The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the crowning proof of Christianity. Everything else that was said or done by Christ and the Apostles is secondary in importance to the resurrection. That is:
• If the resurrection DID NOT take place, then Christianity is a false religion.
• If the resurrection DID take place, then Christ is God and the Christian faith is absolute truth.
What you believe about the resurrection is not optional. We can differ on many things this Bible teaches, but when it comes to the resurrection, WE MUST HAVE IT RIGHT!
Some of the clearest scriptures concerning salvation reveal that belief in the resurrection of Christ is essential to being saved.
• Romans 10:9 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, THOU SHALT BE SAVED."
• Romans 4:25 states (of Jesus), "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."
• 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 says, "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures."
The teaching of the resurrection is not optional. Our Salvation depends on it. You see, death is our common and greatest enemy, and it has conquered all men but Christ.
• No man is wise enough to outwit death
• No man is wealthy enough to be exempted from it
• No man is strong enough to overcome it
The grave always wins the victory, and every person sooner or later returns to the dust.
Everything the Bible teaches about Christ hinges on THE MESSAGE OF THE RESURRECTION. Let’s take a good look at the resurrection.
HOW DID THE RESURRECTION TAKE PLACE? In order for us to fully understand the significance of the resurrection, we need to remember the Lord Jesus tried to warn His disciples that He had not come to set up His Kingdom on earth, but to die for the sins of mankind. This was a message He taught, but it seems like it went in one ear and out the other.
Even when John the Baptist stood on the shore line one day preaching to a crowd of people and he saw the Lord coming, he stopped and said, in John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Even though the Lord taught them He had come to die for the sins of mankind, His disciples never could comprehend the message. The death of Christ caught the disciples completely by surprise.
Death often catches us by surprise. When the Lord Jesus died, these disciples were devastated! This is something they never thought would happened.
• They had given up their careers to follow Him
• They had watched Him raised the dead
• Now He is dead
After His death, they went into hiding. All their hopes and dreams had been destroyed before their very eyes.
One thing is certain, the disciples could not have fabricated the story of the resurrection from their own imaginations. On the contrary, they somehow failed to anticipate it even after such an abundance of prophetic preparation for it, both from the Scriptures and from Christ. It took the strongest of evidence to convince them it had actually taken place.
While it is essential to believe that we can not have salvation without the death of Christ, it is also essential that we believe we can not have salvation without the resurrection of Christ.
Look at Romans 5:10, we read, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, WE SHALL BE SAVED BY HIS LIFE.”
You see, if Christ had only died, SO WHAT? A lot of good men and women have died for a good cause. But Christ did more than just die. He arose from the grave to give us the indisputable evidence that He was the Savior of the world who came to die for the sins of mankind.
• If He did not rise from the dead, we do not have a Savior and still remain in our sins
• If He did not rise from the dead, He is the biggest deceiver that has ever existed in the history of mankind
• If He did not rise from the dead, every nickel and dime we ever gave to missions in the spreading of the gospel was a waste
• If Jesus did not rise from the dead, every missionary that left his home to carry this gospel to the four corners of the earth wasted his life
• If He did not rise from the dead, every church building that has ever been built for the preaching of the Bible and for worship, was a waste of time and money
• If He did not rise from the dead, every hour that ministers have spent studying God's Word and preparing messages was a waste of time
The grand news is that Jesus did die for our sins, and HE WAS RESURRECTED.
Those who do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ do not believe in the gospel of Christ. You cannot believe in the gospel of Christ unless you believe that:
• He CAME
• He DIED
• He was BURIED
• He was RAISED TO LIFE AGAIN
All these things about the life of Christ are summarized in one word - GOSPEL.
When it comes to the resurrection of Christ, we have overwhelming evidence. For example, let’s-
I. CONSIDER THE FACTS OF THE RESURRECTION
Let’s look at the facts concerning the resurrection. First-
A. THE PROPHETIC FACTS
Look at Mark 14:58, "We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands."
Jesus was speaking of His body and that he would be killed, and raised to life again in three days, but they thought He was talking about the temple that they worshipped in.
Although the prophecies of His resurrection in the Old Testament were not evident to some, they should have been correctly understood by those in Israel who diligently studied the Word.
Such prophecies as found in Genesis 3:15, Psalm 2:7, Psalm 16:9-11, Psalm 22:14-25, Psalm 30:29, Psalm 40:13, Psalm 110:1, Psalm 118:21-24, Isaiah 53:9-12, Hosea 5:15-6:3, Zechariah 12:10, and others, if carefully studied, would have indicated that the coming Messiah would be put to death and then rise again.
Even if they had not been able to anticipate the resurrection from the Old Testament, they had the clear statements to this effect from the lips of Christ Himself. Consider, John 2:19; Matthew 12:38-42; 15:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19; 26:30-32; John 10:17-18; 16:16; and many other passages in the four Gospels.
The thing that had been prophesied, happened just the way He said it would! We need to consider...
B. THE PHYSICAL FACTS
(1) THE PLACE
The first evidence the disciples had for the resurrection of Christ was that of the empty tomb.
As Peter and John entered the tomb, they saw an amazing thing. The heavy wrappings (pounds of wrappings and spices) of linen clothes which Joseph and Nicodemus had wound around the body of Jesus (John 19:39,40) were still there, the body of Christ had vanished out of them and the grave clothes had collapsed inward on themselves. This had to be a shocking moment in the life of these disciples.
Remember they had seen Him perform such miracles as:
• Casting out demons
• Turning water into wine
• Healing the sick
• Walking on water
• Raising the dead
And now they were witnessing the miracle of Him raising His own body from the dead. No wonder the record says that when John entered the tomb, "he saw and believed!' (John 20:8). His doubts and fears immediately gave way to his amazed faith.
The collapsed grave clothes yielded no possible explanation except that the physical body of the crucified Christ had returned to life, in such a remarkable form that it could simply pass through the linen wrappings and enter henceforth into the power of an endless life!
The fact that the tomb was empty shows clearly that the resurrection of Christ was a bodily resurrection, not a spiritual resurrection as some try to proclaim. The empty tomb is a powerful testimony against the enemies of Christ, who were frantically resorting to trying explain it many different strange ways.
(a) The first such attempt was the lie that the disciples had stolen the body (Matthew 28:11-15).
Such a thing was utterly out of the question. The tomb had been sealed, a great stone rolled in front of it, and a watch of Roman soldiers set to guard it (Matthew 27:62-66).
(b) Others, equally desperate for an answer, have suggested that Jesus did not actually die on the cross, but only fainted from weakness. He was buried in the mistaken belief that He was dead, and when He came back to consciousness in the tomb, He arose and left it.
How, in His weakened condition:
• Had He managed to disengage Himself from the great weight of wrappings and ointments
• Had He broke the Roman seal
• Had He rolled away the giant stone at the entrance
• Had He overpowered the Roman soldiers
This is certainly a ridiculous theory. Even if He did not die, as they said, they can not explain how after almost being beaten to death, beaten almost beyond recognition, He could accomplish such things.
There is no doubt that He really did die on the cross. Pilate was given assurance of this by the centurion (Mark 15:43-45). The savage spear thrust into His side by the soldier (John 19:34) made certain of His death, "and forthwith came there out blood and water," evidencing complete collapse of the heart cavity.
(c) Some have thought that Mary Magdalene, then Peter and John, then the other women, all went to the wrong tomb. Such a foolish mistake was not very likely, however, especially since there was no other tomb there!
This was a garden, owned by Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:60; John 19:41), and no one else had been buried there. Besides, if the body were still in any tomb whatever, it could easily have been produced by the Roman soldiers or Jewish authorities. A few weeks later, when multitudes were accepting Christ because of the preaching of the resurrection, if they had simply produced the body of Jesus, the entire movement would have collapsed over night.
But this was the one thing they could not do! That body, raised from the grave, had ascended up to heaven. The empty tomb is indisputable evidence of the resurrection.
We have looked at THE PLACE, but let’s look at-
(2) THE PEOPLE
Not only was the empty tomb indisputable evidence, the people who saw Him also provide overwhelming evidence of His resurrection.
The disciples actually saw their resurrected Lord on at least ten separate occasions after He left the tomb. These appearances were probably in the following order:
• To Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18; Mark 16:9)
• To The other women (Matthew 28:8-10)
• To Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5)
• To the two on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35; Mark 16:12)
• To ten of the disciples (Luke 24:36-42; John 20:19-29)
• To all eleven disciples, eight days later (John 20:24-29)
• To seven disciples by the Sea of Tiberias (John 21:1-23)
• To five hundred followers (1 Corinthians 15:6)
• To James (1 Corinthians 15:7)
• To he eleven, at the ascension (Acts 1:3-12)
There were probably many other times He appeared to one or more of His disciples.
Luke says, in Acts 1:3, “To whom also he showed himself alive…by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:”
• He was apparently seen by Stephen (Acts 7:56).
• Of course, Paul saw him (Acts 9:38; 1 Corinthians 15:8)
• And once again by John (Revelation 1:12-18).
Look at 1 Cor. 15:5-8, "And that he was seen of Cephas, and then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as one born out of due time."
Paul stated that five hundred people saw Jesus, alive, after His death and burial, and most of those five hundred people were still living at the time of Paul's writing. Anyone could just ask them if they saw Jesus, and every one of them could testify that they did.
(3) THE PROCLAMATION
When the Lord was crucified, the disciples went into hiding in fear for their own lives. But once He appeared to them after His resurrection, they turned the world upside down with the teaching of the resurrection. Now it is completely impossible that the apostles could have preached and written as they did unless they were absolutely sincere and under deep conviction of the truth of what they preached.
They had instantaneously changed from craven runaways to bold Spirit-filled PROCLAIMERS of Christ and the resurrection. Such preaching cost them the loss of their possessions, intense persecution, and finally the loss of their lives, but they kept preaching as long as strength permitted. Multitudes who believed what they were preaching, suffered the same persecutions.
If they were faking all this, if somewhere they had the body of Jesus hidden away, or if He were still barely alive in a sickbed somewhere, or if they were involved in some kind of plot, or if they were not really sure whether they had seen Him or some vision, — is it conceivable that all of them (as well as their hosts of converts) would have continued this pretense right up to the point of death itself? It would seem there are some things in this world, which no one in his right mind could possibly believe, and this should be one of them!
It is no exaggeration, therefore, to maintain that the bodily resurrection of Christ is as certain as any fact of history can ever be. If there is anything at all in which we can believe with absolute confidence, it is the fact that Jesus Christ died, was buried, then conquered death and is now alive!
If Paul had said, "Five hundred people saw Jesus, but they all have died so you cannot ask them, you will just have to take my word that they saw Him," that would not be convincing evidence.
It is a PROPHETIC and HISTORICAL FACT that Christ died and rose from the grave.
Look at 1 Cor. 15:4, "And that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures."
Notice, Paul did not say, "I HEARD that He was resurrected," or "I THINK He was resurrected." He EMPHATICALLY stated that Jesus died and rose again "...ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES."
Illus: Some would object, saying that they did not believe in the Scriptures so they do not believe in Jesus or anything about Him because they did not see the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
It is interesting that they should use that argument, because it reveals their ignorance.
We wonder if they also do not believe the historical report of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Napoleon, Winston Churchill, etc., because they have never personally seen any of these people.
The only way they know these people existed is because someone made a record of:
• How they lived
• What they accomplished in life
People do not reject what is written in the history books about these people, yet they will take the Bible, proven to be the inerrant Word of God, and discount its record of the Savior and how He came, died, and was resurrected.
Conclusion:
In (1 of 2) we -
I. CONSIDER THE FACTS OF THE RESURRECTION
In (2 of 2) we want to:
II. CONSIDER THE FRUITION OF THE RESURRECTION
