Mick’s Message

Real Resurrection?

Jesus made some astonishing claims during his short ministry. He claimed he was equal with God, that through Him was the only way anyone could ever approach God, that He could forgive sins, and give to us eternal life; just to mention a few! One claim He repeatedly made was that after His death He would be raised back to life. This then would be the ultimate test to see if He was a charlatan, or all His claims were true.

But how do we come to a decision as to whether it really happened or not? There are of course plenty of people who would deny it ever happened. Well known atheist Richard Dawkins argues that faith is contrary to reason and enables people to believe alleged facts that have no evidence for them. Others deny it more subtly like the theologian Rudolf Bultmann who said “there is no living Christ who is a divine person, he is present only where the Word that testifies of him is proclaimed.

For those who care to look however there seems to me a mountain of evidence to substantiate the resurrection. Consider what we know from the four gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John;

• On Sunday morning the grave was empty. (Different explanations have been given to explain this including a mix up over which tomb it was; he had only fainted and not died at all; his body had been stolen.) When these possible alternatives are thought through however none of them seem to be a credible explanation.
• Jesus was seen on 10 separate occasions (the records of these events do not have the characteristics of hallucination or invention.) On one of these occasions he appeared too over 500 people at once. This was not reported years afterwards when the claims could not be substantiated, but when most of them were still alive and the story could be checked out. (see 1 Corinthians 15 verses 1 to 11)

Add to this the huge change in the disciples, and their willingness to suffer and even be put to death rather than change their testimonies and we can hardly say there is no evidence for the resurrection!

This is not to say that faith is not needed to believe in the resurrection; it clearly is. We are saying however that it is not unreasonable to believe, because there is real evidence of the resurrection as an historical event.

Graham Scroggie has a good point to make when he says “The resurrection is not denied because the evidence is regarded as insufficient but the evidence is rejected and repudiated because the resurrection is denied.” This view is given greater weight when you here people say “I would not believe Jesus rose even if I saw it.”

Faith is needed to believe the resurrection, but not blind faith! I suspect there may be more blind prejudice about, that refuses to look at the evidence, than there is blind faith.

Perhaps you will believe this Easter?

                Mick.