Responses To Those Who Doubt Jesus's Resurrection

One lady wrote into a question-and-answer forum. "Dear Sirs, Our preacher said on Easter that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think?

Sincerely, Bewildered.

Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for six hours; run a spear thru his side … put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Charles. (Contributed by: A. Todd Coget)

The third theory that I would like to respond to is the Vision Theory, which states that the disciples were so desperate to see Jesus resurrected from His death. Therefore, they claimed that they saw Jesus was alive but what really happened was they were having a hallucination or a delusion.

Let's evaluate this theory: Is it true that the disciples expected Jesus to be raised from the dead? If they did, they would not have wrapped Jesus' body with the spices in strips of linen. If they did expect Jesus to rise from the dead, they would have gathered at the tomb every day to wait and see Jesus raised, but they ran away and hid in a locked room. If it was a hallucination, how could this have happened not when they were praying and meditating but when they were working or doing something. And how could a hallucination happen to 500 people at the same place and time? That is impossible! Hallucinations are not group events. And the truth is that having 500 different people experience the same hallucination simultaneously would be a greater miracle than the resurrection itself!

The last theory is the Replacement Theory, which states that the One who was nailed on the cross was not Jesus, but Judas or someone that God made resembles Jesus. Moslems make this theory. For example, based on Quran 4:156-159, some people hold that Jesus did not die the usual human death but still lives in the body in heaven, which is the generally accepted Muslim view. Another holds that he did die but not when he was supposed to be crucified. Being "raised up" unto Allah means that instead of being disgraced as a malefactor, as the Jews intended, he was, on the contrary, honored by Allah Almighty as His Messenger.

The questions are: why did God replace Jesus with Judas? And why did God deceive people by creating someone who looked like Jesus so that they thought that they crucified Jesus? This theory is baseless. Based on some facts discussed this morning at the Sunrise Service, we know that Jesus was dead, and three days later, He rose from the dead. Jesus is alive! Therefore, the early Christians greeted one another not by saying: 'Ola' or 'Hi.' But: "Jesus is alive!" And the other person replied: "He is alive indeed!"

If He is alive, He can save us from eternal death. If Jesus is alive, He can be with us all the time to accompany us, help us, protect us, and listen to our prayers. If Jesus is alive, we have strong hope in Him, and our ministry is not in vain. And since He is alive, unlike other religious founders and leaders, He can claim, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."