Today’s question is, “What is the importance of the empty tomb?”
In this video I’ll answer that question from a biblical perspective.
Then afterwards, as always, I’ll share some helpful resources, so stick around until the end.
From the earliest apostolic period, the reality of the empty tomb—the biblical truth that
the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth was found empty by His disciples—has been at the center
of the Christian proclamation.
All four Gospels describe, to varying degrees, the circumstances surrounding the discovery
of the empty tomb.
But are there any good reasons to think that these claims are historically accurate?
Could a fair-minded investigator conclude that, in all probability, Jesus’ tomb was
found empty on that first Easter morning?
There are several arguments that have convinced a good many historians that the tomb in which
Jesus was buried was indeed found empty on the Sunday following His crucifixion.
First, the location of Jesus’ tomb would have been known to Christians and non-Christians
alike.
While it is true that most victims of crucifixion were either thrown in a graveyard reserved
for common criminals or simply left on the cross for birds and other scavengers to feed
upon, the case of Jesus was different.
The historical record indicates that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea,
a member of the Sanhedrin, the very group that had orchestrated Jesus’ execution.
Many skeptical New Testament scholars have been convinced that Jesus’ burial by Joseph
of Arimathea is unlikely to have been a Christian fabrication.
Given the understandable hostility of the earliest Christians toward the Sanhedrin,
whom they felt were largely responsible for their Master’s death, it is unlikely that
Jesus’ followers would have invented a tradition about a member of the Sanhedrin using his
own tomb to provide Jesus with a respectable burial.
In addition, recent archaeological discoveries have demonstrated that the style of tomb described
in the burial accounts in the Gospels was largely used by the wealthy and other people
of prominence.
Such a description fits nicely with what we know of Joseph of Arimathea.
Moreover, when we couple these considerations with the fact that Arimathea was a town of
little importance that lacked any type of scriptural symbolism and that no competing
burial tradition exists, any serious doubt that Jesus was buried in Joseph’s tomb is
eliminated.
The significance of these facts should not be overlooked as the Sanhedrin would then
have certainly known the location of Joseph’s tomb, and thus, where Jesus had been interred.
And if the location of Jesus’ tomb was known to the Jewish authorities, it would have been
nearly impossible for the Christian movement to have gained any traction in Jerusalem,
the very city where Jesus was known to have been buried.
Would not any of the Jewish religious leaders have taken the short walk to Joseph’s tomb
to verify this claim?
Did not the Sanhedrin have every motivation to produce Jesus’ corpse (if it were available)
and put an end to these rumors of a resurrected Jesus once and for all?
The fact that Christianity began to gain converts in Jerusalem tells us that no corpse had been
produced despite the Jewish religious leadership having every motivation to produce one.
If Jesus’ crucified body had been produced, the Christian movement, with its emphasis
on a resurrected Jesus, would have been dealt a lethal blow.
Second, the empty tomb is implied in the early oral formula quoted by the apostle Paul in
1 Corinthians 15.
While all four Gospels attest to the vacancy of Jesus’ tomb, our earliest hint at the
empty tomb comes from the Apostle Paul.
Writing to the church at Corinth in approximately AD 55, Paul quotes an oral formula (or creed)
that most scholars believe he received from the apostles Peter and James just five years
after Jesus’ crucifixion.
Paul states, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: 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 Cephas, and then to
the Twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:3–5).
When Paul writes “…that he was buried, that he was raised…” it is strongly implied
(given Paul’s Pharisaical background) that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was empty.
As a former Pharisee, Paul would have naturally understood that what goes down in burial comes
up in resurrection; he accepted the idea of physical resurrection even before his encounter
with Christ.
Given that Paul’s source for this creed was most likely the Jerusalem apostles and
their proximity to the events in question, Paul’s citation of this oral formula provides
strong evidence that Jesus’ tomb had been found empty and that this fact was widely
known in the early Christian community.
The oft-repeated objection that Paul was unaware of an empty tomb is answered when we see that
elsewhere Paul taught that Jesus’ resurrection was bodily in nature (Romans 8:11).
For Paul, a resurrection that did not produce a vacant tomb would have been a contradiction
in terms.
Third, there appears to be strong enemy attestation of the existence of an empty tomb.
The first of these comes from within the pages of the Gospel of Matthew itself where Matthew
reports that there was an acknowledgment of the empty tomb by the Jewish leaders themselves
(Matthew 28:13–15).
They were claiming that the disciples had come and stolen away Jesus’ body.
Given the proximity of the writing of Matthew’s Gospel to the event in question, such a claim
would have been easy to disprove if untrue.
For if Matthew were lying, his report of the Jewish response to the empty tomb proclamation
could have easily been discredited as many of the contemporaries of the events in question
would still have been alive when Matthew’s Gospel was initially circulating.
But why would they accuse the disciples of stealing Jesus’ body if the tomb still contained
the dead body of Jesus?
The counter-accusation made by the Jews presupposes that the tomb was empty.
That the Jews accused the disciples of stealing Jesus’ body is corroborated by the Christian
apologist Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century and then again around AD 200
by the church father Tertullian.
Both Justin and Tertullian were interacting with the Jewish debaters of their day and
were in a position to know what it was their Jewish opponents were saying.
They were not simply relying on Matthew’s Gospel for their information.
For both Justin and Tertullian mention specific details not found in the Gospel of Matthew.
In fact, all three of these writers cite details not mentioned by the others.
Based on these considerations, it appears that there was an early Jewish acknowledgement
of an empty tomb.
Fourth, all four Gospels report that the tomb of Jesus was discovered empty by women.
This point is especially significant given the patriarchal nature of first-century Israel.
While it is true that, under very limited circumstances, women were allowed to testify
in a court of law, it is also the case that, in first-century Jewish society, a woman’s
testimony was worth far less than that of a man.
If you were making up a story in an attempt to persuade others that Jesus had been resurrected,
you would never have used women as your primary witnesses.
Any made-up story would have featured male disciples like Peter, John, or Andrew as the
discoverers of the empty tomb, as the testimony of men would have provided much-needed credibility
to the story.
Yet the Gospels report that, while Jesus’ male disciples were cowering in fear, hiding
from the authorities, it was women who were the earliest witnesses of the empty tomb.
There would simply be no reason for the early church to concoct such a scenario unless it
was true.
Why would the early Christians portray their male leadership as cowards and place females
in the role of primary witnesses?
One of these named female witnesses (Mary Magdalene) was said to have been possessed
of seven devils earlier in her life, thus making her an even less reliable witness in
the eyes of many.
And yet, despite these evidential handicaps, the earliest Christians insisted that the
first witnesses to the empty tomb were, in fact, women.
The most likely explanation of this insistence is that these women were the initial witness
of the empty tomb and that the earliest Christians were unwilling to lie about it despite its
potentially embarrassing nature.
All four of these arguments help to provide cumulative proof that the tomb of Jesus Christ
was empty on the first Easter.
Particularly telling is the conclusion of historian Michael Grant, himself a skeptic
of Jesus’ resurrection, “…if we apply the same sort of criteria that we would apply
to any other ancient literary sources, then the evidence is firm and plausible enough
to necessitate the conclusion that the tomb was, indeed, found empty.”
Of course, there is more to the story than merely an empty tomb.
The reason the tomb was found empty was that the man who was buried there had risen from
the dead.
Jesus would not only vacate His grave but appear to numerous people individually and
in groups.
And His resurrection from the dead would be the sure proof that He was who He claimed
to be—the risen Son of God, our only hope of salvation.
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