The Good Friday Message
Why I Believe in the Resurrection
I considered myself a Christian, in my early twenties, but I was a doubter. One day I realized that my beliefs actually hinged on the resurrection of Christ. If the resurrection could be disproven, then my faith would fail as well. In the words of the apostle Paul, I would then be “without hope” and “of all men most miserable.”
The disciples ended up being martyrs for their faith, including Paul, who is the author of many of the New Testament epistles. They would have died for nothing. In the end this became one of the most convincing “evidences” for me of the resurrection.
The issue people have with the resurrection is the same issue they have with the virgin birth and the miracles of Christ. It is a disbelief in the God of the miraculous. Some still claim to believe in God, but not in miracles.
Our age of reason has caused us to subject the Scriptures to our intellect and in some cases to reject it. If miracles happen then we have to consider that something beyond our understanding is at work. The central miracle of all is the resurrection. But rejecting the miracle of the resurrection has a further implication in that it makes liars out of the disciples and apostles of the New Testament. This became another strongly convincing argument since lying did not appear to be characteristic of Christ or his disciples. Were they so determined to create a new religion around Christ that they fabricated his resurrection? Not likely.
The boldness in evidence in the ministry of the disciples, as recorded in the book of Acts, is strongly convincing. We are not generally prepared to lay down our lives for something we know to be a lie.
Fortunately, for me, I was in Bible College at the time I entertained my doubts and these were addressed. The question was, would I become convinced? I couldn’t simply believe that an empty tomb, testimony of disciples seeing Christ alive, along with a story of angels who professed that Christ was risen, was sufficient evidence. At one time it had been enough for me. I believed the account. But now I kept wondering if these stories were fabricated.
I admit I was a skeptic. Being a seeker is a good thing, but being a skeptic is only good if you are also open-minded. I am glad that I was open and determined to know with more certainty if my faith had a solid foundation.
Historically, I knew the evidence was there that Jesus lived and died the death of a criminal on the cross. That much was undeniable. Nobody disputed this, but it was convenient to think he merely died like any other man. That did not require a response of faith.
Yes, like many others, my belief about Jesus was that he was a remarkable teacher and a good man. I wanted reason to guide me and not “faith” in something that may or may not have been. I didn’t see, at the time, that even my reason was inconsistent. Jesus claimed to be God, as recorded in the New Testament teachings. A good man would be thought to be not only deceptive but delusional if he claimed to be God. In fact this was the main issue the Jewish leaders had with Jesus. If he was God then his authority exceeded their own. Then their religion would be shaken to its foundation. They felt compelled to do away with this man and his miracles because he was influencing the people.
As a skeptic, of course, doubt coloured my whole view of the writings of the Bible. It caused me to question the prophetic messages of the Old Testament, the virgin birth of Christ, and his miracles. In short, I questioned the authenticity of the Bible itself.
I was not rejecting the Bible because it was the popular thing to do. I just wanted the truth.
I had spent some years in church, although I didn’t grow up in a typically religious family. My parents became Christians when I was fourteen. My Bible reading extended to verses that comforted and encouraged me. I began to see that my faith did not have an unshakable base and this was somewhat of a crisis for me. I was at a point of decision. Either I was going to reject Christianity as an unreliable story, or I was going to be convinced and never be moved from my faith again.
I had never rigorously wrestled with matters of faith until I attended Bible College and now I saw that some of my beliefs were not consistent. I began to see that the story of the resurrection of Christ was central and critical to all I professed to believe to this point. If the resurrection could be dismantled, then my faith would fail. If I could be convinced of the resurrection, then that would require surrender to the entire message of the Bible.
Today is Good Friday. Christianity with its message of the cross has endured for over two thousand years. This to me is a great testimony to the validity of the message of the resurrection. A made up story about a man who rose from the dead, in my view, could not endure very long so I have had to confront the explanation of the power of a resurrection story. I also had to reckon with the fact that that the disciples hid in fear behind locked doors after the death of Christ. They fled when Jesus was arrested. Peter followed at a distance and denied Christ three times. They thought they would be the next in line to be arrested, I’m sure. As I already mentioned, the later transformation of the disciples is a piece of convincing evidence we cannot ignore.
Strangely, there does not seem to be any controversy around the empty tomb. Nobody in history disputes that the tomb was empty. However, the credibility of the explanation we are offered for the empty tomb is in question. Supposedly the disciples stole the body of Christ. Supposedly they did this in order to create a new religion around a resurrected Christ. I think even their own community would have had a significant problem with this. Try convincing hundreds of people that a man you knew was dead man, rose from the dead, without encountering a few real skeptics. The disciples, however, were convinced and for me the only explanation is that they saw Christ, resurrected.
But this is not the only problem surrounding rejection of the resurrection story. Guards were placed before the tomb. For what reason? Exactly for the reason expressed—in order to prevent the disciples from stealing the body and claiming Jesus had risen, as he said he would. Yes, Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection, but if you deny the truth of the teaching of Jesus, as recorded in the four gospels by four different authors, then you can deny this too.
Now, strangely, the disciples, according to the account of the gospels, seemed to have forgotten that Jesus said he would rise from the dead. Women went to the tomb early, on the first day of the week, to bring anointing oils and spices for the body. It was the women who first announced the empty tomb. These are not the ambassadors likely to be chosen to proclaim a resurrection, if you want to create a credible narrative.
Evidence began to mount for me, in favor of the resurrection. But I was still not fully convinced. It was the fact that the guards of the tomb were not executed when they failed in their one duty, that tipped the scales for me. We read that they fell as dead men when there was an earthquake and the stone was rolled away from the tomb. Maybe they passed out, but when they came to, they hurried to report to Pilate that the tomb was empty and were accompanied along the way by the leading Jews, who in the meantime fabricated what they thought would be a believable narrative—the disciples stole the body. This is how they managed to prevent the execution of the guards. It would reflect badly on them if innocent guards were executed.
There were two other evidences that added to my persuasion. There was darkness in the land for three hours while Jesus was on the cross and, as he died, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom.
We read that the disciples were told, by a resurrected Christ, to remain in Jerusalem until they would be “endued” with power from on high. They did not immediately go out and talk about the resurrection. They waited for a momentous event, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had told them to wait for the “Comforter” who would be with them and in them. On the day referred to today as the Day of Pentecost, the disciples heard a rushing wind and saw what appeared as tongues of fire resting on each one of the gathered group of people. After this event they were transformed and in various languages began to “speak the word of God with boldness.” Miraculous signs of healing accompanied their message. This presence of “Christ among us” was more earth shattering than his physical appearance to them after his resurrection. In fact I have always wondered why Christ’s post-resurrection appearances seemed so anticlimactic. It was as though a cloud of doubt prevailed. Until the Day of Pentecost.
Many Christian churches do not embrace the Pentecostal experience as relevant for believers today. They consider that it was a historical event that remains part of the past. I was of the same mind until my mid-teens when I heard for the first time that the Baptism in the Holy Spirit was an actual experience for some believers. At a tent meeting where people were prayed for, just as they were in the book of Acts, to receive the Holy Ghost, I went forward for prayer. I did not know what to expect. What happened was entirely unexpected. I felt something like an electrical shock go through my body and then I began to speak in tongues. Later when I was in Bible College I questioned my experience of speaking in tongues. I thought maybe I made it up. I had actually laid it aside because the college did not believe the baptism was for today. But then I had an experience that changed my mind. Someone I knew threatened suicide and as I was praying in desperation on my knees, alone in my living room, another language began to flow from me. I didn’t question it again.
The supernatural has been a point of contention among Christians and I will be the first to confess that I am very leery of supposed “manifestations” of the Holy Spirit. I have been a personal witness to many abuses and counterfeits, but this is expected to be the case, unfortunately, when there is access to power, and such convincing, authoritative and supernatural power. Even in the book of Acts we seen the disciples were offered money for this power. Of course they discerned this request as ungodly but it still happens today.
As someone said, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Throw out the bathwater, but keep the baby. Something as spectacular as the demonstration of the power of God through miracles is bound to be imitated and counterfeited. Christians have tried to find the “formula” for the power, but there is no such thing. God is still sovereign and he will show his power as he wills. The battle has been over “faith” since faith is what moves the hand of God. Either people don’t have faith, or they don’t have enough, or they don’t have the right kind of faith, or they have a misapplication of faith—all of these things have been blamed. As a result people feel guilty and end up striving.
We will always wrestle to understand the ways of God. We will never be able to fully explain why one person is healed and another is not. Yes, I have seen healing occur. I have witnessed deliverance from evil spirits. I believe in the supernatural. But I still reserve the right to be skeptical. The fruit of the Holy Spirit, we are told, is “love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness faith, meekness, temperance, long-suffering. My confidence is that if we are to “abide” in Christ and fruit is more important than signs. Signs follow. We can certainly expect to see evidence of a power similar to that of the resurrection. We also have to allow that if Jesus was accurate in predicting his resurrection, then he will return, as he said, to receive to himself those for whom he has prepared an eternal residence. But Jesus reminded his disciples that having our names written in the Book of Life is of much greater significance than any miracle on earth.
Although these facts surrounding the resurrection may not be convincing on their own, when combined, they are powerful evidence. Here is a summary of what convinced me to believe in the resurrection.
1. The church has endured over millenia.
2. Frightened and cowardly disciples suddenly became powerhouses, willing to die for their faith.
3. There was an empty tomb. A body was never found. If you were making up a resurrection story, it would seem unlikely to have a couple of women be the first to share the message of the empty tomb, since women were not regarded as leaders within the culture. On the other hand, the unanticipated discovery by women might also be disputed to be a clever and subtly convincing insert if one wants to believe this was a fabrication. That aside, the tomb was empty.
4. The tomb was sealed and guarded by an imperial guard, in order to prevent the spread of the rumour that Christ’s body was stolen. Why ensure the body will not be stolen and then claim it was stolen?
5. Upon the failure of the guard, the outcome should have been execution for the guards, according to Roman law, but this was not the case. This is mystifying. It would have been impossible to have innocent Roman guards executed, without an outcry from family and friends, especially in service of the lowly esteemed Jews. It was also not possible for Jewish leaders to say the guards were executed if this was not the case. The guards themselves were in a predicament, risking humiliation, so they accepted the “out” of saying the body was stolen, unconvincing as it was that they were overpowered by a group of ragtag disciples.
6. Surely there would have been at least a few skeptics among the community of believers who would not have allowed the concoction and perpetration of a lie. The New Testament account attests to over five hundred eye witness encounters with Christ after his resurrection, and they also witnessed his ascension. Skeptics within could easily have brought down this new “faith” if it did not have actual substance.
7. It was also entirely contrary to the basic tenets of Christian faith and the Jewish heritage to bear false witness.
All put together this is convincing evidence for me. If I factor in my personal experience, after I believed, it is truly indisputable.
Faith Insights 