explanation for how a dead body all of a sudden comes back to life again; it’s an unexplainable miracle.
A.W. Tozer said, “I believe that Christ died for me because it is incredible; I believe that he rose from the dead because it was impossible.” Jesus dispelled the notion that his resurrection was just a spiritual one when he appeared to his disciples and ate some food Luke 24:36-49.
When the disciples became aware of the empty tomb they were skeptical; they still needed convincing that Jesus had in fact been raised to life in bodily form. Jesus wanted the legitimacy of coming back to life to be unquestionable for his disciples. Paul wanted it to be legitimized too. So, in order to refute these naysayers in Corinth, Paul highlights the number of people who had seen the risen Christ.
Perhaps all these people just thought they saw Jesus but were really hallucinating. Really; all 500 of them? Plus, over 500 witnesses on at least 12 different occasions spanning 40 days. This doesn’t constitute credible evidence? Say you were involved in an accident. The police show up and you and the other driver gave conflicting accounts as to what happened. But if there were a handful of witnesses giving the same version as yours that would provide enough credibility to lead the officer to believe your version. Now factor in not just a few but over 500 witnesses. I don’t think there’s ever been a trial where someone had over 500 witnesses to testify on their behalf. If there were you’d think it would be an open and shut case with that many witnesses.
Simon Greenleaf, one of the men responsible for making the Harvard Law School the famous institution it is said that the resurrection is one of the best supported events in history, according to the laws of legal evidence administered in courts of justice.
The following is from "Evidence of the Resurrection" by Josh McDowell. “Professor Thomas Arnold, for 14 years a headmaster of Rugby, author of the famous, History of Rome, and appointed to the chair of modern history at Oxford, was well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said: "I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead." There’s evidence for the resurrection.
3) If it’s not true then we’re all fools. 1st Cor. 15:12-20. Paul makes the point that if you have a hard time accepting that we will resurrect at the last day then how do you explain Christ’s resurrection? If you don’t believe that you will be raised to life then how is it you have come to believe in salvation through Christ? For if Christ has not been raised then you aren’t saved. If you’re not saved then we are wasting our time here. If Christ has not been raised he is a liar; an impostor because he had told his disciples that he would be raised to life.
So, if Jesus has not been raised then how can we really trust anything he did or said? If it’s not true then it brings the whole bible into question. If he is not alive then his death accomplished nothing; we are still lost in our sins. But, ever so thankfully, that is not the case; Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. And since this is true, we too will be resurrected. 1st Cor. 6:14, “By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.”
In this life we will have to endure suffering and trials but we can still be filled with joy because we look forward to the day when it will all be over and we’ll be welcomed into our glorious inheritance. 1st Pet. 1:3-9. Because we believe in Jesus’ resurrection we can look forward in confidence to our own resurrection when we will be with him.
4) Those who are convinced need to be convincing. Blessed are we who have not seen but yet we believe. And that’s important for those around us to see our faith. People will be drawn to want to know how someone we have never seen could fill us with such joy. It is abnormal to have such love and devotion for someone who we don’t have a physical relationship with. But we don’t need to see Jesus in order to believe in him. He has proven himself to us over and over with the credible evidence of changed lives, modern-day miracles and the inability to disprove anything his word says.
But do we as Christians give people a reason to doubt? In a novel by George MacDonald, an agnostic questions a young clergyman and asks, “Tell me honestly, do you really believe one word of all that? Did you ever notice how these Christian people, who profess to believe that their great man has conquered death, and all that rubbish—did you never observe the way they talk about death, or the eternity they say they expect beyond it? They talk about it in the abstract one moment, but when it comes down to real life, in their hearts they have no hope, and in their minds they have no courage to face the facts of existence. They don’t really believe everything they say, or what they hear from the pulpit.”
One reason the non-believer would have a problem believing in the resurrection is because they see those who declare with conviction that Jesus lives not living their everyday lives in that victorious glory. Why believe when they see Christians walking around unhappy? When they see Christians facing situations with worry, fear and doubt it looks like a contradiction. Now, it doesn’t mean we’re hypocrites just because we have moments of fear and worry but it does highlight a good opportunity to examine where we’re at. If we are people who have trusted in Jesus, if we are placing our hope in his resurrection then why do we have any doubts that he will take care of us?
It seems like a contradiction when we have no problem trusting Jesus for our eternal life but we doubt him in our everyday life. If we have become convinced that Jesus lives then we need to live our everyday lives in accordance with the miraculous power of the resurrection.
The reality of the resurrection transformed the Apostles. When the Apostles had seen the resurrected Jesus they became sold-out for his ministry. Every one of them had come from doubt to determination, from confusion to conviction, from fear to faith. Peter and John were on fire and courageous men of faith. The resurrection of Christ is what turned fishermen into fishers of men. The resurrected Christ is what turned Saul the persecutor into Paul the evangelist.
The resurrection of Christ changes people; it needs to change us so that we can draw others to believe in the resurrected Jesus. We need to be moved by the sacrifice of Jesus and compelled by his love. We need to be motivated by the power of his resurrection. If we are convinced of the resurrection of Jesus then it needs to be seen in our convictions, our godly confidence, our boldness and courage for the cause of Christ. If we are convinced then we will be convincing.
CONCLUSION: A Muslim said to a Christian, “We Muslims have one thing you Christians don’t.” “Yeah, what’s that?” the Christian replied. “When we go to Medina we find a coffin and we know Mohammed lived because his body is in the coffin. But when you Christians go to Jerusalem, you find nothing but an empty tomb.” “Thank you,” the Christian responded, “what you said is absolutely true.” “That’s what makes the eternal difference. We find an empty tomb in Jerusalem because our Lord lives; we serve the risen Christ.” The cross is the unifying symbol of Christianity but the empty tomb is our assurance that we serve a risen Savior. Jesus’ resurrection is not magic, it’s not malarkey; it’s the greatest miracle ever. It can’t be Good Friday without Resurrection Sunday.
