The Christ in Prophecy Journal

Truth of the Resurrection: Scriptural Evidences

Dr. Ron Rhodes

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What is the scriptural evidence for Christ’s Resurrection?

Lamb & Lion Ministries conducts a number of Bible conferences in the Dallas, Texas area each year. Our June 2010 conference theme was “Defending the Faith”.

One of our guest speakers was Dr. Ron Rhodes, the founder and director of Reasoning From the Scriptures Ministries. With nearly 50 books penned and decades of public teaching, he is an expert on the Bible. As a former “Bible Answer Man,” he specializes in easy to understand answers to the really tough questions about the Bible and the defense of the Scriptures.

Dr. Rhodes’s topic at our conference was “The Truth of the Resurrection” (watch). He did a remarkable job in the following segment of explaining in C.S.I. fashion the best evidences for Christ’s Resurrection.

Scriptural Evidences for Christ’s Resurrection

I want to spend time on the scriptural evidence for Christ’s Resurrection. I want to do this because these evidences will help you to answer some of the attacks against Christianity today. This is something that is so critically important because this topic has turned into a real huge battlefield in our day.

First of all, I want to point out that the Resurrection was predicted in both the Old and the New Testaments. For example, God says to the Son according to Psalm 2, “You are my son, today I have begotten you from the dead.” Now, a lot of people think that means that Jesus was a created being, but that is false. The New Testament tells us what is meant by that verse, in fact, in Acts 13:33 we are told that the Father was speaking of the Resurrection of the Son from the dead. That is what the Father meant when he said, “You are my son today I have begotten you from the dead.”

In Matthew 12:40 in the New Testament, Jesus is talking to some Jews. He says, “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days, and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jesus was crucified Friday evening, was dead all day Saturday, and then rose Sunday morning. According to the Jewish Talmud, each part of a day is part of the whole day. So, in Jewish reckoning, it was three full days. That is why Jesus spoke the way that He did.

We find predictions both in the Old and the New Testaments. By the way, we’ve got many, many dozens of predictions. If I gave you all of them I would be keeping you a long time. But, I do want to say that like all other prophecies in the Bible, these prophecies were literally fulfilled when Jesus was raised three days after His death.

The Resurrection was physical, bodily, and well attested by many witnesses. Now, why was the Resurrection well attested? Well, before it happened, what do you suppose a lot of people thought about this claim of Resurrection? “Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. Uh-huh, three days, yeah, I really believe that.” To counter that, God made sure that there were many, many reliable witnesses who could see what was going on and verify without any shadow of a doubt that Jesus had resurrected from the dead.

I was thinking about a friend of mine who appeared on a television show, a big national television show. He is a Christian leader and he was sitting there talking about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Right in the middle of his discussion his cell phone went off, right there on television. Now, you want to know what the ring tone was? It was “Mission Impossible.” God and His sovereignty must have a sense of humor. He’s got to! Personally, I think it would be pretty cool if Jesus was coming out of the tomb right after He resurrected and you hear that song “Mission Impossible.”

Jesus resurrected from the dead. With things that are impossible to human minds, it is easy for God. It is a piece of cake for God. From the human perspective the Resurrection is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Now here is a key evidence — the tomb was empty. All four Gospels attest to this. Jesus was buried, and the Romans put Him in there, rolled this big stone in front, and then put the Roman seal on the stone. The Roman seal wasn’t something that you couldn’t take down. In fact, if you just walked up to it with a little knife and cut part of it, it was the death penalty. You mess with the Roman seal and you get killed. The stone was moved a significant distance from the tomb like it had been plucked away by an angel. The seal was broken, the guards had fled, and the body was missing.

Furthermore, there were empty grave clothes in the tomb. If somebody was a thief wanting to steal the body they wouldn’t do it that way. They wouldn’t fold the head piece real nicely and lay it down in there in a separate spot. No thief would have done that. The whole evidence is there. If you had a C.S.I. investigator in there they would say, “Wow, this is pretty powerful evidence!”

In the next segment of Dr. Rhodes sermon on “The Truth of the Resurrection,” we’ll look at the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Resource

Defending the Faith June 2010 Conference
Defending the Faith June 2010 Conference DVD Album
Get back to the Word and the absolute essentials of the Christian faith by learning how to defend what you believe in this 6-part conference album!

  1. “The Truth of the Christian Worldview” – Brannon Howse
  2. “The Truth of the Bible” – Mike Gendron
  3. “The Truth of Creation” – Dr. Jobe Martin
  4. “The Truth of the Divinity of Jesus” – Eric Barger
  5. “The Truth of the Resurrection” – Dr. Ron Rhodes
  6. “The Truth of the Virgin Birth” – Dr. David Reagan
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Dr. Nathan E. Jones

As the Internet Evangelist at Lamb & Lion Ministries, Nathan reaches out to the over 4.5 billion people accessible over the Internet with the Good News of Jesus Christ. He also co-hosts the ministry's television program Christ in Prophecy and podcast The Truth Will Set You Free.

2 CommentsLeave a Comment

  • The Truth is also within us, our spirit and the Spirit of God testify together concerning these things. We can have confidence in what is written, is what has and will come to pass. The many witnesses to the resurrection also testify of this truth. Though we have not seen, yet we believe, the Spirit of Truth within us reveals the reason of our hope and faith and we can boldly claim that whether we are awake or sleep Yeshua will come again and claim His own. For we are bought with a price, sealed in blood.

  • When the resurrection (and indeed, Christ's death and burial with it) become personal to you–when you realize you have been crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him), then you can begin to comprehend the why behind it all (i.e., the amazing, personal, daily benefits of Christ's resurrection). Once we are taught this (by God Himself), we have very personal, practical reasons for not denying Christ's resurrection. If we denied it then, we would be saying that half of our Gospel is false.

    I'm not sure if resurrection deniers are unsaved or if they just have no real concept of what the resurrection means to the believer. I suppose only God knows. At any rate, these folks are worthy of our compassion for they (like all of us to some degree) are deceived!

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