THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST: FACT OR FABLE?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundational truth of the Christian faith.  Take that away, and nothing else matters.  Listen to Paul’s words in 1 Cor.15:13-19.  

“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”

Can we really believe that Christ arose?  The resurrection of Christ—is it fact or fable?  Here is some evidence to consider from a physician’s account in Luke 24:1-12. 

Fact #1: THE STONE WAS REMOVED. “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. (v. 1-2). 

This is important for several reasons.  First, it was a massive stone, guarded by armed soldiers, (cf. Matt.27:62-28:4, 11-15).  Secondly, it was not removed to let Jesus out, but the witnesses in, (cf. Mark 16:2-5).  One theory the skeptics put forth is that Jesus only appeared to be dead, and after being in the tomb, revived and came out.  Right…He fooled the professional executioners, who stuck a spear right into His heart.  Without medical attention, He not only survived burial, but got well.  Then He rolled the stone away and escaped the guards.  It is far easier to believe the truth of the resurrection than that kind of nonsense!

Fact #2: THE BODY WAS GONE. “Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus,” (v. 3). The disciples were in no condition to steal the body.  They were terrorized by the events, holed up like scared rabbits.  Then, there was the problem of the stone and the soldiers as we’ve already seen.  Some skeptics suggest that the authorities removed His body, so it couldn’t be stolen.  Had that been the case, and the disciples began to preach the resurrection, all they would have had to do was produce the corpse—case closed and Christianity killed.  But, there was no body!  The tomb was empty and it still is!

Fact #3: THE WOMEN WERE SHOCKED. “And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead?’ “ (v. 4-5).  Still another argument is that the disciples wanted to believe Jesus would be raised from the dead so much that they convinced themselves it was true; the disciples then were delusional, kind of a mass hallucination.  The fact is that none of them expected Him to rise.  The women were going to embalm a body.  They were shocked as any that Christ’s corpse was not there!

Fact # 4: THE TESTIMONY WAS GIVEN. “ ‘He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘ “ ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’ ” ‘ And they remembered His words. Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. (v. 6-10).  The women heard the incredible explanation from the angels that were there, and they eagerly went and told it.  This is significant also.  In those days, women were second-class citizens.  Their testimony carried with it no credibility in a courtroom.  If you were making up a story—some grand conspiracy—as the skeptics will argue, then you would have had men giving the first testimony and not women!  The only way that women would be chosen is because this is what really happened!

Fact #5: THE STORY WAS REJECTED. “And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them,” (v. 11).  The testimony of the women is met with skepticism.  They did not believe it.  They would not have believed it, unless Jesus really met them and rose from the dead (24:33-43).  The first skeptics were the disciples themselves!  Do you recall the reaction of Thomas to the report of the resurrection? 

“Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ So he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’ And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace to you!’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ ” (John‬ ‭20‬:‭24‬-‭29‬‬).

Then, weigh the witness of the hateful opponent of Christianity’s witness to the Risen Christ, who was converted to a faithful proponent of the Resurrected Lord. Here is what Paul wrote:

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” (1 Cor. 15:3-11)  

This is an undeniable transformation of a man who was turned from an antagonist to an apostle, from a persecutor to a preacher. There is no other reasonable explanation for the conversion of Saul the Pharisee to Paul the Apostle except that He met the risen and glorified Christ on the Damascus Road!

As concerning any historical claim—how do we know the reliability of events we ourselves did not observe?  For instance, how do we know there was a real man named Alexander the Great?  How do we know that Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492?  How do we know Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet?  All we have is the testimony of reliable witnesses. Yet, we accept these as facts. So, we can believe the testimony of eyewitnesses, and especially of converted skeptics and haters!

Fact #6:  THE EVENT WAS INVESTIGATED. “But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.” (v. 12). What Peter saw convinced him.  The linen burial cloths were intact—just empty—as though someone had passed right through them!  A grave robber would have torn everything apart.  What a change this produced in Peter—from cowardice to courage.  He was willing to suffer and die for the cause.  People don’t do that for what they know to be a lie.  Nothing can explain this transformation apart from the reality of the resurrection.  

Jesus is still in the life-changing business!  If Jesus did not rise, nothing else matters.  If He did, then everything else the Scriptures claim and command must be taken to heart.  

“ ‘Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.’ ” (Acts‬ ‭17‬:‭30‬-‭31‬‬)

DEAD, BUT NOT DORMANT

“Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior! Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!” So, tomorrow, we will sing and celebrate, “Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes!” 

Yet, what of that in-between time, when His body was sealed in the sepulcher?  Peter tells us that though His crucified body was in a tomb, His spirit was very much alive and active, (1 Pet. 3:18). Christ was dead, but not dormant.

The Bible does not teach, “soul sleep.”  Paul said, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,” (2 Cor.‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬‬).  Neither was Jesus in a state of unconsciousness between His death and resurrection. 

The Old Testament term for the world of the dead is Sheol and the New Testament word is Hades. According to the story our Lord told of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, there were two areas where the souls of the dead would dwell: “torment” for the wicked and “Abraham’s bosom” (figurative language for “paradise”). Recall that Jesus promised the dying thief, “today you will be with Me in Paradise,” (Lk. 23:43). Thus, when Jesus died physically, He was alive spiritually—closing His eyes on Calvary, He opened them in Paradise. He was dead, but not dormant.

What did He do during that time?  We know that in Sheol/Hades there is “a great gulf fixed,” so that none can cross over from perdition to paradise or vice versa, (Lk. 16:26), yet they can converse as we hear the rich man in torment crying out to “Father Abraham,” for a drop of water to be brought to him by Lazarus, (Lk. 16:24) and Abraham responds to him with the impossibility of that. They communicate with each other. Jesus was spiritually in paradise with the repentant thief that very day as He promised. He was there and “preached to the spirits in prison,” (1 Pet. 3:19). 

This was not an evangelistic sermon. The decision of where we will spend eternity is made in this lifetime—with no “second chance” after death. It was in this case a proclamation “to the spirits in prison, who were formerly disobedient…in the days of Noah.”  In torment, these fallen demons were locked away in a special prison. Peter would add this in his second epistle, “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;” (2:4). The Greek word for “hell” is Tartarus, the name of that special compartment in torment for these wicked demons to be imprisoned. 

Jude speaks of them also, “And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;”(Jude‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬‬).

It is my understanding that these demons in some fashion inhabited human form and were used by Satan—the Prince of Demons—to corrupt the human race by sexual relations with human women in Noah’s day, (cf. Gen. 6:1-8). The Serpent had been told after he seduced Adam and Eve in the Garden, “ ‘And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.’ ” (Gen.‬ ‭3‬:‭15‬‬). If the Devil could corrupt “the daughters of men,” (Gen. 6:1), then there would be no seed of woman to crush his head!  It would have worked, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD,” (Gen. 6:8).

Satan persisted in attempts to fully corrupt the nation of Israel and thus no Messiah would be born. Yet, God always had a remnant of believers. Even, when Messiah came, the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Yet, Christ remained sinless and on the cross, though the Seed of woman had His heel bruised—the Lord’s suffering and physical death—by that means, crushed the Serpent’s head!

So, Christ descended into the realm of the dead and proclaimed His victory over the Devil and his demonic hordes!

As bad as this sermon was for the imprisoned demons, it was glorious for the people of God in paradise. You see, the Old Testament saints were saved by faith in Christ just like we are—Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and all the redeemed (cf. Heb. 11).  They were saved by looking ahead to Christ’s atoning work on the cross, whereas we look back to it. Those saved in the Old Testament were saved by “the lay-away plan.”  You know how you find a Christmas gift for someone, so you don’t want it reserved. It is put in lay-away, until the price is paid, and then you possess it. So, the Old Testament saints went to paradise, or “Abraham’s bosom,” so to speak, until Christ would pay the price of their redemption. After His resurrection, and His ascension, He would empty that compartment in Hades and take the souls of those Old Testament believers to Heaven and into the presence of the Father. “Therefore He says: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.’ (Now this, ‘He ascended’—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)” (Eph. ‭4‬:‭8‬-‭10‬‬). 

He was dead, but not dormant!