Christ's bodily resurrection

In the Apostles' Creed, which had its origin with the apostles themselves, we read the name of one man, and of one man only!
We read that Jesus Christ "suffered under Pontius Pilate."
Why was Pilate introduced into the earliest creed of Christianity?
He was introduced to assure us that Christianity is part of human and verifiable history; and that it had its origin in a geographically verifiable place.
For Pontius Pilate was Procurator of Judea from 26AD to 36AD.
Christianity is, therefore, not a philosophy, like Hinduism and Buddhism, based on myths and sagas. It is a solid and factual history.
Most people would agree that this is true regarding Christ's death on Good Friday, but they are not so sure regarding his resurrection on Easter Sunday.
They ask, "Was Jesus really raised on the first Easter morning, leaving the tomb empty, or is there some other explanation of those strange events recorded at the conclusion of the four gospels?"
Some say the women, confused by the morning mist, went to the wrong tomb, to an empty tomb.
Others say Jesus never really did die. He was merely wounded on the cross, and was revived by the cold air in the tomb.
The Jews maintained then, and maintain today, that the disciples stole the body, and then pretended He had risen.
Liberal theologians say his body mouldered away to dust, and that the resurrection is another way of saying that his memory lived on as a powerful dynamic in the lives of the disciples.
All these false suppositions have been fully answered by Frank Morrison in the greatest book ever written about the historicity of the resurrection. He called it Who Moved the Stone?
After a lifetime of study in these matters I believe, with all my heart, that the Gospel record is true.
I believe God raised his Son bodily from the tomb on the third day, and I want to share with you why I believe this to be true.

The gospel record

First, there is the record in our gospels.
We are often told that there is a great gap between the event and the recording of the event, a gap which allows invention and fantasy to enter.

But this is not so.
Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth in the year 56AD, "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures."
He went on to say, "If Christ has not been raised your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins."
That was written only 23 years after the resurrection!
And Paul tells us he received it, no doubt, from eye-witnesses, and that takes us back to the original disciples of Jesus.
Further, there is no need to stipulate a great gap between the gospel records and the event, for modern scholarship is closing the gap all the time.
Then we must remember that the disciples, like all Jews of that time, had highly developed memories, and had vivid memories of the empty tomb as revealed in such words as "the napkin . . . not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself" (Jn 20:7).
We can be sure that no invention or fantasy was involved. Jesus really was raised from the dead as all four gospels record.

Preaching the resurrection

My second reason for believing in this miraculous event is the impossibility of the disciples being able to preach the resurrection in Jerusalem 50 days after it happened if it did not happen.
I have been to Jerusalem seven times. When I go there I always take my party to the temple area, where Peter preached the first Christian sermon, which is recorded in Acts 2.
Standing there, with your back to the Dome of the Rock, the tomb of David is on your left, and the empty tomb of Jesus is on your right.
You will remember that in that Pentecost sermon Peter compared the tomb of David, containing his dust, with the tomb of Jesus, which was empty (Acts 2:29-32).
Concerning that tomb he said, "This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witness" (Acts 2:32).
By that word "all" he included not only his fellow disciples, but the whole of the crowd before him. Indeed, he included the whole of Jerusalem.
No one could deny that the tomb of Jesus was empty, for its location was well-known, and every person could check it out for himself.

This fact was never denied by the Jewish religious leaders.
As I have said, their very lame explanation was that the disciples had themselves stolen the body, and were now perpetrating this outrageous hoax.
But not even their own priests believed that, for we read in Acts 6:7, "a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith."

Changed disciples

My third reason for believing in the resurrection, as it was recorded, and as the disciples testified, is the extra-ordinary change in those men.
After the death of Jesus His disciples went into hiding.
They were terrified, fearing that their Master's fate would be theirs (Jn 20:19).
They were a group of broken, despairing men.
Yet, within 36 hours, the whole picture dramatically changed.
Ten days after the Ascension of Christ, as from Pentecost, they began to preach the resurrection with such power that multitudes were converted (Acts 6:7).
Some of them were arrested, scourged and finally killed. Tradition tells us that eventually all met with a martyr's death.
They went forth as bold as lions to conquer the world for Jesus, and the only explanation anyone can give for the extraordinary change in the character of these men is that given by themselves. They said, "The Jesus we speak of has been raised by God, as we can bear witness."
And it was not only the empty tomb that convinced them Jesus was the Son of God.
It was also His resurrection appearances where He proved to them that He had been raised in the same body in which He had been crucified (Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27).

The Christian Church

My fourth reason is the existence of the Christian Church world-wide.
This cannot be denied.
And it cannot be denied that if we trace the existence of the Church back through the centuries we discover that it was born at the empty tomb.
There would have been no Church at all if it had not been for the resurrection.
The state of society in the Roman Empire was described by Paul in his epistle to the Romans (chapter 1) in blistering terms.
That culture was so depraved that the message of the Gospel had no hope of being heard, or the early Church of surviving, if it had not even supported by the mighty fact of the resurrection.

Sunday

My fifth reason is the existence of Sunday as our day of worship, Sunday the day of resurrection.
It would be impossible for me to exaggerate the enormous importance of the fourth commandment to the Jews, "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy" (Ex 20:8).
The seventh day was the day on which God rested, in the creation story, therefore it was the day on which every Jew must worship.
The change from the seventh day to the first day as the day of worship represented an enormous shift in the minds of Christian Jews.
Yet they made that shift, simply because the first day, the day of resurrection, represented the supreme miracle in the history of the world; so important that even the divine commandment had to be put aside.
These, then, are the five reasons why I believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.
And there can be no doubt whatsoever that the first Christians had the same belief.
Study the Book of Acts, and you will find that the resurrection lies at the centre of all their preaching and witnessing.
The first reason is that the resurrection proves, beyond any shadow of doubt, that Christ was indeed God's Son.
We read in Romans 1:14 that, "he was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead."
Jesus himself had testified again and again that He was God's Son; and had prophesied that after His death, He would rise on the third day.
But what if this body had been left to rot in the tomb?
What if his dust had mingled with the dust of Palestine as some say?
In that case there would have been no certainty that he was God's Son. In fact it would have been certain that He was not.
But God did not leave his Son to rot in the tomb.
He raised him up on the third day, so putting His seal to all those claims that he was indeed God incarnate in the flesh.
The second reason the apostles made the resurrection central in their preaching was that it put God's seal on the efficacy of Christ's work on the cross.
He said he would give His life as a ransom for many, but how do we know that this ransom was acceptable to God?
He said He would shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. But how do we know our sins are forgiven?
We never could know if He had not been raised from the dead.
For He "was put to death for our trespasses," that is true, but He was "raised up for our justification" (Ro 4:25).
The third reason is that by his resurrection the dying Saviour became our living Lord.
His presence, and His power, are now with us always according to His promise, "Lo, I am with you always" (Mt 28:20).
The fourth and final reason is that by the resurrection Christ opens the Kingdom of Heaven to all who believe.
He said He would go and prepare a place for us in the glory and this He has done. He has conquered death; so death is now a defeated foe.
In writing to the Corinthians Paul said, "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept" (1 Cor 15:19-20AV).
Our hope of a life to come depends entirely on the resurrection of Christ.
Amen.

Tuesday

ACTS 4:1-13
"Many of them . . . believed; and the number of the men was about 5000" (v4).
When we read the Acts of the Apostles we are astonished that the Christian faith should grow so rapidly in Jerusalem, where the resurrection took place (Acts 4:32, 5:14).
The official story was that the disciples had stolen the body, but obviously few, if any, believed it (Mt 28:13).
Before the resurrection there were 120 declared followers of Jesus (Acts 1:5). After His resurrection there were many thousands (Acts 21:20).
Bearing in mind the passionate devotion of Jews to their religion, only the proven fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead could have converted them to Christianity.

Wednesday

LUKE 24:38-48
"Handle me and use your eyes; for a spirit does not have flesh and blood" (v39).
There is considerable emphasis in the gospels on the flesh and blood nature of Christ's resurrected body. Also "He showed them His hands and feet" (v40); and ate food "before them" (v43).
All this was done by him to demonstrate that the same Jesus they had known before His death was now alive.
There was a difference. He could appear and disappear (Jn 20:26; Lk 24:31). But He was in the same body in which He suffered.

JOHN 21:1-14
"Jesus went over, took the bread, and gave it to them; He did the same with the fish" (v13).
The action of Christ in gathering sticks, lighting a fire, and preparing breakfast for the hungry fishermen has been included in this narrative to show the physical reality of the resurrection.
William Barclay says: "The gospels go far out of their way to insist that the risen Christ was not a vision, not a hallucination, not even a spirit, but a real person. The gospels insist that the tomb was empty. The gospels insist that the risen Christ had a real body which still bore the marks of the nails and the sword thrust in His side."

1 CORINITHIANS 15:1-8
"He rose again the third day according to scriptures" (v3).
The emphasis on "the third day" emphasises the historical reality of the resurrection. It happened in recorded time.
"According to the scriptures" indicates Paul's belief in the predictive nature of such passages as Isaiah 53.

Saturday

MATTHEW 28:1-10
"He is not here; for He has risen as He said" (Mt 28:6).
At the centre of the Christian faith there is a cross, but it is an empty cross.
Christians have always believed that the death of Jesus was followed by His physical resurrection.
The Westminster Confession of Faith puts it this way: "He was crucified, and died, was buried, and remained under the power of death, yet saw no corruption.
"On the third day He arose from the dead, with the same body in which He suffered, with which also He ascended into heaven" (ch 8).
It was this belief that turned a group of demoralised men into a missionary band that turned the world upside down.
It was for this belief that they suffered and died, but no amount of persecution could deter them from testifying, with the utmost conviction and boldness, that Jesus who was dead was now alive.
The resurrection of Jesus, leaving the tomb empty, is the foundation stone of Christianity. Remove it, and the whole edifice collapses.
He said He would rise from the dead (Mt 20:19; Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; Lk 18:33). Why should we be so faithless as to refuse to believe Him?

ACTS 26
"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead" (v8).
This great speech before Agrippa should be read right through, if possible in J.B. Phillips' magnificent "free translation" in his book, The Young Church in Action (p104).
Despite the scripture record, and all the other evidences, there are many like the Sadducees of old (Acts 23:8), and like Agrippa, who refuse to believe.
Man cannot raise the dead, but surely God can?
And is it likely that He would let His beloved Son (Mt 3:17) fall into corruption in the tomb? (Acts 2:27).
If Christ is God's Son, which all true Christians affirm, then it is quite incredible that God would refuse to raise Him from the dead.

Monday

ROMANS 10:5-13
"If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (v9).
It is believed that this confession with the mouth, that "Jesus is Lord," was the original confession made by Christian martyrs as they faced Roman magistrates.
But we must remember that this confession was not real if the one confessing did not believe in his heart that God had raised Jesus from the dead.
Indeed, it was precisely because Jesus was raised by God from the dead (Ro 1:4) that Christians call him "Lord".
If he had remained in the tomb He would not be "Lord," nor would He be "Saviour" (Ro 4:25).
In Peter's sermon at Pentecost he said, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Act 2:36).
Jesus was made "Lord and Christ" by the resurrection.
The resurrection was the sign that "God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil 2:9-11).

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