The resurrection |
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Christianity stands or falls on one simple truth - the resurrection of Jesus following His crucifixion. Jesus' good life, and the many miracles He performed mark Him out as special, but not necessarily as the Son of God. Any man can die for a cause he believes in - so Jesus' death on the cross doesn't mean He is the Saviour of mankind. What marks Jesus out, and what confirms Him as the Son of God and, as such, as the Saviour of mankind is the resurrection. Jesus' crucifixion is recorded in Roman legal records and also in contemporary Jewish records of the time. So that fact isn't a matter of debate - it is a simple, historical fact. So the question is: "What happened to the body?" With the starting point of a dead body, let's examine the options: 1. Jesus' enemies took the body because He had prophesied that He would rise again - and they took it to prevent His friends doing so and then claiming He had risen from the dead. If this were the case then, when Jesus' disciples did indeed begin declaring that He was risen, all His enemies had to do was produce the body and Christianity would have died on Day One! The Romans, who were guarding the tomb where Jesus was buried, spent the next 400 years trying to stamp out Christianity. If they'd had the body they would surely have produced it, stopped Christianity developing and saved themselves an awful lot of hard work! 2. Jesus' friends took the body. They had just seen their leader crucified. They were a broken and confused group of disciples. The records show that they all ran away. For the purpose of the argument, let's suppose that they regained their courage. They then hatched a plan to steal the body and keep the story of Jesus going. This previously frightened band of men then went to the grave, overpowered the armed Roman guards and stole the body. Disposing of the body they then, three days later, went out and about telling everyone that Jesus had risen. As time went on, and one by one, each of the twelve disciples - except John, who spent many years in prison - was executed for proclaiming that Christ had risen from the dead. If they had taken the body expecting to gain fame and perhaps fortune through association with Jesus, or perhaps through a nobler plan to keep His name and memory alive, it simply isn't reasonable to assume that all of them were willing to be killed for something that they would have known to be a lie. Perhaps one of two disciples may have been killed in the early days but, as the killings went on, those disciples remaining alive would certainly have stopped spreading the news that Jesus was alive - unless He really was. The only reasonable explanation for their willingness to die was that they were proclaiming what they knew to be true - Jesus really did rise from the grave and conquer death.
3. A passing grave robber stole the body. If His enemies didn't have the body and His friends didn't have the body, then the only other people who may have had it would be grave robbers. Grave robbing was common in those days, however there are a couple of problems with this idea. Firstly, the grave robbers would have had to tackle and overcome an armed Roman guard - which is simply not going to happen unless they knew there was great wealth buried in the grave. Secondly, grave robbers stole what was buried with the body, not the body itself. However, to explore every avenue, let's assume that grave robbers did steal the body. The disciples find the grave empty and genuinely believe that Jesus is risen and set off to proclaim that to anyone who'll listen. However, we are still then left with the problem that if Jesus were really still dead the disciples would have no evidence, apart from the empty grave, that He was alive. No experiences of the risen Jesus, no appearances of Him alive - just a missing body. Once again, in the light of that situation it is hard to believe that all of them would be willing to die on the basis of such flimsy evidence. BUT! Just to eliminate every possibility. Let's assume that they were willing to die on the basis of just a missing body. That doesn't explain (bearing in mind that, for the sake of this argument Jesus is really dead, with His body stolen) why 2,000 years later countless thousands of people are having their lives radically changed through their faith in the Risen Jesus. It doesn't explain why today people around the world are being tortured and killed rather than deny the truth of the Risen Christ. In fact, in the 20th century more Christians were killed around the world for their faith than in the previous 19 centuries put together. It really isn't reasonable to assume that all those people were willing to die for just an empty belief in a missing body. They were willing to die, and Christians have been since the time of Christ, because they had encountered the Risen Jesus and knew, like the disciples, that Christ has defeated death itself and offers eternal life to all those who believe in Him. 4. The body wasn't there because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and in doing so showed Himself to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of mankind.
Many people who don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus simply haven't examined the evidence. We have had a brief look here at just one aspect of the resurrection - what happened to the body? If you are still not sure about what to believe, please examine all the evidence you can find (and e-mail in any questions) because if Jesus didn't rise from the dead then He was just a man, perhaps a good teacher, but just a man. If He did rise from the dead it means He truly is the Son of God, and that all He said and taught has divine authority. It is too big an issue to ignore. "There exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in the verdict that the resurrection story is true." Ready to Join Now? Joining is quick and easy, and gives you:
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