The Evidence of Jesus Christ's Resurrection

Does the resurrection of Jesus sound pretty fanciful and unreal?

Where is the evidence that it actually happened?

How do we know that the early Christians didn't just make it up?

Lets briefly consider the evidence for the resurrection.

If you are already a believer in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, let this evidence reaffirm your faith. If you are still a skeptic, consider carefully the evidence and weigh them in your heart and mind and see if God does not speak to you through them.

Evidence number 1: The Empty Tomb.

Jesus' corpse was removed from the cross, wrapped around and around with cloth with about 75-100 pounds of spice. He was then placed in a solid-rock tomb. A one-and-a-half to two-ton stone that rolled in a groove, was rolled in place and sealed the tomb's entrance. Then a crack squat of Roman soldier were posted in front to ensure no body got in.

All of this, yet Sunday morning finds the soldiers disappeared, the stone rolled away, the body gone, but the grave clothes still in place. What happened?

Some say Christ's friends stole the body. Perhaps one of the women sweet-talked the guards and distracted them while the others moved the stone and tiptoed off with the body. Or maybe Peter or Thomas overpowered the guards, stole the body, then fabricated the resurrection myth. That is what the Chief Priest wanted the soldiers to say happened.

But these theories hardly seem plausible. The guards were too powerful, the stone too heavy and the disciples too spineless to attempt such a feat. Peter was so frighten through the trial of Christ he denied he even knew Jesus three times at Pilate's court. The other disciples (except for John) weren't even that brave: they scattered and went into hiding the moment the temple guards showed up at the garden of Gethsemane where they arrested Jesus. And now we are suppose to believe this ragtag group, with their wooden pitchforks and fishing nets, came against these professional soldiers and over powered them. Not likely.

Others have suggested that Christ's enemies might have stolen his body. But if the Romans or the Jewish religious leaders had the body, surely they would have exposed it publicly and put a halt to Christianity then and there. But they didn't and Christianity continued to spread around the world.

Another popular theory is called the "Swoon Theory". This theory supposes that Jesus didn't actually die but was only unconscious. But this theory takes more faith to believe than the resurrection. To hold to this theory you have to believe that these Roman soldiers who had crucified hundreds of people, who were real experts at it, mistook him for being dead.

You have to believe that after a few days in the tomb, after being beaten within inches of his life even before he was nailed to the cross, without food or medicine, the cool air of the tomb revived him. You have to believe that as weak as Jesus was he was able to burst out of the grave clothes wound around him with 75 -100 pounds of spices on him, then have the strength to roll away this huge stone from the inside with nail pierced hands, scare the living' daylights out of the soldiers and walk miles of wounded feet to convince his disciples he'd been raised from the dead. That is harder to believe than the resurrection itself.

Evidence number 2: Is The Many Appearances of the Risen Lord.

For 40 days after his death, many different people said they saw Jesus alive. The witnesses include a wide diversity people, including a group of women, a shrewd tax collector, several fishermen, a skeptic called Thomas and over 500 people at once. 1 Cor. 15:3-7 "3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: 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 Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born."
These are all eye witnesses.

I was listening to a lawyer on the radio this week. He said he had been a successful criminal lawyer but he was also a skeptic of the gospel. While he was in college he had admired the writings of a certain lawyer from the past. This fellow he admired had once won over 200 cases in a row, either outright or on appeal. Then the speaker that I was listening to said he discovered that this lawyer he admired had written a paper on the evidence of Jesus' resurrection, from the criminal lawyer's point of view. Well after he finished reading this article it got him interested in the subject and so, still very much a skeptic, he set out to investigate the evidence himself. When he concluded his research, he still did not want to believe but he felt compelled to believe based strictly on the evidence.

The speaker said that many cases in our courts of law today are settled on far, far less evidence than there is for the resurrection of Jesus. He calculated that if every one of the 500 hundred eye witnesses was allowed only 15 minutes in the witness stand there would be 125 hours of testimony and would take over 5 days, 24 hours a day to hear it all. Add to that all the other evident and the case for Jesus' resurrection, he says, is a pretty solid case. People have been found innocent and guilty on much less evidence. This speaker I was listening to said that even though he did not necessarily want to believe, his sharp lawyer mind just would not allow him to ignore the hard cold facts. He said he just had to slip down beside his bed and pray and accept the risen Lord Jesus into his life.

Evidence number 3 Is The Changed Lives of the Disciples.

After Jesus' arrest and crucifixion, most of the disciples fled in fear. Peter denied three times that he was a follower of Jesus; once even because a young girl confronted him! The women were braver and stayed by Jesus to the end. Yet of the eleven disciples of Jesus (remember Judas committed suicide) of the eleven disciples, ten were willing to die for their belief that Jesus rose from the dead and one, John, preferred to live out his life in loneliness exiled on an island called Patmos rather than deny the resurrection of Jesus. According to tradition, Peter was crucified himself upside down; Thomas, the former skeptic, was skewered through, and the others met the same types of gruesome painful deaths.

What turned these cowards into heroes? Many people will cave in and recant their faith even though they know what they believe is true just because they do not have the courage to face pain and death. But how often do you get people willing to endure torture and death for what they know is a lie and fabrication? None!
That is, The disciples would not have been willing to be martyred for something they made up themselves.

No, they had had a life changing encounter with the risen Lord Jesus and nothing would make them change their minds from what they had seen with their eyes, heard with their ears and touched with their hands. But it goes on from there; thousands of people from the time of the disciples to this very present day have been persecuted and put to death, had their belongings confiscated etc. all because they could not in good conscience deny the personal, spiritual encounters they have had with Jesus, the living Jesus. They have been persecuted through the years by pagans and dictators and communists and even by corrupt hierarchy members of the church yet so convince are they that they will not change.

Some people will say, "what's all the fuss about? What difference does it make if Jesus rose from the dead? The difference is that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then thousands of believers have died as martyrs for a hoax.

But He did rise, the evidence proves it.

Countless scholars, from all walks of life, among them the Apostle Paul (a first century skeptic), Augustine, Sir Issac Newton and C.S. Lewis, to name only a few, believed in the resurrection of Jesus. So it is NOT intellectual suicide to believe it also.

Jesus is risen. And if he did rise, then he is still alive and can offer peace to troubled, hurting lives.

Attempts to explain away the evidences run into a brick wall of facts that point to one conclusion: Christ is risen.

I've not given you exhaustive proof; that would take too long. Entire thick volumes have been written on the topic. Rather I've tried to give a reasoned examination of just some of the more obvious facts.

Each person should examine the gospel accounts found in the Bible for themselves, with an honest and open heart and mind, and come to their own conclusion. But intellectual assent to the facts alone is not enough.

The greatest evidence comes from personal encounter with the living Jesus. By humbling oneself before God and receiving Jesus' free gift of forgiveness.