Apologetics
How Do I Know Jesus Really Rose From the Dead?
It’s a fair question. And it’s one every Christian ought to be able to answer.
A lot of folks will say Jesus was a good teacher. Some will say He was a prophet. And they’ll stop right there. But our faith doesn’t stand on Jesus being a good teacher. It stands on whether or not He walked out of the tomb.
Paul said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” If He didn’t come out of the tomb, none of the rest matters. So here’s why I’m sure He did.
The tomb was empty, and the Sanhedrin wanted it stopped sooner rather than later. If Jesus was still in the grave, all they had to do was open His tomb and show everybody Jesus’ body. That would’ve ended it right there. They never did it, because they couldn’t. Instead, Matthew 28:13-15 says they told the soldiers to spread a story that the disciples stole the body while they were asleep. Think about that. You don’t need a story like that if the body is still in the tomb. That story by itself tells you the tomb was empty.
People saw Him alive after. Not just one or two people either. In 1 Corinthians 15:5-6, Paul wrote that He was seen by Peter, then by the twelve, then by more than five hundred people at one time. And Paul said most of those people were still alive when he wrote it. That’s like Paul saying, don’t just take my word for it, go ask them. They’ll tell you. A made up story doesn’t hold up when five hundred people can say it didn’t happen.
And look at the disciples. When Jesus got arrested, they ran. Peter told people he didn’t even know Him, and he did it three times. These weren’t brave men with a big plan. But not long after that, those same men are standing in Jerusalem, the same city where Jesus was killed, telling everybody He rose from the dead. And most of them got killed for saying it.
Now, people will die for something they think is true. That happens all the time. But the disciples weren’t doing that. They were right there. They knew if it was true or if it was a lie they made up themselves. And nobody gets themselves killed over a lie they made up. They didn’t get rich off of it. They didn’t get power off of it. They got beat, thrown in jail, and killed. And they still wouldn’t stop saying it.
That’s why I believe it. The tomb was empty. A whole lot of people saw Him. And the men who knew Him best put their lives on it.
And if He rose from the dead, and He did, then everything He said matters. It’s worth taking serious. If you’ve got somebody in your life asking these same questions, send this to them. Sometimes a simple answer is all it takes to get somebody looking.
God bless y’all, see you later, John