Yes, He Came Out of That Tomb, Part One
The historical evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming to an honest mind
It is the most important question on this earth. Period. Bar none.
What question?
Did Jesus of Nazareth come out of that tomb almost 2,000 years ago?
Why is that question so important? Well, if he didn’t come out, if he wasn’t raised from the dead, then he isn’t who Christianity says he is—the Son of God and the Savior of the world. If he didn’t come out of that tomb, then he is dead right now, just like every other human who has died, and we owe him absolutely no more allegiance than we do to Hitler, Marx, Buddha or any other dead human being. If he were just a human being, why should we follow Jesus’s words more than any other human being’s?
But if he DID come out of that tomb, then everything he said, and everything he believed (i.e., the Bible) is true. He is indeed God, he is alive right now at the right hand of the Father in heaven, he was God in the flesh on this earth, and his word is going to judge us and determine our eternal destinies (John 12:48).
So, yes, I’d say it’s a pretty important question. If he didn’t come out of that tomb, we owe him nothing. If he did come out of that tomb, we owe him everything and we had better obey him. Eternity is a long time.
Did Jesus of Nazareth come out of that grave? Indeed, he did. Is there any evidence of it? Yes, there is, an abundance thereof. Let’s briefly look at the evidence for Jesus’s resurrection.
1. The eyewitnesses. A question. Was George Washington the first President of the United States under our 1789 Constitution? Yes, of course he was. How do you know that? “Well, history says so.” How does history know? “Well, people saw him, they talked to him, they touched him, they told us about him...” We know about George Washington, ultimately, only from eyewitness accounts of his words, deeds, and life. And that is the only way we know.
We have the exact same evidence that Jesus of Nazareth came out of the tomb. The...exact...same...evidence.
The resurrection of Christ is not a “philosophical” question. It is purely, and only, an historical one. And the evidence starts with the eyewitnesses who saw him after his resurrection. Matthew and John were literal eyewitnesses, being his apostles. Mark, by all accounts, was a disciple of Peter and received his gospel information from him. Luke was an historian who did his research (more on that in a subsequent point). The four gospel writers tell us of many witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection. The apostle Paul’s life was totally, 100% changed by his having seen the resurrected Jesus. Paul, in I Corinthians 15:5-8, mentions several other resurrection appearances of Christ, include his having been seen by over 500 people at once. If it were claimed that I murdered someone, and over 500 witnesses could be brought to the courtroom saying they saw me do it, what do you think the verdict would be? Could I perhaps sustain the thesis that they were all lying or hallucinating? I suspect the court wouldn’t accept my defense.
But were these people all hallucinating? No. Regarding the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, we aren’t talking about fleeting glimpses, in most cases there were prolonged interviews and contact. Hallucinations don’t talk to many different people for a long time and in many different locations.
Were the apostles, et al, lying? If I told you that I ate pizza for breakfast this morning but was lying to you, and you put a gun to my head and said, “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to blow your brains out,” what do you think I would do? Do you think I would continue in my fabrication? Very, very rarely will someone die for that which he KNOWS is a lie. And there is absolutely no historical evidence that any of the apostles ever recanted their testimony of having seen the risen Jesus. They believed it. They believed it so strongly they were willing to die for it. People don’t die for that which they know is a lie.
No, they weren’t hallucinating, and they weren’t lying. Just like people saw and talked to George Washington, weren’t hallucinating or lying about it, and told us of him, people saw and talked to Jesus of Nazareth after his resurrection. And they reported it to the world.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have HEARD, which we have SEEN WITH OUR EYES, which we have LOOKED UPON, and OUR HANDS HAVE HANDLED, concerning the Word of Life—the life was manifested, and we have SEEN, and BEAR WITNESS, and declare to you...” (I John 1:1-2).
That is historical testimony, folks, the exact same evidence we have of George Washington, or any other historical fact we know right now. The exact same evidence your friends could present regarding anything they did with you recently.
Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected from the grave. Historical evidence says so.
There are more lines of evidence, and I will continue with this series very soon.