Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Why are you a Christian?

Why do you believe in God.

Specifically the Christian God?

My answer to that question used to be different than it is today.

Today my answer to that question is four words: the resurrection of Jesus.

I remember struggling with doubt as a young person and I want to try and show you why those doubts have good answers.

I’ve heard sermons that ignore or outright deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus and spiritualize it instead.

They'll say “even if Jesus didn’t rise physically, he’s still alive in our hearts.”

Or “he still lives on in our teaching..."

We have an old hymn that says: “ask me how I know he lives… he lives within my heart.”

The disciples didn’t sing that.

They sang “he lives because I saw him alive three days after his crucifixion!

I touched him.

I heard him.

I smelt him.

I watched him eat fish and chips."

That’s just not that impressive.

ANYBODY can rise from the dead in that way! That’s not what changed the disciples.

What transformed the disciples was a physical, literal, bodily resurrection.

The thing driving this “Symbolic approach” is a materialistic worldview that says miracles can’t happen therefore Jesus could not have had a physical resurrection.

But when did we ever prove that miracles are impossible?

If God exists (and the vast majority of people think there’s at least something like a God out there) then that means miracles are at least possible.

SOMETHING happened to cause the explosion of early Christianity.

And I seriously doubt that is was some “spiritual/symbolic” resurrection of Jesus in the hearts of the disciples.

It was some grounded in fact and history.

Some people point to dying and rising gods in other myths and legends and say Christianity borrowed from these cultures.

Do the research.

It’s the other way around.

They borrowed the resurrection from Christianity.

In the words of C.S. Lewis the Christian Gospel is myth become fact.

Why?

Because God raised Jesus from the dead in history!

The resurrection is the historical climax of the greatest superhero movie ever told.

The best thing about this story is that it happened in human history.

It’s not just a bedtime story or a plot you’d see in a movie theater.

It’s the real deal."

MINIMAL FACTS CASE :

Tonight I want to offer a minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus.

These facts are agreed upon by the vast majority of NT scholars and historians who’ve studied this topic.

These facts are agreed upon whether you’re a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, or anything else.

That’s why it’s called “the minimal facts case.”

Because these facts form a historical core that everybody agrees is probably reliable and true.

Dealing with facts is important because they carry a hard edge.

They’re inconvenient.

They won’t allow you to believe theories in the opposite direction.

You’ve got to find a way to explain them all.

The first historical fact is the empty tomb.

We have evidence for the empty tomb from multiple independent historical sources.

(Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, & Paul) You don’t have to believe these documents to be divinely inspired to treat them as historically reliable accounts of the past.

Jesus death by crucifixion is also mentioned by non-Christian sources.

Josephus (Ant.

18:3); Tacitus (Annals 15:44), Lucian (The Death of Peregrine 11-13), Mara Bar Serapion (Letter at British Museum)

The fact that the empty tomb was first discovered by women likely means it happened that way historically.

If you were going to fabricate a story you wouldn’t use women as the first eyewitness because of their low status in society.

The early Jewish opposition to Christianity also indicates an empty tomb.

They tried to lure people away from the Christian movement by saying “somebody stole the body of Jesus.”

You’d only say that if there was, in fact, an empty tomb.

The second historical fact is the post mortem appearances.

We have evidence from within 5 years of the crucifixion that not only did Jesus appear to ONE or TWO disciples after his death but as many as 500 people at the same time!

This evidence comes from an early Christian creed that was written within about five years of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Scholars believe these claims were presented as a way of inviting skeptics to go explore the evidence for themselves.

In other words, “nobody is trying to hide this stuff… this isn’t a secret…this isn’t a magic trick.

Just ask around."1

Cor 15:3-8

1 Corinthians 15:3–8 (CSB)

3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.

7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.

These appearances were to believers and unbelievers alike.

The third fact is the sincere belief of the apostles that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Not only did they believe that Jesus bodily rose from the dead.

We have historical sources that say they boldly preached that message even though it invited severe persecution and their eventual martyrdom.

The apostles would’ve known for a fact whether or not Jesus was bodily raised from the dead.

They preached and died for this message because they KNEW with certainty that it was true.

We also have evidence of their claims and conviction from outside the New Testament.

Polycarp (Pol.

Phil.

9:2), Clement of Rome (1 Clem 5:2-7) , and Ignatius (Ign.

Smyrn 3:2-3) all have extrabiblical writings that document the fact that the apostles of Jesus preached and died based on the conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead.

We also have later authors both friendly and non-friendly who affirm the same.

Dionysius of Corinth (EH 2:25:8) Tertullian (Scorpiace 15) and Origin (Contra Celsum 2:56,77)

I could offer more facts but let’s stop there.

Some say, “maybe all of these sources were just lying.

Maybe the disciples were just lying.”

Here’s the thing: liars make poor martyrs.

I can understand why some people might want to lie if it served them in some way.

But would you willingly die a tortured death for what you KNEW to be false?

That makes less sense to me.

The Fourth & Fifth Fact is the Unlikely Conversions of Paul and James

Admit-ably, the conversion of Paul the Apostle and James the brother of Jesus are less attested to outside of Christian sources and less agreed upon by Non-Christian scholars but it’s still over 60%

Paul’s conversion is reported in the book of Acts.

Paul’s suffering and martyrdom are affirmed by non-biblical sources like Clement of Rome (1 Clem 5:2-7) Polycarp (Pol Phil 9:2) Tertullian (Scorpiace 15) Eusebius (EH 2:25:8) Dionysius of Corinth (Eusebius EH 2:25:8) and Origen (Commentary on Genesis)

James’ conversion is recorded in the early creed in 1 Corinthians 15. James is also identified as a leader in Acts 15:12-21; Gal 1:19.

James’ martrydom is mentioned by Josephus (Ant 20:200), Hegesippus (EH 2:23) and Clement of Alexandria (EH 2:1; 2:23)

Alternative Theories

People have come up with various different theories but in my view they all fall short of explaining the facts.

Some say the disciples or Jewish leaders stole the body.

The Roman guards had too much to lose to allow the disciples to steal the body and it wouldn’t make any sense for the Jewish leaders to do so.