by Scott H. Northrup
This week Christians everywhere prepare to celebrate the greatest event in human history, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. I think it is thus fitting to present to our many skeptical friends just a few of the many evidences that exist for the resurrection.
The first evidence is what Jesus Himself declared about the purpose and destiny of His life. By the New Testament account, Jesus would disagree with those who would say, "Oh, it's really just the teachings of Jesus that are important to us. Whether he was raised from the dead is speculative and irrelevant." On the contrary, Jesus taught that He came to give His life as a ransom, that after His body was destroyed He would raise it up again in three days, and that He had the power to lay down His life and to take it back up again. Not a good message for someone purporting to be a "good teacher."
The second evidence is the sudden and remarkable transformation of the disciples. From a cowardly, simpering bunch who ran away when Jesus was arrested, who denied Him to avoid the reproach of a maid in the courtyard, these disciples were transformed in a few short days by something very dramatic - the resurrection! Only 50 days later Peter stood up before thousands in Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost, risking arrest and punishment, and preached a bold and audacious sermon wholly founded on the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, the resurrection is propounded by Peter as being the explanation of Jesus' death, fulfillment of prophecy regarding the Messiah, witnessed by a multitude of apostles, the cause of the outpouring of the Spirit, and certifying the Messianic identity of Jesus. Peter's message is gone without the resurrection. And it would have been a simple matter for hard-headed hearers, living in Jerusalem, to simply produce the body - but they could not. Peter and the disciples staunchly maintained their position on the resurrection with heroic constancy and unflinching courage, all the way to a martyr's death, never recanting. And it is these same disciples that transmitted to the world its noblest and highest ethical teaching, who penned, "Love is patient, love is kind..." This kind of moral fortitude doesn't fit with the idea that these same disciples fabricated and foisted upon the world some heartless, fantasmic hoax.
Third is the emphasis placed on Christ's resurrection by the early church itself. To these witnesses it was an absolute and non-negotiable point for which they were willing to face severe persecution and even death. And there is no historical record of any argument among early Christian groups as to whether this event really took place, or as to how it should be interpreted. Near the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul declares that the message of first importance is "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was resurrected on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared...to more than five hundred people at one time (after His resurrection)." According to Paul and the whole New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus is the most important message of all time - the Christian gospel in a nutshell. All of Christianity rises and falls on that one fundamental fact, for as Paul declares, "If Christ has not been resurrected, then our preaching is worthless." Standing before the sophisticated intellectual crowd at Athens, the learned Paul was willing to commit intellectual suicide by claiming that Jesus was raised from the dead and that He is coming again.
All of the millions upon millions of Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims are quite content to agree that their founders never came back from the dead in resurrection. Only Christianity claims an empty tomb. There are many more evidences and little space here to present them. But if you are an honest seeker after the truth, you owe it to yourself and to your children to investigate this matter further, and see if these things be so.
@ copyright 2005 by Scott H. Northrup. All rights reserved.