April 28, 2025
On this coming Sunday, millions of Christians around the world will celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Atheists will deny it. Agnostics will question it. Others will ignore it.
Paul Baxter, former pastor of First Baptist Church on the Square in LaGrange, in his marvelous apologetics treatise entitled, “In Answer to the Question ‘Why do I Believe’” references C. S. Lewis, the former atheist, who became perhaps the most eloquent spokesman for Christianity, and says, “Lewis came to believe that atheists could not answer questions about their disbelief while Christians do have answers in defense of their faith.”
Albert Henry Ross, who wrote under the pseudonym Frank Morison, was asked by the editor of a London newspaper to write articles on religion. Morison was an agnostic at best, but he had a keen interest to learn of Christ. The strangeness of the resurrection somehow captured his attention, but influenced by skeptic thinkers, he set out to prove that the story of Christ’s resurrection was only a myth.
However, as Morison researched and analyzed the resurrection, his mind began to change, and his heart warmed to the reality of Christ’s rising from the dead.
The writer of the book’s preface explains, “It is not that the facts themselves altered, for they are recorded imperishably in the monuments and in the pages of human history. But the interpretation to be put upon the facts underwent a change. Somehow the perspective shifted – not suddenly, as in a flash of insight or inspiration, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, by the very stubbornness of the facts themselves.
“The book as it was originally planned was left high and dry, like those Thames barges when the great river goes out to meet the incoming sea. The writer discovered one day that not only could he no longer write the book as he had once conceived it, but that he would not if he could.”
Evidence is important, and there is ample evidence that Jesus lived, died, was buried, and then raised from the dead. Acts 1:3 tells us that the resurrection is authenticated by “many infallible proofs.”
First, the fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty three days after He died is one of the great proofs of His resurrection. All the authors of the four Gospels are in complete agreement that Christ’s tomb was empty three days after He died.
The oldest attack against Christ’s resurrection was that somebody stole the body of Jesus. The chief priests, according to Matthew 28: 12-15 “…gave a large sum money to the soldiers, saying, ‘Tell them, His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.' So, they took the money as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”
But this argument did not convince very many people. Common sense will tell you that the disciples did not steal His body and pretend He was resurrected. Three days earlier, the disciples had fled for their lives when Christ was arrested and crucified. It is highly unlikely that these fearful men would have gotten up enough courage to steal the body of Jesus – and then begin boldly preaching that He rose from the dead – at the risk of their own lives - an extremely unlikely argument. The facts simply don’t match up. The disciples were hiding in a room with the door locked, “for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19).
The only other suspects, that could have stolen Christ’s body, were his enemies. The problem with that theory is that Christ’s enemies had no motive to rob His grave. The chief priests and other religious leaders put Christ to death because He threatened their religious system and way of life. The last thing these men wanted was for people to think Christ was alive again.
Secondly, there is fulfilled prophecy. I Corinthians 15:4 declares, “He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” Paul was referring to those passages in the Old Testament that predicted the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
For example, in Psalm 16: 10, David says, “For you will not leave my soul in Sheol nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.” David could look down the corridors of time with the telescope of faith and see that death and hell had no power over the Holy One (Jesus).
In Mark 10, Jesus said, “"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again."
In John 2, Jesus said to the Jews. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days? But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.”
The resurrection is the “Amen” of all the prophecies and promises of the Word of God. The Bible preaches a Christ who was dead and is alive, not a Christ who was alive and is dead.
Third, the resurrection is attested to by the eyewitness testimonies. In I Corinthians 12:5, Paul states that Jesus was seen by Cephas (Peter), and then by the twelve disciples.
Incidentally, Thomas was no pushover when it came to convincing him of the resurrection. He said, “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.” Jesus gave him permission to do just that, and do you remember what Thomas said? He said, “My Lord and my God.”
Then John wrote in his first epistle, “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled…. We declare unto you.”
Then, in I Corinthians 15:6, Paul says that he was seen by 500 brethren at one time, and many of them were still alive. In the Bible, anything could be established among two or three witnesses, but 500 witnesses cannot be wrong. When people are trying to confirm a lie about a certain event, do they check with the eyewitnesses who saw it happen? No!
In verse 7, the risen Christ was seen by James. Now, this is not James the apostle, the brother of John. He was put to death by Herod early on. This is James, the half-brother of Jesus. Do you remember how highly skeptical he was of his older brother? He was not a believer for a long time, but Jesus made an appearance to him, and we cannot be sure when he was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but he became a changed man.
Paul concludes his case in I Corinthians 15 by writing, “Then last of all He was seen by me also, as one born out of due time.” Now, Paul would be hard to convince. He was a thinker, a debater, a philosopher, and he was not about to be deceived by some passing fancy. Paul gave up all his accomplishments in Jewish academia to take up with the very one that all his friends and associates rejected.
Four, there is the martyrdom of the apostles. If the resurrection was a lie, why did every one of the apostles go through so much suffering to proclaim it? The Apostles not only continued to preach the resurrection of Christ, but they also even died rather than deny it. Church history reminds us that every single apostle (except for John, who was tortured and exiled) died horrible deaths because they preached that Christ had risen from the dead.
It has been said, "in the history of psychology, it has never been known that a person was willing to give up his life for what he or she knew to be a lie.”
Fifth, the resurrection is the only reasonable explanation for the beginning of the church. It has been said, “The empty tomb of Christ has been the cradle of the church.”
Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, just 48 days after the resurrection. Peter’s argument for conversion was the fact of the resurrection. Many of the people that he preached to witnessed the crucifixion and would know what happened. More than 3,000 people were converted and were baptized that day. In I Cor. 15:12-19, Paul says that the resurrection is essential for salvation and the existence of the church.
In conclusion, consider what R.A Torrey said: “The resurrection of Jesus is the Gibraltar of the Christian faith and the Waterloo of infidelity and rationalism.”
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J. Gerald Harris is a retired pastor and journalist who served as editor of The Christian Index for nearly two decades. You can reach him at gharris@loveliftedmehigher.org.
