As
you read this column today, we find ourselves in the middle of Holy Week, the
week leading up to Easter Sunday when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Most of you reading this article have grown up in Christianity, so the
claim that Jesus came back to life on the third day after he died is
second-nature to you; it is old hat; it is so common that it has likely become
mundane and ordinary—which is sad, ironic, and spiritually dangerous all at the
same time.
It
is hard for us to understand that for many people in this world, the claim that
Jesus rose from the grave is utterly ridiculous and silly. To them, the claim
is as outrageous and unbelievable as a claim that Elvis Presley stepped out of
a UFO in my backyard last night to give me a private concert—with Bigfoot on
the bass guitar! To most of these people, the claim that Jesus was resurrected
is simply a useful fiction rather than the truth. What’s the difference between
a useful fiction and the truth? Consider Santa Claus—telling your children that
Santa will reward them for being good might cause them to refrain from hitting
their siblings once or twice a year. In that sense, the story could be useful,
but of course, it’s not true—and when we all inevitably learn that it’s not
true, the story ceases to have any motivating power in our lives.
It
is vital that we understand that our claim that Jesus rose from the grave is
not simply a useful fiction. It is the truth, plain and simple. To say that
Jesus rose from the grave is simply to state what actually happened one brisk
Sunday morning in Jerusalem in the early 30s AD. Why should we think this is
so? Because believing this claim is not only agreeable to faith in the God who
created us and who spoke to us through the Bible—it is also agreeable to reason
because it is the best explanation of the facts of the matter. Consider just
four facts, facts that are affirmed by even the most vocal critics of
Christianity:
1.
Jesus died by crucifixion at Jerusalem during the governorship of Pontius
Pilate
2.
Jesus’ disciples sincerely believed that Jesus came back to life and visited
them
3.
James, the biological half-brother of Jesus, suddenly converted to faith in
Jesus after Jesus had died
4.
Saul of Tarsus suddenly converted to faith in Jesus after Jesus had died
What
is the best explanation of just these four facts—the explanation that can
account for all of them in the most convincing way? The most common explanation
from critics has been that the disciples made up the whole story of the
resurrection to gain a following for themselves—and perhaps fame and fortune
with it. But this explanation struggles to explain why James converted to
faith. Why would he have wanted to go along with such a scheme? Why would the
disciples have invited him into their scheme and taken the risk that he would
expose them? Furthermore, this explanation utterly fails in explaining why Saul
of Tarsus was converted. He was doing quite well in his life as a Pharisee by
persecuting Christians. Why would he have become one if the Christian faith was
just a story made up by the disciples? He had nothing to gain by converting and
everything to lose. Moreover, we must remember that the disciples all went to
their graves proclaiming that the Resurrection was true—and nearly all of them
were ushered to their graves by violent hands that made martyrs out of them.
It’s outlandish to think that not one of them would have come clean about a
hoax in the face of such a fate.
Other
explanations have been suggested which we cannot consider here for lack of
space, but the most reasonable explanation is simply that Jesus died and then
came back to life. It explains the facts of the matter perfectly. And when we
remember that these facts came to be in a world created by the God who had
already revealed himself through all of His dealings with the people of Israel
as recorded in the Old Testament, it is no surprise at all that God raised
Jesus from the dead. It is simply the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth!
