Mr. McDowell,
I cannot fully agree with you. Christ’s sacrificial death is not meaningless without his bodily resurrection. A sacrifice like that could never be meaningless.
Laura
The young woman who wrote this, even though a committed Christian, is missing the key point many people overlook about Christ’s resurrection. Of course, it was the apostle Paul, not a McDowell, who said “our preaching is useless and so is your faith” if Christ has not risen from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:14 NIV). He said this because Jesus would have been less than deity if he could not conquer death. And he would not have been able to present his atoning blood before God without his bodily resurrection. Christ’s redemptive act wasn’t just in dying. Christ’s redemptive act was both dying and offering his blood before God in a resurrected bodily form.
If we are not confident that Jesus literally rose from the grave to atone for our sins, our faith for salvation is on shaky ground. But the good news is that Christ’s bodily resurrection is a historical fact. We have ample reason to believe that this pivotal event is factually true, and this gives us ample reason for great confidence in our hope of eternal salvation. As we consider some of these evidences for Christ’s resurrection, allow them to solidify and firm up your faith as never before.
It was early in the morning on the first day of the week when several women approached the tomb where Jesus had been buried. Jesus had been placed in the tomb late on Friday, which was the beginning of the Sabbath. Because of strict rules forbidding certain kinds of activities on the Sabbath, the women had not fully completed anointing the body of Jesus. Therefore, they had returned to complete the task.
But as they approached the tomb, they experienced a huge shock. The stone in front of the tomb was rolled away, and after looking inside they discovered that Jesus’ body was gone. As they gaped, stunned and bewildered, two men appeared dressed in clothes that gleamed like lightning and said:
“Why are you looking in a tomb for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He has risen from the dead! Don’t you remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again the third day?” Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. The women who went to the tomb were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several others. They told the apostles what had happened, but the story sounded like nonsense, so they didn’t believe it (Luke 24:5-11).
As much as Jesus’ disciples must have wanted to believe that the Messiah rose from the dead, they didn’t. The women’s report was simply too incredible—too good to be true. But soon they would see for themselves. Shortly afterward when the disciples were meeting together, Jesus appeared. “As he spoke, he held out his hands for them to see, and he showed them his side” (John 20:20). But Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, wasn’t at the meeting. When the others told him what they had seen with their own eyes he said, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side” (John 20:25).
Eight days later Jesus showed up again at a meeting of the disciples, and this time Thomas was there. Jesus offered to let the doubting man put his fingers in the wounds in his hand and side and said, “‘Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!’ ‘My Lord and my God!’ Thomas exclaimed” (John 20:27-28). The evidence was clear even to this man who insisted on empirical evidence—Jesus had risen from the dead!
Neither the friends of Christianity nor its foes could deny the stark fact that three days after Jesus was buried, his tomb was empty. The many who saw him after his resurrection knew why: They had direct, empirical, physical proof that he was alive. It is significant that after the resurrection, these suddenly emboldened disciples of Christ did not go off to Athens or Rome to preach that he had been resurrected; they went right back to the city of Jerusalem to proclaim it. That fact is highly significant because if what they were claiming was false, their message would have been easily disproved. The resurrection claim could not have been maintained for a moment in Jerusalem, the city where Jesus had been killed and buried, if the tomb had not been empty.
Philosopher Stephen Davis observes:
Early Christian proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem would have been psychologically and apologetically impossible without safe evidence of an empty tomb…in other words, without safe and agreed-upon evidence of an empty tomb, the apostles’ claims would have been subject to massive falsification by the simple presentation of the body.1
Both Jewish and Roman sources and traditions acknowledge an empty tomb. These sources range from the Jewish historian Josephus to a fifth-century compilation of Jewish writing that satirized Jesus’ life, called the Toledoth Jeshu. Author Dr. Paul Maier calls such acknowledgments “positive evidence from a hostile source, which is the strongest kind of historical evidence. In essence, this means that if a source admits a fact decidedly not in its favor, then that fact is genuine.”2
One of the most compelling evidences for the truth of the empty tomb story is the fact that it records women as the first discoverers of the empty tomb. In first-century Palestine, women had a low status as citizens or legal witnesses. Except in rare circumstances, Jewish law precluded women from giving testimony in a court of law. Why would those who wanted to advance Christianity have contrived a story that embarrassed the disciples—the essential proponents of the new faith—by having them flee during the crucifixion and yet have women courageously approaching the tomb and providing the first testimony to its vacancy? Such a story would not have served the purpose of advancing the cause. Common sense tells us that the only reason the women were reported as the first witnesses was because it was the truth. Dr. Paul Maier accurately observes that “if the resurrection accounts had been manufactured…women would never have been included in the story, at least, not as first witnesses.”3
The empty tomb of Jesus stands as a clear witness that, as the angel said, “He isn’t here! He has risen from the dead” (Luke 24:6).
While the fact of the empty tomb is historically undeniable, there have been various alternative theories offered as explanations for why it was empty, as well as for the other phenomenal events in the days and weeks after Jesus’ death. These theories attempt to explain these events without resorting to Jesus’ bodily resurrection as the answer. We will cover six such theories here.*
The evidence of an empty tomb following the crucifixion and burial of Jesus does not by itself prove that he rose from the dead. Yet it does require explanation. One explanation that was offered within hours of the empty tomb’s discovery was the theory that the disciples of Jesus had stolen the body. Matthew reports:
Some of the men who had been guarding the tomb went to the leading priests and told them what had happened. A meeting of all the religious leaders was called, and they decided to bribe the soldiers. They told the soldiers, “You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.’ If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you and everything will be all right.” So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today (Matthew 28:11-15).
The possibility that Jesus’ tomb was empty because the disciples stole his body may seem plausible at first glance. However, the most cursory consideration will quickly show that the stolen-body theory creates more problems than it solves. For example:
• It was the Roman guards who were bribed into accusing the disciples of stealing the body. If the guards were sleeping, how could they have known whether the disciples—or anyone—stole the body? Sleeping sentinels can’t reliably report what happened while they slept.
• Roman soldiers were executed for sleeping on guard duty (which explains Matthew’s report of the religious leaders promising to protect the guards, saying, “If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you and everything will be all right”). How plausible is it that all the guards at the tomb would have decided to take a nap, knowing it could cost them their lives?
• Even if the Roman guards had slept, consider what it would have taken for thieves to remove the body from the tomb. The circular stone used to seal the tomb would have weighed between one and two tons! Thieves would have had to sneak past the guards, roll the large stone up a grooved incline, enter the dark tomb, and exit with the body…all without waking a single member of the detachment!
The notion that the disciples stole the body while the Roman guards slept more than strains the bounds of believability.
The Case of the Stolen Body
The detachment of Roman soldiers is not the only problem with the stolen-body theory. It’s also difficult to imagine the followers of Jesus as being capable of pulling off such a feat. Consider this:
• It would have taken considerable bravery—even outright daring—to go up against a detachment of Roman soldiers whether they were asleep or awake. Yet the historical record shows that in the days following the death of Jesus the disciples were a depressed and cowardly group. They ran away at the first sign of trouble, denied any association with Jesus, and cowered behind locked doors—hardly the picture of a group that would risk arrest to steal their dead teacher’s body (see Mark 14:50; Luke 22:54-62; John 20:19).
• One of the first witnesses on the scene of the empty tomb reported that the linen wrappings from Jesus’ body were still present, and the grave cloth that had covered his head was neatly folded and arranged on the burial slab (see John 20:5-8). Can you imagine grave robbers taking the time to meticulously unwrap the body and neatly arrange the cloth on the stone slab? On the contrary, if the body had been stolen, the burial wrappings would certainly have been removed with the body.
• According to the historical accounts, the disciples were skeptical when they heard the news of the empty tomb. From all indications, they were not expecting an empty tomb, much less plotting to steal Jesus away.
• Why would a group of men who had run and hidden when Jesus was alive suddenly and courageously decide to steal his body and begin propagating a story that would certainly bring on them the very treatment (arrest, beatings, even death) they had fled just three days earlier?
Yet propagating the story of Jesus’ resurrection is exactly what these disciples did. The historical record asserts that mere weeks after the death of Jesus, his followers were publicly preaching the news of his resurrection. During the week of Pentecost, in fact, thousands were “baptized and added to the church” as a result of this preaching (Acts 2:41).
You can be sure that if Jesus’ body hadn’t been resurrected, the religious and political leaders of the day could have quickly and effectively quashed the rising sect of Christianity by locating Christ’s corpse and wheeling it through the streets of Jerusalem.
Such preaching must have driven the Jewish leaders to the point of utter consternation. The fact they could do nothing to disprove the resurrection further attests to its truth. You can be sure that if Jesus’ body hadn’t been resurrected, the religious and political leaders of the day could have quickly and effectively quashed the rising sect of Christianity by locating Christ’s corpse and wheeling it through the streets of Jerusalem. This would have been undeniable evidence that the resurrection was a hoax. It would have destroyed Christianity practically before it started. But that never happened, which further bolsters the case for Jesus’ resurrection.
The enemies of Jesus had every reason to produce his body. On the other hand it is implausible to believe that the followers of Jesus could or would have stolen his body. It seems clear that subscribing to the stolen-body theory means climbing a mountain of implausibilities. In short, while “the difficulties of belief may be great,” as noted author George Hanson points out in The Resurrection and the Life, “the absurdities of unbelief are greater.”4
But if the disciples did not steal the body of Jesus from his tomb, where did it go?
Some people have tried to explain the empty tomb by suggesting that Jesus never really died. The swoon theory, as it has come to be called, supposes that Jesus was indeed nailed to the cross and suffered tremendous pain and loss of blood. But when he was removed from the cross, he wasn’t quite dead; he was merely in shock.
Some proponents of this view even cite the New Testament record for evidence, showing that even “Pilate couldn’t believe that Jesus was already dead” (Mark 15:44). They surmise that the disciples—aided by Joseph of Arimathea—took down the still-living Jesus from the cross and laid him in the tomb. (Hugh J. Schonfield, author of the bestseller The Passover Plot, even suggested that Jesus planned all this!)
Then—so the theory goes—Jesus, aided by the cool air of the tomb, by the reviving effects of the burial spices he was wrapped in, and by the many hours of quiet rest in the tomb, rose from his own burial slab, cast off his shroud, and left the tomb. When he met his disciples, they mistakenly thought he had risen from the dead…when, in fact, it was nothing more than a surprising resuscitation.
But the swoon theory has several fatal flaws.
The “Death Certificate”
Jesus had undergone a vicious beating. It was typical for Romans to use an instrument known as a flagrum, which often ripped the victim’s back to shreds (as a result of this scourging many prisoners died before they could be executed). Jesus was then nailed by his hands and feet to a cross.
Then, because the next day was the beginning of the Jewish Passover and Jewish law did not allow them to leave a victim hanging on the cross overnight, the religious leaders asked Pilate to hasten death by ordering that the prisoners’ legs be broken (see Deuteronomy 21:22-23; John 19:31). This action usually resulted in death by asphyxiation, as the victim, unable to push up on his feet to relieve the constriction caused by the weight of his body on his lungs and breathing passages, slowly suffocated.
When the crucifixion detail came to break the legs of Jesus, however, they discovered he was already dead. Nonetheless, to be sure, “one of the soldiers…pierced his side with a spear, and blood and water flowed out” (John 19:34). Soon thereafter, when Joseph of Arimathea requested custody of the body, the Roman governor expressed surprise that Jesus was already dead and demanded confirmation. Only after receiving a firsthand report did Pilate release the body into the hands of Joseph, thus fully verifying the fact that Jesus was dead before he was buried.
We not only have the scriptural account of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, we also have extrabiblical evidence from first-century historians. Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan writes, “Jesus’ death by execution under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixion, we would still know about him, from two authors not among his supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus.”5 Neither the people most directly involved with Jesus’ death nor the writers who reported it believed Jesus merely swooned. They knew he was dead.
The Grave Cloths
Jesus’ followers prepared his body according to Jewish burial customs. Nicodemus provided “about seventy-five pounds of embalming ointment made from myrrh and aloes. Together [Nicodemus and Joseph] wrapped Jesus’ body in a long linen cloth with the spices” (John 19:39-40).
The custom was to wrap the body tightly from the armpits to the ankles, layering the spices—often of a sticky, gummy consistency—between the wrappings. The spices served the dual purpose of preserving the body and acting as an adhesive for the grave cloths. The head was also wrapped in a turban-style cloth.
The historical records report that when the empty tomb was discovered on the first day of the week, the witnesses on the scene saw “the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying to the side” (John 20:6-7).
Accepting the swoon theory would require us to believe that Jesus, having suffered the unspeakable torture of scourging and crucifixion, awoke in a dark tomb, and with his arms bound to his side within the wrappings maneuvered himself out of the tightly wound cloths and spices, folded the cloth, laid it on the burial slab, and exited the tomb…naked.
Nineteenth-century theologian David Strauss was one of the most bitter of all opponents of the supernatural elements in the Gospels and a man whose works did much to destroy faith in Christ. Despite all of his vicious criticisms and firm denials of anything involving the miraculous, Strauss said this about the theory that Jesus revived from a swoon:
It is impossible that a being who has been stolen half-dead out of the sepulcher, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment…could have given to the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry.6
The Stone
Not only was Jesus tightly encased in burial cloths and spices, he was also buried in a rock tomb whose entrance was blocked by a stone weighing as much as one to two tons.
Let’s assume Jesus had been taken from the cross in a “swoon,” and the cold, damp tomb had revived him sometime later. Let’s also assume that he managed to extricate himself from the hardened encasement of his burial clothes. We must next assume that once free of those constraints, he managed—from the inside of a tomb designed to be opened only from the outside—to roll a two-ton circular stone up the slotted incline (a difficult job for several men), while somehow propping the stone to prevent it from rolling down again and closing the tomb. All this had to be done by a man who, hours before, had been flogged, pierced with a crown of thorns, hanged on a cross by nails through his hands and feet, and stabbed in the ribs with a Roman spear. And it had to be done quietly enough to escape the notice of the soldiers who were guarding the tomb, allowing him to slip away unnoticed.
The Appearances
On the same day that Jesus was supposedly resuscitated in a cold, damp, dark tomb, unwrapped himself from the grave cloths, rolled a two-ton stone uphill, and sneaked by Roman sentinels guarding the tomb, he also walked more than seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
Luke 24 records Jesus’ appearance to two of his followers, who were on the road to Emmaus, a seven-mile trek from Jerusalem. They didn’t recognize Jesus until they reached their destination and invited him to eat with them. When he broke the bread in his customary way, “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (Luke 24:31). Walking seven miles to Emmaus is hardly the kind of activity you would expect from a man who had been removed from an executioner’s cross and had lain in a tomb for more than 36 hours. And somehow the two men he was walking with failed to notice that his skin was punctured, bruised, and shredded.
Yet the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus is only the first in a string of appearances (within days of his brutal experience on the cross) that convinced Jesus’ followers that he had defeated death and risen from the dead. The apostle Paul gives us yet another record of Christ’s appearing after the resurrection:
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me—that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the twelve apostles. After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:3-7).
In these verses, Paul appeals to his audience’s knowledge of the fact that Christ had been seen by more than 500 people at one time. Paul reminds them that most of these people were still alive and could be questioned. This statement is as strong evidence as anyone could hope to find for something that happened 2000 years ago.
Author C.H. Dodd has observed, “There can hardly be any purpose in mentioning the fact that most of the five hundred are still alive, unless Paul is saying, in effect, ‘The witnesses are there to be questioned.’”7
This is why apologist William Lane Craig claims that “it is nearly indisputable that this appearance took place.”8 So soon after the event, Paul could never have claimed that Jesus had appeared to 500 witnesses if the event had not actually occurred.
If each of these 500 people were to testify in a courtroom for only six minutes each, including cross-examination, you would have an amazing 50 hours of firsthand eyewitness testimony. Add to this the testimony of the many other eyewitnesses, and you could well have the largest and most lopsided trial in history.9
The Ascension
If Jesus revived from a deathlike swoon, there is no reason to believe that he later ascended into heaven, as Mark and Luke record. But if Christ didn’t ascend, where did he go? Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus withdrew from his followers to live out the rest of his life in seclusion and die in obscurity?
Such a theory would necessitate the belief that while the young church was preaching the news of Christ’s resurrection, Jesus himself lived in some solitary retreat, unknown even to his closest followers, while his absence perpetuated the legend of Christianity. This scenario would make Jesus Christ—whose teachings extolled the highest standards of morality—the greatest deceiver of all time and his resurrection the greatest hoax in history.
That would require believing that Jesus knowingly pursued an insane course of action: contriving his own resurrection to gain a renown he would never witness or enjoy.10
This theory suggests that Jesus did not rise from the dead, but his body was temporarily stored in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea on Friday night before being relocated to a criminal’s tomb. Thus, the disciples mistakenly believed he was resurrected. This hypothesis has gained a considerable following on the Internet.
The “relocation hypothesis” gains support from the fact that reburial was common in ancient Palestine. But it’s important to note that the reburial procedures of the Jews differed significantly from the theory proposed here. The Jewish tradition was to bury a body for one year, and then after the flesh deteriorated and only bones remained, they would remove the bones and place them in an ossuary—a “bone box” that was then buried.
The problem for this theory of the relocation of the body of Jesus is the complete lack of historical support, either in biblical or nonbiblical sources. None of the Gospel accounts suggest that the body of Jesus was reburied. The white-robed messenger at the tomb clearly undermines this view when he said, “He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead!” (Mark 16:6).
The relocation theory actually faces even a more significant problem. Dr. Michael Licona observes:
At best, even if the reburial hypothesis were true, all it accounts for is the empty tomb. And interestingly, the empty tomb didn’t convince any of the disciples—possibly with the exception of John—that Jesus had returned from the dead. It was the appearance of Jesus that convinced them, and the reburial theory can’t account for these.11
If the body of Jesus was simply relocated, why didn’t someone uncover the body when the disciples began proclaiming the resurrection? The Jewish leaders could have produced the body and stopped Christianity in its tracks. Some have suggested that by this time the body of Jesus would be unrecognizable, but given the climate of Palestine, the body would have been recognizable for a considerable amount of time. The relocation theory simply isn’t plausible.12
There are only so many ways to explain the empty tomb. If the body wasn’t stolen and hidden away, if Jesus didn’t swoon and then resuscitate, and if his body wasn’t relocated, what else could possibly have happened? Another explanation that has been offered is the hallucination theory.
This theory suggests that those who “saw” Jesus Christ after his death and burial were actually hallucinating. They may have thought they saw Jesus alive, but such appearances were the results of hallucination or the power of suggestion.
Hallucinations do occur. People are often mistaken, even deluded, about the things they see or experience. However, there are certain patterns to the experience of delusions and hallucinations. They are highly individualized and extremely subjective. It is exceedingly rare for two persons to experience the same hallucinations simultaneously.
The accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances do not bear the marks of a hallucination. They occurred at disparate times. The witnesses were not expecting an appearance and were often puzzled or skeptical at first (see Luke 24:16; John 20:14,24-25). Most appearances were to groups of people (see Mark 16:14-18; John 21:1-24; 1 Corinthians 15:6). Jesus appeared at least ten different times following his resurrection:
1. to Mary of Magdala (Mark 16:9; John 20:11-18)
2. to the women returning from the tomb (Matthew 28:9-10)
3. to Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5)
4. to two followers on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-33)
5. to the disciples and a number of others (Luke 24:36-43)
6. to the disciples, including Thomas (John 20:26-29)
7. to seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-23)
8. to more than five hundred followers (1 Corinthians 15:6)
9. to James, his brother (1 Corinthians 15:7)
10. to the eleven disciples at his ascension (Acts 1:4-9)
Another factor that argues against the hallucination theory is the record of Jesus’ invitations to verify his flesh-and-blood presence with them:
“Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do!”…Then he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate it as they watched (Luke 24:39-43).
The people who saw Jesus were not the kind of people most likely to suffer delusions. They were a skeptical bunch, who were often slow to believe. When the women came to the apostles that Sunday morning with the first news of the empty tomb, “the story sounded like nonsense, so they didn’t believe it” (Luke 24:11). Peter and John’s first reaction was to race to the site themselves to see with their own eyes what the women had reported. And Thomas could not have been the victim of wishful thinking. “I won’t believe it,” he vowed, “unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side” (John 20:25).
The hallucination theory—like the other theories—doesn’t stack up against the historical record. Like the other attempts to explain the resurrection, it seems to require more faith than it does to believe the testimony of the eyewitnesses: that “during the forty days after his crucifixion, [Jesus] appeared to the apostles from time to time and proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive” (Acts 1:3).13
This theory claims that Christ’s body decayed in the grave and his real resurrection was spiritual. Jehovah’s Witnesses espouse a form of this theory. Rather than believing that Jesus’ body decayed in the grave, however, they believe that God destroyed the body in the tomb and that Jesus rose in an immaterial body. Both of these “spiritual resurrection” theories have insurmountable problems.
First, to have any meaning, a resurrection must entail the physical. In the view of Palestinian Judaism, a spiritual resurrection without the physical body would not be a resurrection at all. Dan Cohn-Sherbok, a Jewish rabbi and visiting professor at Cambridge, observed:
Either Jesus was physically resurrected or he wasn’t. It’s as simple as that. The Gospel account of the empty tomb and the disciples’ recognition of the risen Christ point to such a historical conception of the resurrection event. To them it would make no sense that in some spiritual—as opposed to physical sense—Jesus’ body was revivified.14
British scholar N.T. Wright has demonstrated that although there were various conceptions of the afterlife in first-century Judaism, “resurrection” had a particular meaning. Wright explains:
However wide that spectrum may have been and however many positions different Jews may have taken upon it, “resurrection” always denotes one position within that spectrum. “Resurrection” was not a term for “life after death” in general. It always meant reembodiment.15
Wright also demonstrates that “there is no evidence for Jews…using the word resurrection to denote something essentially nonconcrete.”16 If Jesus had been raised in an immaterial body, the disciples would not have described it as a resurrection.
Jesus himself completely demolished the spiritual-resurrection theory. When his startled disciples thought they were seeing a spirit, Jesus admonished them: “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself, touch Me and see; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39 NASB). Later, Christ ate fish with his followers, further demonstrating his flesh-and-bone mode of existence. Matthew records that when they met Jesus they took hold of his feet and worshipped him (see Matthew 28:9). You don’t grab the legs of a spirit! Some have argued that Jesus temporarily manifested himself in a physical body so the disciples would recognize him. While this is a creative response, it is arbitrary, and what is worse, it would involve deception on Jesus’ part, which is clearly inconsistent with his character and nature.
Paul also demolishes the spiritual-resurrection theory in his discussion of the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15:29-58. As a former Pharisee, Paul firmly believed in a physical resurrection. Basing his theology on the resurrection of Christ, Paul argues that we too will be physically raised someday. While resurrected bodies are physically different from our current bodies, the difference involves enhancement; they are nonetheless thoroughly physical.
Some have disagreed with this interpretation of this passage, basing their argument on Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 15:44 that “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” “See,” they claim, “Paul believed in an immaterial resurrection!” What this objection fails to consider is that the word spiritual, in this context, does not connote immaterial. We often refer to the Bible as a “spiritual” book, yet we clearly don’t mean that it is immaterial!
Michael Licona did a fairly exhaustive historical investigation of the Greek terms translated “natural” and “spiritual” in 1 Corinthians 15:44. After searching ancient texts from the eighth century BC through the third century AD he concluded, “Although I did not look at all of the 846 occurrences, I viewed most. I failed to find a single reference where psuchikon [the word translated natural in 15:44] possessed a meaning of ‘physical’ or ‘material.’”17 It is simply false to say that Paul was contrasting a physical body with a nonphysical body. Stephen Davis warns:
We should not be misled by Paul’s use of the term “spiritual body.” He is not using this term to signify a body “formed out of spirit” or made of “spiritual matter,” whatever that might mean, but rather a body that has been glorified or transformed by God and is now fully dominated by the power of the Holy Spirit.18
A good example of this is when Paul speaks of “those who are spiritual” in 1 Corinthians 2:15. He clearly did not mean invisible, immaterial people with no physical body; he meant those who are guided by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Others object to a physical resurrection because in 1 Corinthians 15:50 Paul says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” “See,” they say, “Jesus’ body had to be immaterial so he could be in heaven!” Theologian Norman Geisler responds to this assertion: “The phrase, ‘flesh and blood,’ in this context apparently means mortal flesh and blood, that is, a mere human being.”19 His interpretation is supported throughout Scripture. For example, in Matthew 16:17 Jesus says, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (NASB).
The spiritual-resurrection theory completely ignores our two principles of research. The facts of the case don’t even begin to fit the theory, and they are forced into a pre-conceived conclusion about what happened.20
“Nothing in Christianity is original” is one of the most memorable lines from the runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many scholars believed that the central claims of Christianity had been plagiarized from Greco-Roman mystery religions. Jesus was considered another “dying and rising” god in the tradition of Osiris, Mithras, Adonis, and Dionysus.
While this theory has experienced a surprising resurgence on the Internet and in popular-level books, it faces near universal rejection by contemporary scholars. Here’s why.
Although parallels between Jesus and the mystery religions may appear striking on the surface, they collapse under scrutiny. Osiris, for instance, is considered by many to be a dying and rising god from ancient Egypt. According to the myth, Osiris was killed by Seth and resuscitated by Isis. But rather than returning to the world in a resurrected body, Osiris became king of the underworld—hardly a parallel to the historical resurrection of Jesus. This is one of numerous reasons why Paul Rhodes Eddy and Greg Boyd, authors of The Jesus Legend, conclude that “the differences between Christianity and the mystery religions are far more profound than any similarities. While there certainly are parallel terms used in early Christianity and the mystery religions, there is little evidence for parallel concepts.” 21
Unlike the accounts of the historical Jesus, there is no evidence for the reliability of any of the alleged parallel stories in the mystery religions. Jesus of Nazareth ate, slept, performed miracles, died, and returned to life. These accounts are supported by a reliable historical record. In contrast, the dying and rising gods of the mystery religions were timeless myths repeated annually with the changing seasons.
The most recent scholarly treatise on dying and rising gods was written by T.N.D. Mettinger, professor at Lund University. In The Riddle of Resurrection, Mettinger grants the existence of the myths of dying and rising gods in the ancient world, which, he admits, is a minority view. Yet his conclusion puts the nail in the coffin of the copy-cat theory:
There is, as far as I am aware, no prima facie evidence that the death and resurrection of Jesus is a mythological construct, drawing on the myths and rites of the dying and rising gods of the surrounding world. While studied with profit against the background of Jewish resurrection belief, the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus retains its unique character in the history of religions. The riddle remains.22
The reality of Jesus’ resurrection had a profound impact on the disciples. They were transformed from cringing cowards who hid themselves away to bold preachers, most of whom suffered persecution and gave their lives for their risen Lord. This sudden bravery and boldness is an enormous change that demands explanation. Let’s examine this transformation more closely and consider its implications.
When the authorities captured Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Bible tells us that “all the disciples left him and fled” (Matthew 26:56; see Mark 14:50). During Christ’s trial, Peter went out and denied three times that he even knew Jesus (see Mark 14:66-72; John 18:15-27). After Christ was crucified, the fearful disciples hid themselves in an upper room and locked the doors (see John 20:19). These disciples were skeptical when they first heard about the empty tomb. One of them refused to believe until he personally touched Jesus’ wounds. And two disciples on the road to Emmaus doubted even as they talked personally to Jesus.
But within days something happened to utterly change this group of cowardly followers into a bold band of enthusiasts who were willing to face a life of suffering for the cause of Christ.23 What was it? What transformed these disappointed followers into true believers? Only one explanation makes sense. It was the reality of the risen Christ. And in the days to follow they openly proclaimed this good news in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and eventually to the ends of the earth.
That truth is for us as well. Like those early disciples, we can also trust the eternal salvation we have in the risen Christ because we have ample evidence to show us that the record of what he did for us is absolutely true.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s people, let us go right into the presence of God, with true hearts fully trusting him (Hebrews 10:19-22).
* A more exhaustive treatment of Christ’s resurrection can be found in our book entitled Evidence for the Resurrection, published by Regal Books.