- The word proofs is a loaded term in philosophy
and in many cases people will push back at us
for using that in the Christian faith,
but the Bible itself, Acts 1:3 says that
with many convincing proofs Jesus appeared
to his disciples for 40 days after his resurrection.
In fact, the apostles were faced with this accusation
that they had actually stolen the body of Jesus.
And so as early as the New Testament
all the way to this present day there have been attacks
on the notion that Jesus was raised from the dead.
And through the next almost 2000 years,
if we were to come up to today,
there are a series of what we call counter theories
to the resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus through the centuries
has responded to these counter theories
such as, well his body was stolen,
or maybe he wasn't really dead
when he was put in the tomb, and so on,
have been responded to powerfully such that
I'm convinced today the very best answer
is, in fact, rationally, that Jesus was historically
raised from the dead.
Now some of the actual historical evidences
that have been discussed through the centuries
are that Jesus was really dead.
That is to say, there is no question that he just swooned
when he was put into the tomb,
to Romans knew how to kill you when they crucified you.
Two, the fact is that his tomb was empty.
The early Christians even lost where the actual tomb is,
we don't know for sure even where you're taken
as a tourist today is actually where he was buried.
Why? Because they didn't care about it,
he was raised from the dead.
His enemies would have presented his body
were he actually still in the tomb.
Three, his disciples believed that they were seeing Jesus
after his resurrection, that is in a post mortem
raised state, so much so that they were willing
to die for this, this is remarkable.
And in fact, they changed, four, their belief system.
These early believers were Jewish, and so they began
to worship on the first day of the week,
that is Sunday instead of the Sabbath day.
They celebrated the Lord's supper, which is
a proclamation of his death, and burial, and resurrection
until he comes, and baptism, which was
a symbol of buried with him in the likeness of his death
and raised in the likeness of his resurrection.
Interestingly enough, the various theories like swoon,
or conspiracy, or they lost the body, and so on,
only a handful of these are still used today by skeptics
and the irony is they fail miserably
simply to deal with what now the majority
of New Testament scholars, even those
who are not Christians, agree on those
historical facts that I presented.
The bottom line is the significance of the resurrection
of Jesus is intensely personal.
The reason is simply that
if he's not raised from the dead then Christianity is silly,
there's no forgiveness for our sins,
my having lived my life believing that he's raised
from the dead was a waste, I could've lived it
any other of a number of ways.
But if he is raised from the dead, then in fact,
the hundreds of millions of people
who trusted in him through the centuries
really do have hope for eternal life.
I remember 43 years ago when I was not a Christian,
20 year old pagan, hated Christianity,
yet woke up on Easter morning with a bad hangover
as a hippy with long hair, God has a sense of humor,
it seems, I had been told recently by Christians
that on Easter, that was the day they celebrated
Jesus having been raised from the dead.
And the fundamental question of life that I was facing,
like is there a God and could I be forgiven
for the evil that I actually was fully caught up in
and was convinced I was guilty of,
could I be forgiven? I didn't connect all those dots,
but something bothered me that morning,
this is the day Jesus rose from the dead.
And that's what makes Christianity so very special,
the love of God displayed in the death, burial,
resurrection of Jesus for us, has been demonstrated
to be true, and that's what gives me hope,
and it should you, too, if you belong to him.
(light music)
- [Narrator] Thanks for watching.
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