Theology

Resurrection

Not having omniscient foreknowledge, Satan could not understand the drama unfolding before him. His vision was myopic, and as always he saw only the immediate gain. While he and all his demonic forces were reveling in the victory of the battle they failed to notice they had lost the war!

This presentation tells of the victory that was so stunning, the world is still celebrating, almost 2000 years later.

The resurrection is firmly entrenched in the teachings of the Christian church… but can it be documented? And is it even necessary to our faith to do so? My answer to both questions is a resounding and unwavering yes! You must decide for yourself.

If the resurrection is to have any relevance and meaning to our faith, then understandably, we must be certain that it was preceded by a legitimate and verifiable death. That is why we spent the entire last session documenting the fact and the cause of the death of Jesus Christ. Now, you see, we stand precisely in the middle of the Christian faith -- between the grave and the resurrection -- two inseparably important events to the Christian and two uniquely critical events to our faith.

As we look at the resurrection, we must understand something of its uniqueness. Christianity alone offers a resurrected Lord as Savior. There is a reason. Like the miracle of the man born blind, the resurrection cannot be faked. But, unique to the resurrection of our Lord, it can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. That is why, I think, the Bible says that it is by the resurrection that Jesus is declared to be the Son of God (Rom. 1:3-4). That is why Christianity alone stands as a valid faith. Hebrews 11:1 says…"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". This means faith is, in reality, based on fact and not hope. If the premise of Christianity is that Jesus is the Son of God, and this is based on the resurrection, then we must be able to establish the resurrection as fact if our faith is to be valid!

At this point we proceed with much caution and humility. The author acknowledges that the validity of the Christian faith does not rest in the acceptance of his logic, but in the acceptance of the truth of God’s Word. This article is but an attempt to demonstrate that God’s Word is believable, because it is true. It should also be understood that this is only a brief outline of the subject. Many other apologies are available for study, two of which are: Josh McDowell’s, The Resurrection Factor and Frank Morton’s, Who Moved the Stone.

In an attempt to simplify the task, we will look at two major areas of consideration:

The empty tomb and
Jesus' appearances

The Empty Tomb

If there were an empty tomb, then, either…

Someone looked into the wrong tomb
Jesus escaped alive by himself
The disciples stole the body
Or… Jesus arose! We will look at each of these possibilities as we seek the truth.

We will look at each of these possibilities as we seek the truth.

The Wrong Tomb

Some doubters have argued that Jesus' tomb was not really empty, but that for one reason or another the disciples looked into the wrong tomb. Of all the arguments proposed by the anti-resurrection forces, this is perhaps the most ludicrous. Looking at the Scripture references (Mt 27:57-61, Mk 15:42-47, Lk. 23:50-56, Jn. 19:38-42) we find that there were at least 4 witnesses; the tomb was new; the crucifixion was near to the site; and since there was no lengthy time delay in going back to the tomb, it is unthinkable that the friends and family of Jesus would be so confused that they would not remember where Jesus was buried.

But just suppose the disciples had looked into the wrong tomb, this could never serve as a basis of proof of the resurrection. If the proof were so flimsy as that, the Roman guards and the Jewish priests would simply have immediately pointed to the real tomb and settled the question of the resurrection forever. They never did! That is most significant when we understand that they did everything else in their power to quiet this "rumor" of the resurrection. To the honest inquisitor there can be no doubt as to the validity of Jesus' empty tomb.

That brings us to the next logical question. If the tomb were empty, then who is to say that the disciples didn’t steal the body? This is one of the most significant accusations Christendom has to face, and a responsibility which we will not shirk.

Jesus Escapes

Some have argued that Jesus escaped by himself. They claim that Jesus swooned on the cross. We have already demonstrated the fallacy of this idea in our discussion of the crucifixion.

But, if:
Jesus escaped by himself

Then:
It would mean that the dehydrated, bleeding, seriously wounded, embalmed Jesus would have had to break out of his grave cloths, move the 1.5-2 ton stone, overcome the guards single handedly and remain hidden from his adversaries while making himself known to his disciples. This is absolutely preposterous! Whatever happened, logic would dictate some other conclusion than Jesus escaping by Himself.

The Stolen Body

For one who has looked at the resurrection story in a cursory manner, the stolen body seems to be the most likely explanation for the empty tomb. However, after examining the evidence in more detail, even the doubter would have to admit that the case against the stolen body is overwhelming. So, follow with me as we carry the logic of the stolen body to its only "logical" conclusion.

Step I -
If: The disciples stole the body of Jesus,
Then: They had to encounter the Roman guards.

Discussion:
First, there’s the matter of the word Roman. Some say the guard wasn’t Roman at all. In fact, Mt 27:64-66 doesn’t say Roman at all. It just says watch. Therefore, they say, the guard was simply the Jewish Temple guard who stood watch over the tomb. The implication of this is that the Temple guard was not trained and armed like the Roman guard and, therefore they were not really able to secure the tomb as the Romans would have been able to do. Here, closer study reveals some interesting points:

The word watch is translated from the Gr. koustodia, which interestingly has a Latin origin. It is the basis of our English word custodian. It is used three times in the KJV, all related to this passage.

Looking forward to the last of these uses in Mt 28:11-12 we find that watch in verse 11 is clearly the antecedent of soldiers in verse 12.

Here soldiers is translated from a Greek word which clearly means soldier and is translated that way 26 out of 26 times in the KJV. Therefore we can safely assume that the usage in Mt 27:64-66 would also imply a Roman soldier.

The real proof, however, in my opinion, comes from the internal evidence of the story itself. Looking at Mt 28:11-15, we find an interesting account of a conversation between the guard (whoever that might be) and the Jewish priests. You might assume that if the guard were Jewish, this is precisely what would have taken place. But, if we look at vs. 14 we find a big problem with this scenario. If the Temple guard were at fault for not securing the tomb, it would have made no difference to the Roman governor. The Temple guard was not his responsibility. The Jewish priests would not have had to plead for mercy… unless… the guard was Roman. In this case the guard would have been expected to loose their own lives if they lost the prisoner. That was Roman law! Look at Peter’s escape in Acts 12:5-19 and specifically vs. 19 for the punishment when a prisoner is lost. If the guard were, indeed, Roman, then one would expect them to be "bargaining" with anyone they thought might be able to help them.

Now that we can safely say that the guard was Roman, there’s one more point we need to note about this guard. Look at Acts 12:4 and we find that the Roman guard keeping Peter was composed of four quaternions of soldiers. This means 16! Each group of four rotated turns keeping watch while the others slept. That way there was always a fresh guard. I find it unthinkable that Jesus Christ, the most influential prisoner in all of Roman or Jewish history, would have been any less well guarded.

Now, back to our original presumption: If the disciples stole the body of Jesus, they had to encounter the Roman guard…

That leaves us two options: The disciples would have either found the guard asleep or awake.

Step II -
If: The Roman guards were asleep…
Then: The disciples would have had to move the stone without waking the guards.

Discussion: It is very unlikely that the guards were all asleep considering that their lives were at stake if they lost the prisoner. Besides, there were 16 of them sleeping in rotation so somebody would have been awake. But even if we suppose that all 16 guards were asleep the disciples could not have moved the stone without waking the guard because the stone weighed approximately 1.5-2 tons! There would have been no way to move the stone without making a lot of noise and waking the Roman guard. It just would have been impossible.

Step III -
If: The Roman guards were awake…
Then: The disciples would have to overcome the guards in order to steal the body of Jesus.

Discussion: It is unlikely that the disciples, who were an untrained, scared bunch of disorganized vagabonds, who recently dispersed at the arrest of Jesus, could have overcome the trained and well-equipped Roman guard. However, if they had, then certainly (in a battle for life such as this) someone would have been killed, or at least hurt. No one was. The disciples were all present and accounted for in the post resurrection days. The Roman guard reported to the Jewish priests after the resurrection. There is not even the mention of a scratch that anyone received. It would seem that the case for the stolen body is, in fact, nonexistent.

That is, however, not the case. In truth, we have yet to face one of the most serious attacks which Christian apologists must answer. Go back and look at Mt 27:57-66 and note especially vs. 62. Who or what is to say that the disciples did not steal the body of Jesus during the first night when the tomb was unguarded?

Discussion:

Looking at vs. 60, we see that the tomb was originally sealed with a great stone.

If the disciples stole the body, they would either have rolled the stone back in place or they would have left the tomb open.

Looking at vs. 66, we know the stone was in place the following day, because the Roman guard came and put a seal on the stone, making the sepulcher sure.

Here we must ask another important question: What if the tomb was empty at this point and the soldiers just didn’t bother to look? Couldn’t they have sealed an empty tomb?

Discussion:

Look ahead to Easter morning. All of the Gospel accounts say that the stone was rolled away.

If the disciples were responsible for stealing the body, then they would have to be responsible for rolling the stone back out of the way.

This means they would have had to return to the tomb, which they now knew to be guarded by the Roman quaternion.

They would be risking their lives to roll the stone away from a tomb they would have known to be empty.

No useful purpose would have been served by this action. Had they wanted to demonstrate an empty tomb, they could simply have brought the priests to the scene and shown them an empty tomb without risk of life. The resurrection itself could have taken place through the stone.

Looking at Jn. 20:6-7 we see another incongruent fact in a theft plot. The Easter morning visitors to the tomb found the burial cloths lying neatly in two piles inside the tomb. Obviously, in a mad rush to steal the body, no one would have taken the time to unwrap a dead body -- much less to neatly wrap the linen and place it in two piles inside the tomb while they are desperately trying to fight off 16 Roman soldiers.

There is one final piece of evidence that we need to consider, even though it is subjective in nature. If the disciples stole the body and fabricated a cover up, they certainly would not have told the story I’ve just reconstructed here. Instead, they would undoubtedly have tried to cover up some of the loose ends we have dealt with (such as leaving the tomb unguarded). It is this circumstantial evidence (evidence that just doesn’t fit into a prefabricated cover-up) that perhaps provides some of the strongest support for the resurrection.

So the "stolen theft plot" doesn’t appear to be a valid premise after all. But, suppose, just for the sake of fair consideration, we assume that the disciples, somehow or other, did manage to steal the body…

Step IV -
If: The disciples were successful in stealing the body of Jesus…
Then: The disciples would have known that the resurrection was a lie.

Discussion:

Never in all of history do we have evidence of any such band of men being so transformed from cowards to martyrs for a lie they themselves knew to be so.

In all of psychiatric literature there can be no explanation for every disciple being willing to die for a cause they knew to be a lie, and without one single man confessing his sin.

This is even more significant considering that each of these men were devoutly religious and believed they would be accountable for their sins.

Even today the compulsion of a dying man to tell the truth is recognized in our courts of law by giving that testimony a special reverence.

In conclusion:
The only logical conclusion for an honest man to draw from this is that the post resurrection lives of the disciples indicated that they believed in a resurrected Jesus. In all fairness, we would have to conclude the same thing even if we knew the resurrection were a hoax. The disciples believed! Therefore they could not have stolen the body of Jesus.

Discussion:
Now, if it were not the wrong tomb and if Jesus didn’t escape alive and if the disciples didn’t steal the body…then we are forced to consider that Jesus Christ might have done exactly what he promised he would do - rise again on the third day. If he had done this and if this were to be the basis of our faith then certainly it would have been attested to by post resurrection appearances of the Lord Jesus. That leads us to the final consideration of this discussion on the resurrection.

Jesus’ Appearances

The post resurrection appearances of Jesus were either that of an apparition or they were real.

If they were an apparition, then it was either a spirit or a hallucination that the witnesses saw.

If the appearances were real, then Jesus was either a natural man or a glorified man.

Therefore, we have four possible choices for the port resurrection appearances:

A spirit
A hallucination
A natural man
A glorified man

We will look at each possibility

Spirit

Jesus dealt directly with this question in Luke 24:36-44. The disciples themselves thought they were seeing a spirit. As proof that he was not a spirit, Jesus asked the disciples to touch him. Spirits do not have flesh and bones and cannot, therefore, be touched and felt. As further proof, Jesus ate a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. Here, again, we have direct evidence of the nature of the body of Jesus. If Jesus were a spirit then we would expect that the "real" food which He ate would simply fall to the ground since there is no substance to a "spirit body". There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the disciples were not seeing a spirit.

Hallucination

Hallucination is a psychiatric term describing a process by which a person, under stress, may perceive something to be present in their environment which is not actually there. The perception most commonly relates to visual and auditory stimulations but can involve other senses.

The stress that provokes the hallucination can be acute and involve some temporary situation such as the death of a family member or a close friend. It can also result from more chronic and complex problems that have gone unresolved over long periods of time. Eventually, in situations such as this, the person may unconsciously choose to perceive their environment in other than realistic ways. Not being able to cope as others do, they simply see things different from everyone else.

That is an important distinction for us to understand. While everyone else sees the natural, tangible and physical world, the person hallucinating stands out in the crowd because he sees and hears things that no one else does.

The presumption of a hallucination immediately becomes untenable because Jesus always appeared to groups of people, as small as two on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32) and as large as five hundred (I Cor. 15:6). The author would concede that it is possible for more than one person to have a similar hallucination at the same time, but this does begin to tax the credibility of the hallucination claim. What is impossible to accept, though, is that on every occasion that Jesus appeared to a group, every person present would have had the same hallucination.

But even if we were to accept that, for some inexplicable reason, the above situation were possible, the Bible gives us an account of a situation which positively excludes the possibility of a hallucination.

As a physician, I have read about hallucinations, talked to patients who have had hallucinations and have actually witnessed patients as they have had hallucinations. I have consistently noted one fact in all situations. The person who is hallucinating truly believes what they see is real. Doubting Thomas proves that Jesus was not a hallucination. Thomas had to be made to believe. Again, isn’t it interesting the way the Bible provides the details we need?

Natural vs. Glorified Man

Now, to this point, we have shown that the post resurrection Jesus was not an apparition, and that leaves us to assume that he must have been real. If the appearances were real, that means we must again face the question of a faked resurrection. Because, if Jesus stood before the disciples with an ordinary, natural body, then a faked resurrection could explain it. If, however, we find that Jesus possessed a glorified body that had characteristics which were different from those of the bodies we all possess, then we would know that a supernatural resurrection had taken place.

There are clues in the New Testament account of the post resurrection appearances that hint at a body which was different. We know that at times Jesus was not recognized. We know at other times he appeared suddenly behind locked doors.

To me, however, the most profound proof of the validity of the supernatural resurrection is found in Jesus’ appearance to the disciples when Thomas was present. (John 20:24-29) As he spoke to Thomas, Jesus told him to thrust his hand into his side. Obviously, this is meant as proof to Thomas that the man standing there was the same Jesus whom Thomas saw crucified a few days earlier. But what we have in fact, is proof of a more profound nature, proof that completely dispels the idea of a swoon and establishes the fact that the man standing in front of Thomas possessed a glorified body.

If, as some have proposed, Jesus had not really died, then his wound would not have been healed. A nine to ten day old wound of the magnitude of a spear gash extending to the pericardium would have been very painful. No one would then ask another to thrust his hand into the wound as proof of his identity. . . unless there was no pain! A natural man would have guarded an open wound of this nature carefully and even reflexly. Therefore, Jesus must have been resurrected and standing there before Thomas in a glorified body, or he would not - he could not, have made this request of Thomas.

So far, the articles of I Am The Way have attempted to demonstrate the reality of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. I can think of no other event in history that can be so well documented. Scientifically provable? No! Because it is a singular event in all of history and cannot be repeated to satisfy the arbitrary requirements of science. Historically and logically provable? Yes! It is as provable as any death can be, and as provable as any "real" appearance of any "real" person can be. If the death and resurrection of Jesus serves as the foundation of our faith, then our faith is resting on fact and there is no better foundation than that (I Cor. 3:11).