The other day someone asked me a question. THE question. The one that every part of our belief in God hinges on. I wanted to share my answer with you here today in our daily devotional time. I'd like you to ask yourself a few questions as you read it. First, do I really believe what I’m reading? Is this just information in my head or do I believe it with my whole heart? Second, is there someone in my life that needs to be told this?
It’s my prayer that today’s devotional doesn’t just end up as a quick glance in your Facebook feed. Share it. Copy it. Keep it handy to remind yourself of God’s love and as a reference to share with those who have yet to believe it themselves.
Here’s the question:
Did the resurrection REALLY happen?
Did Jesus’ heart stop for three days and then re-start? Really? How do we know?
It’s a question that has lingered with mankind since the stone rolled away from the doorway to Jesus’ tomb. Did He really die? Did Jesus’ followers hide the body? What proof do we have?
The best place to answer a question like this (or any question) is to start with God’s word.
Here’s what scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians 15
“And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead.
And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.”
1 Corinthians 15:14-15, 17-19 NLT
What the Apostle Paul is telling us in this scripture is that if Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t real, all of them were liars. Every disciple and preacher that spoke of Christ coming back from the dead were purveyors of fairytale and untruth. In addition, Paul goes on to say that if the resurrection were fake, their sermons were useless, their faith misplaced, and their sins still unforgiven. In other words… Paul believed Jesus came back from the dead three days later just like He said He would. He was convinced that the Man he was teaching others about was exactly who He claimed to be: Jesus Christ… Son of God… dead but only temporarily.
If you need further proof look no further than his disciples.
The great majority of them were killed violently for their continued faith. But why? Simply because they stood boldly and would tell all who would listen that their Master, their Teacher, their Savior, and their Lord had risen up out of the grave and walked again. They tirelessly preached about salvation, and the coming judgment, and Christ’s deity and holiness… never stopping when threatened with death or imprisonment. They went without food, spent years in deplorable conditions, and, at the end of their lives, were cut down in horrible fashion by people who dismissed their claims as sedition. Some were beheaded. Others crucified. Abandoned. Destroyed. It was as if the authorities were trying to rid the world of a disease by killing one Christ-follower at a time.
Would any of these men have endured such pain and hardship over a lie? A ruse? No.
People don’t give up their heartbeat for a hoax.
The disciples would have been the ones that snuck in past Roman guards and stolen Christ’s body. They would have known the hiding spot. They would have been in on the secret. The lie. But it wasn’t a lie and they knew it. They believed that Christ rose again so much that they were willing to go through torture, great pain, and even death to proclaim it.
The resurrection was no magic trick to start a religion. Jesus Christ of Nazareth…Son of God… walked planet Earth blameless… healed the sick, fed the hungry, taught the ignorant, and loved the unlovable. He was captured and tried for crimes He didn’t commit and whipped by people He’d created just a few decades before. They nailed Him to a cross and He bled and died. They put Him in a tomb, covered the entrance to it with a large stone, and posted soldiers by the entrance in case somebody wanted to hide the corpse.
But on that beautiful morning, Christ pushed aside the burial shroud and walked among the living once again. Scripture tells us in Acts that He didn’t hide after His return:
“During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.” Acts. 1:3
Christ had risen. And the same feet that walked on the water were now back among the people. The Bible goes on to tell us that before He went back to Heaven, He was seen by more than 500 men (1 Cor. 15:6), His disciples, and dozens of women and children.
Countless confirming stories from eyewitnesses…
Men willingly giving up their lives that could have saved themselves by simply denying it happened…
An empty tomb…
So much evidence that demands our attention and confirms our faith.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is history’s fulcrum… the pivot point where mankind’s debt was paid once and for all. And because of it, each of us can now spend eternity in Heaven with a Savior Who loves us immeasurably. He is risen, indeed.
