Tag Archives: reason

How Do We Know Jesus Rose from the Dead?

April 1, 2018 Dwight Gingrich 8 Comments

How do we know Jesus rose from the dead? We discussed this question today at Followers of Jesus Church Atlanta as part of our Easter celebration. How would you answer it?

Followers of Jesus Church Atlanta, backyard Easter service, 2018.

The resurrection is the basis for our Christian hope. Paul said that if Christ did not rise from the dead, then we won’t, either, and that if we have no hope of being raised at Christ’s return, then our “faith is futile” and “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:17-19).

I believe Jesus’ resurrection is also the foundational reason for trusting that the Bible is what it claims to be—words from God. If Jesus rose from the dead, then he is who he claimed to be—the Christ sent from God. And if that is indeed who he is, then what he believed about the Scriptures must be true.

But this raises a bit of a logical problem, right? If we are not careful, we end up with a circular argument:

We know that Jesus rose from the dead because the Bible says so.
We know that the Bible is true because Jesus rose from the dead.

If this were indeed the basis for Christian faith, then we should rightly be scoffed by any reasonable thinker.

But that is not the true nature of Christian faith. While faith reaches beyond the evidence, it is always, if you dig deep enough, rooted in and in line with historically and empirically verifiable evidence. The apostles didn’t go around saying “just believe that Jesus rose from the dead.” They didn’t even simply say “believe that Jesus rose from the dead because the Bible (the Jewish Scriptures) said he would,” though that was true and they did indeed say so. But they did more: they said “we are are eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, and here is what we saw, heard, and touched.”

So that is a good place for anyone with doubts to begin with Scripture: simply treat it as ordinary, valid evidence to be considered in your personal court of law. That is where I begin with my list below. When the Bible receives this fair but ordinary reception, it can be used by the Holy Spirit to lead a person to saving faith in the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

All that is prelude to the following nine points that we discussed this morning. This is not a scholarly defense of Jesus’ resurrection. It is simply a series of points that I wrote to summarize some key facts that can bolster our faith that Jesus really did rise from the dead. There are no footnotes. You can find these same points and many more in much greater detail in books by authors such as Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Jonathan Morrow, William Lane Craig, N.T. Wright, Gary Habermas, and many more.

HOW CAN WE KNOW
JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD?

The New Testament writings, which claim that Jesus rose, are basically trustworthy historical documents. Historical evidence shows that it takes more than two generations for legends to develop and wipe out the truth about historical figures, and that matches when the later fake “gospels” about Jesus began to be written. But the New Testament was written down within the lifetime of the events it describes. We have more ancient hand-written copies of the New Testament than of any other ancient writing, and these copies are dated closer to the time of their authors than with other ancient writings. There are also references to Jesus in ancient writings outside the Bible and no ancient claims that he never existed. If you believe the historical accounts about people such as the Roman emperor Augustus or events such as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, as all historians do, then you have every reason to also believe that the New Testament writings, which claim that Jesus rose, are basically trustworthy historical documents.
The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection have the ring of eye-witness testimony. Each of the Gospels tell the same story of the resurrection, with the same core events and characters. But they each tell the story differently, with different details mentioned in ways that make it look at first as if there is some conflict between their accounts. This shows that the writers were not merely reciting some agreed-upon fake story. Rather, they were each telling about the same historical event in their own way. The core story in each Gospel matches, and the apparently conflicting details have been harmonized by careful Bible students. The Gospel accounts of the resurrection have the ring of eye-witness testimony.
Jesus did actually die. First he suffered a brutal lashing using a whip of braided leather with metal balls woven into it. According to the third-century historian Eusebius, “The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.” Many people died during such Roman lashings. Then Jesus was nailed to a cross. Crucifixion caused its victims to die of asphyxiation (loss of oxygen) as the victim lost strength to push themselves into a vertical position to breath. Loss of oxygen then led to an irregular heartbeat and death. If a Roman soldier let a prisoner escape, the responsible soldier would be put to death themselves, so they made sure every victim was dead before they were removed from a cross. Jesus did actually die.
Jesus’ body was actually placed in a tomb. All four Gospels say a Jewish leader named Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in his own tomb. Joseph was a member of the council that had voted to kill Jesus. If Jesus’ followers wanted to invent a burial story, why would they invent such a specific story, which people could then check out and prove false? The very earliest Christian creeds, like in 1 Corinthians 15, mention that Jesus was buried. In ancient writings there are no other competing traditions about Jesus’ burial besides the ones found in the Gospels. Jesus’ body was actually placed in a tomb.
The tomb was actually empty several days after Jesus’ burial. According to the Gospels, the first witnesses to the empty tomb were women. But women’s testimony was regarded as so worthless in the ancient world that they weren’t allowed to serve as legal witnesses under Jewish law. In that case, why would the early Christians invent such an embarrassing story about women witnesses if it wasn’t actually true? Besides, the site of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb was known to Jesus’ enemies, so if the body was still there, they could have shown so. But neither Roman authorities nor the Jewish leaders ever claimed that the body was still in the tomb. Instead, they invented stories to try to hide the fact that the tomb was actually empty several days after Jesus’ burial.
Nobody stole Jesus’ body. This is what the Jewish leaders feared Jesus’ followers would do, so they arranged with the Roman governor to have the stone covering of the tomb sealed and for a group of soldiers to guard the tomb. After Jesus’ body disappeared, the Jews spread the story that the guards had fallen asleep and that Jesus’ followers had stolen the body. But Jesus’ followers were terrified; they had just watched Jesus die. They had no motive to steal his body and then die themselves for this lie. And Jesus’ enemies certainly didn’t steal his body. If they had, they would have displayed his body publicly in Jerusalem to prove that he was still dead. Nobody stole Jesus’ body.
Jesus’ followers didn’t expect him to come back to life. In the New Testament accounts, everyone is surprised when they learn that Jesus is alive again. The women, who were first to witness the empty tomb, were there because they planned to anoint Jesus’ dead body, not because they expected a resurrection. When they saw the empty tomb, their first thought was that someone had stolen the body. At first the men didn’t believe the women’s claims that the tomb was empty. It was embarrassing for the Gospel writers to admit that the leaders of the church were so slow to believe Jesus’ prophecies about his own resurrection. But ancient people were even more familiar with death than most of us are, and they knew as well as we do that people don’t normally come back to life after they die—certainly not without dying again later. Jesus’ followers didn’t expect him to come back to life.
Jesus was seen alive after his death. The Gospels, the book of Acts, and 1 Corinthians 15 all record multiple witnesses who saw Jesus after his resurrection. Within weeks of Jesus’ death his followers were publicly claiming that they had seen him alive, and these claims were written down during the lifetime of the witnesses so readers could investigate their claims. These witnesses were not hallucinating, because hallucinations don’t happen to groups, and there are records of groups ranging from 11 to 500 who saw Jesus at the same time. Within weeks of the crucifixion, thousands of Jews believed the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection. They started abandoning Jewish laws that they formerly believed they had to obey to avoid damnation. These appearances of Jesus were powerful enough to change Jesus’ half-brother James from a sceptic into one of the main leaders of the early church, and to change Paul from a violent persecutor of the church into one of its most courageous preachers. Those who knew best whether Jesus had actually risen or not went to their deaths claiming it was true. Not one of the inner circle of apostles ever recanted his claims of having seen the risen Jesus, even though most of them were martyred for their testimony. Jesus was seen alive after his death.
Jesus continues to change lives today. The first followers of Jesus were changed from selfish, fearful followers or even enemies of Jesus into courageous, loving preachers of the resurrection. In the same way, throughout history to this day, millions of followers of Jesus testify that he has changed their lives. This matches what the first followers of Jesus claimed. They said that all who join Jesus receive the witness of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, and that this Spirit of God tells them that they are now God’s children. God’s Spirit within makes us feel the reality that Jesus is indeed alive and will return again. We show others Jesus rose by pointing to the historical evidence, and we know for ourselves that he rose not only because of that historical evidence but also because of the witness of the Spirit of Jesus within our hearts. Jesus continues to change lives today.

After examining the evidence, it still takes faith to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But in the face of such evidence, it would also take faith to believe that he didn’t. Coming up with viable alternative explanations for the evidence is not as easy as it might look at first. Many have tried and failed.

I am convinced that the best explanation for the evidence is the one that is also the best news you could imagine—“in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). When I don’t feel the truth of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Jesus is a factual foundation that I come back to, a sure place to rest until I regain spiritual sight.

Again, this is not a scholarly defense of Jesus’ resurrection. So, if you are a skeptic, I invite you to look closer before you scoff.

But if you are a believer, I invite your response: How do you know Jesus rose from the dead? Share your favorite evidence in the comments below. Then live as if it really happened, because it did!

By Elaine Gingrich

Thirty-Three Years: A Life [Poem by Mom]

March 25, 2016 Dwight Gingrich 1 Comment

Have you been impatiently waiting for the monthly poem from my mom? No, we have not forgotten. Here it is, just in time to help you remember the death and life of Christ.

God bless you as you read Mom’s poem and meditate on Christ.

I remember as a young girl, lying on the grass, gazing at the immense blue summer sky above me, and trying to grasp in the “grain of sand” that was my mind, the concept of eternity. As the clouds moved lazily overhead I pondered the puzzle of eternity past and eternity future, tried to envision the vast expanses of “time” implied, and wondered which would be more irrational, that God should have never begun—how could that be!—or that He should have a beginning—but then how and why could He have begun? I would try to stretch my mind across the eons of eternity from past to future until I felt my brain would explode.

G. K. Chesterton said that “poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea… the result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet desires… a world to stretch himself in… asks only to get his head into the heavens… the logician… seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head which splits.”

The Scriptures tell us it is “by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God…not…of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3, NKJV, italics added).

I was nearing fifty years of age when I wrote the following poem about Christ’s time on earth, and my brain felt no more adequate then of grasping the puzzle of Christ’s work of salvation than it was earlier with the concept of eternity.

The puzzle: Did Jesus come to live or to die for us? His death was only efficacious because of His Resurrection and because of His perfect life. His life alone could not have saved us. He needed a body for the very purpose of dying for us. Remission of sin demands blood shed, a death, a sacrifice.

Romans 5:1 says we are “justified by faith” in Him “who was delivered up [to death] because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25, NKJV, italics added).

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Rom. 11: 33, NASB)

In humble faith I celebrate and trust in the life and death and resurrection of my Risen Lord and Saviour as all-sufficient for my eternal salvation!

—Elaine Gingrich, March 1, 2016

THIRTY-THREE YEARS: A LIFE

He came to die, but first He came to live.
Not as some faceless, flat protagonist
Who dies in a pale story, never missed
By readers. No, our captured minds would give
The world to know this Man. The finest sieve
Can catch no fault in Him. Go down the list
From “healed a leper” to “by traitor kissed,”
Then watch Him die unjustly, yet forgive.

Here was a man to tower above men,
With strength to calm the stormy Galilee,
With touch more tender than a baby’s sigh.
Here was a man deserves to live again,
A man to love! We turn the page to see
The script. He lives! But first He came to die.

—Elaine Gingrich, May 2, 2000

While this was not her intent, Mom’s insight about the need to connect the life and the death of Christ has been the subject of some recent discussion in scholarly circles.

N.T. Wright, for example, wrote a book called How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. Wright argues that evangelicals and other confessional Christians, influenced by the pattern of the ancient creeds, have tended to emphasize the virgin birth and the cross of atonement while skipping over the life of Christ with his radical kingdom teachings. Liberal theologians, however, influenced by post-Enlightenment critical scholarship and embarrassed by the miraculous elements of Jesus’ birth and death, have emphasized the exemplary power of his human life.

But true Christianity needs both—the kingdom teachings and life of Jesus on the one hand, and also his miraculous, saving death and resurrection. In Wright’s words, we need both kingdom and cross. (While I have not read this book, I have listened about three times to this lecture Wright gave on the same topic. Highly recommended.)

Wright is a scholar of the first rank, but his book above is written for a general audience. Pastors have also written on this subject, such as Tim Chester in his 2015 book Crown of Thorns: Connecting Kingdom and Cross. (I have not read this book, but am familiar enough with Chester to feel confident it will be a useful read.)

I am excited to see scholars and pastors grasp this insight. But understanding exactly how Jesus’ life and death relate together to save us and shape our lives is secondary to simply trusting and following him. So it’s okay if you identify with what Mom said after I shared some of the above with her:

You can develop the deep debates and I will stick to the simpler faith foundation. 🙂

I am deeply grateful to my mother for helping to keep my faith foundation firm, both in my youth and to this day.

For the rest of the poems in this monthly series, see here.

And if you enjoyed this poem, leave a comment here for Mom, or send her an email at . Thanks!

Bible Bites [Exegesis]

If You’re Not a Berean, Who Might You Be?

October 22, 2014 Dwight Gingrich 4 Comments

Be a Berean! This is a common encouragement among Bible-loving Christians. But what does this mean? Why is it important to be a Berean? And what is the alternative to being a Berean?

The term “Berean” comes, of course, from Acts 17:11-12, which records what happened when Paul and his band arrived in Berea on his second missionary journey:

¹¹Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. ¹²Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. (ESV)

The most common way that I recall hearing these verses used goes something like this: “Be a Berean! Test what you hear by the Scriptures. Don’t believe everything you hear from every radio preacher. Don’t base your theology on what you read online. Don’t let commentaries determine what you believe. In fact, even when your own pastor teaches you something, don’t believe it without testing it first. Don’t be gullible! Test everything by the Scriptures!”

While I heartily agree with this exhortation, I don’t think it’s the most direct implication of what Luke (the author of Acts) records in our passage. Let’s reconsider these verse by examining their literary context.

According to Luke, whom were the Bereans more noble than? The Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians. More precisely, the Jews in Berea were more noble than the Jews in Thessalonica.

So, in this situation, what was the alternative to being a Berean? What was the problem with the Jews in Thessalonica? We find the answer in the preceeding passage. The problem with the majority of the Thessalonican Jews is that they refused to believe Paul’s proclamation about Christ. Paul “reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead” (17:2-3). He did this over “three Sabbath days” (17:2). What was the response of the Jews? “Some of them were persuaded” (17:4). But the majority of them “were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob” (17:5). They dragged Paul’s converts before the city authorities and shouted denunciations against Paul and his coworkers: “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (17:6).

In short, the problem with the Thessalonian Jews was not gullibility, but unbelief. Despite Paul’s careful exposition of Scripture–reasoning, explaining and proving everything he claimed based on the Jew’s own Scriptures, the Jews still refused to believe.

Why didn’t these Thessalonian Jews believe? I think we find an answer in verse 5: “the Jews were jealous.” They didn’t like how Paul was turning their world upside down. They refused to believe for the same reason the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem refused to believe Jesus (see 1 Thess. 2:14-16)–because believing would have meant loss of prestige and power.

So, what about us? What implications might this passage have for us today? Here are several I’d like to suggest–two exhortations and three theological truths.

Two exhortations:

Don’t be a Thessalonian. Don’t reject gospel truth without giving Scripture a fair hearing. Don’t let a desire to preserve prestige and power keep you from believing the Good News. Don’t prevent the gospel from turning your world upside down! What about the truth that good works are the fruit and not the root of our salvation; have we let this good news shake our world? What about the truth that God the Holy Spirit dwells in his people, empowering victorious living and manifesting himself in a multitude of “natural” and “supernatural” gifts; have we examined the Scriptures and let our hearts believe? (What gospel truths do you think we might be in danger of rejecting?)
Do be a Berean. When you hear someone proclaim good news, take time to examine it by Scripture. Don’t be surprised or alarmed if the gospel sounds like good news. Examine the Scriptures “daily.” If what you hear passes the Scripture test–that is, it is “necessary” according to Scripture (and certainly not everything does pass this test), then accept it “not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13). Believe it and let it turn your world upside down, even if it means rejection and “suffer[ing]… things from your own countrymen” (1 Thess. 2:14).

Three theological truths:

Faith and reason are friends. Christian faith is rooted in reasoned, Scriptural evidence. True faith is not opposed to reason. It is not opposed to explanation and proof. It is not opposed to diligent Scriptural study. Notice the cause-and-effect link in our passage: The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily, and “therefore” many of them believed (17:12). Rational investigation is encouraged in Scripture and can lead to a strengthened faith. (In this case the rational investigation was of Scripture; in other places investigation of historical evidence is also encouraged.)
Trust in Scripture is a friend to trust in Jesus. If the Bereans had not taken time to examine Scripture, they would not have accepted the gospel message Paul was proclaiming. But when they saw that Paul’s message was “necessary” (17:3) according to Scriptural evidence (that is, what Paul said had happened to Jesus was the perfect and necessary unfolding of the prophecies and typologies found in Scripture), they believed. It was the Berean’s prior trust in Scripture that prepared them to trust in Jesus. Those today who erode trust in Scripture are, by intention or not, also eroding trust in Jesus–even if the results of such erosion are not always evident for a generation or two.
Heart condition determines our response to gospel truth. This observation opens difficult questions related to the order of salvation. (Which comes first? Our faith in Christ, or God’s work of regenerating our hearts?) But laying aside such discussions for the moment, notice the evidence in our passage. Both the Thessalonians and the Bereans possessed the Scriptures. They both heard the Scriptures explained by Paul. But one group was “jealous” (17:5) while the other “received the word with all eagerness” (17:11). And so, in the first group “some of them were persuaded” (17:4), while in the second group “many of them… believed” (17:12). Some versus many. Only hearts delivered from jealousy and self-preservation are prepared to believe the fullness of the Good News.

So, let’s be Bereans! Let’s be “gullible” enough to let Scriptural evidence convince us that all the riches of the gospel are true. Then let’s go out and imitate those who have willingly suffered for the sake of the word of God.