As inspiring as his life might have been,
we would still be left wondering if Jesus was indeed who he claimed to be,
since in the end, Jesus, like all human beings,
was silenced by death.
In fact, upon Jesus’ capture and crucifixion, his followers fled and went into hiding, disillusioned and even bitter that they had falsely hoped that Jesus was the awaited Messiah.
However, history tells us that Christianity spread explosively shortly after Jesus’ death.
It wasn’t because his followers wanted to honor their teacher by passing on his wisdom.
Their main message, from the very beginning, was that
and that they were witnesses to this incomprehensible miracle.
Jesus’ claims about his identity as God incarnate and his promises of forgiveness would have been nothing more than unverifiable assertions, were it not for the resurrection.
As Apostle Paul put it,
We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
1 Corinthians 15:14-19
However, the resurrection shows us that Jesus was indeed who he claimed to be. And humanity has been impacted by it ever since.
Jesus made atonement for our sins.
Jesus brings eternal life.
The resurrection becomes the hope of the Christian faith, the proof that Jesus indeed has the authority and power to usher in eternal life. The resurrection goes hand in hand with the death of Jesus.
we can be forgiven our iniquities.
we can be raised to a new birth, a new life in Jesus Christ.
Dead people don’t come back to life. Over a hundred billion dead people testify to this fact. Some argue that since dead people don’t resurrect, Jesus could not have resurrected.
Therefore Jesus is not God incarnate. But that would be a faulty circular argument. That kind of logic is akin to Christians arguing that the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says so. (That’s a bad circular argument.)
But that’s exactly the point:
So an honest investigator needs to be open to the evidence without dismissing it prematurely.
That is where we turn our attention next.
Why would scholars on both sides of the issue devote so much time to this argument?
Let us, for a moment, reconsider the stakes involved.
The resurrection of Jesus is not an esoteric item of interest to those interested in Near Eastern studies.
The resurrection, if it is true, means that the eternity written into the human soul is not a cruel cosmic joke.
However, the disturbing fact is that it was Jesus of Nazareth who resurrected… Jesus, whose birth and death were prophesied, who claimed himself to be God’s Son, who claimed that he was going to die and rise again.
You might appreciate a person who waxes eloquent with lofty teachings and then dies.
His resurrection vindicates his claims; it authenticates his teaching – it obligates all of us to listen to him.
Jesus said that he himself would one day pay the penalty of our sins by shedding his own blood on the cross.
In Matthew 26:27-28, during the Last Supper, Jesus took the cup and told his disciples, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant,
Jesus told us that God is like the waiting father, who desires to forgive his wayward children. Because the resurrection validates his identity, it means that those words are true. It means that’s what God is actually like.
Finally, it also means that we too can have hope in the resurrection, as Jesus promised to his followers,
John 14:19
Romans 6:4 echoes this eternal hope:
Jesus’ death and resurrection make
An important point should be made here:
not on the resurrection itself. The resurrection itself, in isolation, would not mean much to us except to demonstrate that there are some things in this universe that we don’t understand.
What is your assessment of the evidence for the resurrection?
If the resurrection truly happened, what implications does it have on your life?
For further reading, a PDF version of Chapter Five can be found here. For more, please see below for a story on how the resurrection impacted his life.
