The Truth About Christianity - Week 5

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- There’s an old tradition in Christian circles, where on Easter Sunday, someone will say the words:

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- “He is risen” and then someone else will respond by saying

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- “He is risen indeed.”

- But this morning, let’s hold off on that right now, because some of us are coming from different places and different walks and different weeks.

- And maybe we’re not quite ready to say “He is risen indeed!”

- But this morning is our fifth and final week looking at “The Truth About Christianity” where we have been taking some of the biggest questions, problems, and objections that people have concerning Christianity, and looking at them as rationally, logically, and fairly as possible.

- And this morning, on Easter Sunday, we are going to conclude our series with this question:  “Did Jesus Rise From The Grave?”

- So instead of beginning with a declaration of “He is risen!”, let’s instead all agree to start at a more natural starting point:

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- “Is He risen?”

- This is a big issue.

- This is a huge question.

- But this is not only a theological problem, one that concerns those who study the Bible and study God.

- This is also a historical question.

- As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, Jesus really lived.

- He was an actual, physical, human being (He was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord).

- So our question “Did Jesus rise from the grave?” is not only one that needs to be looked at from a Christian perspective, where we read the Bible, read that it says Jesus rose from the grave, and conclude “Yes, Jesus rose from the grave, and I know so because the Bible tells me so.”

- But beyond that, if Jesus actually lived and existed.  If He actually breathed, walked, talked, died and – possibly – rose again, then this claim needs to be examined historically, to see if it holds any ground.

- But, before we really dive in and get moving, I’d like to read some words written by an early follower of Jesus named Paul, which set the stage for how important this question is:

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- 1 Corinthians 15:14-19

o And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave.

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o But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins.

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o In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.

- This is what Paul is writing, and this is what it means for us today.

- If you don’t believe that Jesus rose from the grave, then don’t bother believing anything else about Christianity.

- It all rises or falls on this one issue.

- According to Paul, then if Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, then the following is all true as a result:

o 1. Christian preaching is useless (some of you don’t think it’s very useful right now... I’m looking at you Chantelle).

o 2. Christian faith is useless.

o 3. Christians are false witnesses about God.

o 4. Christians have not been forgiven, but are still stuck in their sins.

o 5. Anyone who held on to hope in Jesus and has since passed away are completely lost.

o And finally, 6. Anyone who currently does hope in Jesus is someone who deserves the highest amount of pity, since their hope will end with this life.

- In other words, being a follower of Jesus, if Jesus never rose from the grave, is absolutely pointless.

- However, if Jesus did actually rise from the grave, then that also means something.

- It means that life is not meaningless.

- It means that death is not the end.

- It means that those who have placed their hope in the risen Jesus can become citizens of God’s Kingdom right now, and this citizenship will carry them from this day forward, from now into everlasting, perfect life with the risen Saviour.

- Make no mistake about it, Christianity is not based around some sort of vague hope that we will merely “survive” after death.

- No, Christianity is fundamentally all about a glorious hope for the future based entirely around one event in the past.

- And that event, is the resurrection of Jesus.

- It all hangs on this one question:

- “Did Jesus Rise From The Grave?”

- And so let’s get going.

- Let’s first turn our attention to other possibilities that might disprove the resurrection.

- There are several alternative theories out there that attempt to explain away the resurrection using natural means.

- So let’s just set the stage here.

- It’s the first Easter Sunday.

- The Christians are going around saying “Jesus is alive!  Jesus has risen from the grave!”

- If it didn’t actually happen (which, admittedly, a resurrection does seem a little far-fetched), then how else can we respond to and explain away the claims of these early Christians?

- There are several possible alternative explanations.

- This morning, I would like to address two that seem to be the most common and most popular.

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- The first is what is known as the “Swoon Theory”.

- This theory holds that Jesus didn’t rise from the grave on Easter Sunday, and the reason why Jesus never really rose from the grave, is that Jesus never actually died on the cross.

- He merely “swooned” (this means that He was passed out, unconscious, fainted, etc).

- In other words, Jesus was close to death – so close to death that everyone thought He was really dead – but yet when He was placed in the tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus was still alive.

- This theory goes on to explain that after several hours of being in the tomb, He was probably revived by the cool air, and then He arose and departed.

- This theory is made even more compelling when you consider the limited medical knowledge that would have been available back in the first century.

- After all, in Mark’s own record of Jesus’ death, when Pilate is informed that Jesus has died, we read that Pilate was surprised to learn that Jesus had died so quickly (Mark 15:44).

- So there you have it.

- Jesus was not really dead. He only swooned.

- Now, in response to this theory, there is much that can be said.

- For starters, in order to accurately picture this “swooning”, we need to be reminded of everything that Jesus had faced, not only during His actual crucifixion, but leading up to it as well.

- And so let’s go back to right before Jesus was arrested.

- Jesus was sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane (He was under heavy emotional and physical stress).

- Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night.

- Jesus received brutal treatment in the High Priest’s palace and Pilate’s praetorium (He was mocked, beaten, and terribly mistreated).

- Jesus was forced to journey back and forth between Pilate and Herod in this tired, weakened state.

- Jesus was scourged by the Romans, which is a torture so brutal that many people died during this punishment itself

- After this, Jesus was forced carried His own cross to Calvary (in fact, He wasn’t able to do it on His own, He needed help to carry it).

- And then, Jesus was crucified.

- Now, those who were crucified usually died of asphyxiation, which means they could not breathe any longer.

- When you are hanging on the cross, you cannot get oxygen into your lungs, and so you have to push and pull yourself up on the nails that have been driven through your hands and feet, in order that you can get high enough to take a breath.

- But obviously you cannot hold yourself up this way for long, and so eventually you’d have to let yourself drop back down, until you needed more air, and then you’d have to push up again... and on and on this would repeat itself until eventually you were unable to pull yourself up and you would die.

- This is terrible to explain, and obviously the pain was absolutely unbearable.

- In fact, it was literally beyond words to describe.

- So they had to invent a new word: excruciating.

- Literally, excruciating means “out of the cross”.

- Jesus’ friend John tells us about a practice that the Romans had when it came to crucifixion, and this account is backed up by archeological discoveries of crucifixion victims.

- The Romans figured out that if they needed to speed up the process, because the person wasn’t dying fast enough, they could just break their legs, and then they couldn’t push up and they would die a lot quicker.

- But yet, when it came to Jesus, they did not break His legs.

- Why not?

- Well, from a theological perspective there was a messianic prophecy concerning the fact that none of Jesus’ bones would be broken (and we talked about messianic prophecies a couple of weeks ago).

- But, from strictly a rational, logical perspective, the Romans didn’t break Jesus’ legs for one reason:

- He was already dead!

- Now this is important.

- After Jesus had been up on the cross for a while, when it came time to speed the process along, it was apparently very obvious to the official executioner that Jesus was already dead.

- But, just to make sure, they stabbed Jesus with a spear.

- And so we go through all of that detail, because we’re addressing the swoon theory.

- Did Jesus really die? Or did He just swoon?

- The Romans knew how to execute people. They knew what they were doing when it came to crucifixions.

- And all of the evidence points to the fact that when you were crucified, you didn’t make it out of there alive (and that was kind of the point).

- But, maybe some of us aren’t convinced.

- Maybe some still think it would be possible for Jesus to survive all that He went through leading up to and during His crucifixion.

- Then we are still left to consider how Jesus, in His incredibly weakened state, as close to death as one can possibly be without dying (which is what is believed if we believe Jesus was just swooning, because when they took Him off the cross they still thought He was dead),

- Then we are still left to consider how this beaten and broken Jesus was able to escape the tomb.

- That Jesus, at the very edge of death, would be able to wake up, get up, and move a stone by Himself that required numerous people to be able to move in front of the tomb in the first place.

- Oh, and by the way, Jesus would also have had to be able to move the stone and escape the tomb without catching the attention of the soldiers guarding the tomb, who certainly would have just killed Jesus if He tried to walk out of there.

- But even if we think that it’s still possible for Jesus to have swooned, and to have escaped the tomb, then we are still left to wonder how He would be able to convince His followers that He had risen from the grave.

- Think about this:

- Even if Jesus somehow survived everything He was put through leading up to the crucifixion, on top of the crucifixion and stabbing itself.

- And even if Jesus somehow escaped the tomb by Himself.

- Even if we believe all of that, then we also need to address how Jesus was able to appear to His disciples only 2 days later, and His interactions with them would lead to them declaring that Jesus had conquered death and had gained the victory over sin.

- If Jesus was so near to death, having lost so much blood and been so weak, and His disciples saw Him in that condition, don’t you think they would have rushed Him to the doctor?

- But instead they saw Jesus as a living, victorious, conquering Saviour who had vanquished death itself.

- They didn’t see Him as a weak, dying man in need of medical attention (someone who had merely revived from a swoon).

- I hope you can see why the swoon theory just doesn’t work.

- In fact, scholars have pretty much declared that this theory is obsolete, because it requires more faith to believe in it than it does to believe in the resurrection itself.

- And so we move to our second alternative theory to explain the resurrection.

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- The theft theory.

- This view holds that Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, but He did in fact die on the cross.

- And the “resurrection” is only a myth that is being circulated by the disciples, but they know the truth.

- The disciples came during the night and stole Jesus’ body from the tomb – and then they went around telling everyone that Jesus had risen from the grave.

- Jesus’ disciple Matthew even talks about the beginning of this conspiracy.

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- Matthew 28:11-15

o As the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened. A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe.

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o They told the soldiers, “You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.’ If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you so you won’t get in trouble.”

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o So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today.

- Early writers like Justin Martyr and Tertullian record that this belief was popular within Judaism for some time.

- After all, this theory argues, an empty tomb doesn’t prove that it was a miraculous resurrection.

- It may just prove that humans interfered.

- Yet this theory is dismissed, I believe, by asking a couple of simple questions.

- First, did the disciples have the manpower to pull off such a theft?

- And the evidence points to the answer to that question as being “no”.

- The disciples were powerless to steal Jesus’ body.

- Both Jewish and Roman officials had taken measures to prevent just such a thing from happening.

- Did a small group really get together and overpower the powerful?

- Did a few fishermen, a tax collector, and a ragtag group of misfits really overpower professional, trained, armed guards?

- It doesn’t appear that the disciples had the manpower to pull off such a theft.

- And the second question you need to ask is: Did the disciples have any motive in pulling off such a theft?

- And again, the answer you are left with is no.

- From what we’re told about how the disciples acted during Jesus’ execution, when Jesus is arrested, they scatter.

- And when Jesus is crucified, they think that it’s all over.

- And so how does it make sense that after Jesus is dead they then summon the courage to take on the Roman and Jewish powers of the day?

- From the disciples’ perspective, Jesus had received an honourable burial thanks to Joseph of Arimethea, and that was the best they could hope for since He was dead and gone.

- The theft theory also needs to answer another major problem it causes, which is how the disciples were able to put on such a convincing act after they had stolen Jesus’ body, and also why every single one of them was willing to die rather than admit they had lied about it.

- But we’ll get to more of that in a little bit.

- So let’s shift from talking about the alternative theories, and talk about other evidence that is in favour of the resurrection.

- The first piece of evidence for us to consider is the numerous appearances of Jesus after He was supposed to be dead.

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- Here is who is mentioned in the Christian Scriptures:

o To Mary Magdalene: Mark 16:9, John 20:14

o To women returning from the tomb: Matthew 28:9-10

o To Peter later in the day: Luke 24:34, 1 Corinthians 15:5

o To the Emmaus disciples: Luke 24:13-33

o To the disciples without Thomas: Luke 24:36-43, John 20:19-24

o To the disciples with Thomas present: John 20:26-29

o To the seven by the Lake of Tiberias: John 21:1-23

o To a multitude of 500-plus believers on a Galilean mountain: 1 Corinthians 15:6

o To James: 1 Corinthians 15:7

o To the eleven: Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:14-20, Luke 24:33-52, Acts 1:3-12

- Lee Strobel writes this:

o “The issue with Jesus isn’t that he was nowhere to be seen. It’s that he was seen, alive; he was seen, dead; and he was seen, alive once more. If we believe the Gospel accounts, this isn’t a matter of a missing body. No, it’s a matter of Jesus still being alive, even to this day, even after publicly succumbing to the horrors of crucifixion.”

- There are numerous, eyewitness testimonies that claim to have seen Jesus, risen from the grave.

- And I don’t want to spend too much time on this, because we’ve already given it a lot of time when we talked about the trustworthiness of the Bible, as well as if Jesus really is God, but I’ll just quickly recap one important note.

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- All of these eyewitness accounts were circulating within the lifetime of the original eyewitnesses.

- This is not just a legendary tale that developed generations later after a long period of time had passed and it’s easier to make stuff up.

- These testimonies were circulating, some of them were widely circulating within only a couple of years after the death of Jesus.

- If these were lies, if these were made up, then the actual eyewitnesses would have been able to step up and discredit them.

- But yet this is the eyewitness testimony that has survived, and has been believed in, ever since the very first followers of Jesus claimed to have seen Him alive.

- N.T. Wright says:

o “There is no evidence for a form of early Christianity in which the resurrection was not a central belief. Nor was this belief, as it were, bolted on to Christianity at the edge. It was the central driving force, informing the whole movement.”

- The claim that Jesus rose from the grave has been told since the very beginning, since only days after Jesus had died.

- This leads us to another piece of evidence in favour of the resurrection.

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- Namely, how the opponents of Christianity were noticeably silent regarding the empty tomb.

- I mean, let’s say that these were false accounts – claiming that Jesus had risen from the grave.

- And these accounts were beginning to circulate, and we know that they were spreading during the lifetime of the original eyewitnesses.

- If that was the case, then you could naturally and logically expect the Roman and Jewish officials to go find the tomb, grab the body of Jesus, and display Him for all to see.

- Because that would bring an end to all of this resurrection talk.

- “You say Jesus rose from the grave, well He didn’t and here He is.”

- But this didn’t happen.

- The disciples claimed that Jesus rose from the grave, and their critics are surprisingly silent in the face of such an astounding claim.

- To be clear, they made all kinds of personal attacks, they resorted to subjective name-calling and arguing about other aspects of the Christian theology.

- But they could not explain the empty tomb.

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- One scholar says that the silence of the Jewish authorities is just as significant as the speech of the Christians.

- The opponents of Jesus – and the opponents of Christianity – had every opportunity to disprove the resurrection, if it were possible.

- And yet they didn’t.

- Winfried Corduan says:

o “If ever a fact of ancient history may count as indisputable, it should be the empty tomb.  From Easter Sunday on there must have been a tomb, clearly known as the tomb of Jesus, that did not contain His body. This much is beyond dispute: Christian teaching from the very beginning promoted a living, resurrected Savior. The Jewish authorities strongly opposed this teaching and were prepared to go to any lengths in order to suppress it. Their job would have been easy if they could have invited potential converts for a quick stroll to the tomb and there produced Christ’s body. That would have been the end of the Christian message. The fact that a church centering around the risen Christ could come about demonstrates that there must have been an empty tomb.”

- Furthermore, on this topic, William Craig writes:

o “When therefore the disciples began to preach the resurrection in Jerusalem and people responded, and when religious authorities stood helplessly by, the tomb must have been empty. The simple fact that the Christian fellowship, founded on belief in Jesus’ resurrection, came into existence and flourished in the very city where he was executed and buried is powerful evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb.”

- And all of this leads us to what is perhaps the greatest evidence of all in favour of the resurrection of Jesus:

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- The transformation of the disciples.

- We’ve said this plenty of times before, but on the first Easter Sunday, there were no Christians.

- There were no followers of Jesus.

- Because, a couple of days before that first Easter Sunday, when Jesus was arrested, the disciples fled for their lives.

- When Jesus was crucified, the disciples mourned their loss (the loss of their dreams that He might have been the Messiah, the Saviour, the King).

- And when Jesus was buried, the disciples started packing their bags ready to move on, because clearly their adventure with Jesus had come to an abrupt halt.

- And yet that didn’t last.

- The disciples of Jesus became the leaders of the early church.

- These men went from dejected, dispirited, and grieving followers of a crucified rabbi, to those who preached about Him and said He is the Lord of all life and the Judge of all history.

- And they said that the reason they were able to have such a drastic change of behaviour, was because Jesus had risen from the grave (and filled them with His Holy Spirit).

- If this resurrection did not actually occur, how can we make sense of the origin of Christianity, not to mention its rapid spread across the face of the ancient world?

- How could the same disciples—who could not pray for one hour before his crucifixion without falling asleep, and who scattered after His capture—how could they be the same evangelists who braved persecution and martyrdom for who they claimed was a resurrected Jesus?

- Paul Little asks:

o “Are these men, who helped transform the moral structure of society, consummate liars or deluded madmen? These alternatives are harder to believe than the fact of the Resurrection, and there is no shred of evidence to support them.”

- It cannot be argued that the disciples experienced a radical transformation mere days after Jesus was executed.

- It’s a historically reliable statement to say that Jesus’ first followers went from a bumbling, stumbling group who never seemed to get it, to being bold, courageous, and defiant preachers of the message of Jesus, even when it cost them their lives.

- That much is true.

- The only argument is whether or not they faked the appearance of this transformation themselves, or whether it was legitimate.

- When we looked at the theft theory, we said we’d some back to this problem:

- If we’re going to believe that the disciples invented the resurrection and stole Jesus’ body, then we are left to ask:

- How were the disciples able to put on such a convincing act after they had stolen Jesus’ body?

- And furthermore, why was every single one of them willing to die rather than admit they had lied about it?

- History records that Jesus’ disciples said they were radically transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit – as a result of the resurrection of Jesus.

- History also records that the disciples suffered and died as a result of these claims.

- Would they really do all of this just to spread a myth they had invented?

- Some of you might be familiar with the name Chuck Colson, who was one of Richard Nixon’s right-hand men and one of the men involved in the Watergate conspiracy.

- Later in his life, Colson came to faith in Jesus, and he began to draw parallels between what he had gone through with the Watergate conspiracy, and what Jesus’ disciples went through.

- This is a little bit of what he says:

o “With the most powerful office in the world at stake, a small band of hard-picked loyalists, no more than ten of us, could not hold a conspiracy together for more than two weeks...

after just a few weeks the natural human instinct for self-preservation was so overwhelming that the conspirators, one by one, deserted their leader...

Take it from one who was inside the Watergate web looking out, who saw firsthand how vulnerable a cover-up is: Nothing less than a witness as awesome as the resurrected Christ could have caused those men to maintain to their dying whispers that Jesus is alive and Lord.”

- Perhaps my favourite quote concerning this is from Josh McDowell:

o “I can trust the apostles’ testimonies because, of those twelve men, eleven died martyrs’ deaths on the basis of two things: the resurrection of Christ, and their belief in him as the Son of God.  They were tortured and flogged, and they finally faced death by some of the cruelest methods then known... The response that is usually chorused back is this: ‘Why, a lot of people have died for a lie; so what does it prove?’  Yes, a lot of people have died for a lie, but they thought it was the truth.  Now if the resurrection didn’t take place (i.e., was false), the disciples knew it.  I find no way to demonstrate that they could have been deceived.  Therefore [if it was a lie] these eleven men not only died for a lie—here is the catch—but they knew it was a lie.”

- To this point, Lee Strobel says:

o “People will die for their religious beliefs if they sincerely believe they’re true, but people won’t die for their religious beliefs if they know their beliefs are false.  While most people can only have faith that their beliefs are true, the disciples were in a position to know without a doubt whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead.  They claimed that they saw him, talked with him, and ate with him.  If they weren’t absolutely certain, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be tortured to death for proclaiming that the Resurrection had happened.”

- The transformation of the disciples is arguably the greatest piece of evidence in favour of the resurrection actually happening.

- And of course, the transformation of Jesus’ disciples does not end with the original disciples.

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- The risen Jesus continues to transform the lives of those who follow Him.

- And this points to the fact that He is not dead, He is alive.

- Although it may be discounted as subjective, it should be remembered that Jesus promises His followers abundant life (John 10:10), spiritual victory (Ephesians 6:10-18), and the advance of His Kingdom through history upon the foundation on His life, death, and resurrection (Matthew 19:18, 28:18-20).

- The fact that millions of Christ’s followers around the world for the last two-thousand years have testified to the reality of their risen Saviour’s claims lends incredible credibility to the reality of the resurrection.

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- And so our question for today has been “Did Jesus rise from the grave?”

- Is He risen?

- And as we prepare to close this service, and this series, I would like to say that I believe that Jesus did rise from the grave.

- Jesus is God, Jesus is alive, and Jesus has conquered sin and death.

- And, everything that we’ve talked about, as well as even more information that we don’t have time to get into today, points me to what I believe is the obvious, undeniable conclusion.

- And that conclusion is this (please say it with me if you agree):

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- He Is Risen... He is Risen Indeed!

- And so, before we wrap up our Easter Sunday service together, we turn to the communion table.

- This table, and the bread and juice (that is in front of you where you’re sitting) represent the body and blood of Jesus.

- It represents His death, that brings us life.

- And His life, that conquers our death.

- Whether you are new here or not, watching online or here in person, I want to invite you to consider Jesus’ death and life, and what it means for you.

- Because if you are someone, who maybe even for the first time would agree that He is risen indeed, then you are able to take communion here today, knowing that Jesus’ death has paid the price for your sins.

- And His life, means that that you can live with Him (starting now, and lasting forever).

- The same Paul who wrote about the significance of the resurrection (and how without it all Christian faith is useless), earlier in that same letter he writes about communion.

- And he writes that every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are announcing the Lord’s death, until He comes again.

- We announce that for God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him, will not die, but have everlasting life.

- We announce that He did not stay dead, because He is risen, indeed.

- ***Take communion

- Close in prayer

- (*) Now What

- Benediction:

- Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21

Now may the God of peace—

    who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,

the great Shepherd of the sheep,

    and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—

may he equip you with all you need

    for doing his will.

May he produce in you,

    through the power of Jesus Christ,

every good thing that is pleasing to him.

- All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

Scripture:

- 1 Corinthians 15:1-26

- Matthew 28:1-20

- Mark 16:1-20

- Luke 24:1-53

- John 20:1-31

Pray:

- Spend some time thanking Jesus for His death and resurrection. Thank Him for His great love for you, and that He was willing to die to pay the price of your sins and rise again to conquer death once and for all.

- Pray for those who do not know the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Pray that God would soften hearts, open ears, and give you opportunities to bring the Good News of the Risen Savior to them sometime before the next Easter season.

Discussion/Reflection:

- When you think of theories that attempt to explain away the resurrection (like the “swoon” theory, the “theft” theory, or others), what do you find convincing/challenging about them? What do you think is the best argument against the resurrection of Jesus?

- Thinking of the first opponents of Jesus/Christianity, they are noticeably silent regarding the empty tomb. Many have suggested that this gives near certain proof for the historicity of the empty tomb (whether you believe in Jesus’ resurrection or not, they say that you cannot deny the historical fact that Jesus’ tomb was – and still is – empty). What do you think of this? Do you find it convincing? Why or why not?

- The transformation of the disciples may be the greatest piece of evidence in favour of Jesus’ resurrection. Do you agree or disagree with this? Why? Is there any other reason you can think of for why the disciples would lie about the resurrection, and be willing to die for it?

- How would you answer the question: “Did Jesus rise from the grave?”

Now What?

- Get together as a family – or with a group of friends – and take turns answering the question “Did Jesus Rise From The Grave?”

- The other people can ask follow-up questions, playing the role of a non-Christian.

- This can be a helpful exercise in preparing to answer the real questions that real people have.