![]() According to the various versions of this story, after Jesus’ death, the disciples got together and decided to invent the story of his resurrection to convince people to accept his teachings, even though his mission ended in failure. There have been those, from the first century onward, who have argued that the resurrection was a plot organized by the disciples to keep the message of Jesus alive. The apostles clearly proclaimed his bodily resurrection, and their opponents could not produce his body to disprove their claim. The same is true of other similar versions: that the resurrection is the disciples’ experience of the “ongoing significance of Jesus” or other such things. The idea that Jesus rose “in spirit” does not answer the question of the empty tomb or satisfy the Jewish understanding of resurrection. The resurrection is a claim that his body came back to life, not that his spirit lived on. “Resurrection” meant bodily resurrection to them. Such a “resurrection” would have made no sense to the Jews of the first century. The fact of the empty tomb also refutes the claim that the resurrection of Jesus was a purely “spiritual” event – that Jesus was raised “spiritually” and not bodily, as some sects teach. ![]() No one could produce the body of Jesus, and thus stop the apostles from boldly proclaiming that he was risen. Certainly his enemies, those who saw to his execution, had the motivation to find his body and thus refute the claim that he rose from the dead (see Matthew 27:63-64). I deliberately use the word “fact,” because if the body of the dead Jesus could have been produced, that would have been the end of any talk of his resurrection. In seeking to know the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, the first element to contend with is the fact of the empty tomb. Let us look to the historical issues that surround the resurrection. It is therefore incumbent upon us to determine, to the best of our ability, whether or not the claim of the resurrection is in fact true. Why do we believe in the resurrection? Why should we be convinced that it is true? After all, as we shall see, if a man was verifiably dead, and then after a three day period was demonstrably seen alive, this is the singularly most significant event in history. Thus it is important to know why we believe in the resurrection, what we believe about it, and why belief in it is so critical to Christian faith. The Apostle Paul made this point in the first century: “If Christ is not raised, your faith is vain, and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). Without it, the edifice of the Church’s faith would simply collapse. There is no question that the resurrection of Jesus is the essential foundation of the Christian faith.
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