Jesus Christ: Evidence of the Resurrection
Christians, Jews, and atheists agree that Jesus was killed on a cross and buried. Christians believe that he was also brought back to life. His resurrection is evidence that he is the Son of God, the way of salvation, and the first of many people who will be raised from the dead.
Many people have a hard time believing that Jesus rose from the dead. In their experience, dead people always stay dead. They are skeptical of such an extraordinary claim. The disciples must have been mistaken, they say, or else they made it up.
The disciples were skeptical, too. When they went to the tomb, they expected to find a body. When they did not find a body, they first assumed that someone had stolen it. They did not expect a resurrection. It was only when Jesus appeared to them that they believed that he was alive again.
Most Jews believed that there would be a resurrection at the end of the age, when everyone would rise for judgment (Daniel 12:2). But a resurrection into glory before the end was just as unexpected as a crucified Messiah. Although Jesus had taught both these ideas (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; Mark 9:9), the disciples didn’t understand or believe this (Mark 9:10). They expected him to stay dead.
But if Jesus is the sinless Son of God, then he is unique among the billions of people, and he did not deserve death. We should be surprised if God allowed him to stay dead. Several lines of evidence give us confidence that Jesus rose from the dead.
The disciples believe
However, the early disciples soon came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. Although they were sad and afraid right after he died, they were soon amazingly different: They risked their lives repeatedly to preach about Jesus. Christians in the early church (as well as many today) risk their lives to preach about Jesus.
People do not risk their lives for things they know are false. The disciples never lost their belief in Jesus’ resurrection. None of them ever changed their story even though they were beaten and sometimes killed. Even historians who don’t believe in Jesus conclude that the disciples believed that Jesus was now alive.
How could the disciples come to such a belief? Some people have suggested that perhaps Jesus didn’t really die. It wasn’t really him on the cross. Maybe Judas led the soldiers to the wrong man, or at the last minute they picked somebody else. Is it likely that all the disciples were so confused that they did not know who was on the cross? Was it then a lucky accident that the tomb was empty, and the disciples thought he appeared to them? This stretches the imagination so much that it is not seriously considered.
How did unbelievers argue against it?
How did people respond to the claims that Jesus had been resurrected? The first reaction for almost everyone (including the disciples) was probably “That’s crazy.” A more serious response is reported in Matthew 28:11-15:
While [the disciples] were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Judeans to this day.
Some people say that this story was invented by Matthew, but it is too complex for that. It reports not just a distant memory, but also a fact about what was happening when Matthew wrote it: some Jews claimed that the disciples stole Jesus’ body. Matthew wanted to show that this idea was wrong.
The unbelievers could have easily shown that Jesus was still dead – if they could show people Jesus’ dead body. But they could not find it – the tomb was empty. They did not suggest that Jesus was buried somewhere else, and they did not suggest that the disciples went to the wrong tomb.
Here’s what happened:
- First, the disciples say that the tomb is empty.
- The unbelieving Jews then say, the disciples stole the body.
- The disciples say, We couldn’t have, because there was a guard.
- Rather than saying there wasn’t any guard, the unbelievers say that the disciples stole the body while the guard was asleep.
- Last, Matthew explains that they paid the guard to say that this happened while he slept.
The passage shows that when Matthew wrote, many years after the crucifixion, unbelievers said there was a guard at the tomb. They admit that the tomb was empty. Matthew’s readers could verify that this story was being told in their day.
Did he faint?
Over the years, people have suggested other ideas to explain why the tomb was empty. One idea is that Jesus did not die on the cross — he just fainted, and then later woke up. However, would Roman soldiers take down a body without noticing that the man was still alive? Would this severely beaten man then be able to get up, take off his grave clothes, move the stone that closed the tomb, and convince his disciples that he had good health? No, this does not seem possible.
Perhaps the disciples helped Jesus revive. They rolled away the stone, unwrapped the clothes, bandaged the wounds, and then told a story about getting their leader back alive out of the grave — a story that quickly turned into a tall tale about resurrection and miraculous appearances, a story that the disciples never tried to set straight.
There is no evidence for this story. It presents the disciples as liars — and yet, as mentioned above, people do not give their lives for something they know is false. This idea is not a believable explanation for the rise of Christianity, which was rooted in the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. Moreover, this faith spread first in Jerusalem, where the facts could be investigated most easily!
It is not likely that Jesus could have survived the crucifixion. Could the disciples have simply made it all up? Did they steal the body, hide it somewhere, invent the story of a guard, and then claim that he was now in heaven?
These fishermen did not make up the biggest lie in history, going against all the facts of life and death as they knew it, going against all religious beliefs of the day, going against Jewish and Roman authorities, risking their lives to tell the story they made up, without any of them ever admitting that it didn’t happen.
No, their words and deeds do not give any evidence that they were lying. Their behavior matched their message.
Jesus appeared to them
According to the Gospel stories, the empty tomb did not convince the disciples. They were convinced only when Jesus appeared. If they had stolen the body, surely they would have used the empty tomb as part of their evidence. But they didn’t; this tells us that they had what they thought was much better evidence: they had seen Jesus with their own eyes.
The Gospels tell us that women were the first people to see the empty tomb and the risen Christ — and in court, the testimony of women was not accepted in that culture. If the disciples were trying to make up a story, they would have invented witnesses who had more credibility.
What about the fact that the Gospel stories are somewhat different? If this had been an enormous conspiracy, wouldn’t they be careful to tell the story in exactly the same way by everyone? The best explanation is that the disciples believed Jesus to be resurrected, and each one told it the way he remembered it.
Did someone steal the body?
Now let’s consider another idea: grave robbers found the guard asleep and took the body somewhere else so they could search inside the burial wrappings. The guards wanted to hide their failure, so they made up a story about angels; then they were bribed to blame the disciples. Then the disciples had dreams about Jesus.
However, did all the disciples have the same dream or hallucination, several times, even though they didn’t expect a resurrection? Did the visions eat and drink, speak, and then stop 40 days later? This is not the way hallucinations work. There is no evidence for this idea, either.
Is it a myth?
Let’s consider one more idea, that resurrection was just a religious story (sometimes called a “myth,” meaning religious ideas expressed in allegorical stories). It wasn’t meant literally, but Christianity made a big mistake in taking it literally for almost 2,000 years.
There are several problems with this idea.
First, the Gospels are not written in the style of a myth. The resurrection was understood in a literal way even in the first century, when eyewitnesses of Jesus were still available to either support or correct the story. There was no time for legends to develop. The biblical writers give us history: This is what I saw. This is what it meant. They reject the idea of myth.
With their own eyes
The disciples were not deceived, nor were they deceivers. They just tell us what they saw, and it is clear that they believed that Jesus died, was buried and was resurrected. They believed this because they saw it with their own eyes.
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—what we have seen and heard we also declare to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)
The disciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead. The most believable explanation is that Jesus rose from the dead. All other theories are far-fetched and historically unlikely.
If we believe that God does not exist and miracles cannot happen, then we are refusing to consider one possible explanation even before we have looked at the evidence.
But when we believe in a God who does sometimes work miracles, then the resurrection of Jesus makes more sense. When we see the bigger picture of why Jesus lived and died, the resurrection makes more sense as part of this bigger picture of what God is doing to save us. When we see Old Testament predictions of a suffering servant who would give his life for his people, we understand more.
The disciples believed because Jesus appeared to the disciples and told them he was resurrected. He also taught them more about how the Old Testament scriptures had predicted what had happened. That is why they had such a transformation in their beliefs, and why they preached with such conviction.[1]
Many of us also have experiences in our own lives that convince us that God exists, that he sometimes causes miracles, that Jesus is alive and the Holy Spirit is active in his people. This gives us further reason to believe that Jesus is alive.
[1] See also William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1989) and N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003).
Author: Michael Morrison, edited 2026
