From the Crossway blog:
Excerpt modified from chapter 9 of Doctrine (Read the full chapter).
Without the resurrection, the few billion people today who worship Jesus as God are gullible; their hope for a resurrection life after this life is the hope of silly fools who trust in a dead man to give them life. Subsequently, the doctrine of Jesus’ resurrection is, without question, profoundly significant and worthy of the most careful consideration and examination.
Biblical Evidence:
- Jesus’ resurrection was prophesied in advance (Isa 53:8-12).
- Jesus predicted his resurrection (Matt 12:38-40; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; John 2:18-22).
- Jesus died. Jesus was crucified, and a professional executioner declared him dead. To ensure he was dead, a spear was thrust through his side and a mixture of blood and water poured out of his side because the spear burst his heart sac (John 19:34-35).
- Jesus was buried in a tomb that was easy to find. Had Jesus not risen from death, it would have been easy to prove it by opening the tomb and presenting Jesus’ dead body as evidence (see pp 288).
- Jesus appeared physically, not just spiritual, alive three days after his death (Matt 28:9; John 20:17; John 20:20-28; Acts 1:3; 1 Cor 15:6).
- Jesus’ body was the same as his pre-resurrected body (Luke 24:31; John 21:7, 12; John 20:16, 20:14, 15; 21:12).
- Jesus’ resurrection was recorded as Scripture shortly after it occurred (see pp 289-290).
- Jesus’ resurrection was celebrated in the earliest church creeds (1 Cor 15:3-4).
- Jesus’ resurrection convinced his family to worship him as God (John 7:5 compared to 1 Cor 15:7; James 1:1; Acts 12:17; 15:12-21; 21:18; Gal 2:9; Acts 1:14).
- Jesus’ resurrection was confirmed by his most bitter enemies (Phil 3:4-6; Acts 7:54-60).
Circumstantial Evidence:
- Jesus’ disciples were transformed.
- Jesus’ disciples remained loyal to Jesus and endured widespread persecution and martyrdom, which would have been unthinkable had Jesus merely died and failed to rise as he promised.
- The disciples had exemplary character.
- Worship changed. The early church stopped worshiping on Saturdays as Jews had for thousands of years, and suddenly began worshiping on Sunday in memory of Jesus’ Sunday resurrection. The object of worship changed. The commandments forbid worshiping a false god . . . it is impossibly to conceive of devout Jews simply worshiping Jesus as the one true God without the proof of Jesus’ resurrection.
- Women discovered the empty tomb. Since the testimony of women was not respected in that culture, it would have been more likely for men to report discovering the empty tomb if the account was fictitious and an attempt were bring made to concoct a credible like about Jesus’ resurrection.
- The entirety of the early church preaching was centered on the historical fact of Jesus’ resurrection. If the empty tomb were not a widely accepted fact, the disciples would have reasoned with the skeptics of their day to defend the central issue of their faith. Instead, we see the debate occurring not about whether the tomb was empty, but why it was empty?
- Jesus’ tomb was not enshrined (see pp 295).
- Christianity exploded on teh earth and a few billion people today claim to be Christians.
Read this entire chapter including more on the historical evidence, the primary ancient objections to the resurrection, and what the resurrection has accomplished here.
You’re right. If there is no resurrection, it does make christians look gullible. However, your article makes two glaring mistakes.
First, Isa. 53 isn’t referring to Jesus at all. How can we know this?
Isaiah 53:3 contains, “A man of suffering, familiar with disease.”
Isaiah 53:10 states, “But the Lord chose to crush him by disease”
These passages tell us that the suffering servant being described was not only familiar with disease, but also afflicted with it, and crushed by it. It may be argued that Jesus was familiar with disease; however, he was not crushed by disease.
Jesus was no leper. He wasn’t smitten, afflicted, plagued or crushed by disease. Jesus doesn’t fit.
Isaiah 53:10 also states, “That, if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life”
-Jesus made a guilt offering? This is recorded nowhere. Jesus also didn’t have any offspring. The gospels don’t mention this, rather Christian tradition teaches that he had no wife or children. Nor did Jesus have a long life. He lived to his mid-30s. Jesus just doesn’t fit.
The second mistake in this article is that all of your evidence uses biblical scripture to prove the resurrection. You are using the bible to prove the bible is correct. This is circular reasoning: stating in one’s proposition that which one aims to prove. (e.g. The resurrection occured because the Bible says so).
Therefore, going on the evidence presented in this article, the resurrection cannot be proven.
UnaffiliatedGuy,
Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting. Your questions deserve more time than I am able to give them now, but I will try to give you some things to think about.
It is quite a stretch to say that Isaiah 53 “isn’t referring to Jesus at all” since the NT authors actually quote it in reference to him (e.g. Matt 8:17; 1 Pet 2:25), including Jesus himself. Jesus is probably referring to Isaiah 53:3 (the very verse you mention!) in Mark 9:12. There are so many parallels between Isaiah 53 and events in Jesus’ death as well as usages of this text by NT authors that I simply can’t accept that it “isn’t referring to Jesus at all.” Your particular concerns could be answered by the fact that the word translated “disease” can also be “grief” (this is the way the NIV, NASB, KJV and ESV) all translate it.
I do believe Jesus fits with Isaiah 53:10. He doesn’t have to be referring to children or long physical life before death. (In fact it would be strange for people like Matthew and Peter, who knew Hebrew, could use this text to refer to Jesus if this meant what you think it means). It is simply referring to all those who become offspring by faith. Jesus, of course, does see long life because he has risen from the dead and will never die again.
In regards to the second mistake, I don’t see this at all. We are not using the Bible to prove that the Bible is the infallible Word of God (though I certainly believe that and admit that I would even use the Bible to prove it). We are using the Bible to show that the resurrection is correct. And most of the biblical evidence presented can be supported by external sources. Too many people reject any use of the Bible to show the historicity of the events, but we readily use other sources when we study history. Why the double standard? Whether you believe the Bible is the Word of God or not, it is still a valid historical document that simply can’t be rejected outright.
I hope this helps a little, though I am under no illusion that it will lead you to faith again. Thanks for your honest criticisms. As one who believes in God’s power to draw others to himself, I pray he will draw you.