Reasons to Believe

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By Chris McKnight
Lead Pastor, Kerrville Bible Church

The skeptic Jeffery Lowder, a co-founder of Internet Infidels, wrote that “strong historical arguments” can be made for the resurrection of Christ. Renowned atheist-turned-deist philosopher Antony Flew said that “the evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. Its outstandingly different in quality and quantity.” Well, of course it is! The evidence for the resurrection is deep and wide, because it rests on reality. When truth is on your side, the evidence is sure to follow. With that in mind, I want to encourage your faith with six reasons to believe that Jesus is alive, never to die again!

1. Because He is!
God’s truth, whether Genesis 1:1 or Matthew 28, ultimately needs no defense. By the power of Holy Spirit at work upon the elect, the Word of God is self-authenticating. By the power of the Holy Spirit at work upon the elect, the gospel of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (cf. I Cor. 15:1-3) is “according to the Scriptures” and as such is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).

The truth of God is self-evident and must be suppressed by sinners in unrighteousness in their futile attempt to tune it out or turn it down (Romans 1:18-32). Its like your neighbor’s loud music. No matter how hard you wish they would turn it down, they will not lower the volume and you have no choice but to hear it. Most human behavior is man trying to plug his ears so he does not hear God’s persistent message through creation, conscience and Scripture.

I believe the sun is bright and hot because the sun is bright and hot. In like manner, the first and foremost reason I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. I believe He is alive forevermore because He is alive forevermore!

Our faith rests on the facts of history, not on a myth, theory or fable. That’s why believing the resurrection of Jesus Christ is nothing like believing the earth is flat. One is blind ignorance of the facts, easily dismissed and proved false in 100 different ways. That cannot be said of the resurrection, at least not by any rational, reasonable person.

Underneath this argument is the foundational prerequisite for the resurrection – the actual death and burial of Christ. If there is no historical Christ who was killed and buried near Jerusalem, then there can be no resurrection. So we start there.

Neil Shenvi (PhD, University of California, Berkely) has been a research scientist at both Yale University and Duke University. He has published over 30 peer reviewed papers and recently wrote an article for Crossway.org called 4 Points of Evidence for the Resurrection.

He writes, “contemporary historians are virtually unanimous in their acceptance of Jesus’s death on the cross. His death by crucifixion is the single fact most mentioned in all the historical records of his life, both Christian and non-Christian. It is recorded in numerous books of the New Testament, including all four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation. It is mentioned by non-Christians like Josephus and Tacitus. It is discussed in apocryphal gospels such as the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Truth. And it is referenced by numerous early Christian writings, including 1 Clement and the epistles of Barnabas and Polycarp. Moreover, it is extremely unlikely that the early Christians would have invented the story that their Savior was an executed criminal.”

Agnostic Bart Ehrman writes: “It is hard today to understand just how offensive the idea of a crucified messiah would have been to most first-century Jews … Since no one would have made up the idea of a crucified messiah, Jesus must really have existed, must really have raised messianic expectations, and must really have been crucified.”

New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann captures the scholarly consensus when he writes, “The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”

Shenvi continues: “Similarly, there is strong evidence for the historicity of Jesus’s burial. Most importantly, Jesus’s burial is recorded in all four Gospels. The burial of Jesus is also explicitly mentioned in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, written in the late AD 50s, around thirty years after Jesus’s death, and it probably reflects a much earlier creed … the fact that several independent sources reference the same event strongly suggests that it is historical. Second, the Gospels all claim that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious court that condemned Jesus to death. It seems unlikely that early Christians would have invented this detail involving such a prominent figure, one who was a member of a group opposed to the early Christian movement … If we accept the position that Jesus did actually die on the cross and was actually buried, we must then ask, “What happened to Jesus after He died?”

That leads us to a second reason to believe the resurrection of Jesus really happened.

2. The eyewitness accounts of the empty tomb as recorded in the New Testament record.
First of all, the NT record is the most attested of all ancient documents. A study of how we got our Bibles is beyond the scope of this article; just suffice it to say the tireless work of what’s called “lower textual criticism” has yielded for us reliable Greek manuscripts from which our modern word-for-word translations have been produced. No other ancient writings, like Homer’s Iliad, Aristotle’s Rhetoric or Plato’s The Republic, comes close to the manuscript support of our
New Testaments.

In these tested and trustworthy documents, we have the eyewitness accounts of apostles Peter and John for example, recorded in John 20:1-11. We have the eyewitnesses accounts of Mary Magdalene and the other women recorded in the gospels. We have His appearances to the other Apostles and to over 500 brethren at one time, prior to the Ascension.

These eyewitnesses, in later testifying publicly to the resurrection of Jesus, had zero motive to lie, nothing to gain and everything to lose if it was a hoax.

They were simple resurrection witnesses forever changed by the reality; they were not imaginative or inventive story tellers looking for a book publishing deal.

Shenvi writes, “The strongest piece of evidence in favor of the historicity of the empty tomb is the report that it was discovered by women. This detail may not strike us as odd, but it is surprising, given the low status of women in the first century. For example, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus claimed that Jewish law expressed the following sentiment regarding the reliability of women: “Let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity
and boldness of their sex.” If the early Christians were inventing narratives to support their own version of events, why not ascribe the discovery of the tomb to witnesses who would have been received as more credible?”

“A second factor supporting the historicity of the empty tomb is the fact that just seven weeks after Jesus’s death, the apostles began preaching the resurrection in Jerusalem itself, the very city in which Jesus had been crucified. Had he  been lying in a tomb even for this length of time, his features such as hair, teeth, stature, and the wounds of crucifixion would have still been identifiable. It is difficult to see how the fledgling Christian movement could have survived
despite the opposition of the ruling authorities if the corpse of Jesus had been interred within walking distance of the temple. Any skeptic who wanted to refute the claims of the apostles could have silenced them by taking a short stroll to the burial place of Jesus. Yet we have no record of anyone claiming that the disciples lied about the empty tomb. How did Christianity grow so rapidly in the very place where Jesus was buried if it could have been falsified so
easily?”

How indeed?

He continues, “finally, at the end of his Gospel, Matthew provides what amounts to a dialogue between Christians and Jews regarding the body of Jesus. He states that the Jewish leaders of his day insisted that Jesus’s body had been stolen by the disciples, a claim that apparently was still circulating in the second century, since it is referenced in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho.

But this accusation implies that the Jewish leaders believed that the tomb was actually empty; obviously, they would not have accused the disciples of grave robbery if they believed that Jesus’s body was still in the tomb. For these reasons, most skeptical responses to the resurrection do not simply dismiss the empty tomb as a legend, but try to provide some alternative explanation for it.”

Muslim author Reza Aslan, who argues that it’s “impossible to know” exactly what happened after Jesus’s death, nonetheless recognizes the significance of these considerations. He writes: “One could simply . . . dismiss the resurrection as a lie, and declare belief in the risen Jesus to be the product of a deluded mind. However, there is this nagging fact to consider: one after another of those who claimed to have witnessed the risen Jesus went to their own gruesome deaths refusing to recant their testimony. That is not, in itself, unusual. Many zealous Jews died horribly for refusing to deny their beliefs. But these first followers of Jesus were not being asked to reject matters of faith based on events that took place centuries, if not millennia, before. They were being asked to deny something they themselves personally, directly encountered.”

George Sinclair, writing for TGC, Canada Edition, said this: “There are (not counting Paul), eleven recorded times that Jesus appeared to people proving that He was resurrected. These appearances were to: men and women, individuals, couples, groups, and at least one crowd. The appearances were inside and outside, in different locations, and at different times of the day. He was physically touched, audibly heard, visually seen, and He ate food in the presence of
witnesses. None of these witnesses believed that Jesus would rise from the dead before He rose from the dead. All of them knew him before His death, so they knew He was the same Jesus who died on the cross.”

Of course, early church history recorded by the highly educated Dr. Luke in the book of Acts, tells us of the suffering endured by Peter, John and the other Apostles for their faith in a crucified and resurrected Messiah. For that matter, Luke himself would suffer as a Christian. They were maligned, beaten, imprisoned, persecuted, exiled and if tradition is correct, each one of the Jerusalem Apostles died as martyrs for the Lord Jesus. Why would they die for a lie? Why would they suffer for a liar or lunatic if they had not seen Him alive from the dead?

Their reality of faith leads to our next reason.

3. Paul.
Not much needs to be said, if you are familiar with Paul’s repeated testimony in Acts and his own writings. This devout Pharisee hated Christians and had a hand in killing them. He was on his way to do more of the same far from Jerusalem when he was knocked off his high horse, blinded by the light of the risen Christ and confronted by the living Christ, visibly and audibly. He repented, believed and was never the same. The one who tried to destroy the church became the most tireless missionary, evangelist and pastor the world has likely ever seen. I believe it was
because Paul saw the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. Nothing else can explain the rest of his life.

And it would be Paul, along with others of course, who would point us to our next reason.

4. Fulfilled Prophecy
Three key OT passages prophesied that the Suffering Servant of YHWH would live again: Psalm 16, Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, all written hundreds of years before Christ and before the invention of crucifixion by the Persians. In addition, we see predictions of His resurrection in Isaac being received back from the dead by Abraham as a type and in Jonah coming out of the belly of the great fish after three days. All of these, according to the New Testament writers, foreshadowed the resurrection of Christ after His sufferings.

5. The world-wide impact of the gospel.
If there’s no resurrection, there is no good news. If no good news, how do you explain the changed lives of millions and the growth and endurance of the church for over 2,000 years? The testimony of church history started with Pentecost in the shadows of the empty tomb. George Sinclair writes: “In the very place where Jesus died and was buried there was an explosion of growth in the Christian movement – which was centered on the claim that the grave was empty and that Jesus had truly risen. This explosion of growth happened mere weeks after the death and resurrection of Jesus in the place where He died. The growth happened in the face of hostility, opposition and persecution from civil and religious leaders.”

In addition there have been hundreds and thousands of martyrs throughout church history who had everything of this world to lose by converting to Christ and in many cases, nothing to gain. Its powerful circumstantial evidence that there are so many changed lives over so many years in so many different cultures speaking so many different languages to dismiss Christianity and Christ’s resurrection out of hand.

I will add my own testimony to the mix. At the age of 20, while attending a Fellowship of Christian Athletes retreat, I heard the gospel for the first time in my life. Of course there had been some previous exposure to Jesus, the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. I had attended many a Methodist church service by my mother’s side. I had even gone through confirmation around age 12, but I can assure you, I still had not heard the gospel, nor repented, nor believed in Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I hate to say it, but I was merely confirmed in my lostness. I was dead in my sins and trespasses.

But at this retreat I was shown and taught John 1:1-5 and 1:14, confronted for the first time in my life with the Deity of Christ and the reality of His resurrection, with its implications for my life. I was exposed as sinful and filthy by the Word of God. I was called to repent and trust Christ alone to save me, forgive me and give me eternal life. His resurrection changes everything. He can no longer be safely ignored if He’s risen from the dead. God the Holy Spirit convicted me,
impressing upon my mind that I was going to hell and deserved it. But God! He made me alive together with Christ and granted that I would be born again through the resurrection of Jesus.

So in a simple way, I believe in the resurrection because I was born again, given a new heart, transformed by the power of the gospel. My soul knows this transforming power rests upon the reality of Christ dying for me and rising in my place.

My life of sin was radically overturned. I instantly had a deep and abiding hunger for the word of God and devoured it through personal reading and multiple church services and Bible studies. I now wanted to be with Christians and worship God using these somewhat strange hymns from this old Baptist hymnal. I began to fight temptation and sin, instead of yielding every time as a slave to sin. There was new love for God, real joy and daily peace I had never known before. My language changed. My drinking stopped. My friends all changed and my journey to heaven began. Thirty- eight years later, I’m still on the narrow road, all because of God’s grace, all because Jesus died for my sins and rose again the third day. I know He’s alive because I’m alive! I know He lives because I can’t come up with any other explanation for my changed heart.

But back to the objective evidence.

6. The enemies of Jesus and Christianity never produced a body.
Admittedly, this is an argument from silence, but it is a good one. The resurrection has never been disproven. In fact the Jews and Romans who hated Jesus had to concoct a story to cover up the resurrection because they could not produce a body. Every resource of Judaism would have been made available to stop this fledgling movement, but it made no difference. You can’t get blood from a turnip and you can’t get the body of Jesus from His empty grave. As the angel said to the women at the empty tomb, “He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying” (Matthew 28:6).

George Sinclair writes, “the historical evidence shows that: the grave was empty; the grave clothes were neatly left behind; the stone enclosing the tomb was rolled away; the body of Jesus was never found; the grave had been guarded by Roman soldiers; and no one ever claimed to have stolen the body. The presence of the grave clothes is significant. It was the spices attached to the cloth that had value. Anyone removing the body for profit or mischief would have taken the wrapped body away and separated out the valuable mixture at their leisure. In fact the placement of the grave clothes, like the placement of the stone, perfectly fits with the resurrection as the cause, rather than with human agency as the cause.”

I conclude with a personal reflection on the character of God as He has revealed Himself in creation and conscience.

7. The goodness and faithfulness of God.
If there is no resurrection, then throw out Christianity. If there is no Christianity, then throw away hope for the world. Nothing matters. We live, we die, we turn to dust. We have no more value than an ant or cock roach or rogue germ. If no resurrection, then we are all dust in the wind and all of life is vanity, meaningless and a cruel joke of random fate.

If no resurrection then nothing you do or say matters. Death and sin and Satan win. Life is not worth having or living.

But it was impossible for death to hold Him, in part, because of the goodness and faithfulness of God. We know there is a God. We know He is powerful. We know He is eternal and divine, deserving of our honor and thanks. We also know right from wrong and the pain of a guilty conscience, meaning we know we have sinned against this all-knowing God.

The question to ponder is whether this divine, eternal, all-powerful God who created all things, who gives us life, and breath, rains and good food, marriage and children, color and sound and beauty, the question is whether this God would abandon His creation to their sin and abandon His only begotten Son to the grave.

God’s goodness would not leave His Son in the grave or mankind without hope of salvation. From God’s goodness flows His grace, mercy and love. That God is inherently, eternally, infinitely good and does good means that the sinless Son of God was bound to be raised for our justification and His glory.

Faithfulness would not leave His Son in the grave. Jesus had prayed in faith and believed resurrection was on the other side of the cross. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. He had prayed and believed the Scriptures concerning Himself. God was faithful to hear and answer and keep His prophetic word. He was faithful to honor the faith of Jesus Himself who certainly believed from the cross that God would receive His human spirit and raise His human body.

Given who Christ is, the goodness and faithfulness of God were “on the clock” once His body expired. Would the God of the universe be good and true or bad and deceiving? Would He keep His promise to His Son or turn His back on Him forever? Would He do all that was necessary to save His chosen people or change His mind and leave them in the grave and hell forever?

The historical, witnessed, prophesied, impactful and never-proven-false resurrection of Jesus is God’s good and faithful answer!

From the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished!” The resurrection is the Father’s “Amen!”  From the cross, Jesus said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” The resurrection is the Father reuniting that spirit to a glorified body fit for heaven and eternity.

In the cross we were crucified with Him. In His resurrection, we were raised with Him. The cross accomplished atonement for all who would ever believe and the resurrection confirmed redemption was successful, securing our justification before a holy God and allowing God to display His infinite goodness and prove His unshakeable faithfulness to everyone everywhere who would “confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.” Amen!

If you want to go deeper and wider on this subject, here a few book recommendations:

• The Gospel of John
• Evidence that Demands a Verdict Josh McDowell
• The Case for Christ Lee Strobel
• Why One Way? John MacArthur
• Your Verdict on the Empty Tomb Val Grieve

These additional resources are available in the KBC bookstore:

• Can We Trust the Gospels? Peter J. Williams
• Can I really trust the Bible? Barry Cooper
• Reasons We Believe Nathan Busenitz
• Why Should I Believe Christianity? James N. Anderson
• How We Got the Bible Timothy Paul Jones, PhD
• The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona

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