TWO thousand years ago a working-class Jew in Israel was executed by the Roman authorities at the instigation of Jewish religious leaders. He was buried, yet rose again, and history pivoted. The lives of billions were renewed; as a result old nations fell and new arose, cultures and science developed, all was changed utterly.
Yet everything centres on this question: ‘Did Jesus rise from the dead on the first Easter Day?’
He Lived Only the most obscurantist atheist would deny the abundant evidence that Jesus of Nazareth lived in Israel in the first century AD and was executed. Even Richard Dawkins grudgingly agrees that the idea Jesus never existed is ‘not widely supported’. Atheist Professor Bart D Ehrman, a respected historian and author, goes further when he writes that Jesus ‘certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on certain and clear evidence’.
Who was Jesus? Perhaps, as many claim, He was merely a good man who wandered ancient Israel preaching, teaching and doing good works. Maybe the Muslims are correct when they assert he was only a prophet. Christians believe His claim to be God in the flesh, and that He experienced real life as one of us knowing our problems and temptations. He died paying the price for our sin, and after His burial He rose again and still lives.
The life and teaching of the early church revolved around His resurrection. The resurrection is referred to more than 100 times in the New Testament and mentioned in nearly every book. There are 13 sermons recorded in the Book of Acts: all are brief and straightforward and all centre on the fact that Jesus is alive and can change lives. Every recorded sermon was an Easter sermon.
A Myth? Liberal Christians and others argue that there was no literal resurrection. They claim the resurrection should be understood as a myth. This conclusion is inevitable for those who approach the question presupposing the impossibility of miracles. For them resurrection becomes simply a term to describe the joy of the first disciples when they, due to their deep longing and belief that Jesus would rise again, deceived themselves into thinking Jesus really was alive. Liberals argue that everyone can experience this resurrection joy if they accept Jesus as their Saviour.
However, the Bible insists that the resurrection was a historical event. The dead Jesus was physically placed in a tomb and on the third day, before any disciple experienced the joy of believing a myth, He rose from the dead. On that first Easter day grieving disciples found an empty tomb with the grave clothes lying discarded, and their sorrow turned into joy. They believed the plain evidence; that was what turned their despair into wonder.
Subsequently Jesus appeared to witnesses, as many as 500 at one time, as well as individuals including Paul who wrote of it in I Corinthians 15:1-8. The disciples did not indulge in wishful thinking and fool themselves into believing Jesus was alive. It is historical fact that no one ever confessed, freely or under pressure, bribed or under torture that the resurrection didn’t happen, that it was a lie, a deliberate deception or a hallucination. Some Christians broke under pressure and were tortured into denying Christ and worshipping Caesar, but there is no record of any ever confessing that the resurrection was anything but historical fact.
Numerous arguments disprove the myth theory. The first witnesses of the resurrection were women who because of their low social status in the culture would not have been used as reliable witnesses for anyone attempting to create a resurrection myth. The New Testament writers were well acquainted with the difference between myth and fact, and would not confuse the two (2 Peter 1:16). These hard-headed working men and women realised that all the things they had never fully understood in Jesus’s teaching now made sense.
We should beware of the chronological arrogance which assumes that people in biblical times were gullible pre-scientific hicks, easily fooled into believing what they knew was impossible. These people were much more directly acquainted with death than we moderns are. They knew Jesus was dead and that He was alive.
These disciples were simple, common working-class men and women who proved their sincerity by their words and deeds. The resurrected Christ was at the core of their preaching and the centre of their lives. They willingly died for what liberals describe as a myth. Can we imagine twelve poor, fearful peasants changing the hard-nosed Roman world with a fable?
The importance of the Resurrection The textual evidence for the reliability of the New Testament far surpasses every other ancient historical document. Nothing else is even remotely close. The number of manuscripts, their historical closeness to the events described, and the carefulness and exactness with which they were copied demonstrate the importance Christians have accorded Scripture. That kind of care was taken to preserve vital truth, not myth.
The New Testament writers insisted that the resurrection was historical fact, that the tomb was empty. Paul tells us that if the resurrection didn’t happen, the Christian faith is useless (I Corinthians 15:13-14). We have to ask, would an intellectual like Paul hang his entire argument on an easily disproved assertion? Would the first disciples have faced death for a myth? Would the early church have endured vicious persecution for a fable?
That the resurrection physically happened is unavoidable truth. There are too many arguments brought against it to deal with them all here, but every argument against can be disproved. The real question is, how do you respond?
It is possible thoroughly to investigate the evidence for and against the resurrection and come to the conclusion that it happened as the Bible describes. We then have to decide whether or not we will put that to the side and ignore it, or accept the truth and accept the risen Christ and His offer of new life. This is the most important question we will ever face, and no one else can answer it for us.
