The Apologetics Advertisement for Christianity
By Nathaniel Ashcroft
O Death, Where is Thy Sting? (1 Corinthians 15:55, KJV)
By the way, Jesus lives. In case you didn’t know.
As I have outlined earlier in this book, Jesus’s crucifixion is foretold in the Old Testament, in passages like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Later in the Bible, Jesus himself is recorded in the gospels as claiming that He will die and rise again. Jesus predicts His own death and resurrection at least three times in each of the synoptics (called ‘synoptics’ because they are similar in the events they outline. This does not undermine their authenticity as separate accounts), Matthew 12, 16, 17, and 20, Mark 8, 9, and 10, and Luke 9 (predicted twice), 11, and 18. These are all different accounts of the same four events. In John, Jesus is less outright with His predictions, and they are more subtle.
In John 2:13-22, Jesus says,
“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (NIV John 2:19),
and the Jews respond that it took “forty-six years” to build the temple, so how can he raise it in three days? It is revealed to us that the temple Jesus was speaking about was His body, which shows a clear prediction of His resurrection, as He claims that the temple will be destroyed (His death), and He will raise it in three days (His resurrection).
Jesus also predicts His death and resurrection through His preaching of the “sign of Jonah” (explicitly in Matthew 12:38-45 and 16:4, more ambiguous in Mark 8:11-13 and Luke 11:29-32); just as Jonah went into the deep sea and was saved by a whale and was in its stomach for three days and three nights, so too Jesus will be dead for three days and three nights before He will rise from the dead. Matthew 12:38-45,
“Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to [H]im, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.’ He answered, ‘A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here’” (NIV Matthew 12:38-45).
Son of Man is how Jesus often refers to Himself, which He uses as a reference to Daniel 7, as Jesus reveals to us in His conversation with the high priest in Mark 14:62.
In John 12, Jesus predicts His eventual death, but not His resurrection, in verse 24. John 12:24 reads,
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (NIV John 12:24),
revealing Jesus must die so that we may be saved, as the kernel of wheat produces many other seeds whenever it dies. He goes on to talk about the kind of death He will die, and teaches them to believe in the light, to be children of the light, and to overcome the darkness. This is entirely different from the events the synoptic gospel writers outline for us. Matthew 17:22-23 states,
“When they came together in Galilee, [H]e said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill [H]im, and on the third day [H]e will be raised to life.’ And the disciples were filled with grief” (NIV Matthew 17:22-23).
See? This instance is a time whenever Jesus was talking only to His disciples. The instance given to us by John is of Jesus predicting His own death in a different place at a different time to a different group of people.
These many separate instances of Jesus predicting the same eventual event serves to show us that Jesus truly believes that He would be martyred and then defeat death once and for all. The synoptic gospels record the same four distinct times that Jesus informed them of the culmination of His ministry in His death and resurrection, and John records events that the synoptics do not. That leaves us with four events that are attested to by three eyewitnesses, making them extremely strong, and also a few others more ambiguous in John. We don’t have reason to doubt any of these men’s testimony anyway, but more evidence never hurts.
9 Sources
There are nine independent early sources that attest to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here they are, organized into three categories, quoted from The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus,
“(1) the testimony of Paul about the disciples; (2) the oral tradition that passed through the early church; and (3) the written works of the early church” (Habermas & Licona 51).
All of these are early independent sources that provide evidence for the resurrection of Christ.
Paul (Saul) was a converted skeptic (skeptic may not be a strong enough word). He was a heavy persecutor of the church, being a very learned Jew, he saw Christians as heretics. The first recounting of Paul’s persecution is found in Acts 8:3,
“But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison” (NIV Acts 8:3).
Paul later recounts his former evil in Acts 22:4-5,
“I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished” (NIV Acts 22:4-5).
Paul attests to the resurrection countless times across his letters. 1 Corinthians 15:12-14,
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (NIV 1 Corinthians 15:12-14).
Paul was a venomous enemy of the church, and to have him so radically converted by a theophany is absolutely priceless evidence. It’s not only the followers of Christ who claim to see Him, but also His enemy. Here is the first independent source.
The second independent source takes the form of oral tradition. Our earliest attestation to the post-resurrection appearances is shown in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, which is a recitation of an early church creed that can be dated within two to eight years of the resurrection. Lee Strobel questions Gary Habermas in his book, The Case for Christ, asking why he believes this is a creed. Here is Habermas’s response,
“‘Well, I can give you several solid reasons. First, Paul introduces it with the words received and delivered [or passed on in the NIV], which are technical rabbinic terms indicating he’s passing along holy tradition. Second… the text’s parallelism and stylized content indicate it’s a creed. Third, the original text uses Cephas for Peter, which is his Aramaic name. In fact, the Aramaic itself could indicate a very early origin. Fourth, the creed used several other primitive phrases that Paul would not customarily use, like ‘the Twelve,’ ‘the third day,’ ‘[H]e was raised,’ and others. Fifth, the use of certain words is similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of narration’” (Strobel 249-250).
This does not leave time for myth and legend to take hold of it. Being a creed has value because it means that the words contained in it have to predate the places in which it is recorded. Such an early creed, attesting to the resurrection appearances, shows us that the resurrection was not a later addition to the teaching of Christians, but a truth readily believed by the early church, very soon after Jesus rose from the dead, among witnesses to Jesus’s life. We have this recorded creed of the church, no more than 20 years (high estimate, many Christian scholars date it earlier) after Jesus died and rose again, that shows early Christians readily teaching the resurrection, while the majority of the eyewitnesses still lived. Many of said eyewitnesses were later persecuted and killed for preaching Jesus’s resurrection. No one willingly dies for something they know to be false, showing the witnesses truly believed that they witnessed the risen Christ, bodily alive. His bodily resurrection aligns with scripture and further proves that they did not hallucinate His appearance. The eyewitnesses still lived at this point and could have eradicated this doctrine and slowed/stopped the growth of the early church by telling everyone, “Hey, that’s not at all what happened!”
The empty tomb was also still open for anyone to see along with the lack of a body, and if it had been closed, no one would have believed any of this testimony. Why would anyone believe an ‘eyewitness’ to Jesus’s resurrection, if the tomb was still closed? And the body still within it? At the beginning of the church’s mission to evangelize, they converted thousands in Jerusalem, where the tomb was (Acts 1-7). Here is the result of Peter’s sermon in the chapter directly after Jesus ascended into heaven: Acts 2:41,
“Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day” (NIV Acts 2:41).
Here are later recordings of conversions in the early chapters of Acts while in Jerusalem:
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (NIV Acts 2:47b). Acts 4:4, “But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand” (NIV Acts 4:4). Acts 5:14, “Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number” (NIV Acts 5:15). Acts 6:7, “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith” (NIV Acts 6:7).
Anyone could have checked and seen the empty tomb. The Jews who persecuted Jesus also would have made it very clear the tomb was still closed if it indeed had been, but instead they just persecute and kill Christians. The ministry of the church began to move outside of Jerusalem after being persecuted much, Acts 8:1,
“On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria” (NIV Acts 8:1).
Acts references many people and places that were consistent with the time, and Acts also agrees with outside sources, such as the writings of Josephus (Jewish historian, not Christian). We have no reason to believe Luke is not writing a historical account.
There are two other creeds found in the New Testament, Philippians 2:6-11 and Colossians 1:15-20. These both affirm both Jesus’s divinity and Philippians affirms His resurrection (I would say Colossians as well, but it is indirect and only implied).
The second part of this oral tradition are sermon summaries. Many of the sermons recorded in Acts are in a memoizable and short format, which makes sense in a society that valued memorization and oral transmission of information. The sermons recorded in Acts would have been preached soon after the resurrection as seen in Acts, and then passed down until Luke wrote them down, likely before 70 A.D.. This is still within the lifetime of the apostles, and also during a time with many eyewitnesses still living. Habermas and Licona tell us in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus,
“Since tape recorders were unavailable in the first century, recorded dialogues, such as the sermons of Jesus and [H]is apostles, had to have been summaries prepared after the fact by those who had heard them. Most sermons last longer than five minutes. Yet most of the sermons in the New Testament can be read in that amount of time or less” (Habermas & Licona 53).
Third is written tradition. Of course the gospels cannot be ignored as strong evidence for the resurrection. All four of them (Luke-Acts merged), are accepted by even critical scholars as being written in the first century, and attest to the resurrection within the lifetime of the eyewitness to Jesus’s life. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but guys, the people who witnessed Jesus’s ministry were still living at the time of the writing of the gospels, and therefore at the time in which the apostles were proclaiming the resurrection. And these people who knew (or knew of) Jesus were converting all over the place. The apostles died for this belief. Just think about that.
If anyone objects with the claim that I am using the Bible to prove the Bible, here is Habermas and Licona’s answer,
“This blanket rejection will not do. We are not assuming inspiration or even the general reliability of the New Testament in our case for Jesus’s resurrection. In our minimal facts approach, we are only regarding the New Testament as an ancient volume of literature containing twenty-seven separate books and letters. Then we are entertaining only those data that are well evidenced and accepted by nearly every scholar who studies the subject, even the rather skeptical ones. Paul is a source independent of the original disciples. We must remember that, although all of the writings of the New Testament were composed during the first century, it was not until later that they were compiled into a single volume that we now call the New Testament” (Habermas & Licona 51-52).
The other part of this written tradition is found among early church fathers who trained under the apostles. These apostolic fathers are still writing very soon after the beginning of the church, and they affirm the resurrection as they were taught by the apostles. These writers further corroborate the testimony of the witnesses, the two who will be the focus here are Clement and Polycarp. Clement writes two letters to the Corinthian church around 95 A.D. in which he quotes a ton of scripture, which shows how early the New Testament books were being used authoritatively. Here is a quote from 1 Clement,
“Let us understand, dearly beloved, how the Master continually showeth unto us the resurrection that shall be hereafter; whereof He made the Lord Jesus Christ the firstfruit, when He raised Him from the dead” (1 Clement 24:1).
Polycarp is also writing early, and his letter is written to Philippi around 110 A.D., in which he also attests to the resurrection.
“And that the steadfast root of your faith which was famed from primitive times abideth until now and beareth fruit unto our Lord Jesus Christ, who endured to face even death for our sins, whom God raised, having loosed the pangs of Hades” (Polycarp 1:2).
So here we are, nine independent early sources that corroborate the resurrection: Paul, 1 Corinthians 15 creed, sermon summaries recorded in Acts, the four gospels, Clement, and Polycarp. Remember what I said earlier as well, Jesus instructed His followers that this must happen as well, and predicted it coming to pass.
Hallucinated?
Some skeptics make claims like, “well, what if all the people who saw Jesus hallucinated?” I find it incredibly hard to believe that diverse groups of people hallucinated in the same way, in the same context, at the same time, about the same person and physically interacted with said hallucination. Especially when there is no evidence that they hallucinated, this claim is a speculative and skeptical one. To touch and eat with a hallucination is impossible. The physical does not interact with figments of the mind. Psychologically, it is next to impossible to have an identical hallucination experienced by more than one person. Let alone 12. Let alone 500.
There are hundreds of Old Testament prophecies about Jesus. Jesus himself told His disciples He would die and rise again before it happened. Yet they didn’t understand Him, were scattered, and utterly defeated after He died. The apostles weren’t hoping to see Him, as they didn’t even think it would happen due to their lack of understanding. So when they do witness Him as the risen Lord, they didn’t just see what they hoped to, they saw what they saw! Even if one disciple did hallucinate, it’s unlikely others would readily proclaim that they as well had seen Jesus, especially keeping in mind they didn’t understand He would be bodily rising from the dead. The appearances to and conversions of the skeptics Paul (Saul) and James are also extraordinary evidence. While these claims were rising from the disciples, who were followers of Christ, that Jesus arose from the grave, they were also rising from stark unbelievers at the same time!
Imagine how hard it would be for you to be convinced that someone whom you were close with had risen from the dead. Now imagine how hard it would be for you and every other friend of that person to be convinced that they had risen from the dead. Now imagine how hard it would be for you and some of those people to be convinced in different places, at different times, without conversing, that this person had risen from the dead. Now imagine how convinced you would have to be to readily risk your social standing and life for the belief that they had risen from the dead. The only way you would be so convinced is if that person really came up and interacted with you postmortem (along with others so you didn’t think you were crazy), if that person’s character was as remembered, if that person showed you physically that they were present, if you knew you were of clear mind while you spoke to them, and if you found their body to be missing from where you knew it to be. Even then, you might still believe yourself to be crazy. Now, if this person also claimed divinity, had prophecies written about them, and performed miracles, that would make the idea of this person resurrecting far more plausible. Cleopas (Peter) walked with Jesus for quite some time, spoke with Him, invited Him to stay, and then finally recognized Him (Luke 24:13-35). It simply doesn’t fit any of the criteria for a hallucination. Most critical scholars do not use this argument against Christianity anymore because of the lack of evidence it has to refute the resurrection and because of the contrary evidence for the resurrection.
If the eyewitnesses hallucinated, then that also would have been a prime time to make sure everybody knew that the tomb was closed. The disciples could not have stolen Jesus’s body, as it would have been guarded by highly trained soldiers. Josh and Sean McDowell state in their book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict,
“Whether they were Jewish or Roman [guards], they would not have allowed the theft of the body and lived to tell the tale. The idea that they slept through a grave robbery is incredible. The idea that they participated in allowing the robbery likewise lacks credibility—failing in their task meant severe punishment. Only an actual resurrection accounts for the odd collaboration of the guards and the Jewish authorities in spreading a silly story about sleepy guards and body snatchers” (McDowell 257-258).
Maybe He only appeared to die?
The claim that Jesus only appeared to die has less ground than most any other attempted refutation. It requires Jesus to survive being beaten, being whipped with a cat of nine tails, having a crown of thorns driven through His skull, being dehydrated and being crucified. He couldn’t even carry His cross up to Golgotha, and Simon had to carry it in His place. Some have said that it’s a miracle Jesus was even able to stand and walk to the place where He was to be crucified. If Jesus miraculously survived and somehow rolled a massive stone away, got past the guards, and made it to His disciples, it doesn’t explain how He appeared to so many different groups, and why they described Him as healthy. If Jesus survived, He would have been on the brink of death, barely conscious, and not at all a resurrected man. The disciples would have seen Him with pity, not awe. This would not have caused such a change in so many people’s lives. They would not have considered Him raised from the dead. His followers didn’t even understand what He meant when He told them He would rise from the dead, otherwise they would not have been disheartened and scattered after His death, and they would not have been surprised at His resurrection (nevertheless in awe). So why would they readily accept His risen status if He looked on the brink of death?
The disciples also saw a radical change in their lives, going from being scattered and defeated (Mark 14:50, “Then everyone deserted [H]im and fled.”), to preaching to the nations that Jesus lives, and that He has offered them salvation, especially so quickly and immediately after His death. For some quick background, Acts is the book in the Bible that follows the post-resurrection Christian church, the conversion of Saul (Paul), and the work that he does alongside the other apostles. Anyway, this kind of drastic change takes an extraordinary event, and one that the disciples would have had to have fully believed. After watching Jesus’s ascent into heaven, they then immediately gather and pray. Acts 1:14,
“They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with His brothers” (NIV Acts 1:14).
Peter, who had just denied Jesus, was now preaching the gospel in front of crowds. Acts 2:14,
“Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd” (NIV Acts 2:14a).
Again, the disciples were scattered and defeated after the crucifixion and did not understand that Jesus was going to rise from the dead. So this dramatic change in spirit and zeal has to be attributed to a very big and important event. Remember my earlier point: they had legitimately nothing to gain. The disciples are almost immediately persecuted for their faith, shown in Acts 4, 5, 7, and 8. All of this happens quickly after Jesus died. The disciples were very close with Jesus and, had He really stayed dead, they would have been mourning Him and confused. They just spent a large portion of their lives devoted entirely to Jesus, just to have Him die. The apostles were in no condition to start up the early church and preach. But they did. Because they were wholly convinced that they really saw Jesus, risen from the dead.
Moving on, 11 of the 12 apostles were martyred for their faith. Now, martyrdom itself does not directly show that the religion that those martyrs died for is true, but it does show how strongly they believed in their religion, that they would willingly die for it. In the apostles’ case, it’s extremely critical, because they were eyewitnesses to the event that they were dying for. This shows that they believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they saw the resurrected Christ. This provides strong evidence that these stories were not fabricated or stretched.
Some skeptics reject the resurrection on the grounds that it is supernatural. They make this assertion based on a prior assumption, namely that God does not exist. If they do not believe in God, they also do not believe that counter-natural events can occur at all. Even people who are open to the idea of Christianity have a difficult time believing that Jesus could really rise from the dead. I actually think this is a valid reaction to have on first hearing about the resurrection, it’s never easy to begin to believe something you have no real experience with. I do think we have some background notion of the idea of resurrection, however.
Many of us have dealt with death in this world. Whether that be a loved one, a dog, or even someone whom you have never met, we all know of its existence and struggle with its inevitability. Even if you have never experienced such loss, you can at least sympathize with the idea of it and the wreckage that it brings with it. I have, thankfully, never yet had to really deal with the death of someone who is close to me, but the idea of it is still something I think about from time to time. Many of us, whether Christian or not, believe that death is not really the end. Most people profess some idea of the afterlife and hold the hope that we can enjoy the company of our dear friends and family even after we pass. Most people also believe that their deceased loved ones still watch over them postmortem, and that their connection to them is not completely severed in death. We all believe in a sort of resurrection, don’t we? It’s an innate part of us to hold to this idea that even death cannot fully separate our relationships. I’m telling you all of this, because hopefully it makes Jesus’s resurrection easier to understand. If we don’t believe death to be the end for our relationships, maybe it also doesn’t need to be the end for Jesus. Of course, His bodily resurrection is a very unique occurrence, but it is not that much different an idea than the human belief of the continuity of our relationships to others, even if this belief doesn’t necessarily consist of a literal resurrection here on earth. We all seem to acknowledge the idea of heaven, which is only possible in the supernatural, alongside God. I must of course add, that if there is no God, we really do not have a hope of heaven, and if there is no resurrection, we have no hope of redemption in Jesus.
Have you heard the gospel? If not, click here.
View next week’s section to read about my refutation of a popular skeptical argument: the problem of pain.
Works Cited
NIV Quest Study Bible. Zondervan, 2011.
Habermas, Gary & Michael Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Kregel Publications, 2004.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. Zondervan, 2016.
McDowell, Josh & Sean. Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Thomas Nelson, 2017.
Clement of Rome. The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. Translated by J.B. Lightfoot, 1869.
Polycarp. The Epistle of Polycarp. Translated by J.B. Lightfoot, 1909.