Why do I believe in the resurrection of Jesus?

So this is what got churned out late this evening on a rather tight timescale, and with no time to do any reading at all. You can probably tell that I don't write essays (except on law), and I don't give talks. But I post it for what it's worth. I could have done better, but I could have done worse. I'm pretty sure that engagement was my biggest problem, although some of the idiosyncratic way I've gone about the exercise is a reflection of the conversation up till now. Pray that the truth that is in it is accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit which can break hard hearts.

Asking me why I believe that about 2000 years ago a man called Jesus was raised from from shameful death to a new indestructible life (as the bible describes happened) was to give me quite a challenge. This maybe because by nature I find it difficult to give a short answer to any question, but it is also because the reasons for believing it are so many, so interconnected and so multi-layered that it is difficult to reduce them into a few bullet points. But as I've thought how I should answer this question I've been brought to a growing realisation that the shortest answer I could give is: I believe the resurrection because of God's speech.

A. Peter's Speech

However, a good place to begin thinking about why we should believe in the resurrection is a speech delivered by Peter to a crowd of Jews 50 days after Jesus had risen from the dead. Peter had followed Jesus during his life, listened to his teaching, but when Jesus had been arrested Peter had denied that Jesus had anything to do with him. He had been afraid for his life, and quite understandably. Peter got away with his life, but Jesus was killed by the authorities. But Peter, together with the other followers of Jesus, were rescued from their fear and having met with Jesus after he was risen from the dead were emboldened to speak to hundreds of Jews less than two months after their leader had been executed. To the same crowd that had called for his leader to be executed Peter is recorded as saying these words (Acts 2:24-40):

'God released [Jesus] from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip. King David said this about him:
‘I see that the Lord is always with me.
I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.
No wonder my heart is glad,
and my tongue shouts his praises!
My body rests in hope.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead
or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.
You have shown me the way of life,
and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.’
“Dear brothers, think about this! You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself, for he died and was buried, and his tomb is still here among us. But he was a prophet, and he knew God had promised with an oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on his throne. David was looking into the future and speaking of the Messiah’s resurrection. He was saying that God would not leave him among the dead or allow his body to rot in the grave.
“God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. Now he is exalted to the place of highest honour in heaven, at God’s right hand. And the Father, as he had promised, gave him the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us, just as you see and hear today. For David himself never ascended into heaven, yet he said,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit in the place of honor at my right hand
until I humble your enemies,
making them a footstool under your feet.”’
“So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the Gentiles—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”

So those who received his word were baptised, and there were added to the church that day about three thousand people.'

I said before that I believed Jesus was raised because of God's speech. He is the prime witness to the truth of the resurrection. But God does not always speak as a voice from the clouds, he usually uses means through which his voice is heard. I notice 4 ways in which God speaks and acts in this speech of Peter:

1. Jesus Christ
2. In the followers of Jesus before he was born (the Old Testament)
3. In the early followers of Jesus (the New Testament)
4. In those who received the word

1. Jesus Christ - God's speech

How can we know each other? In daily experience we know we can only know each other by speaking to each other. I may know nothing about my colleague a few desks away, but the reason for this is because they have never told me anything about themselves. That may be because I never asked, but even if I asked, it is up to them whether I get to know them or not. Only if they choose to speak to me can I know who they are.

How can we know if there is God? If there is a God how can we know his character? And if we know his character how can we know how he thinks of us? We can only know if he speaks. Mercifully, he has done just that. And because of the person who he is, he spoke to us in a person - the person of Jesus Christ. It is because of the claim of Jesus Christ that he is the speech of God towards us that it matters whether he was risen from the dead. If he claimed that intimate relationship with God and he is now dust then we have no reason to believe he was who he said he was. But as a witness of Jesus from the dead declared a 20-30 years later: 'he was shown to be the Son of God [i.e. he was shown to be who he claimed to be] when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit'. The resurrection matters, because the identity of Jesus Christ matters.

2. The Old Testament - God's speech about Jesus Christ

In his speech Peter quotes the ancestor of Jesus, King David. About 1000 years before Jesus was born King David wrote songs, which were sung by the people of Israel as they hoped for a new king, greater than David, who would lead them to a peace that they never experienced under David or any of his heirs. David had brought peace to the land of Israel, which throughout most of its history until then, and for most of its history since, has been constantly at war. But David never was able to pacify our greatest enemy that conquers us all - death. But he did look forward to a day when Jesus Christ would do that.

David looked forward to a day when God would not allow a man to rot in the grave. When there would be a man who lived forever. And if that man was the king of a people then the people that live under that king will share in his victory and his life. David wanted to share in that victory, although he knew it wasn't a victory he could achieve on his, he could only share in the victory of another.

But why could David not defeat death? Why can we not do it, despite all our best efforts to fend it off with exercise, technology and healthy eating? The reason is that it is a judgment pronounced on all of us as people who have rejected God. David recognised that the only person who would not be defeated by death was the one whom God helped, and the only one who God would help would be his 'Holy One', a person who was obeyed him completely.

In all four gospels we are told how Jesus was brought to trial but he couldn't be found guilty of anything. He is the only person who has ever lived who had a clean conscience. Who never lived only for himself, who worshipped God perfectly, and served other people to the extent of loosing his life for their sake. In addition, although he didn't look like a king he was of royal blood as he spilt that royal blood for the people he leads there stood above his head a sign, ironically placed by those who crucified him: it read 'the King of the Jews' - the only 'charge' they could justify killing him for.

But when Peter quotes David in his speech he is not only bringing a great historical figure to side with him, he is also bringing God. The Jews recognised that the Old Testament, which included this song of David, was spoken by God through human beings. It carried God's authority, and Peter was bringing God into the court to give his verdict on the resurrection. God's verdict was that it was true. As you read surprisingly often in the New Testament writings, and as the universal church creeds state: 'He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the [Old Testament] Scriptures said' (1 Cor 15:4).

3. The New Testament - God's speech about Jesus Christ

Peter's speech is recorded for us in the New Testament. That collection of 27 books was written by a number of early followers of Jesus Christ, including Peter and other eye-witnesses of Jesus' resurrection. The reason that 3000 Jews came to believe that Jesus had been risen from the dead on that day 2000 years ago, was because people who had seen it talked to them about it. As Peter said: 'God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this'. The whole New Testament is a talk like this: a witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and what that achieved.

But we do not believe their witness to the resurrection purely on their own authority. Indeed they did not claim to be speaking on their own authority. As their title, 'Apostle', indicates - they were 'sent ones' or 'messenger' (as 'apostle' translates). They called themselves 'ambassadors' because they weren't bringing their own message, but the message of God. The New Testament writers spoke because Jesus had been given 'the Holy Spirit to pour out upon [them]' which is what the Jews present saw and heard.

During his life Jesus had promised that when he was raised to new life he would send his Holy Spirit who would give his followers the words to speak (e.g. Mark 13:11). When the Jews heard Peter speak, and when we read Peter's words today, they testify that Jesus was raised from the dead, but we not only hear the words of an eye-witness, but we hear the words of the most reliable and trustworthy witness there could be - God himself.

4. In those who received the word - God's speech into people's hearts and minds

It is recorded that 3000 people that day 'received' Peter's 'word'. Why did they do that?

They had never met Peter. A man being brought to life after 3 days was not something that they were going to believe on a whim. After all, this was just another man's opinion wasn't it?

In one of the earliest writings of the early church, written about 20 years after Jesus died, the apostle ('messenger') Paul remembers how people in the city of Thessalonica first heard this remarkable story of Jesus' resurrection. He wrote: 'we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers'.

The Thessalonians could have received this message of Paul's as just another human opinion. You could understand why. Instead they received it for 'what it really is', 'the Word of God'. Again they saw that the most reliable witness there is had been brought into the courtroom and they believed him. God said that Jesus had been risen from the dead, so they believed it.

But why did they accept it as 'the word of God' instead as 'the word of men'? Paul suggests the answer. He thanks 'God constantly for' their receiving of the message, and he thanks God because it was God's work. As he says God's word is 'at work in you believers'. God is in the business of speaking through the external message of the bible into people's hearts and minds. He opens eyes to see what is really there all along.

B. Our unwillingness to believe

Why does it require God to open eyes for people to see that this is a message from God and not just another opinion held by other human beings? Shouldn't the strength of the argument convince everyone? Is it a weakness of the evidence that God has to get involved and we can't work it out for ourselves?

No, it is not because God's message that is unclear that supernatural work is required for us to believe it. It is because our minds are unclear, because they are clouded and cannot see clearly. But why are our minds unclear and not able believe the truth when it is clearly presented? Why does it need a miracle for us to see?

We know from our experience that we all engage in wishful-thinking. I am continually amazed by people's capacity to believe what they want to believe. It is easy to see in other people but less easy with ourselves. We can look back on history and see incredible blindness to the facts in the 'arguments' put forward for slavery and the 'reasons' that Romans worshipped their all too human emperors. We can also see it in our daily lives as people refuse to see that they are treating another person unfairly, or are certain that they are the most qualified person for that job even when they clearly are not. But everyday we shape our 'reality' around us. This is partly to do with our ignorance, but more often it is due to false opinions about ourselves. We doubt we can be intellectually wrong, and doubt we can be morally wrong, and the facts have to be fitted round those convictions.

Christian's see that this same wishful-thinking occurs with people's reaction to God's message to them. We close our eyes to God so we don't have to look at ourselves, and we close our eyes to ourselves so we don't have to look at God.

But why would we not want to believe the resurrection? Peter again provides the answer in his speech: 'God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah'. We are responsible for the death of Jesus just as much as the Jews in the crowd listening to Peter. We have wanted him dead our whole lives, but it turns out that he is not dead but our king. We have wanted to live our life our own way - to decide for ourselves how best to live, we only trust our own opinions and look out for number one. Any threat to our sovereignty over our lives we send to the guillotine - and God is the biggest threat we have ever faced because as our creator he demands everything. But if we kill God and he is brought back to life, then we're in trouble. Much better to pretend it never happened, to continue shaping reality around ourselves and our dream of how things should be.

C. Historical evidences for the resurrection

This may all seem like the resurrection could happen on another plane of reality. But Christians believe that it did happen in history, in a certain place at a certain time. Because of this there are inevitably a number of historical evidences for belief in the resurrection. My time is running low so I will only quickly mention some:

1. The empty tomb

As we have seen, within weeks of the resurrection of Jesus people were publicly claiming to have seen Jesus raised to new life. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for the authorities to squash Christianity before it got going by producing the body.

2. Witnesses

We have already seen how the disciples were witnessing to Jesus' resurrection within weeks of it happening. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, written 15-20 years after the event, Paul writes that (1 Cor 15:3-8):

'I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.'

In this public document, designed to be read aloud and circulated, Paul effectively invites his readers to speak to one of the 500+ people, 'most of whom are still alive', for corroboration of the story. The story of the resurrection was not first recounted decades after the event, but from the beginning of the church's existence, and it was accounted for by hundreds of eye-witnesses. The truth of the resurrection and other events of Jesus' life were 'passed on to' Paul, who was converted only a few years after Jesus' death. The resurrection was a common and widely attested belief of all the early church from the word go.

The first witnesses though we are told in the gospel accounts were women. This is significant because women were far from the ideal fake-witnesses if you wanted to fabricate a story. Their low social status meant they could not even testify in court, and the inclusion of them as witnesses in the gospel accounts would have undermined the credibility of the account to the contemporary sceptic. Their inclusion only makes sense if they were in historical reality the first witnesses of the risen Jesus.

3. Changed followers

As we have already discussed Peter and the other followers of Jesus abandoned Jesus when he was arrested. When Jesus is raised from the dead he finds them hiding in a small room, avoiding any contact with the authorities. But within weeks these followers are on the streets telling people that Jesus, and not Caesar, was king. From being afraid to leave the house, Jesus' followers risked their life and usually lost it to tell people about Jesus. Why could explain this transformation except a real experience of the risen Jesus? Why would people die for a belief if they knew it was wrong? There is no other explanation than that they were given hope beyond death by the promise of Jesus who had defeated death.

Paul, who we have already met a few times, was one of the boldest of these witnesses to the resurrection, and died in Rome for telling people about what he had seen. Yet before the resurrection he had not just been afraid of telling people about Jesus, he had been trying to kill those who believed he had risen from the dead. Why would he change from sworn enemy of the church to one of its greatest missionaries if he had not seen Christ alive?

4. Disjunctions with ancient culture

Many people would suggest that we shouldn't believe the resurrection because people were always claiming crazy stuff like that at the time. But this is simply not the case.

Firstly, we shouldn't assume that ancient people were ignorant of the fact that people do not come back to life. They lived with the reality of death in a way we cannot imagine today. They knew, as we all do, without any assistance from modern science or enlightenment philosophy that people just do not come back to life after 3 days. We shouldn't assume that ancient people were stupid - they did not believe stories of the resurrection lightly and there are many accounts in the bible of the idea being scoffed at.

We shouldn't believe that the resurrection of Jesus fitted into the ancient Jewish or Greek worldview either. The Jewish people looked forward to the resurrection of everybody into a new resuscitated body. Christians said that just one man had been raised, and his body was different to the one that he lived his life in. The Greeks were looking forward to a new non-physical existence after death. The idea of a new physical life just didn't fit their outlook on the world.

Neither was it known for revolutionary movements to claim their leader had come back from the dead. Historian and Bishop, Tom Wright, observes that there were a great many people claiming to be the messiah in Israel at that time, but 'in not one single case do we hear the slightest mention of the disappointed followers claiming that their hero had been raised from the dead. They knew better. Resurrection was not a private event. Jewish revolutionaries whose leader had been executed by the authorities, and who managed to escape arrest themselves, had two options: give up on revolution, or find another leader. Claiming that the original leader was alive again was simply not an option'.

Such a new idea, could not be invented, but could only be explained by an event that demanded a rethinking of their contemporary paradigms.

D. The Good news of the resurrection of Jesus

Why should we care about this? Why should we read anyone, let alone this guy called Dave Kirkman who doesn't even know the meaning of brevity, discuss the reality an event that occurred 2000 years ago?

As I've already briefly mentioned the answer is in Peter's statement that the resurrection proves that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah (Greek: 'Christ'). This is big news. Early Christians summarised the Gospel (translated: 'the good news') most often in the phrase: 'Jesus is Lord'. If you reject it this is bad news, but if you recognise it and accept it then it becomes what it truly is - good news.

Jesus is Lord, but we try and make ourselves masters of our own destiny. We refuse to accept that he is king and we are not, even though as creator he has every right over you, and as a perfectly loving person he merits love in return. Because of that we deserve death for what we have done and that is what we taste now as our bodies decay and then rot. But when we are raised from the dead like Jesus, and he asserts his Lordship over the powers of evil and death, those who reject him will be rejected in the same way, and they will continue to die for all eternity. That's a pretty horrible thing to imagine, and not a fun thing to talk about, but its true so I'm telling you even though it is uncomfortable.

But the good news is greater than the bad news. The good news is that the punishment of death that we deserve was taken by Jesus. He took it on his own shoulders and was crushed by the weight of it. But because he didn't deserve it - because he was the 'Holy One' promised - God by the power of his Holy Spirit raised him from the dead. And as he took our punishment of death, we can share in his vindication to new life. If we want to receive this new life that the resurrection promises then it is ours. As Peter says the response to this message should be to turn away from our old lives (repentance) and receive with empty hands the word of forgiveness Peter talks about and baptism displays. This forgiveness is wonderful news. It means that our past is killed and we are no longer bound by it, and we have a new identity which we share with Jesus who identified with us. As Paul said that Jesus was declared to be 'Son of God' by his resurrection, we can like him live by children of God and live life in secure relationship with our Father who created us.

The resurrection is the promise of that. It is a promise that we will remain persons and not become either worm food in the circle of life, or an ingredient in the universe's spiritual soup. We will remain personal individuals, and we will remain physical beings who can enjoy life as God designed it to be when he created it - life in the world, in right relationship with him.