Adventures in Student Ministry

Two weeks ago, we talked about how God exists in the triune state of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Last week, we broke down the Biblical proof that Jesus is God. This week, we are continuing with that idea but focusing specifically on one of the most essential, make-or-break, aspects of our faith that separates us from other religions. So today we are asking, “But why do we believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?”

This is important because NO other religion has the idea that God makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his followers from eternal damnation. Most religions are about what you can do to reach God. Whereas Christianity is about what God did to reach us. Certain internet memes out there try to claim that Jesus’ story is nothing more than a rewrite of ancient myths, but those claims have been proven wrong time after time. In fact, experts have shown that there were no dying and rising gods that preceded Christianity. 

The Resurrection stories that are before Christianity aren’t close to the story of Jesus. Osiris stayed in the land of the dead, and Dionysus started over in a new body. Neither of them walked back into the room with their friends, ate a meal, and showed off their scars. Jesus didn’t just ‘survive’ or ‘restart’—He conquered death in the same body that was put in the tomb.”

The claims of Jesus are dynamically different. For clarity, for  this particular lesson, I’m borrowing heavily from Lee Strobel’s “Is god Real” and Josh McDowell’s “Beyond Belief to Conviction.”

Lee had interviewed one of the leading experts on the resurrection of Jesus, whose name is Michael Licona. To prove the resurrection of Jesus, Michael used a very academic approach. It’s a method that is well respected by scholars who are both Christian and not. This approach is called the Historian’s 3 Rs.

1. Relevant Sources: These are sources that are respected and close to the event.
2. Responsible Method: Need to be willing to look at all facts and remove biases. This means giving weight to reports that early and done by eyewitnesses, while also taking into account reports from enemies, things that are embarrassing, and things that are corroborated by others.
3. Restrained Results: Don’t oversell things, be honest about what you see in history.

So, who are our relevant sources? 

1.  Gospel Writers who all wrote within the first 30 years of Jesus’ resurrection.
2. External historian slike Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger.
3. Early church fathers who were connected to the Disciples, such as Clement of Rome, who was a disciple of Peter, and Polycarp, who was a disciple of John.

Once you have your sources, you put them up using the Responsible method we talked about earlier. But as you do it, you have to keep in mind the idea of “restrained results.” You have to be honest about what you’re reading and seeing. Don’t exaggerate evidence, but also don’t ignore evidence.

When you look at the historical facts, there are 5 major facts that prove Jesus’ resurrection that the majority of scholars, secular and non can’t disprove.

1. The Death of Jesus by Crucifixion
   1. Proven by the testimony of the 4 gospels
   2. Several non-Christian sources talk about it.
      
2. The Disciple’s Belief in the Resurrection/Apperances
   1. Paul’s writings testify to this – Paul wrote his first epistles within 10 to 15 years of Jesus’ death. He claimed to have seen Jesus but also spent time with His disciples.
   2. Oral tradition passed through the early church teaches about this.
   3. Eye witness to early works. – This would be the 4 gospels. Matthew and John obviously wrote about their own experiences. Mark records Peter’s experiences. And Luke is a summation of interviews with first-hand eyewitnesses. On top of that, you have the disciples of those first disciples writing about the belief that Jesus rose from the dead.
      
3. The Conversion of Paul
   1. Paul was a skeptic of the claims of Jesus to the point that he was actively imprisoning and sentencing Christians to death. Yet he became a believer in Jesus. Doing this didn’t benefit him in any way. He didn’t make extra money doing this. In fact, he refused to get paid even though he taught that it was good for local bodies to provide for ministers. Instead, he worked a job and preached the gospel with no regrets, even to his death in 67 AD, where he was beheaded.
      
4. The Conversion of James, Jesus’ Half-brother
   1. Scriptures tell us that James was not a follower of Jesus while he was alive. Yet we see him not only become a follower of Jesus, but the leader of the church of Jerusalem
   2. Why is this important? If you were to craft a story about someone being God, them dying, and resurrecting again, you’d not embarrass the authority of that individual by having their own family members be non-believers.  James and the rest of the family, not being believers, put doubt that Jesus was the messiah. Yet, 1 Corinthians 15:7 tells us that after Jesus’ resurrection, he appeared to James, and James believed! To the point that he was willing to be stoned to death for his faith in his brother and his Lord, Jesus.
      
5. Jesus’ Empty Tomb
   1. How do we know his tomb was empty?
      1. If it wasn’t empty, then proving it would have been very quick and easy simply because of the fact that Jesus was buried in Jerusalem and the preaching of his resurrection started there. If he hadn’t been resurrected, they could have easily gone and checked.
      2. The enemies of Jesus attested to it. The Roman officials claimed that Jesus’ body was stolen. By default, they are admitting to the fact that Jesus’ body wasn’t there.
         1. Does it make sense that the disciples stole his body? Nope! First off, the records show that these men were scared and scattered; it doesn’t make sense for them to suddenly have the bravery to take a body. Plus, even if the guards were asleep (which, if they were, they would have been put to death), the disciples would have had to sneak past them. Remove the seal around a giant 2-ton rock, move it, then take the body… all without waking highly trained guards.
      3. The first people to testify to the empty tomb were women. This is a big deal because culture didn’t trust the word of women in those days. If you were to make up a story about the resurrection of Jesus back then, you’d have chosen anyone else to testify first. It’s culturally embarrassing that women were the first ones to testify about the empty tomb.

Some have tried to disprove Jesus’ death altogether. Some claimed that the disciples were all hallucinating after Jesus’ death. Few main issues with that.

1. Mass hallucination doesn’t work that way. You can’t share dreams. Not to mention that hundreds of people who saw him ascend into heaven later.
2. Sketpics and people who had vendettas against Jesus claimed to have seen Him.

Some have tried to claim that Jesus fainted on the cross and that he simply got up after being placed in the tomb. A few issues with that

1. The Romans were experts on death. There was no faking it. To make sure he was dead, they stabbed him in the side. The record shows that blood and water came out, which suggests his heart exploded.
2. Even if he wasn’t dead, he was wrapped up in grave clothes, which are tightly wrapped linen with layers of spices and oils that act as a kind of glue. Jesus was so badly beaten and in such a bad physical state that there’s no way he could have wiggled out of those linens.
3. Jesus’ physical state also would have made it impossible for him to remove a 2-ton rock, much less get past armed, trained Roman guards.

One last main proof of all of this, and one that we’ve mentioned often. Some claim that the disciples made all of this up. But that doesn’t make sense when you realize that they were willing to die. Martyrdom isn’t unheard of. People become convinced of things and are willing to die for something they believe. But if the claims of Jesus’ death and resurrection were a lie, then the Disciples would have known this… and it’s incredibly hard to be willing to die for a lie.

How did they die? Some were crucified, beaten, beheaded, cut down with a sword, and suffered other violent ends. Yet the entire time, they refused to deny Christ.

So what does all this mean? What does it have to do with us?

We’ve talked about how God is real, how Jesus is God. We talked about how, when looking at the evidence available, we can’t deny the death and resurrection of Jesus. Why?

Because the bible teaches that the wages of sin is death. But it also teaches that God loves us so much that He sent His Son to pay that debt of death for us. Jesus teaches us that he is “the way, and the truth, and the life.” and that “No one comes to the Father except through” Him. (John 14:6.)

As hard as it is for some to grasp, there’s no salvation outside of Jesus. His death and resurrection are what caused skeptics and enemies to turn to Him. His death and resurrection call for us to make a change in our lives, to repent and turn to the Grace that is given to us.