Letter Six: Did It Really Happen?

Letters to an Honest Skeptic

Dear friend,

In my last letter I argued that Jesus claimed to be God, and that this leaves us only three options: He was a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. You may have thought, fairly enough, that a claim is only a claim. Anyone can say anything. What would settle it?

Jesus answered that Himself. He told His critics that the only sign He would give them was His own resurrection. "Destroy this temple," He said, speaking of His body, "and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19).

That makes the resurrection the hinge of everything. If Jesus stayed dead, then whatever else He was, He was wrong about the most important thing He ever said, and you can set Christianity aside with a clear conscience. I mean that. One of the earliest Christian writers, the apostle Paul, said the same: "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless" (1 Corinthians 15:17). Very few religions stake everything on a single event in history that could, in principle, be shown false. Christianity does.

So let us look at the event.

What the earliest witnesses said

Around twenty years after the crucifixion, Paul wrote a letter to a church in the Greek city of Corinth. In it he passed on a short summary that he says he had "received," meaning it was handed down to him, and most scholars, including skeptical ones, date that summary to within a few years of Jesus' death. It says that Christ died, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, and that He appeared to Peter, to the twelve, to more than five hundred people at one time, to His brother James, to all the apostles, and finally to Paul himself.

Then Paul adds that most of the five hundred were still alive. In other words, if you doubt me, go and ask them. People inventing a story do not usually hand their readers a list of people who could contradict it.

The facts most historians grant

You do not have to accept the Bible as inspired to examine what happened. A number of facts are accepted by most historians who study this period, whatever their personal beliefs.

Jesus died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. This is about as certain as anything in ancient history.

His tomb was found empty. Most scholars accept this, though not all, and I want to be straight with you about that. Two things weigh in its favor. The first explanation offered by His opponents was that the disciples stole the body, which assumes the tomb was empty. And the first witnesses were women, whose testimony counted for little in that culture. If someone were inventing the story, that is the last detail they would include.

His disciples sincerely believed they had seen Him alive. They were not expecting it. When the women first reported the empty tomb, the disciples thought it was nonsense. Yet within weeks they were proclaiming the resurrection in the very city where He had been executed, and they kept proclaiming it through prison, beatings, and, for many of them, death.

His brother James, who did not believe in Him during His lifetime, became a leader of the church and was later executed for his faith. The Jewish historian Josephus records his death.

Paul, who had been trying to destroy the church, became its most tireless missionary. He said the reason was simple: Jesus appeared to him.

The other explanations

Anyone who rejects the resurrection still has to explain those facts. Over the years, four main explanations have been offered. I want to give each a fair hearing.

The disciples stole the body. Then they spent the rest of their lives suffering for a story they knew they had made up. People will die for something false that they believe is true. People do not die for a lie they know they invented. This theory also says nothing about James or Paul.

Jesus did not really die. He fainted on the cross and revived in the tomb. But Roman soldiers were professional executioners, and John records a spear driven into His side. A man who had been scourged and crucified, then wrapped for burial, would not have freed himself, moved the stone, and appeared to his followers looking like someone who had conquered death. A half-dead man needing a doctor does not inspire worship.

They went to the wrong tomb. But the tomb belonged to a known member of the Jewish council, and the women had watched where He was laid. If the disciples were preaching from the wrong grave, the authorities only had to walk to the right one and produce the body.

They hallucinated. Grief can produce visions. But hallucinations happen inside individual minds. They are not shared by groups, let alone by five hundred people at once. They do not empty a tomb. And they do not explain why a skeptical brother and a hostile persecutor, neither of whom was grieving or expecting anything, became convinced.

Each of these explains one fact and fails on the others. Only one explanation accounts for all of them together.

"But dead men don't rise"

You may agree with all of that and still say, "Dead men don't rise. That is simply how the world works."

I agree with you. Dead men do not rise by natural causes, and no Christian claims Jesus did. The disciples knew that as well as you do, which is why they did not believe at first. The claim is not that Jesus came back to life on His own. The claim is that God raised Him.

So the real question is not whether dead men rise naturally. It is whether there is a God. If there is not, then the resurrection is impossible and the facts above need some other explanation, even if none of the available ones work. But if there is a God who brought the universe into being, as I argued in my first letter, then raising a man from the dead is not beyond Him. Paul once asked a king, "Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?" (Acts 26:8). It is a fair question.

An honest admission

I will not pretend that evidence alone settles this for everyone. When Paul spoke about the resurrection in Athens, some people sneered, and others said they wanted to hear more. They heard the same words. The difference was not in the evidence.

I suspect the resistance is sometimes less about the history and more about what follows from it. A dead teacher can be admired and set aside. A risen one cannot. If Jesus rose, then He is who He said He is, and He has a claim on your life. That is a heavy thing to accept, and I understand why a person might prefer the evidence to come out differently.

One question

Here is my question for you. Set aside for a moment what you think is possible, and look only at the facts most historians grant: the death, the empty tomb, the disciples' conviction, the conversion of James, and the conversion of Paul. Which explanation accounts for all of them?

And if your honest answer is that the resurrection does, then the next question is harder: what would change for you if it really happened?

Next letter, I want to take on the question many people feel more than they argue: if God is good, why is there so much suffering?

Come, let us reason together.

Your friend,

Mark

Walshville Christian Church, Walshville, Illinois. These letters accompany a series our church is walking through together. You are welcome any Sunday, questions and all.