If Christ Is Not Risen

Christians are the light of this dark pagan world because we believe in the resurrection of Jesus of history. Only bright people believe that Jesus Christ, the crucified One, was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. People like Richard Dawkins, who refer to themselves as Brights, cannot believe in the resurrection of Christ. Since their minds are darkened and closed, they exclude any consideration of God Almighty, who is the greatest reality. They also exclude any consideration of creation, fall, and redemption; of angels, Satan, demons, sin, souls, miracles, heaven, and hell; and of God’s revelation in the Bible. “The god of this [world] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). But God made his Son the light of the world “to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

We are the true Brights of the world. Jesus is the light of the world; in him, those who confess him as Lord are also the light of the world. Paul said we are “children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which [we] shine as stars in the universe” (Phil. 2:15).

The vast majority of people of this world are dull. They are blind to God, for in their depravity they suppress the knowledge of God that they receive from creation, from their own consciences, and from the gospel. Since the Holy Spirit is not working in them, they reject the gospel that declares the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even the great theologian Karl Barth refused to believe in the bodily resurrection of the crucified Christ. He wrote in his Church Dogmatics that after this life, man will eternally exist only in the mind of God, not in reality.¹

The dulls of New Testament times also did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. The Greeks believed that the body was evil and, therefore, they believed in the immortality of the soul only. To them, death meant deliverance from the prison house of their evil bodies. That is why the cultured Athenians mocked Paul when he declared the resurrection of Christ.

The Jews, excluding the Sadducees, believed in the resurrection of the body on the last day. Yet they believed it would be the same body that was buried, without transformation. So Martha said to Jesus about her brother Lazarus, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day” (John 11:24). Jesus himself believed in the resurrection on the last day. He promised four times in John 6, “I will raise them up on the last day.”

The Death and Burial of Jesus

The Jews, however, refused to believe that Jesus was the Son of the living God. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” but they refused to believe that he was God himself. Remember what he said when he was questioned about this:

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

“Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”

“He is worthy of death,” they answered. (Matt. 26:63-66)

These Jews were not Brights; they were dulls. They charged Jesus with blasphemy and crucified him on Good Friday, together with two thieves, outside the holy city.

It is a fact that Jesus Christ died: “But when the soldiers came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:33-34). Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, prominent members of the Sanhedrin, gave him a royal burial as predicted by Isaiah. According to Jewish custom, they placed his body on a bench in a rock-hewn tomb, anticipating that after a year, relatives or friends would come to gather the bones and would place them in an ossuary. So there were two burials, one year apart. The tomb belonged to Joseph, who was rich. So Jesus was given a luxurious tomb with a rolling stone to close the tomb. Archaeological studies show that only rich people used rolling stones about 4.5 feet in diameter to close the mouth of the tombs.

Mary Magdalene and other women witnessed the crucifixion and the burial. But they did not know that by the demand of the Sanhedrin the tomb was sealed on the Sabbath and a guard posted to guard it around the clock for three days. This was done because the Sanhedrin was informed, probably by Judas, of the predictions Jesus had made of his death and resurrection on the third day: “The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, “After three days I will rise again.” So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day'” (Matt. 27:62-64). They just wanted to make sure that people would not steal his body and spread the lie that Jesus was risen. So they sealed the tomb and posted guards.

Jesus often predicted his own arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection, all of which were also prophesied about the Messiah many times in the Old Testament. Psalm 16:10 spoke of the Messiah’s death and resurrection: “Because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” Isaiah also spoke of the death and resurrection of the Messiah as the suffering servant:

He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. . . . But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. . . . After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities (Isa. 25:8; 26:19; 53:11).

Elsewhere we read, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?” (Hos. 13:14).

The death of Jesus was not the ordinary death of a sinner; it was the atoning sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter gave the answer revealed to him by God the Father: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:15-16). He is the sinner’s atonement, propitiation, and redemption. Then Jesus predicted that his death and resurrection would take place in Jerusalem: “From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day must be raised again from the dead” (Matt. 16:21).

Jesus made seven such predictions of being raised from the dead. In fact, the reason he came from heaven was to die for our sins and be raised for our justification. If there were no resurrection, Jesus would have been merely the Jesus of the liberals-a good moral teacher, perhaps the best human who ever lived, one who never judges anyone but who loves unconditionally, one who is unlike the Old Testament Warrior/God Jehovah of vengeance who was a brutal killing machine. To them, Jesus, though somewhat deluded, is merely a nice man. Of course, he was a sinner who died like us. He thought he could conquer death, but, alas, he could not.

The Appearances of the Risen Lord

But very early in the morning on the third day, Jesus was raised from the dead just as he predicted. Before the women arrived at the tomb on Sunday morning, there was a violent earthquake. An angel came and broke the seal and rolled away the stone. He did so, not to let Jesus out, but to let the women enter the tomb and see that the body of Jesus was gone. The angel said to them, “He is not here; he is risen, just as he said. . . . Go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him'” (Matt. 28:6-7). Jesus had told them earlier, “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee” (Matt. 26:32).

The resurrection body of Jesus transcended all obstacles: the seal of the Roman government on the rolling stone, the closed tomb, the soldiers, the graveclothes, and the closed doors of the upper room. It transcends distance as well as gravity. The soldiers hurried to tell the Sanhedrin what had happened. The tomb was empty, but Christ’s graveclothes were there for all to see. This means no one stole his body. Thieves do not take time to remove graveclothes from a corpse. Jesus had risen from the dead!

The Sanhedrin knew that Jesus’ prediction had come true, which proved that he is the Messiah and the Son of God. But they suppressed this knowledge and would not surrender to, believe, and worship Christ as the women and the disciples did. It is not that they lacked evidence. Theirs was sheer unbelief, the greatest sin.

After thoroughly investigating the resurrection of Jesus, Luke the historian wrote, “After his suffering, [Jesus] showed himself to [the apostles] and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive” (Acts 1:3). He did this for forty days. They heard him speak, just as Mary Magdalene did when Jesus called her in the garden (John 20:16). They saw the nail prints in his hands and feet, and touched him, confirming that he was not a ghost, but in his body of flesh and bones. Though he was the same Jesus who was buried, his body now had some peculiarly heavenly properties. Doubting Thomas refused to believe the report that Jesus was indeed risen, but when he saw him, heard him, and touched him, he also believed and declared, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

Jesus ate broiled fish in their presence (Luke 24:42-43). He ate and drank with his apostles for forty days: “He was not seen by all the people but by witnesses whom God had already chosen, by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). He did not reveal himself to the Sanhedrin, who knew he rose from the dead; instead, he revealed himself to those he has chosen to be his witnesses.

In 1 Corinthian 15 Paul declares that Jesus appeared to Peter, to the Twelve, to more than five hundred brothers at one time. He appeared to James, his unbelieving brother, who, after seeing Jesus, believed and became the pastor of the Jerusalem church. He appeared to all the apostles and, last of all, he appeared to his arch-enemy Saul of Tarsus, who became his great apostle to the Gentiles. So Paul gives us the earliest record of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 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 Peter, and then to the Twelve” (1 Cor. 15:1-5).

His Appearance to Paul

The star witness to the risen Christ was Saul of Tarsus. Paul was not credulous; he was highly educated. Yet as an enemy of Christianity, he believed the lies that Christ’s body was stolen by his disciples. As chief prosecutor for the Sanhedrin, he traveled everywhere with authority from the Sanhedrin to punish Christians and get information about the body of Jesus so that he could put an end to Christianity.

But on his way to Damascus, Saul himself was arrested by a higher authority, the Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, who was given all authority in heaven and on earth. He spoke to him in Aramaic: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” and blinded Paul. After praying and fasting for three days, Saul received back his sight. He was filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized, and immediately began to declare that Jesus had risen from the dead and is the Son of God. (PGM) He based the rest of his life on the certainty that Jesus Christ is risen, and eventually Paul died for the sake of this gospel.

Canon Kennett says Paul was converted within five years of the crucifixion of Christ: “Within a very few years of the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus was in the mind of at least one man of education absolutely irrefutable.”² Paul was arrested by the risen Christ. He saw him, spoke with him, and was commissioned by him.

Paul elsewhere speaks of seeing Christ: “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor. 9:1). He said to King Agrippa and others, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). In the same speech, he went on to say, “‘I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen, that Christ would suffer and as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his people and to the Gentiles.’ At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. ‘You are crazy, Paul!’ he shouted. ‘Your great learning is driving you insane.’ [But Paul replied,] ‘I am not insane, most excellent Festus. . . . What I am saying is true and reasonable'” (Acts 26:22-25).

Saul, the murderous exterminator of the Christian faith, became convinced of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The doubting apostle Thomas also became convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ, the crucified One, was indeed risen. Yet none of the disciples believed that Jesus would rise again before his crucifixion, even though Jesus predicted his own resurrection many times. They all became believers only after his resurrection, when he gave them many infallible proofs. So John writes, “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands touched, we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). He was speaking of the resurrected Jesus.

In the book of Acts, which records what Jesus continued to do and teach after he was raised from the dead, we never read that the Sanhedrin refuted the resurrection of Jesus. They knew he had been raised from the dead. In fact, they could never produce the dead body to put an end to the gospel proclamation. The great rabbi Gamaliel also seems to have accepted this truth, for he warned the Sanhedrin, “Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39).

The Sanhedrin ignored this warning because they hated Jesus and his message. Instead, they appointed the most brilliant young rabbi to prosecute Christians. But the risen Lord prosecuted, converted, and appointed him to become the mighty apostle to the Gentiles, so that the gospel could spread throughout the whole world.

Friends, the evidence is convincing. Look at Paul. Look at Thomas. Look at all the apostles. Look at the martyrs. Even the fact that Christians worship on Sunday is because Jesus was raised by the Father on Sunday.

Our Response to the Resurrected Lord

After Thomas became convinced of the empirical evidence of the resurrection of Christ, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). But Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). In other words, Jesus was saying that those who would believe the eyewitness accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (i.e., the gospel) would be blessed. The gospel is the apostolic witness and the historical record of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Why does the resurrection of Christ matter? Because his death cannot atone for our sins without the truth of the resurrection. Christ’s resurrection by the Father demonstrates that his death was accepted by the Father to atone for all our sins. Christ truly died for our sins. From the cross, Jesus said the work of atonement is finished (John 19:30). The Father said the “Amen” by raising him from the dead, thus confirming what Jesus had said about himself. Jesus said, “I am the Christ, the Son of God.” Elsewhere he said, “I and the Father are one.” The resurrection proves that all Jesus said is true. If the most difficult statement that he would be raised from the dead was proven true, then everything else he said is also true. He is the truth. He is God. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the only Savior. He is Lord. He is the Judge of the world. He is coming again.

The resurrection of Christ is the reason why all sinners must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). How do you believe? “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17).

We must believe the gospel as it is written and preached to us. Christ will not make a dramatic presentation just on our behalf. The dead rich man requested in hell that someone raised from the dead would be sent to his brothers so that his brothers could believe. But Abraham said, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Blessed are those who believe without seeing! Peter writes, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet. 1:8-9).

Therefore, away with all liberalism, postmodernism, and lies about who Jesus is! He is God. He is the Messiah. He is the Judge. He is the rock that is coming down from heaven to crush to powder every enemy that opposes him (Dan. 2:45a). All things are placed under his feet, and every unbeliever will feel the pressure of his feet on his head.

The Necessity of the Resurrection

If we remove the resurrection of Jesus Christ and substitute the gospel of liberalism, what will we have? Paul says that our preaching and faith would be worthless, and we would still be in our sins (1 Cor. 15:14-17). Jesus would be a sinner and a false prophet, not the Son of God. Such a Jesus could not save us, and we would be without hope. There would be no resurrection for us and pessimism would prevail. “Eat, drink, and be merry today, for tomorrow you will die.”

Look at what Peter says in 1 Peter 1:3-4: “In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, but is kept in heaven for you” (italics added). If we remove the resurrection of Christ from this verse, all we have left is hopelessness. Every spiritual blessing here depends on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without the resurrection, there would be no preaching of the gospel, no regeneration, no conversion, no forgiveness of sins, no justification, no adoption, no inheritance, no sanctification, no glorification, no eternal life, and no heaven.

So Paul says, “But Christ indeed has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). Jesus Christ is called “the firstfruits” (aparchê). Firstfruits is the first sample of an agricultural crop, showing the nature and quality of the rest of the crop. Jesus is the first to rise from the dead. Then when he comes, those who belong to him will be raised from the dead with a body exactly like his glorious body.

We belong to him by faith in the death and resurrection Jesus Christ. As believers, we will sleep in Christ. The natural body that goes into the grave is perishable, dishonorable, and weak; but when the risen and reigning Christ comes again, as he promised, our bodies will be raised and transformed. This will happen in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet call. The dead in Christ shall be raised with imperishable, immortal, powerful glorious bodies, fit to live in God’s presence with exceeding joy. Death will be destroyed forever when every believer is raised up from the dead.

John Murray said that sin involves guilt, but Christ’s sacrifice removes all our guilt; sin evokes the wrath of God, but Christ’s propitiatory death removes all wrath of God; sin results in alienation, but Christ’s death results in reconciliation-our reconciliation to God and God’s people; and sin consigns us to bondage, but Christ’s death is the ransom for our freedom.³

The resurrection proves all these to be true of us. Christ is indeed risen, as he said he would. Why did his body not decay as the body of Lazarus did? Because Christ was holy, blameless, and pure. He was separate from sinners. He knew no sin. He asked, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” (John 8:46). Later he said, “The prince of this world . . . has no hold on me” (John 14:30). Peter says, “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to hold him down” (Acts 2:24). Why could death not keep him down? Because he was sinless.

By his death and resurrection, Christ defeated death and set Satan’s slaves free from the fear of death. In history, about two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he is now seated at the right hand of God as the Sovereign Lord of the universe. Therefore, may those who confess him as Lord and Savior, rejoice with exceeding joy! Our guilt is gone. The wrath of God against us is gone. Our alienation from God and man is gone. Every form of bondage is gone. Our sins are forgiven, we are justified and adopted as sons of God, we are given the Holy Spirit, and we shall be raised from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead guarantees our sure resurrection.

If you have not yet repented and believed in Christ, I pray that you will join with Saul of Tarsus and Thomas, who stopped doubting. May you even today confess, “Christ is risen, Christ died for my sins and he is raised for my justification.” Call out to Jesus, “Lord Jesus, you are my Lord and my God!” If you do, he will say to you, “Fear not; peace be unto you.” He will breathe the Holy Spirit upon you, and you shall go out with joy and freedom to live all your life for God’s glory-Soli Deo Gloria.

¹ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2, p. 698ff; quoted in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980), 71.

² Canon Kennett, The Interpreter 5, p. 267; quoted in New Bible Dictionary (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1996), 1011.

³ From John Murray, The Collected Writings, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 38.