The Resurrection

Why is the Resurrection important to Christians? Paul outlines this in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20. Before we look at the resurrection of Jesus, we need to establish that He actually died. If a cow is hit by a train and then staggers back up, there are two conclusions. Firstly, it died and ressurected, and secondly, it was merely stunned and got revived.

Did Jesus die on the cross?
Certain passages of scripture support the idea that Jesus might not have died. For example, He could have been drugged by something in the sponge and that fact that Pilate was surprised that Jesus died so quickly also supports this somewhat. So, let's look at the medical evidence. After the 39 lashes and the blood loss with that, Jesus would have had low blood pressure, a high heart rate and low levels of bodily fluids which are used up to replace the lost blood. Perhaps Jesus had just fainted on the cross.

The word excruciating comes from crucifixion. The death itself, is not, as most would think due to blood loss but it is by asphyxiation. When hanging on the cross, you would need to push up from your feet to take every breath. At the same time, your feet are slowly ripped by the nail and your back rubs against the rough surface of the wood. The lack of oxygen and the exhaustion leads to an erratic heartbeat and then cardiac arrest. All of this leads to a build up of clear fluid around the heart and lungs.

Now if Jesus did not die on the cross, surely He would die in the tomb? Or surely, if He did not die, and somehow managed to get out of the tomb, then surely He would not be able to convince His disciples to spread the word that He has resurrected...in that condition. The death of Christ is not a question, the fact that a resurrection story exists is testimony to this. Also, the medical evidence of Jesus dying is overwhelming.

Empty Tomb
This is not actually much of a contested issue, even skeptics to not question this because the early Christian leaders did not refer to it explicitly. Never once in Acts 2, for example, did Peter say..."Go look at the tomb yourself it's at xxxxxxx". In Matthew 28:11-15, the Jewish leaders bribe the guards to say what they are told. Never once did they claim that the tomb was not empty. Maybe you don't believe in the bible and think that it is inaccurate and that this did not happen. However, if this was so, no historical document would have survived scrutiny as long as the bible has.

Perhaps the disciples stole the body, as the guards claim in scripture. However, if you examine Luke 24:13-24 and John 20:19, we can see that the disciples were in no position to do this. If they had not lost all hope, then they were scared and locked themselves away. The actions of these men after Jesus appeared to them again completely changed, they were courageous and were willing to die for what they believed in. It must have taken a big event like the resurrection to cause this.

It is also out of the question whether some other group such as the Jews or the Romans stole the body. If they had, they would have just reproduced the body when the resurrection story was spreading and quickly dismantling the story.

Witnesses
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-6, Paul writes that there were 500 witnesses to Jesus after His resurrection. These documents were circulated and used as teaching material in the early Church, basically what Paul is doing here, is to INVITE others to ask these witnesses, to get the evidence form themselves. There is an argument that these 500 were merely hallucinating but this falls on so many levels. Firstly, hallucinations generally only happen when there is a stimulus such as a drug, secondly, they happen individually about different things, at different times. It is actually arguable that God making 500 people hallucinate the same thing at the same time a greater miracle than raising Jesus from the dead!

Another argument is that the resurrection was merely wishful thinking on the part of the disciples. However, this doesn't add up either because no one expected Jesus to rise again because no one understood it. All the Jews at the time were expecting the Messiah to be a great warrior to lead them out of foreign oppression, like a second exodus. In fact, even Peter thought this, He did not understand who Jesus was, and this is displayed in Mark 8:27-38. Another one is Paul, who, at the time did not even want Jesus to rise again. He went round persecuting the Christians, stoning them and throwing them in prison, yet even he went on to preach about it.