When I first came to faith in Christ, I simply accepted the testimony of the Bible as to what happened. After being a Christian for over 10 years, however, I came to a period in life where, for various reasons, I began to greatly doubt the reality and truthfulness of the Christian faith. I didn’t share this with my wife at the time but asked her if I could go away and camp for a weekend in the mountains, where I cried and prayed, read scripture, cried and prayed some more, and also brought along a variety of books (listed at the end). I knew that the resurrection was everything for Christianity. If it happened, it changes everything. If it didn’t, I might as well give up on following Jesus and try to make the most out of this life while it lasts. I emerged from that long weekend in the mountains with a more firm conviction in the resurrection than I ever had before. Below are a few things which revealed to me that it is more than ‘reasonable’ to believe in the resurrection.
The Unexpected And Numerous Eyewitnesses
One of the first things I appreciate about the account of Scripture concerning the resurrection is its brutal honesty and transparency. The very people who were supposed to easily believe the resurrection actually greatly doubted it initially. It wasn’t what they were used to nor what they expected (for reasons, see below). Instead of being confident and expecting the resurrection, they were fearful and hiding after Jesus’ death. This transparency of Scripture’s account argues for its veracity- if it was a myth or fabricated by the disciples, it would be likely that they would’ve written themselves as eager and waiting to welcome the resurrected Jesus.
Second, the resurrection accounts claim that women were the first to see the empty tomb and risen Savior. In that culture and in that time, the testimony of women wasn’t even allowed in the courts. Again, if the disciples were trying to deceive others and write a fictional account that would make people believe it was true, it is likely they wouldn’t have used women as the first eyewitnesses.
Third, the resurrection account begins with the eyewitness accounts of the disciples. Yet, writing only 15 years after the resurrection, the Apostle Paul claims that Jesus appeared to over 500 people (1 Cor. 15) in a span of forty days (Acts 1) immediately following the resurrection. Paul is arguing that if you wanted consistent eyewitness accounts, you could easily begin your own investigation by going and speaking with any of the disciples or the 500 witnesses who were still alive. Clearly, Paul would have been treated with laughter if he claimed 500 people saw Jesus and nobody really did, but Paul was treated with the utmost seriousness.
Seemingly Inconsistent Eyewitness Accounts
Many scholars have noted some of the seeming incongruities in the resurrection accounts. These relatively minor differences in the differing accounts, rather than negating the resurrection, actually work towards verifying its authenticity. Almost all eyewitness accounts are different in some way and it is the eyewitness accounts that are completely consistent among a variety of people, even in minor details, that usually end up being suspect and fabricated.
The Radical and Immediate Shift in Worldview
For the Romans: The Roman culture of Jesus’ day found the concept of resurrection to be physically impossible and personally undesirable. First, nobody had ever seen a resurrection before and therefore nobody expected it. Second, the vast majority of that culture believed that physicality was actually something to be escaped rather than desired. For them, resurrection wouldn’t have been good news.
For the Jews: The Jewish culture of Jesus’ day would’ve thought that the idea of the resurrection of an individual was unthinkable and inconceivable. The Sadducees denied any resurrection at all while the Pharisees said that the resurrection would take place at the end of the world and everyone would be resurrected at once. Also, resurrection, for any Jew who believed in it, was a very peripheral matter. The idea that an individual was raised from the dead prior to the end of the world would have been ludicrous to Jew and Gentile alike.
Many people today claim that they believed in the resurrection back then because it was easier, given their worldview. Actually, it would’ve been just as difficult for them! Many scholars, like Thomas Kuhn who wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, show that people’s dominant beliefs and worldviews change only after a complex and slow process over multiple years (usually around a decade). Thus, for Jews and Gentiles alike to have such a radical and immediate shift in their worldview while placing the resurrection at its center, literally almost overnight, and for others to be so quickly persuaded, is highly unlikely if it didn’t actually happen.
The Radical and Immediate Shift in Religious Practice
One of the most sacred aspects of the Jewish faith was keeping the Sabbath on the final day of the week. Another staple of Jewish thought was that God was one and that He doesn’t give His glory to anyone or anything else, let alone a human. However, it is historically proven that the disciples and a large number of Jews shifted their Sabbath observance to the first day of the week (the day Jesus was claimed to be raised) and on that day they worshiped Jesus as divine (blasphemous in Jewish thought). This shift was monumental and swift. Again, the conclusion that best deals with the reality that large numbers of disciples and Jews began worshipping on Sunday rather than Saturday and on that day they worshipped Jesus as divine is that He really was raised from the dead. This shift was so monumental, that many lost their lives witnessing to Jesus’ resurrection, and changing their religious practices. If the resurrection didn’t happen, why would they put their lives in danger by doing these things?
The Explosive and Expansive Growth of the Church
Prior to their witnessing the risen Christ, the disciples were fearful, timid, and cowardly. They had failed, they had fled, and they were afraid. However, again, practically overnight, they became fearless of death and passionate in their proclamation of a risen Savior. If the disciples had stolen the body and knew the resurrection was a lie, would they have so winsomely communicated this lie and passionately given their lives for this falsehood? In that culture and worldview, if they had merely hallucinated or seen a vision, it always meant that the person was dead and not truly alive. The implications of combining (1) the reality of an empty tomb (which all scholars admit), and (2) the number of eyewitness claims to the resurrections, lead to a solid inference that Jesus was truly resurrected from the dead. The overnight change of the disciples from cowardly to courageous and the immediate and expansive growth of the church is best explained if the disciples had encountered a risen Savior.
Some Concluding Thoughts:
The burden of proof is no longer on the believer of the resurrection. How else do you explain the rapid and expansive growth of the church? How else do you explain a cowardly group of men transformed overnight into fearless missionaries? How else do you explain the seismic shift in religious practice among Jews? The best explanation to all of these is that Jesus really was raised from the dead.
In the end, we really can simply receive and rely on the testimony of God's word to understand the truth of the resurrection. As was said in the early church, we don't understanding in order to believe, but believe in order to understand.
So what does this mean for us?
It means that human guilt has been dealt with finally and fully; it means that death has not only been confronted but conquered; it means that new and true life can be experienced before death and eternal life after death; it means that hope for better things has gone from the category of ‘maybe’ to a definite certainty; it means that a New Heavens and a New Earth where those who trust in Christ will spend forever is coming; it means that God is already beginning the process of making all things new. Even if you are not convinced that the resurrection happened, you should at least want it to be true!
He is risen. He is risen indeed!
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity, 1987); N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003); William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: Historical Evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus (Louisville: Wipf and Stock, 2001).