Don Smith
The resurrection of Christ—how astonishing the evidence is that solidifies the authenticity of the Bible! The odds of the prophecies of the resurrection coming to pass are greater than a number too large for any of us to even imagine. Christ Himself promised these things would come to pass, which gives further weight to the claims of scripture. To have been fulfilled according to the record tells the world there is no doubt to the Holy Writ. However, even the most adamant denier is to be silenced when the scriptures tell of the attempted religious and governmental cover-up of the resurrection, as well as Paul’s matter-of-fact statements regarding it. Let us dig into these items further.
It is well known there are many prophecies regarding the resurrection of Christ (Gen. 3:15; Ps. 16:9-11; Hos. 6:2, et al.). Some put the number anywhere from 48 to 55. To put this into perspective, the odds of Jesus having fulfilled these is 1 in 10157 – that number is a 1 with 157 zeros behind it! Actually, this cannot be put into perspective, nor is it comprehensible. It is like being struck by lightning over 6,000 times in a row—the odds are beyond understandable. That is how definitive these prophecies make that wondrous event undeniable in Christ.
Many times, Christ promised the scriptures of the Old Testament would be fulfilled in Him. He directly told His disciples, “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry” (Matt. 17:22-23). It must have been quite clear to them when they saw the Old Testament prophecies coming to pass in their Mentor and Master. Jesus showed Himself to be approved of God by the miraculous (Acts 2:22), which solidified belief in the claims He made (John 20:30-31). On top of the prophecies, Christ’s promises, coupled with the miracles which confirmed His word, give incredible weight to His claims, which builds towards the authenticity of the written word.
What also builds on the strength of the prophecies and promises of the resurrection of Christ is their fulfillment. In each of the gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all record the facts and events of that extraordinary occurrence. Matthew and John are direct eyewitness accounts, whereas Mark and Luke were led in detail by the Holy Spirit to record those same events. Christ’s resurrection was truly followed by many infallible proofs (Acts 1:3). With as many varying writers as have recorded the prophecies, promises, and fulfillment of those, the resurrection of Christ is shown to be a fact of history—but there is more.
The chief priests and some of the Roman government of the time attempted to cover up the fact that Christ’s body was gone from the tomb. After the crucifixion of Christ, a large stone was placed on the entrance of the sepulcher He was laid in, and a Roman seal was placed on the stone signifying the governmental authority upon it to instill fear into anyone who may want to tamper with it. Moreover, guards were placed to watch the tomb for further security. When the angel of the Lord rolled back the stone and the keepers apparently fainted at the sight (Matt. 28:2-4), they were later paid to say the disciples stole the body while they slept (v. 11-15). The lie was preposterous, as there is no way they could have known the disciples had done such a thing while they slept. The fact of this botched cover-up lends further weight to the truth of Christ’s resurrection.
However, to bolster this truth, Paul writes a rather matter-of-fact statement in 1 Corinthians 15. Concerning Christ’s resurrection, the record states,
And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time (v. 5-8).
Apparently, there were some among the Corinthians who denied the resurrection (v. 12). Paul just told them that there were over 500 eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrection—and some of them were still alive (v. 6). He was basically telling the Corinthians that they could check the record for themselves by these eyewitnesses. Now, imagine a person on trial who had hundreds of eyewitnesses to testify that he was not guilty; he would certainly be exonerated by such overwhelming evidence! Using the same reasoning here, Paul is presenting to the Corinthians overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Christ. Consider also the character of Paul. He was not an imbecile nor a lunatic. He was an honest and devout man of God, who was a very learned man and extremely intelligent, as we learn from his deep and detailed writings. If he had directed the Corinthians to hundreds of people based on a lie, he would have been the most short-sighted fool to have walked the face of the ancient earth. This would have been contrary to the character of all of Paul’s writings, not to mention the fact that he would have completely crashed his ministry, and the book of 1 Corinthians would never have been copied and passed around to the other congregations. Based on all of this reasoning and evidence, the reasonable mind God has equipped us with cannot deny the resurrection of Christ in the face of this passage. To do so would make that person a lunatic. And if the resurrection is true (and it obviously is), all of Christ’s words are true—which means all the other writers of the Bible are true, as Christ promised directly the inspiration of some, and those inspired give ample evidence of the inspiration of the rest of the Bible (John 14:26; 16:13; 2 Pet. 1:20-21). Christ’s resurrection, therefore, is absolutely solid evidence of the authenticity of the scriptures.
