The Resurrection is True
1 Corinthians 15:14-19
Introduction.
Many people try to disprove Christianity—try and fail!
They try to discredit the Bible, claiming to find contradictions.
They try to use “science” to disprove parts of the Bible.
They try to compare what it records with historical events and think they’ve found discrepancies.
In particular, some even question whether or not Jesus existed—these are called mythicists.
Dr. Bart Ehrman, no friend to believers and a professor of the NT at UNC, states that, “Mythicists … are not taken seriously by the vast majority of scholars in the field of the New Testament, early Christianity, ancient history, and theology.”
He goes on to call the mythicist position a “modern myth, the myth of the mythical Jesus.”
Dr. Ehrman, however, does not believe in any of the extraordinary things the Bible states Jesus did, including being raised from the dead.
In truth, if one could disprove the resurrection, Christianity is dead.
Paul states as much—if Christ is not resurrected, we are still in our sins, and we who preach Christ risen are liars.
It would make Jesus a liar and false prophet, too, since He foretold of His resurrection.
One of the proofs of a prophet is if He says something is going to happen and it happens (Deut. 18:21-22).
Through many miraculous proofs Jesus came, but it all culminated in His being raised from the dead.
If the resurrection is true, that makes Jesus true—and His affirmation of the whole Bible.
If He were killed (and stayed dead), Christianity would have stopped dead in its tracks.
Don’t you think there were people around back then who were interested in disproving Christ?
They couldn’t then, and they can’t now.
Preview.
Miraculous Proof.
Scriptural Proof.
Eye-witness Proof.
The Empty Tomb.
Body.
Miraculous Proof (Acts 2:22-24).
The miracles that we read about in the gospel accounts were hard to deny.
They were so hard to deny that those who were in power could only have Him executed to end Him.
This was good enough to prove Him to many people.
Blind Bartimaeus called Him the Son of David, a moniker reserved for the Messiah at this time—a man who was physically blind saw this clearly (Mark 10:46ff).
It eventually became obvious to the Apostles themselves with Peter making that great confession (Matt. 16:16).
This was the purpose of miracles: to give Him credibility.
Peter states that through these miracles, Jesus was attested by God—so God was proving Jesus through these miracles (John 5:36).
Even Nicodemus recognized that one could not do these miracles unless God was with Him (John 3:1-2).
The skeptics deny these miraculous events.
The vast majority recognize that Jesus of Nazareth existed.
So to find out what “really” happened, they sift through all the stories, tales, bits and pieces, trying to pull together the fragments to form as complete a picture as they can.
All the while, they’ll deny the supernatural elements, thinking they are all falsehoods, fabrications, embellishments, or legends.
They’ll say that those things don’t happen, so accepting those stories would be irrational.
But then every other aspect of these documents, the gospel accounts, that can be verified has been verified.
History and archaeology prove the Bible true over and over again.
By contrast, the Book of Mormon makes many grandiose claims (e.g. some Jews traveled to North America to settle, there was a great war, there were many great cities), none of which has been verified.
On top of that, if the resurrection is true, so are all these other miracles that prove the Christ.
And what greater miracle than that of the resurrection, three days after a crucifixion?!
No one back then could deny these miracles, particularly the resurrection—neither should we!
Scriptural Proof (Acts 2:25-31).
A big part of the proof we have of the resurrection is that it was prophesied.
Such prophecies cannot be too explicit, otherwise the enemies of God will be able to stop it—they would not have crucified Jesus had they known that would have resulted in His final victory (1 Cor. 2:7-10).
Peter, Paul, and the other Apostles had these things revealed to them by the Holy Spirit.
This is why we are to interpret the OT through the lens of the NT; this is why the NT is the OT revealed.
We see that also in Acts 2, where Peter is explaining this Messianic prophecy from Psalm 16:8-11.
Peter points out that David, who wrote Psalm 16, is clearly not referring to himself.
David is dead and has been for about 1000 years by this point—his soul was still in Hades, still in the grave, and his body had decayed and seen corruption.
Since this is clearly not talking about David, who could this Holy One be? From what perspective is David writing?
Peter tells us, the Holy One is the Messiah, is the Christ.
His body was in the grave for only a few days, not enough time to rot and decay.
Then God raised Him from the dead.
How could someone predict this 1000 years before unless the hand of God was in it? Peter calls David a prophet here, and rightfully so.
The skeptic will see this and deny it entirely.
They’ll say that Peter is making stuff up or that David didn’t really write that.
It was some editor or it was written long after David.
They’ll say anything in an attempt to discredit the reality of this and all prophecies.
But there are so many fulfilled prophecies in Scripture from the OT to the NT that such things are hard to deny.
In fact, the probability of just a handful of these prophecies being fulfilled due to random chance? Statistically impossible.
Jesus was prophesied in the OT, and this proves the OT is truth, which then validates Jesus and the NT.
3000 on the Day of Pentecost could not deny these Scriptural proofs—neither should we!
Eye-witness Proof (Acts 2:32).
Now we look to the witnesses.
If miracles aren’t enough to convince you, if the OT Scriptures being fulfilled aren’t enough to convince you, we also have eye-witness accounts.
Peter, as he is speaking here, probably gestures to Apostles around him while he states, “We are all witnesses.”
Paul gives us an account of the witnesses of the resurrected Lord (1 Cor. 15:5-8).
There is evidence that this passage (1 Cor. 15:3-8) was likely a hymn in the ancient church. When translated into Aramaic, it has certain poetic properties which suggests it was sung.
This means this is something believed and taught early on, long before Paul wrote 1 Corinthians.
In this we see the order in which the risen Lord appeared to people:
Cephas (Peter).
The Twelve.
Over 500 brethren at once.
James (Jesus’ brother).
All the apostles (one can be an apostle though not of the 12, but a requirement of being an apostle is to have seen the risen Lord—all apostles).
But then there was the unusually late case of Paul.
All these up to Paul had seen the risen Lord in the 40 days since His resurrection.
Many of them were named, Peter, the Twelve, James, Paul, Cleopas.
You only mention a name if you want someone to follow up on your story.
You’re not worried of being exposed as a fraud if you’re telling the truth.
We can’t ask Cleopas directly, but if Luke were lying, others including Cleopas would have exposed him and he would’ve denounced as a fraud and his gospel account would not have survived, let alone the book of Acts.
If Paul were lying, he would’ve been exposed, and his many letters would have been pulped.
Let us consider some other eye-witness factors.
Many will say eye-witness testimony is unreliable.
That is often the case, where people often see what they want to see.
That is why the OT states that two or three witnesses must be gathered before someone can be prosecuted (Deut. 19:15).
The gospel accounts of His death, burial, and resurrection represent four different perspectives: Matthew’s, potentially Peter’s, John’s, and many witnesses (including Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Cleopas).
Not to mention the 500 brethren who saw the risen Lord at once.
There is also the criterion of embarrassment.
This states that if a story or event is embarrassing to its author or its central premise, then it’s true—why would they make up an embarrassing story?
One embarrassing detail about the resurrection accounts—who was the first person to have seen the risen Lord? A woman, Mary Magdalene (John 20:18).
Back then the testimony of women was not considered very reliable, and yet Jesus appeared to Mary first! (Luke 24:11) – and other women testified as to the empty tomb!
If they were fabricating a story, trying to get others to believe it, wouldn’t they make the first people to tell this story men? Yes! But they didn’t because it’s true.
Then we have the conversion of Paul.
One argument many make is that the apostles saw a mass delusion—they all saw what they wanted to see.
But if Paul’s conversion story were true, he certainly did not see what he wanted to see.
The vast majority of NT scholars believe that Paul definitely wrote at least 7 NT books—they cannot deny his existence.
He states in one of those universally accepted books (Philippians) about his background (Phil. 3:4-6) – he persecuted the church! An embarrassing fact and therefore definitely true.
So what caused him to turn around? We know that he encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus—why would he make that up?
He simply could not escape the truth of Jesus—nor should we!
The Empty Tomb (Matt. 28:11-15).
Jesus and the early believers had their enemies.
If they could disprove Christianity, don’t you think they would have done all they could?
What would have stopped them from producing Jesus’ body and show the Apostles to be teaching falsely?
One thing is for sure, they could not produce the body, so they had to come up with the falsehood—that the disciples stole His body.
Of course this story makes no sense! These guards were professionals—they would not have fallen asleep. They would have been executed had they done this (28:14). Since they weren’t, you know it was a lie.
Besides, if they had fallen asleep, how would they know what happened to the body?
Did the disciples steal His body?
If they had, it would make them liars, wouldn’t it?
And have you ever known anyone who would put their own lives on the line for their own lie?
How many of the Apostles died gruesome deaths for the sake of Christ? All but one—John the son of Zebedee.
We know James the son of Zebedee died by the sword in Acts 12.
The others were killed in various ways according to traditional history.
Peter was crucified upside down; Paul was beheaded; James the Lord’s brother was stoned.
Not one of them recanted—imagine how that would have been publicized if they had!
They could not deny that Jesus was raised from the dead—neither should we!
Conclusion.
There are so many reasons to believe in Jesus.
Not the least of which is that He was raised from the dead.
The evidence is so strong, the unreasonable ones are those who deny it.
Dr. Ehrman affirms Jesus’ existence and even His crucifixion and burial, but denies His resurrection.
But there’s just as much evidence for His resurrection as there is for His existence, crucifixion, and burial.
Paul invites us to “test all things,” (1 Thess. 5:21) and he does so with confidence, knowing that the gospel he preached would stand up to scrutiny.
And so it does, with the lynchpin of the resurrection of Christ being proven today.
Peter proved it to his listeners by reminding them of Jesus’ miracles—an attestation by God.
He also proved it would happen by referencing the Scriptures.
There were also many witnesses to this fact of history who never recanted upon pain of death.
We also took a look at the empty tomb and how it proves He is risen!
But this does more than prove He is risen.
This proves everything He said was true.
It proves He can be trusted, along with the Bible and all that’s found therein.
It proves there’s a heaven and a hell.
It proves we will spend an eternity in one of those two places.
And it tells us what we can do to be saved and go to heaven.