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This study will show that Jesus' resurrection from the dead is no myth. It is one of the
most reliably corroborated facts in ancient history.
Is the empty tomb a fact or a fraud?
Today, the gospel story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is under assault as never
before. It's detractors would have us believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and others
only fabricated the story of the resurrection. They would have us believe Jesus is dead;
that He either never rose from the tomb, or that He did not actually die at Calvary. But
both are preposterous notions, to be dismissed as certainly as other far-fetched claims -
that Jesus was secretly married, or that He was a homosexual, or that He had children,
etc. None of those claims have any legitimacy, especially in the light of certifiable
evidence to the contrary.
"Could fraudulent claims of Jesus' resurrection have survived if Jesus had not truly
risen?"
If Jesus really did come back from the dead after several days, after accurately predicting
His own resurrection, that would certainly be the most persuasive and noteworthy
argument in favor of the New Testament claims. On the other hand, if this man, who had
been brutally crucified, did not revive, then Christianity is the world's biggest hoax.
Historical realities must be taken into account.
This matter cannot be left to conjecture. There are historical facts to be considered. The
political system in authority at that time (the Roman government) went to great lengths to
conceal the evidences that Jesus was indeed alive. False witnesses (the Roman soldiers
who guarded the tomb) were given sums of money to report that Jesus' disciples had
stolen the body out of His tomb, according to Matthew 28:11-15. Their lies, however,
were rendered ineffective, because we find no historical evidence that their story ever got
any traction within the general public. Everybody knew that Jesus had risen. On the
subject of Jesus' resurrection, C.S. Lewis famously said, "If the thing happened, it was the
central event in the history of the earth." We should all agree. In fact, if Jesus had not
risen from the dead, His birth would never have become the dividing point on the
calendar. The author of "Skeptics Answered," Dr. D. James Kennedy, argued that one of
the most convincing evidences of Jesus' resurrection is the fact that virtually all of the
New Testament Christians declared that Jesus was alive, to their own personal detriment.
He proposed that anyone would have been fools for defending the resurrection story,
knowing that they would be persecuted or perhaps killed for taking that position. The
entire drama begs the question, "Why would thousands, even greater multitudes of people
allow themselves to be killed to defend a lie, or a faker, an impostor?" It is quite apparent
that Jesus' own friends, companions, peers and contemporaries had no doubts at all that
He had indeed risen from the dead. How can we overstate the significance of a man
returning from three days and nights in his grave? Never in the history of the world -
before or since - has it ever happened on that order, anywhere else. It is all the more
wondrous that Jesus specifically notified His followers that after three days, He would
rise.
Jesus prophesied His death, burial and resurrection after three days.
"And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be
rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three
days rise again," Mark 8:31. "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's
belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,"
Matthew 12:40. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up," John 2:19.
Jesus' prophecies were known far and wide. After His crucifixion, the Chief Priests and
Pharisees went to Pilate begging security guards to be placed at the tomb. Why? "Now
the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees
came together unto Pilate, Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was
yet alive, After three days I will rise again," Matthew 27:62-63. And that is exactly what
happened. The Roman guards could not prevent it. This was not some freakish event, or
spontaneous resuscitation. It was a divinely-orchestrated pre-ordained miracle. An even
more miraculous component is the fact that prophets had been foretelling it for centuries.
Among the billions of people who have ever lived on this planet in over six thousand
years of human history, not one single person in antiquity ever accomplished a similar
feat. None of the ancients are alive today with the exception of Jesus Christ.
Even the wealthiest and most powerful men on earth have no power to avoid death. No
exceptions. None of us had power or control over our own birth. Neither do we have the
power to avoid death and the grave, unless we happen to be alive when Jesus returns for
His living saints. Solomon, the wise man and preacher, wrote, "For to him that is joined
to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living
know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a
reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their
envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is
done under the sun," (Ecclesiastes 9:4-6).
What is more final than death?
In any other context, Jesus' death would have been the end of Him. But He was God
incarnate, and that made all the difference. Jesus' disciples must have been horrified when
they looked at His lifeless body hanging there on the cross on that eerily dark and
mysterious afternoon. For His disciples, the previous three years in Jesus' company had
been an exhilarating experience. They watched Him perform countless miracles and
healings. The blind could see, the deaf could hear, the lepers were purified, the crippled
could walk. They even saw Jesus raise several from the dead. Less than a week earlier,
they had paraded alongside Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem, as the people cheered
and worshipped Him as their King and Messiah. But in a lightning-fast chain of events
unfolding in less than one full day, He was captured, imprisoned, tried, convicted and
brutally murdered. The shock and awe of these terrifying events must have left their
minds numb. But even more breath-taking was the actual sight of Him standing again,
alive in their presence, only three days later! The things they saw and heard and reported
to the rest of the world have changed all the tides of history for all of time.