Of all the major claims that Christianity makes, one claim is it’s most foundational—it’s capstone claim. That claim is that Jesus Christ of Nazareth died and for three days was buried, but on the third day, He physically rose from the dead and is alive today! If Jesus did rise from the dead, we can be sure He was who He claimed to be—the Son of God, the Messiah. If Jesus really did rise from the dead, we can be sure that there is such a thing as life after death and that He alone is empowered to lead us there. We have no need to speculate about whether or not we live on after we die, because Jesus has defeated death and promises that a new life awaits His followers.
But did He rise from the dead? According to Newsweek, the number of Americans who believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ has dropped 10 points in the last decade.[1] This is alarming news. How can this be? There are numerous books that give proofs to the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and countless sermons proclaiming from the Biblical text that Christ rose from the dead.
What is becoming clear is that many people have dismissed the proofs and the Biblical texts and therefore we need a different approach to help people reengage with Christianity’s capstone claim. Of course, we want the ultimate response to be, like Thomas’ when he encountered the Risen Christ and exclaimed, “My Lord and My God!” But the approach of presenting factors aims for an initial response of, “That’s really interesting. I’ve never considered that. I need to reconsider Jesus’s resurrection.”
What are the factors that when taken together might cause a skeptic to reconsider Christianity’s capstone claim? I believe there are four factors to consider.
Factor 1: The Disciples Died For Their Belief
When Jesus died, all of His followers, in despair and fear, went into hiding even though they knew that the Scriptures predicted that the Messiah’s body would not see corruption[2] and that Jesus himself had predicted His own resurrection on three separate occasions.[3] Yet, when Jesus died, their hopes that Jesus was the promised Messiah died with Him. Why then, just a short time later were these same men boldly proclaiming that this Jesus, who had been publicly crucified, declared dead and was buried was now alive from the dead, exalted to the right hand of God and is now the Lord of life? And what did they receive for such an open and bold proclamation? They were tortured and even martyred for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. J.P. Moreland states, “The disciples had nothing to gain by lying and starting a new religion. They faced hardship, ridicule, hostility and martyr’s death…each one dying a terrible death rather than recanting their story of the resurrection. In light of this, they could have never sustained such unwavering motivation if they knew what they were preaching was a lie.”
The question that must be asked and answered is the question Michael Green asked: ‘How have these early followers turned, almost overnight, into the indomitable band of enthusiasts who braved opposition, cynicism, ridicule, hardship, prison, and death in three continents, as they preached everywhere Jesus and the resurrection?”[4]
Factor 2: Shattered Worldviews
Many modern day skeptics believe that those living in Jesus’ day were quite simple and would readily accept claims about Jesus’ resurrection, because they believed resurrections of the dead were possible. That assumption, however, is simply not the case. To all the dominant worldviews of that time, an individual bodily resurrection was inconceivable.
N.T. Wright, in his tome, The Resurrection of the Son of God, reveals that an individual bodily resurrection in the middle of the age was impossible in the Jewish worldview and completely undesirable in the Greco-Roman worldview. Why would this be? In the Greco-Roman worldview the soul or spirit or the immaterial was good and the physical or material was evil, or weak. To them salvation was seen as liberation from the body! In this worldview resurrection wasn’t just impossible, but it was totally undesirable! “No soul, having gotten free from its body, would ever want it back. Even those who believed in reincarnation understood that the return to embodied life meant that the soul was not yet out of its prison. The goal was to get free of the body forever. Once your soul is free of its body, a return to re-embodied life was outlandish, unthinkable, and impossible.”[5]
Jesus’ resurrection would have been impossible in the Jewish worldview as well. Tim Keller states,
Unlike the Greeks, the Jews saw the material and physical world as good. Death was not seen as liberation from the material world but as a tragedy. By Jesus’s day many Jews had come to hope that some day in the future there would be a bodily resurrection of all the righteous, when God renewed the entire world and removed all suffering and death…The idea of an individual being resurrected, in the middle of history, while the rest of the world continued on burdened by sickness, decay and death, was inconceivable.[6]
Simply put, the Jewish followers of Jesus weren’t predisposed to the idea of an individual bodily resurrection in the middle of the age. In fact, it wasn’t an option in their worldview. They couldn’t have imagined it! Why, then, would these Jewish followers of Jesus, come to the conclusion and begin to proclaim that Jesus rose from the dead? Because He had.
Factor 3: Conversion of Skeptics
It is clear from the Gospel accounts that there were hardened skeptics who did not believe in Jesus before His crucifixion, as well as others who willfully and violently opposed those who believed and proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection. Yet, for some reason, many of those who were skeptical of Jesus and His resurrection became some of the most able and ardent defenders of Jesus and His resurrection, even willingly going to their deaths for their believe in Christ’s resurrection. One example was the early church leader James, the half brother of Jesus. James had great doubts and skepticism about Jesus’ Messiahship until the risen Jesus personally appeared to him.[7] “James not only became the recognized leader of the Jerusalem church, but according to both early Jewish as well as Christian traditions, he was martyred for the faith. What did it take to bring this kind of a skeptic to saving faith and then to such a prominent position of leadership as well as to martyrdom for their faith?[8] The only plausible explanation is that he had seen the resurrected Jesus and that changed everything for James.
A second example is the unique experience of Saul of Tarsus, who would later become the Apostle Paul. Paul, when speaking about his opposition to this upstart Jesus movement said, “Formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor and insolent opponent.”[9] No one hated Jesus and His rag-tag bunch of followers more than Saul of Tarsus; he did everything within his power to stamp out Jesus’s early followers. What would cause Christianity’s greatest antagonist to transform into its greatest protagonist? His own words tell us: “The risen Christ appeared to me.”[10]
Factor 4: Christ’s New Community
Another powerful factor that gives credence to Christianity’s capstone claim is the birth and radical emergence of the Christian church. It did not exist until about A.D. 30, and then just as its Founder was executed and His movement appeared extinguished, it all of a sudden came to life and spread like wildfire! How else does one explain the emergence of the Christian church? Within twenty years the Christian church, with no finances behind it, with no proven leadership, with no experience or education, moved out from the city of Jerusalem into the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire and turned that society upside down. Historian Philip Schaff sees the connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the birth and emergence of the Christian church. He states, “The Christian church rests on the resurrection of its Founder. Without this fact the church could never have been born, or if born, it would soon have died a natural death. The miracle of the resurrection and the existence of Christianity are so closely connected that they must stand or fall together.”[11]
Embracing the Resurrection
The reality is there’s no single apologetic that can prove without a doubt the resurrection of Jesus, however these four factors (and there’s plenty more) make a compelling case! If someone, after examining these four factors came to the conclusion that Jesus did not rise from the dead—fair enough. But they, then, have to provide an alternative explanation that is plausible for all four of these facts! As J.P. Moreland states, “Remember, there’s no doubt these facts are true; what’s in question is how to explain them. And I’ve never seen a better explanation than the Resurrection.”[12]
The only way to embrace the Resurrection, is to let the strands of evidence challenge and change your worldview. Don’t short circuit the process by objecting to the possibility of the resurrection based upon a philosophical bias. Let the death of Jesus’s disciples, the shattering of 1st century worldviews, the conversion of skeptics and the emergence of Christ’s new community challenge and change your assumptions. If you do, I think you’ll agree with Jesus’s followers who joyfully proclaimed, “It is true! The Lord has risen…”[13]
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/christian-mystery-physical-resurrection-69435?GT1=43002
[2] Psalm 16:10
[3] Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:33-34
[4] Green, Michael. Man Alive! Downers Grove, IL. InterVarsity Press, 1968
[5] Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God. New York, NY. Dutton. 2008
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jn. 7:5, 1 Cor. 15:7, Acts 1:14
[8] Leventhan, Barry, R. Why I Am A Christian. Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Books. 2003
[9] 1 Timothy 1:13
[10] 1 Cor. 15:8
[11] Schaff, Philip & Schaff, David. History of the Christian Church, 8 Vols., Grand Rapids, MI. Eerdmans, 1950.
[12] Quoted in Strobel, Case for Christ.
[13] Luke 24:34
Travis Connick 