I watched The Passion of The Christ movie Thursday evening with my son Ram and this movie is known for some of its gruesome and horrifying scenes like the scourging part. One of my favorite scenes was the last part, inside the tomb when Jesus stood up, with holes in his hands. It gives me a visual of that glorious resurrection Sunday when Jesus rose again from the grave!
I remember the time when the body of my friend Timothy was being laid to rest. I was a very new Christian then and a lot of “what ifs” lingered in my mind. Tim lived the last few years of his life as a faithful believer and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ but I cannot help but think ---
“What if Christianity is wrong?”
“What if there is no life after death?”
"What if all that he believed in is just a delusion?"
"What if the Bible is just a collection of mythical stories and the faith that we have believed to be true is a hoax?”
Have you ever had those doubts? Have you ever had those questions in your mind? One of the things that were really hard for me to understand was the resurrection.
Even during our time today especially here in North America, life after death or resurrection is constantly under attack. Some people say there is no afterlife and it is just a "fairy story of people afraid of the dark.[1]" But come to think of it, is it even logically accurate for anyone to say that there is no life after death? At the time that person is saying that… he is still alive and he cannot be absolutely sure. The resurrection or the idea of life after death is being attacked because of the simple reason that some people would like to do get everything from their life at present no matter what the consequences would be. "Well if there is no life after death, then, I better get what I can now."
The City of Corinth has been influenced greatly by the Greeks. The Greeks had a well known philosophy “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die!” Since they don’t believe that the body can resurrect so whatever pleasure and delight you want to do with your body, do it now. These kinds of teachings likewise show up even in advertising today. Live life. Laugh out loud. This is the only chance you got!
I believe the Empty Tomb is the pinnacle of Christ’s ministry here on earth. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not undermining the cross. We got saved because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. But come to think of it, a lot of people have also sacrificed their lives for a cause that they believed in. A lot of people have died for something in the pages of history – some of them are really for good and noble causes. But I don’t think we would even hear about the Gospel if the story of Jesus’ ministry just ended on the cross… if it ended after His death. Do you know what happened to the disciples of Jesus after He was crucified? Did they lead a revolution? No! Did they attack the temple of the Pharisees who persecuted Jesus? No! Did they appoint a successor of Jesus and continued to fight Rome? No! They went into hiding. They were fearful for their lives. They were wimping like a dog. Some of them have lost hope - their master was gone. Jesus died. Some of them even got back to their old jobs like fishing. Life moves on and most of them were trying to forget.
If you read verses 3-7,Paul is explicitly explaining here that there were actual witnesses to the Resurrection. He said, the resurrected Christ appeared to Peter, then to the disciples, then to more than 500 most of whom are still living. What’s the significance of this statement? It simply means that if the Corinthian church has some doubts about the resurrection… they can ask the eyewitnesses themselves and verify with them because some of them are still alive while he was writing the epistle.
In the verses that followed (v. 12 - 22), Paul has posed an important "what if" question. He said "What if Christ has not resurrected?" Following is an enumeration of the consequences for Paul's question.
If there is no Empty Tomb:
1. All preaching would have been a waste of time
2. The Christian faith would be useless.
3. The apostles will be called "liars."
4. All our sins of the past are still with us
5. Those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.
6. We, Christians, of all people, are most to be pitied at.
Five Lines of Biblical evidence to the Empty Tomb [2]
1. The Peculiarity of the Primary Witness
Who was the very first witness to the Empty Tomb? It was Mary Magdalene. (read John 20) The first witness to the empty tomb was a woman. Why is that so? Why Mary Magdalene? Some people say God used a woman so that the news of the risen Christ will spread like wildfire. In both the Jewish and Roman cultures, women were 2nd class citizens. Their testimony was regarded worthless. If resurrection is a hoax, the perpetrators will never ever chose women as primary witnesses. The fact that women are the first witnesses simply means that – whether we like it or not - that's what happened, they really discovered the empty tomb! This shows that the Gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was so embarrassing for the believers at that time.
2. The enemies’ confirmation that there was an Empty Tomb
The chief priests confirmed that there was an Empty Tomb and they even bribed the soldiers who were guarding the tomb to make up a story saying that while they were sleeping, the disciples of Jesus took His body. Well, the next question there is: if they were sleeping, how come they knew that the body was stolen by the disciples? And are they not supposed to be “guarding” and not sleeping?
3. The conversion of skeptics and persecutors like James and Paul himself
Paul was known to be a violent persecutor of the early Church. After what he described as an encounter with the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul underwent a drastic change from a vicious persecutor of the Church to one of its most prolific and selfless defenders. James was skeptical, though not as hostile as Paul. An encounter with the resurrected Christ turned him not only as a believer but as a key leader of the Church in Jerusalem.
4. The place where the resurrection took place.
We know that Jesus was publicly executed and buried in Jerusalem. It would have been impossible for faith in His resurrection to take root in Jerusalem if His body was still in the tomb there somewhere. The authorities can easily exhume it, put it on public display, and thereby expose the hoax – but they cannot produce the body because the tomb was empty.
There are three possible reasons for the empty tomb:
• The disciples stole the body – but this is impossible, first, there were guards and the disciples were fearful for their lives, the second reason why we are certain that they did not steal the body – I will tell you later.
• The tomb was not empty because Jesus did not actually die – but Christ was beaten, tortured, and stabbed. Nobody could survive such an ordeal, sit in his tomb for three days without medical attention, food or water, remove that massive stone, escape undetected (without leaving behind a trail of blood), convince hundreds of eyewitnesses that He was resurrected from the death and in good health, and then disappear without a trace.
• The third and only logical reason why the tomb was empty – Jesus has indeed resurrected.
5. For me, the most important proof of resurrection are the: Eyewitness testimonies with their dramatic & inexplicable change in faith
The Bible talked about more than 500 people who have seen the risen Christ, that includes the disciples. In a typical court of law, all you need is a corroborating testimony of at least two witnesses for that testimony to be acceptable but here we have more than 500. It is not logical for the disciples to hide the body. The disciples and the early Christians willfully endured prolonged torture and death rather than to retract their testimony. This fact attests to their sincerity, ruling out deception on their part. According to the historical record, most Christians could end their suffering simply by renouncing the faith. Why would they give up their lives for something they know is a fake? What makes the earliest Christian martyrs remarkable is that they knew whether or not what they were professing was true. They either saw Jesus Christ alive-and-well after His death or they did not. This is extraordinary. If it was all just a lie, why would they all knowingly cling to such lie in the face of persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death? The 9-11 suicide bombers undoubtedly believed what they professed, because they died for it but they could not and did not know if it was true. They put their faith in traditions passed down to them over many generations.
In contrast, the early Christian martyrs were first generation. Either they saw what they claimed to see, or they did not. The Apostles collectively underwent an undeniable change following the resurrection. They took to the streets, boldly proclaiming the resurrection despite intensifying persecution. What accounts for their sudden and dramatic change? It certainly was not financial gain. The Apostles gave up everything they had to preach the resurrection, including their lives.
There are likewise extra-Biblical accounts of the resurrection and the early church. These are from from historical records:
From Flavius Josephus, Jewish Historian in his book Antiquities, Article 18.63-64 (A.D. 94)
“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man [if indeed one ought to call him a man.] For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Christ.] When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.] And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
From Tacitus, Roman Historian & Senator from his writings called Annals
Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius… an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. … they were torn by dogs … or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination … Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.
There is no way these early Christians will undergo these extreme persecutions for something that they believe to be a lie. It doesn’t make sense! No wonder the gospel of Christ has reached our generation and is continuing to expand because we know and we believe that we are serving and worshiping the risen Christ. This is one thing that separates Christ from any other important figure in History. Paul is correct when he said in verse 20 that:
Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!
This verse means a lot to all of us. It means a lot to those first generation Christians who willingly gave up their lives for something that they have seen and they have believed to be true.
When you confront the glorious fact that Jesus rose from the dead it answers all the doubts. It means that we too can rise with him in eternity. Yes it is true that man has fallen because of sin, during the time of Adam but through Christ, we have the promise of resurrection.
If we are in Christ, we shall be resurrected as well in our glorified bodies!
Now that you know the truth about resurrection, will your lives drastically change as well? Will you become like the early Christians that despite the persecutions and trials and sufferings, they still persevered and they stayed faithful to their cause until the very last breath that they had… because they knew, even if they are being burned alive… even if they are being fed to the lions, even if they are being torn by dogs… even if they are being crucified… their last dying breath… was actually not their last. Because they are certain that one day… like Jesus Christ… we too shall be resurrected.
One of the greatest defense lawyers of our time is Sir Lionel Luckhoo he was in the Guinness Book of World Records his unprecedented 245 consecutive defense murder trial acquittals. This legal expert wrote,
“I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”
Do you have that same confidence Christ’s resurrection?
Do you believe that you too shall rise again?
Prayer
Wherever you are, whatever you situation you may be -- you need the love of Jesus in your life.
Please say this prayer sincerely from your heart:
Father God, I confess all my sins to you today. Please forgive me. Today, I open my heart to your Son Jesus Christ. I accept Him in my life as my Savior and as my Lord. May the Holy Spirit come to my life and make me the kind of person you want me to be. In Jesus Name, I pray. Amen.Please say this prayer sincerely from your heart:
The above article is an excerpt from a sermon delivered at WCF Richmond on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015.
I apologize if there are grammatical and spelling errors.
I also apologize if I have missed acknowledging or making proper references to my sources, if any. as it is purely unintentional.
If you are looking for a church in British Columbia, Canada please visit our website at:
www.wordchristianfellowship.com
www.wordchristianfellowship.com
[1] - quoted from Stephen Hawking, Cosmologist and Research Director at Cambridge University
[2] - Source: Why I Should Believe in the Resurrection - Gotquestions.org
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