Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
Question 3019
Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus. Paul put it bluntly: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). The resurrection is not a peripheral belief we can take or leave; it is the foundation upon which everything else rests. So the question matters enormously: Did Jesus really rise from the dead? The evidence says yes.
The Centrality of the Resurrection
From the very beginning, the resurrection was at the centre of Christian proclamation. When the apostles preached, they did not primarily focus on Jesus’ ethical teaching or example; they proclaimed that God had raised Him from the dead. Peter’s sermon at Pentecost climaxes with this announcement: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32). Paul summarised his Gospel as “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead” (2 Timothy 2:8).
The resurrection was not a later addition to Christianity but its very essence from the start. The earliest Christian creed we possess, preserved in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, states: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” Scholars date this creed to within just a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion. The belief in the resurrection goes back to the very origin of the church.
The Empty Tomb
All four Gospels report that on the Sunday morning after Jesus’ crucifixion, His tomb was found empty. Women went to anoint His body and discovered that the stone had been rolled away and the body was gone (Mark 16:1-6; Matthew 28:1-6; Luke 24:1-3; John 20:1-2).
The empty tomb is significant for several reasons. First, if Jesus’ body had still been in the tomb, the Jewish authorities could have produced it and silenced the Christian movement instantly. They did not do so because they could not. Instead, they invented the story that the disciples had stolen the body (Matthew 28:11-15), which actually confirms that the tomb was empty; they were trying to explain away a fact everyone knew.
Second, the fact that women are reported as the first witnesses is remarkable. In first-century Jewish culture, women’s testimony was not highly regarded in legal matters. If the early Christians were inventing a story, they would never have made women the primary witnesses. The most plausible explanation for why all four Gospels report women discovering the empty tomb is that women actually did discover the empty tomb.
Third, the tomb was known. Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:43). This was a matter of public record. The disciples could not have proclaimed the resurrection in Jerusalem if anyone could walk to the tomb and find the body still there.
The Resurrection Appearances
An empty tomb by itself might be explained as a grave robbery. But the disciples did not merely claim the tomb was empty; they claimed they had seen Jesus alive. These appearances transformed them from frightened, demoralised men hiding behind locked doors into bold proclaimers willing to die for their testimony.
Paul lists the appearances in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8: Jesus appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve, then to more than five hundred at once (most of whom were still alive when Paul wrote, meaning they could be questioned), then to James, then to all the apostles, and finally to Paul himself. The variety and number of appearances rule out hallucination. Hallucinations are individual experiences; they do not happen to groups, let alone to five hundred people at once.
The appearances also occurred over a period of forty days (Acts 1:3), in various locations and circumstances. Jesus appeared to individuals (Peter, James, Paul) and groups (the Twelve, the five hundred). He appeared indoors (John 20:19-29) and outdoors (John 21). He ate with His disciples (Luke 24:41-43), inviting them to touch Him (Luke 24:39; John 20:27). These were not visions or spiritual experiences but encounters with a bodily risen Jesus.
The Transformation of the Disciples
Something happened to transform the disciples. Before the resurrection, they were defeated and scattered. Peter had denied Jesus three times. The others had fled. They had no expectation that Jesus would rise; when the women reported the empty tomb, they did not believe them (Luke 24:11).
Yet within weeks, these same men were boldly proclaiming in Jerusalem that God had raised Jesus from the dead, and they continued proclaiming it even when it cost them their lives. Peter, who had cowered before a servant girl, now stood before the same authorities who had crucified Jesus and declared, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).
What caused this transformation? The disciples themselves said it was because they had seen the risen Lord. They were not proclaiming a doctrine or a philosophy but an event they claimed to have witnessed. And they were willing to suffer and die for that testimony. People do sometimes die for beliefs that turn out to be false, but they do not die for what they know to be a lie. The disciples were in a position to know whether the resurrection had happened, and they went to their deaths maintaining that it had.
The Conversion of James and Paul
Two conversions are particularly significant. James, the brother of Jesus, did not believe in Him during His earthly ministry (John 7:5). Yet after the resurrection, James became a leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Galatians 1:19) and was eventually martyred for his faith (according to Josephus, Antiquities 20.200). What changed his mind? Paul tells us: Jesus appeared to him (1 Corinthians 15:7).
Paul himself was a fierce persecutor of the church, “ravaging” it (Acts 8:3), hunting down Christians to bring them to trial. Yet he became the greatest missionary and theologian of the early church. What caused such a dramatic reversal? Paul attributed it entirely to encountering the risen Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-19; 1 Corinthians 15:8; Galatians 1:11-16). He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by becoming a Christian. His conversion makes sense only if he genuinely believed he had met the risen Lord.
The Emergence of the Church
The existence of the church itself is evidence for the resurrection. Christianity emerged in Jerusalem, the very city where Jesus had been publicly executed. Its first converts were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. But a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms for first-century Jews; the Messiah was supposed to defeat Israel’s enemies, not be executed by them. How could a movement centred on a crucified man as Lord and Messiah arise and flourish in the very place where everyone knew He had died?
The answer the earliest Christians gave was that God had vindicated Jesus by raising Him from the dead. The resurrection reversed the verdict of the cross. What had appeared to be defeat was actually victory. This message was so compelling that within a few decades it had spread throughout the Roman Empire, transforming lives and cultures wherever it went.
Conclusion
Did Jesus really rise from the dead? The evidence strongly supports an affirmative answer. The tomb was empty. Multiple witnesses, including sceptics like James and Paul, claimed to have seen Jesus alive. The disciples were transformed from cowards into martyrs. The church emerged and flourished despite every reason it should have failed. The best explanation for all these facts is the one the first Christians gave: God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. And if that is true, then everything changes. Jesus is who He claimed to be, His death accomplished what He said it would, and all who trust in Him share in His victory over death.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3
Bibliography
- Habermas, Gary R., and Michael R. Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004.
- Craig, William Lane. The Son Rises: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus. Chicago: Moody Press, 1981.
- Wright, N.T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
- Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology. Chicago: Moody Press, 1999.
- Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007.
