Several years ago, I struck up a friendship with a Muslim at work. He firmly believed that “Jesus was a very “good man”, but that He was NOT the Son of God, and most definitely, NOT God.”
Over many lunch hours, we would banter back and forth, but anything I said in rebuttal never made a dent in his belief, until one day, when I told him that 500 people witnessed the ascension of Christ into Heaven. After three long years of pouring His soul out to 10’s of thousands of people, it was only a mere 500 people who remained loyal to Him in the end (see I Corinthians 15:3-9).
My Muslim friend never knew this. He was honestly intrigued by this, because he was a history buff, and he hung his hat on documented FACTS. Here was a Biblical statement that recorded such a fact, and this broke the ice with him. He never forsook Islam, and in fact, our relationship ended very badly, but at least the ice of his worthless faith was cracked. It was splintered by the TRUTH, and the truth does only one of two things: 1) it convicts you of your sin and a need for a Savior in Christ Jesus through repentance, or, 2) it drives you further into your rebellion against Christ and His Church.
As young people, when you are asked to provide evidence that your faith is grounded in truth, rather than in fairy tales, legend or wishful thinking, it’s the truth that points us to the greatest challenge for us to believe, which is the supernatural resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There is a lot hinging on a person’s belief. Depending on what they believe will determine their own resurrection someday, whether it be in paradise or in hell. Today’s political sentiment is that every kid deserves a gold star on his or her forehead – regardless of their satisfactory or unsatisfactory achievement in school. This is ridiculous. What professional football team is going to draft players based on the number of meaningless gold stars on their foreheads? Yet, this is the direction that this irresponsible county is headed in. This country is in real need of King David’s, Gideon’s, Joshua’s, Daniel’s… MEN willing to be MEN who can lead as MEN by the example that Christ Jesus Himself set before us in this challenge. It’s a challenge because we now live in a Christ-less, weak Church environment, where the effeminate congress leads men by their shirt tails. Where is the Church’s voice now that this country is casually adopting abortion to the day of delivery? Why is the Church of Christ so silent and weak? It’s because they don’t want to make waves. Though they were ordained by Christ to be the light of the world and to be the salt in the wound of sin, the Church has bellied up with their tails between their legs. Pathetic, but so obviously true.
Of course, Agnostics – those who at least believe in “something” of a higher power, but who aren’t entirely certain of what “it” is, might consider what the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’lists as the greatest attorney of all time, namely, Sir Lionel Luckhoo. He was an antagonistic, staunch unbeliever in the resurrection of Christ, but he was forced to conclude after exhaustive investigation and analysis of available documents and other evidence that, “I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof, which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”
What ‘evidence’ is this world-renowned, most successful lawyer in modern history talking about? The evidence begins with the death of Jesus by the brutality of flogging followed by the crucifixion. Is there anyone still reading this blog that doubts this is historical fact? What I love about history are the facts! What else is there for us to hang our hats on? You have a thief hanging in sheer misery to the left of Christ. You have another criminal hanging to the right of Christ. The criminal to the right of Christ mocks him by taunting Him to deliver the three of them from crucifixion. However, the thief to the left of Christ admonishes the criminal by reminding him that they both deserve the punishment as a result of their deeds. The thief looks to Christ. He has no further use of his shredded, bloody body – no ability to use anything of his brutalized body, but for his mouth. In his words, as weak as they were, he clearly acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah, and Christ promises him eternal life in paradise with him.
But hold on just a minute here! What did this thief do to EARN eternal paradise with Christ? What ‘works’ did this adulterous, lying, and murderous thief have time enough to do on that cross in order to ‘earn’ his place in Heaven?
How about NOTHING!
This thief was converted minutesbefore he died. Is he going to purgatory for who knows how long? Well, if we believe Jesus Christ, we know that this thief was going to be in Heaven – Paradise – “this very day with Him”, running his fingers through the whiskers of His Lord and Master the moment when he died. There is no “purgatory” if we are to believe the words of Christ Jesus.
Where were this criminal’s “works”? Where was his “penance”? What Christ is saying to this terrible man, is what He also says to you and me, in that, ‘your FAITH in Me has earned your place in My Kingdom” – there is absolutely NOTHING you could ever have done or could ever do to ‘earn’ your place in my heavenly kingdom, since I’ve done it all in your place! In fact it is an insult to Me, if you actually believe that your pitiful works could contribute to your future security with Me. It is only your Faith in Me that has made your presence with me – as I made with My new friend on the cross next to me – possible.”
This is a close to the actual definition of JUSTIFICTION as I can illustrate from God’s own Word.
But I digress…
We were talking about how a dead body, rotting away in a hot cave loaded with a cloud of flies and maggots could just get up and walk away. It’s interesting that when Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” – ostensibly the mother of Jesus – went to visit the tomb. There had been an earthquake, which rolled away the stone and scared away the blue-blooded Roman soldiers who were specifically stationed there to keep watch over this tomb with the threat of death (most likely crucifixion) if they left their post, yet, in their minds, such a horrible death upon a cross could not have measured up to the horror that they experienced first-hand at that tomb of Christ that particular morning, and so they fled for their lives.
Interestingly, when Peter and John approached the now empty tomb – to their astonishment, they saw two angels seated at either end of the death slab – the Mercy Seat. Think about the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant from the Old Testament with the two Angels seated at either end and extending their wings in gold over it. Then consider the two women who were losing their minds after finding Christ Jesus completely missing from the tomb except for His burial clothes and bumping into this quiet Gardner outside the tomb. Wasn’t Adam a Gardner? Yet, here is Christ – the second Adam – doing for us what our father Adam SHOULD have done but failed to do on our behalf.
I’ve read that some intellectual minds suggest that Christ never died on the cross, so when the tomb stone was rolled away and his death bed found empty, that since he was never dead, he just got up and walked away. The problem with this is that Christ was flogged with metal bits in the leather straps of these devilish whips. This alone would have killed most men, since it severed ligaments and arteries throughout the body. Such a flogging was intended by Roman punishment to kill the prisoner. Yet, Christ survived, much to Pilot’s displeasure. Then he was literally nailed to a cross of timber – a sure way to absolutely kill the subject, without question, but not without the most excruciating, lingering pain that can be inflicted on a body. More than this, Christ had a spear thrust into his abdomen to ensure that He was dead. When a gushing of blood and water flowed out of His wound, as is consistent with any modern day doctor’s assessment, He was obvious dead, and most likely, dead for hours.
In those days, most criminals crucified were left to feed the carrion, crows and prowling dogs, but the liberal scholar, “John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University called Jesus’ burial “one of the earliest and best-known facts of this man, Jesus.”
So where is the evidence?
The earliest report of the resurrection of Christ Jesus goes close to the actual event itself, as described in I Corinthians 15: 3-8, when St. Paul records critically important records that were recited by the earliest Christians: “That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom were still living, though some have since died. Then He appeared to James, then again to the Apostles, and last of all He appeared to me, one reborn in Christ.
So let’s sum up – it’s unanimous. There’s an empty tomb – the body is missing…
I suppose I could write many pages on this topic, but for the sake of keeping this to the length of a blog, consider the following: