I would like to offer you, the wonderful readers of this column, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I would like to offer you the chance to give up everything you own and receive not one material thing for doing so. I would like to offer you the chance to be homeless and hunted. I would like to offer you the chance to suffer and be ridiculed. I would like to offer you the chance to be killed in one or more of the following charming ways: crucifixion, beheading, stoning, being burned at the stake or being eaten by lions.
Interested? Good.
All you need to do to get in on this fabulous offer is to make up a lie and spend the rest of your life pretending to believe it.
You likely know by now what I am driving at. In my last column I wrote about the crucifixion of Jesus. But praise God, Jesus did not stay dead. Romans 1:4 says that he is “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all wrote of his resurrection, as did Paul. Jesus himself foretold his resurrection many times. And yet, in spite of all of the written testimony, there will always be some who not only disbelieve, but are positively “evangelistic” in their efforts to spread their disbelief to others.
But if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the only possible explanation for the rise of Christianity is that a great number of men and women supposedly accepted the offer I outlined above.
The recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it this way some years ago: “It is not irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses who had nothing to gain the wise do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. So everything from Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred.”
Obviously, that is not the case. The Old Testament prophesied and pictured the Resurrection in numerous places; the New Testament plainly describes it and the results clearly testify of it. It was not one or two people who saw the resurrected Christ, it was hundreds. And they were all so convinced that it was really him, they gave up everything to tell everyone what had happened.
These men and women were neither deceived nor deceivers; they were eyewitnesses of the greatest miracle this world has ever known.
But why should we be surprised? The God who made life has no trouble raising the dead. Paul, a man who himself was convinced of the resurrection after he was confronted by the risen Christ on the Damascus road, wrote this in his first epistle to the Corinthians:
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”
He closed out that great 15th chapter by describing the result of the resurrection of Christ: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
Happy Resurrection morning!
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., and the author of several books available at wordofhismouth.com. Contact him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.