Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Luke chapter 24 as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, in saying that, there are many who try to deny that Jesus rose from the dead and they have all kinds of idea’s, all kinds of theory’s of what transpired on that supposedly resurrection morning. But folks, they are just that, theory’s, speculations and they are not based in fact.
My prayer this morning is that you would leave here knowing for a fact that Jesus is risen, the tomb is empty, and thus, our faith is not futile as some like to have us believe. Case in point:
The cover story of the April 8, 1996 issue of Newsweek was written by Kenneth L. Woodward and is titled “Rethinking The Resurrection: A New Debate About The Risen Christ.” Early in the article, Mr. Woodward expresses his understanding of the importance of the resurrection to Christianity – “By any measure, the resurrection of Jesus is the most radical of Christian doctrines.” To strengthen his point, he quotes the late German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch.
“It wasn’t the morality of the Sermon on the Mount which enabled Christianity to conquer Roman Paganism, but the belief that Jesus had
been raised from the dead. In an age when Roman senators vied to see who could get the most blood of a steer on their togas – thinking that would
prevent death – Christianity was in competition for eternal life, not morality.” (Woodward, Newsweek, pp. 62-62).
Not even the critics of Christianity deny the existence of Jesus. What they do challenge is its claims that Jesus was the virgin born son of Mary and that He was raised from the dead. Some begin by questioning if He was dead when He was taken from the cross. How do we know that Jesus was dead? Perhaps He only “swooned” and regained consciousness while in the borrowed tomb.
- Source Unknown
Folks, if the resurrection of Jesus is not true, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, we might as well just go home and forget everything we believed about Him. In fact, Paul made that very point in I Corinthians 15:17-19 as he said, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” You see, Christianity hinges not only on Jesus being God incarnate, not only that He died for our sins, but that He rose from the dead on the third day!
As you are going to see this morning, there is more evidence for the historical fact that Jesus rose from the dead than any other historical event. The evidence is overwhelming unless you don’t want to believe it. Let me explain. Years ago I worked with this brilliant Respiratory Therapist and as smart as he was, he was not very wise. He knew the truth but refused to believe it and thus, he did not change his ways!
You see, he smoked Camel unfiltered cigarettes for years and one day he was diagnosed with lung cancer. As I talked with him about smoking being the cause of his lung cancer and he needed to stop, he just laughed at me. He told me that it wasn’t the years of smoking those unfiltered cigarettes that caused the cancer in his lungs but he came up with some lame reason that made no sense. He didn’t believe what the Surgeon General warned on each pack of cigarettes, how dangerous they are. It didn’t matter what science was showing about smoking and lung cancer. He had all the information, he just chose not to believe it and he kept smoking until he died of lung cancer refusing to believe that his smoking was the problem!
Many today refuse to believe that sin is the problem. That sin has separated man from God and the only solution to that problem, the only solution to their sin is Jesus Christ. He not only paid in full the penalty for our sins on the cross of Calvary but on the third day He rose from the dead, conquering death and giving us that assurance that we too will be raised from the dead, we will have resurrection bodies for our spirit and soul to dwell in when these bodies of flesh go back to the dust of the earth. Jesus is the firstfruits of the harvest that is to come and we as believers are part of that harvest.
With that said, let’s being reading in Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 1 and see what transpired as Jesus rose from the dead. Let’s look at the evidence for the resurrection.
That is a pretty straightforward account of the events that took place that resurrection morning and the days after this event occurred. Why is it that people want to discount this historical account and yet, they accept other historical accounts that were written of others? Why is this such a big deal, why is it so hard for them to believe?
Because if Jesus rose from the dead, if the tomb is empty, then everything Jesus said of Himself is true. He is God, He did pay in full the penalty for our sins, and thus, apart from Him we will die in our sins. Thus, people reject the claims of Christ, they reject the resurrection because they don’t want to believe in God or in Jesus Christ and His atoning work!
Now to justify their cause, what they believe, they have to come up with all kinds of theories but their theories, like I have said, are not substantiated by the evidence. Irenaeus wrote, “Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced . . . more true than truth itself.” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.2). That truly hits the nail on the head regarding lies!
So let’s look at some of these theories because I truly believe, as we do, you will see that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact and these theories against it will fall by the wayside, they can’t hold water!
1. THE SWOON THEORY
The swoon theory is like an urban legend that keeps growing and trying to resurrect itself but it has not weight to support itself! The basic premise here is that Jesus never really died on the cross of Calvary, He only fainted and then, when He was placed in the cool of the cave, His tomb, He awoke and left the tomb and everyone thought He rose from the dead. Others say he just faked His death, He pretended to be dead. It may sound possible until you look at the facts, you look at the evidence and then you will see how foolish this is if you haven’t already!
Let’s look at the events that took place. He was scourged, which was a brutal form of torture to get these criminals to confess their crimes. It was done with a whip called a flagellum and was made up of 12 or 13 leather thongs. Attached to them were pieces of glass and metal between metal balls so as the whip came down flesh would be ripped from the back of the person. Jesus was tied by His wrists and dangled off the ground about a foot exposing His back and leaving Him defenseless. Thirty-nine of these lashes came upon the back of Jesus, He had nothing to confess, He was innocent so each blow would come down harder and harder. At the end, many died from loss of blood! He was then beaten, His beard plucked out, His face so abused that He did not even resemble a man anymore. This is before He was crucified!
Then, as He carried the cross beam of the cross, weighing some 100 pounds through the streets of Jerusalem and up to Calvary, He fell. He could not carry that cross any further because of His weakened condition. So Simon, a man from Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross the rest of the way to Calvary for Jesus. Then He was placed on the ground, metal spikes driven through his wrist into the cross and then He was placed on the cross and His feet were then nailed to the cross. He hung their naked, open to the elements.
Then, after six hours on the cross Jesus gave up His spirit, He died! Crucifixion is a death by asphyxiation as you can’t lift yourself up to breath, to exhale the air from your lungs. Now if He faked His death, how long did He hold His breath to fool the Roman soldiers who were experts in the death process, they knew when someone was dead! And just to be sure Jesus was dead, they put a spear into His side and water and blood came forth showing He was dead, His heart had ruptured!
Now, if you still believe this theory, let’s see how much you believe it. Let me get a flagellum and whip you with thirty-nine lashes. Let me beat you to a pulp. Let me nail you to a cross. Let me put a spear through your side. Then, as you fake your death, I will take you down from the cross and place you in a tomb. Then I will place 100 pounds of spices and burial clothes around your body. When I am done I will place a one-ton stone at the opening of the tomb. Then, if you wake up, move the stone away, sneak past the guards who are guarding the tomb, then I will believe the theory! You see, if you did try this, it would be very foolish. It would be a death sentence for you, you could not survive and I believe it is a death sentence for the swoon theory. There is no evidence that supports what it is trying to prove!
2. CONSPIRACY THEORY
With the conspiracy theory, and there are several variations to it, but the most popular is that the disciples of Jesus stole His body and faked His resurrection. Just looking at this on the surface, it does seem possible. The problem is, when you see what the Scriptures say of these men, it is hard to believe they would risk their lives like this. In fact, the Roman soldiers were bribed to make up this story to put down the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. Thus, this is not new for we are told in Matthew 28:11-15, “Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, ‘Tell them, “His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.” And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure.’ So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.” And this lie continues on today!
Before the death and resurrection of Jesus these men were not the bravest men around. Peter, when confronted after the arrest of Jesus, if he knew Jesus, being asked by a little slave girl, denied his faith three times! When Jesus was crucified, all the apostles were in hiding except for John and the women who were there at the crucifixion. These men were terrified, not willing to risk their lives by showing they were followers of Jesus and they stole His body? No way!
Then, after Jesus is placed in the tomb, after the Roman seal is placed on the tomb, after the Roman soldiers were guarding the tomb, they were able to sneak up and steal the body of Jesus right in front of these guards, ignoring the seal on the tomb! First of all, if you broke the Roman seal you could be put to death. Secondly, if you were a Roman soldier on guard duty, and you fell asleep, you could be put to death along with the other soldiers who were with you, so there was great incentive not to fall asleep. And yet we are lead to believe that this rag tag group of apostles could have stolen the body of Jesus and then faked His resurrection! No way!
But for the sake of argument, let’s say that they did steal the body and faked the resurrection of Jesus. They all knew it was a lie, right? Of course they did if they stole the body. Then why were they willing to die for a lie, die gruesome deaths for their faith if they knew it was not true? Yes, people will die for their faith because they believe it is real, they die for all kinds of things they believe are true, but they will not die for a lie. These men would have known it was all a lie and would not have died for a lie!
And it does not end there! You see, even if they stole the body how could they give life to this dead body? What do I mean? Within a forty day period of time over 500 people saw the resurrected Christ and Paul tells us in I Corinthians chapter 15 that many of them were still alive when he wrote that letter to the Corinthians. The reason he said that was that you could ask these eye witnesses who saw the resurrected Christ, it was not just something that was passed on from person to person!
And what benefit did they get from this lie if they stole the body and faked His resurrection? There was no honor, no prestige, no money or possessions. They were hated, scorned, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, crucified, boiled alive, roasted, beheaded, disemboweled, fed to lions - not what you would call perks!
But why couldn’t they have made this story up and get people to believe it? First of all, to put their claims to death all that had to happen was the body of Jesus exposed. But even if they were able to steal and hide the body of Jesus, listen to what William Lane Craig said if this was a lie. “The Gospels were written in such a temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events. . . . The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection (and been believed) under such circumstances had it not occurred.” (Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection, chapter 6).
Now, as I rap up this conspiracy theory where the disciples stole the body of Jesus and faked His death, at least that is how the theory goes, listen to what Blaise Pascal says regarding this theory and how it is not plausible. He said, “The apostles were either deceived or deceivers. Either supposition is difficult, for it is not possible to imagine that a man has risen from the dead. While Jesus was with them, he could sustain them; but afterwards, if he did not appear to them, who did make them act? The hypothesis that the Apostles were knaves [dishonest persons] is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end, and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus’ death and conspiring to say that he has risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, tortures and death, and they would all have been lost. Follow that out.” (Pascal, Pensees, pp. 322, 310).
Folks, the conspiracy theory has no evidence to support its claims and thus, like the swoon theory, it must be dismissed!
3. THE WOMEN WENT TO THE WRONG TOMB THEORY
I love this one because of my sense of direction. My thinking is, if anyone made it to the right tomb it would be the women! And think about it for a minute, they went to the right tomb and watched Joseph of Arimathea bring the body of Jesus to his families tomb that was not used yet and he wrapped the body of Jesus with cloth and spices and then the women went to the wrong tomb the next day to finish the work. (Mark 15:47). And not only did the women go to the wrong tomb, but so did Peter and John!
Don’t you think that Joseph, whose tomb Jesus was buried in, would have told them, “Hey guys, what are you doing, the tomb is over here?” Of course he would have re-directed them. Also, if they went to the wrong tomb, then as the resurrection story was played out, the Jewish religious leaders would have gone to the right tomb and presented the body of Jesus to prove that He did not rise from the dead! That would have been the end of it, but it wasn’t!
You see, they went to the right tomb and you know what they found, an empty tomb! All that was in there were the burial cloths as if Jesus just vaporized out of them and left the empty shell of the linen! The stone was rolled away and I believe it is in Mark that it implies that the stone was not just rolled away, but picked up and placed in another location. Keep in mind it weighed over 1 ton and thus, the angels moved the stone! Folks they did not go to the wrong tomb, that is just plain foolish thinking!
Think about this for a minute. The tomb of Confucius – occupied! The tomb of Buddha – occupied! The tomb of Mohammed – occupied! The tomb of Lenin – occupied! The tomb of Jesus – EMPTY! You see, He is risen and the facts attest to this truth! Listen to the evidence in the Scriptures and see what they say regarding this.
First of all Jesus predicted that He would die and be raised up from the dead on the third day. In Matthew 16:21 we are told, “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.” And in Matthew 20:17-19 we are told, “Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.’” This was no surprise to Jesus and it should have not been a surprise to His men, but it was. It was not until after His death and resurrection did they remember these things!
The Bible tells us that Jesus did die on the cross of Calvary. In John 19:33-34 we are told, “But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” And in Mark 15:37-39 we are told, “And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this Man was the Son of God!’” There was no mistake, Jesus was dead!
The body of Jesus was placed in a tomb, He was buried. In John 19:38-42 we are told, “After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus, because of the Jews' Preparation Day, for the tomb was nearby.” And in Matthew 27:62-66 we are told, “On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, ‘Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, “After three days I will rise.” Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, “He has risen from the dead.” So the last deception will be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.’ So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.” It is very clear that the body of Jesus was placed in a tomb!
Lastly, Jesus rose from the dead according to what the Scriptures tell us. In Matthew 28:1-8 we are told, “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.’ So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.” The tomb where the body of Jesus was placed was now empty because He rose from the dead!
Notice what Norman Geisler said regarding the resurrection of Jesus. He wrote:
In summary, the overwhelming evidence is that Jesus physically died on the cross. Likewise, there is equally good testimony that He rose from the grave in that same physical body. The classic attempts to avoid this conclusion are without foundation. They are usually based on a faulty antisupernaturalistic assumption that what happens only once is implausible, or on the unjustified assertion that the New Testament documents or witnesses are unreliable. This ignores the abundant evidence of thousands of manuscripts and the powerful testimony of over five hundred witnesses who saw, touched, handled, ate with, and were taught by Jesus for some forty days after His resurrection . . . Despite the counterclaims of the cults, it is inconceivable that the cloud of first century witnesses with all that time and all that tangible evidence were deceived about the physical nature of the resurrection of Christ. It is simpler just to heed the words of Jesus: “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bone, as you see I have.” (Luke 24:39 NIV).
- Norman L. Geisler, The Battle For The Resurrection, p. 86
Folks, theories trying to deny the fact that Jesus rose from the dead will come and go but what remains the same, what is a solid fact is that Jesus did rise from the dead, the evidence is overwhelming! As Christian apologist Josh McDowell puts it, “After more than 700 hours of studying this subject and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history.”
Don’t let people with their lies take you away from the truth of God’s Word. God has said it and we need to believe it. His Word has stayed the test of time and these theories have not. And we as Christians need to stand up for our faith, for what we believe, including the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Wilbur Smith points out that, from the very first, the Christian church has collectively born witness to the immutable fact of Christ’s resurrection. Wilbur Smith tells us, “It is what we may call one of the great fundamental doctrines and convictions of the church, and so penetrates the literature of the New Testament, that if you lifted out every passage in which a reference is made to the Resurrection, you would have a collection of writings so mutilated that what remained could not be understood.”
As I begin to close this morning, listen to these words from Paul in I Corinthians 15:20-22. He tells us, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”
You see folks, we are all born into this world in sin, with a sin nature because we are descendants of Adam. But Christ has come to set us free from that sin nature, and to give us life in Him. If you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, come before Him and pray, “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner and I need you to cleanse me of my sins. I want you to be my Lord and my Savior!” As soon as you receive that free gift of grace into your life, you are a child of God, your spirit that was dead is now alive in Christ and you can have fellowship with the Father through Christ.
And for all of us here this morning, let us not forget what God has done for us to save us from our sins and how He conquered death, took the sting of death out of our lives because He is risen – THE TOMB IS EMPTY, WON’T YOU COME AND SEE!