Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead

1. Jesus himself testified to his coming resurrection from the dead.
Jesus spoke openly about what would happen to him: crucifixion and
then resurrection from the dead. "The Son of Man must suffer many
things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mark 8:31;
see also Matthew 17:22; Luke 9:22). Those who consider the
resurrection of Christ unbelievable will probably say that Jesus was
deluded or (more likely) that the early church put these statements
in his mouth to make him teach the falsehood that they themselves
conceived. But those who read the Gospels and come to the considered
conviction that the one who speaks so compellingly through these
witnesses is not the figment of foolish imagination will be
unsatisfied with this effort to explain away Jesus' own testimony to
his resurrection from the dead.
This is especially true in view of the fact that the words which
predict the resurrection are not only the simple straightforward
words quoted above, but also the very oblique and indirect words
which are far less likely to be the simple invention of deluded
disciples. For example, two separate witnesses testify in two very
different ways to Jesus' statement during his lifetime that if his
enemies destroyed the temple (of his body), he would build it again
in three days (John 2:19; Mark 14:58; cf. Matthew 26:61). He also
spoke illusively of the "sign of Jonah"—three days in the heart of
the earth (Matthew 12:39; 16:4). And he hinted at it again in Matthew
21:42—"The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head
of the corner." On top of his own witness to the coming resurrection,
his accusers said that this was part of Jesus' claim: "Sir, we
remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, `After
three days I will rise'" (Matthew 27:63).
Our first evidence of the resurrection, therefore, is that Jesus
himself spoke of it. The breadth and nature of the sayings make it
unlikely that a deluded church made these up. And the character of
Jesus himself, revealed in these witnesses, has not been judged by
most people to be a lunatic or a deceiver.
2. The tomb was empty on Easter.
The earliest documents claim this: "When they went in they did not
find the body of the Lord Jesus" (Luke 24:3). And the enemies of
Jesus confirmed it by claiming that the disciples had stolen the body
(Matthew 28:13). The dead body of Jesus could not be found. There are
four possible ways to account for this.
2.1 His foes stole the body. If they did (and they never claimed to
have done so), they surely would have produced the body to stop the
successful spread of the Christian faith in the very city where the
crucifixion occurred. But they could not produce it.
2.2 His friends stole the body. This was an early rumor (Matthew
28:11-15). Is it probable? Could they have overcome the guards at the
tomb? More important, would they have begun to preach with such
authority that Jesus was raised, knowing that he was not? Would they
have risked their lives and accepted beatings for something they knew
was a fraud?
2.3 Jesus was not dead, but only unconscious when they laid him in
the tomb. He awoke, removed the stone, overcame the soldiers, and
vanished from history after a few meetings with his disciples in
which he convinced them he was risen from the dead. Even the foes of
Jesus did not try this line. He was obviously dead. The Romans saw to
that. The stone could not be moved by one man from within who had
just been stabbed in the side by a spear and spent six hours nailed
to a cross.
2.4 God raised Jesus from the dead. This is what he said would
happen. It is what the disciples said did happen. But as long as
there is a remote possibility of explaining the resurrection
naturalistically, modern people say we should not jump to a
supernatural explanation. Is this reasonable? I don't think so. Of
course, we don't want to be gullible. But neither do we want to
reject the truth just because it's strange. We need to be aware that
our commitments at this point are much affected by our preferences—
either for the state of affairs that would arise from the truth of
the resurrection, or for the state of affairs that would arise from
the falsehood of the resurrection. If the message of Jesus has opened
you to the reality of God and the need of forgiveness, for example,
then anti-supernatural dogma might lose its power over your mind.
Could it be that this openness is not prejudice for the resurrection,
but freedom from prejudice against it?
3. The disciples were almost immediately transformed from men who
were hopeless and fearful after the crucifixion (Luke 24:21, John
20:19) into men who were confident and bold witnesses of the
resurrection (Acts 2:24, 3:15, 4:2).
Their explanation of this change was that they had seen the risen
Christ and had been authorized to be his witnesses (Acts 2:32). The
most popular competing explanation is that their confidence was owing
to hallucinations. There are numerous problems with such a notion.
The disciples were not gullible, but level-headed skeptics both
before and after the resurrection. (Mark 9:32, Luke 24:11, John 20:8-
9, 25). Moreover, is the deep and noble teaching of those who
witnessed the risen Christ the stuff of which hallucinations are
made? What about Paul's great letter to the Romans? I personally find
it hard to think of this giant intellect and deeply transparent soul
as deluded or deceptive, and he claimed to have seen the risen
Christ.
4. Paul claimed that, not only had he seen the risen Christ, but that
500 others had seen him also, and many were still alive when he made
this public claim.
"Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time,
most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep" (1
Corinthians 15:6). What makes this so relevant is that this was
written to Greeks who were skeptical of such claims when many of
these witnesses were still alive. So it was a risky claim if it could
be disproved by a little firsthand research.
5. The sheer existence of a thriving, empire-conquering early
Christian church supports the truth of the resurrection claim.
The church spread on the power of the testimony that Jesus was raised
from the dead and that God had thus made him both Lord and Christ
(Acts 2:36). The Lordship of Christ over all nations is based on his
victory over death. This is the message that spread all over the
world. Its power to cross cultures and create one new people of God
was a strong testimony of its truth.
6. The Apostle Paul's conversion supports the truth of the
resurrection.
He argues to a partially unsympathetic audience in Galatians 1:11-17
that his gospel comes from the risen Jesus Christ, not from men. His
argument is that before his Damascus Road experience when he saw the
risen Jesus, he was violently opposed to the Christian faith (Acts
9:1). But now, to everyone's astonishment, he is risking his life for
the gospel (Acts 9:24-25). His explanation: The risen Jesus appeared
to him and authorized him to spearhead the Gentile mission (Acts
26:15-18). Can we credit such a testimony? This leads to the next
argument.
7. The New Testament witnesses do not bear the stamp of dupes or
deceivers.
How do you credit a witness? How do you decide whether to believe a
person's testimony? The decision to give credence to a person's
testimony is not the same as completing a mathematical equation. The
certainty is of a different kind, yet can be just as firm (I trust my
wife's testimony that she is faithful). When a witness is dead, we
can base our judgment of him only on the content of his writings and
the testimonies of others about him. How do Peter and John and
Matthew and Paul stack up?
In my judgment (and at this point we can live authentically only by
our own judgment—Luke 12:57), these men's writings do not read like
the works of gullible, easily deceived or deceiving men. Their
insights into human nature are profound. Their personal commitment is
sober and carefully stated. Their teachings are coherent and do not
look like the invention of unstable men. The moral and spiritual
standard is high. And the lives of these men are totally devoted to
the truth and to the honor of God.
8. There is a self-authenticating glory in the gospel of Christ's
death and resurrection as narrated by the biblical witnesses.
The New Testament teaches that God sent the Holy Spirit to glorify
Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus said, "When the Spirit of truth comes,
he will guide you into all the truth.... He will glorify me" (John
16:13). The Holy Spirit does not do this by telling us that Jesus
rose from the dead. He does it by opening our eyes to see the self-
authenticating glory of Christ in the narrative of his life and death
and resurrection. He enables us to see Jesus as he really was, so
that he is irresistibly true and beautiful. The apostle stated the
problem of our blindness and the solution like this: "The god of this
world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God.... For God, who said, `Let light shine out of
darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:4,
6).
A saving knowledge of Christ crucified and risen is not the mere
result of right reasoning about historical facts. It is the result of
spiritual illumination to see those facts for what they really are: a
revelation of the truth and glory of God in the face of Christ—who is
the same yesterday today and forever.