In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul writes to the believers about the resurrection. It seems that some of them had come to believe that there was no resurrection. And so Paul answers this by noting that they need to understand that if there’s no such thing as the resurrection of the body from the grave, then Christianity is no more. Everything Paul lived his life for and the hope we have that causes us to gather each Sunday is pointless and void. The reason this would be the case, Paul argues, is that if there’s no resurrection of the dead, then that means that not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ is not raised, then our eternal hope is a lie. You and I are still in our sins and condemned before God, and everyone before us who died in Christ—whom we believe are with the Lord—have actually perished and face God’s wrath. In other words, the resurrection of Jesus is no small matter. Central to the Christian faith is the reality that after dying on the cross on that Friday, Jesus walked out of the tomb alive on that Easter Sunday morning.
But I don’t have to tell that a majority of the world does not believe that Jesus actually—bodily—rose from the grave. To say that they are skeptical that a man actually rose from the grave and lives forever as our savior and king seems like the most preposterous thing in the world to them. After all, dead people don’t rise from their graves. And I don’t mean that this skeptical unbelief is just something that arose with the Enlightenment or is true in modern times. I mean that unbelievers throughout the last 2,000 years have all thought that this is a preposterous notion.
Remember the scene with Paul on Mars Hill in Acts 17? There were all of these men philosophizing about the world and had objects of worship for all the gods of the world, even an altar to the unknown god that they may have worshiped. Well, Paul uses that alter to the unknown god as a jumping off point and describes to them the one true God who made the world. He tells them that the God of the Bible made the world and everything in it, that he doesn’t need anything from us and in fact provides our very lives, that he made every nation from one man on the earth, that he allotted the times and places in which we live, and that he commands all people to repent. And, oddly enough, up to this point Luke tells us of no reaction from this group of men. We can assume they’re nodding along, thinking, “Okay, sure that seems feasible.” And then just after Paul tells them that God commands all people to repent, he adds, “Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). And it’s right at that point that Luke adds, “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked” (17:32). That was a bridge too far for their sensibilities. Men don’t rise from the dead.
And yet Christians all over the planet have oriented our entire lives around the truth that Jesus of Nazareth—the God-man—walked out of the tomb alive on Sunday morning. And that’s no overstatement. We believe it to be true. We gather weekly to worship our risen savior. We specifically gather on the first day of the week (Sunday) because it was this day that Jesus rose from the dead. We attempt to obey everything that the risen Christ taught and commanded us.
And the unbelieving world knows that. That is, they know that we believe something they think is ludicrous. And yet they’re well aware that we believe it. Even in the first century unbelieving skeptics were well aware that Christians believed that Jesus really did rise from the dead. After all, a group of Jews went from worshiping on Saturday to worshiping on Sunday and devoted their lives so zealously to obeying the one they thought was alive that they gave their lives for him. So, there’s no denying the early Christians believed that Jesus rose from the dead or that we do today. Therefore, the skeptical unbelieving world has come up with a number of reasons why this might be the case. That is, they’ve come up with scenarios of what they believe really happened because—in their minds—it is not possible that Jesus actually and bodily rose from the grave. And when you come to this section in Luke’s gospel where he records Jesus’ resurrection, it feels like Luke is aware of all these scenarios that the skeptical, unbelieving world has thrown out.
The reason I say it feels like Luke is aware of these scenarios is because he includes details all along the way that may not feel like a big deal in the story of the resurrection but seem to be included because they show the impossibility of all of these scenarios. It’s as if Luke writes, thinking, “I know they’re going to say that instead of Jesus actually rising from the dead, this thing happened instead, so I’m going to show them why that can’t be true.” I mean, if one of these scenarios from the unbelieving skeptics was that aliens came down and took the body of Jesus, I wouldn’t be surprised to find Luke including a line where he says, “Oh, by the way, aliens aren’t real.” That’s how much it feels like Luke tackles these scenarios from the skeptics in this text.
But that’s not all he does. That is, the text isn’t just a defensive text. Luke also shows us the testimony to Christ’s resurrection from many different individuals. Therefore, this morning I want to show you these two things: 1) answers to scenarios from skeptics, and 2) the testimony of many to the resurrection of Christ. Let’s start with answers to scenarios from skeptics.
Answers to scenarios from skeptics
Here’s we’ll just take them one by one, as I tell you the proposed scenario from the unbeliever and then how Luke shows that it just doesn’t work with the facts.
1. They went to the wrong tomb.
This scenario suggests that on that Easter Sunday morning everybody just went to the wrong tomb. Jesus was buried in tomb “A” and when they went to see his body on that Sunday morning, they went to an empty tomb—tomb “B”—and that mix-up is why Christians believed that Jesus rose from the dead. So let’s see how Luke shows that scenario just won’t work.
First, Luke tells us that a man named Joseph of Arimathea had been a member of that council that condemned Jesus and took him to Pilate. However, Joseph had disagreed with their decision. He believed Jesus, which is beautiful. Luke will tell us later in Acts 6:7 that even a great number of priests ended up believing. But, as a believer, Joseph decided to go to Pilate, asking for Jesus’ body so that he might bury him.
Now, this was a very bold move. I mean, Jesus has been executed in the vilest manner possible because he was seen as challenging the reign of Rome, claiming that he was a king (by identifying as the Christ). And now Joseph comes to Pilate, identifying himself as a follower of Christ. That’s bold. And yet, Pilate grants his request.
Therefore, Joseph takes Jesus’ body, wraps it in a linen cloud (since the soldiers had taken his clothing) and laid Jesus’ body in a tomb that no one had ever yet been laid. Now, we know from other gospel accounts that this was Joseph’s own tomb. So, Joseph was very familiar with the tomb where he laid Jesus. And if indeed this had been a case of mixing up which tomb Jesus was in, Joseph could have cleared that up very quickly. He knew the tomb well where he had laid Jesus.
But it’s not just that. The women were the first to the tomb on that Easter Sunday morning, and if anyone claims that they were the ones who could have been mistaken, Luke makes clear that they also knew where the tomb was. He says that as Joseph took Jesus’ body to the tomb, “The women who had come with him to Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how the body was laid” (v. 55). They too knew where the tomb was. So, there’s really no way this could have been a case of Jesus’ followers mistakenly going to the wrong tomb. So let’s move to the second skeptical scenario.
2. Jesus’ followers might have mixed up which body belonged to Jesus.
Here’s what they mean. In Jewish culture burial of the body was important. This is why Joseph goes to Pilate. After all, most of the time the bodies of those executed would simply be thrown into mass graves. But Jews wouldn’t like that. Again, this is why Joseph went and requested the body of Jesus.
However, tombs were expensive, so it was customary for Jews to put many bodies in a tomb. What would happen is that you might have a family tomb. So, your grandfather dies, and you lay him in the tomb. Well, when your dad dies, you go back to that tomb, open it up, and put your dad in there as well. And by that time, your grandfather’s body has decayed to the point that he is just bones. Therefore, you would gather up the bones, place them in a box, and this is how you would use a tomb. There could theoretically be many bodies in there at once depending on how closely together they died.
Therefore, the idea is that on that Easter Sunday morning, they looked into the tomb, and saw what they thought was Jesus’ body missing, but they were looking at a spot where another body had been, and if they’d paid better attention, they would have realized that Jesus’ body was in another part of the tomb.
That scenario sounds odd to us, but it makes more sense if we understand the customs. But here’s the problem. Luke tells us specifically that Joseph laid Jesus in a tomb “where no one had ever yet been laid” (v. 53). It might seem like a small, easily-ignored detail in our text, but it shows us that this skeptical scenario simply won’t work. So, let’s move to another.
3. Because Jesus’ followers so eagerly expected the resurrection, they deceived themselves and convinced themselves that it really happened.
I think this scenario probably makes sense to us because this kind of thing has happened before in different situations. Imagine there’s a magician who is known for doing impressive magic tricks, and he tells you that he can make your house move. And so a crowd gathers around, all eagerly anticipating watching your house move. And as you watch, nothing’s happening, but with all the eager expectation, someone says, “I think I saw it move.” And another says, “I think I did too.” And before long, everyone in the group is claiming your house moved when it really never did. It was just the expectation of the people that led them to be convinced it really happened. Well, that’s why people claim these early believers thought Jesus rose from the dead. They all so eagerly expected it that they convinced themselves it really happened. But again, Luke shows us that this was far from the case. Actually it seemed that not only did these early believers not expect Jesus to be raised, they had a hard time believing it when it happened.
Luke tells us that on the first day of the week the ladies went to the tomb, “taking the spices they had prepared” (v. 1). So, first, why would they be taking spices? Well, spices were used to cover the smell of a decaying body. In other words, they came not expecting Jesus to be raised but expecting his dead body to be decaying.
Then, they found the stone rolled away, went in and did not find the body of Jesus. Now, if they were expecting the resurrection, this would be the moment to say, “Of course he’s not here. He was raised just like we thought.” But instead, Luke tells us, “They were perplexed” (v. 4). In fact, it took two men appearing in dazzling apparel (whom we know to be angels according to 24:23) telling them that Jesus was raised before they believed.
But it’s not just the women who weren’t expecting Jesus to be raised. We also see this with the apostles. The women go to the eleven (the twelve minus Judas), and they tell everything to the apostles. And, again, this would be a chance for the apostles to say, “Exactly, that’s what we thought would happen.” But instead, Luke tells us, “These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (v. 11). So, the eager expectation scenario doesn’t work because Jesus’ followers simply weren’t expecting him to be raised and even struggled to believe it after he was raised. And, finally, let me give you one more.
4. Someone could have stolen the body.
This scenario is just as it sounds. Someone could have just stolen Jesus’ body. But this one fails on a few fronts. Obviously no Jew who opposed Jesus would have stolen the body because they don’t want to give any indication that he’d rise from the dead. They’d love to be able to point to his dead, decaying body. The Romans wouldn’t have done it because that would have only stoked Jesus’ followers into believing he’d been raised. The apostles couldn’t have done it to make it look like Jesus was raised because (as we’ve seen) they simply didn’t have that idea of Jesus rising from the dead in their minds. And, finally, it couldn’t have just been a grave robber because Luke mentions that when Peter ran to the tomb and found it empty, “He saw the linen cloths by themselves” (v. 12). And if you think about it, that point alone makes the stolen body theory not work. What grave robber would smuggle his way into a tomb—sealed with a stone and guarded by a Roman soldier—and then think to himself, “I should undress this body first”? That would be weird. And not only that but the linen would have had some value. So, they would have had every incentive to take it. The linen left there tells us Jesus’ body wasn’t stolen. He was raised.
So, none of the skeptic’s scenarios work, and it seems that just by telling the facts of the resurrection itself Luke has shown us why none of these work. But it’s not just that Luke shows the failure of all the skeptic’s scenarios, he also gives us numerous individuals who give positive testimony to the fact that Jesus was raised.
Testimony to the resurrection
The first individuals who give testimony to the reality of the resurrection are the angels. As the women show up and are confused about the empty tomb, we’re told that two men (later identified as angels) show up and declare, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise” (vv. 5-7). So the first individuals who testify to the reality that Jesus has been raised are the angels. Second, we have the women at the tomb.
Now, many have pointed out that if Luke were making all of this up he simply wouldn’t have women be the first human witnesses at the tomb. After all, a woman’s testimony would probably not even be recognized in court. But this speaks to the fact that Luke is not creating a story that fits with a made up myth. He’s recorded what actually and historically happened. And what actually happened is that the women were the first at the tomb that Sunday morning.
And what’s clear is that the women came back and told the apostles that Jesus had been raised. We know that because Luke tells us that they told “all these things to the eleven and to the rest” (v. 9). And by “all these things,” it includes not simply that the stone was rolled away and that the tomb was empty, but also it would have included the angels’ testimony that Jesus had risen with a reminder that Jesus foretold this. These ladies testified to the resurrection of Jesus.
And then we have the testimony of Peter. Luke tells us that Peter rose and ran to the tomb. Minimally, he believed there was enough validity to the women’s story to go look, and the text tells us that he saw the linen cloths by themselves and “went home marveling at what had happened” (v. 12).
Now, it could be that Peter still didn’t believe. However, Peter had more reason than most to trust Jesus’ words. Jesus had told him that he’d deny his Lord three times before the rooster crowed, and that had happened just as Jesus said. So, there’s a good chance Peter believed, and even if he struggled to work it out in his mind in that moment, he’d stand and declare a few weeks later on the day of Pentecost, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:23-24). We have the testimony of Peter.
And, finally, we have the testimony of Jesus. When the angels speak to the women, notice how they simply point the women to Jesus’ words, reminding them of what Jesus had said. I mean, these are angels, but instead of pointing to their own authority, they note what has happened—Jesus has risen—and then they direct the women to the words of Jesus. Then Luke tells us, “They remembered his words” (v. 8). Jesus’ word, the Scripture itself, is testimony that Jesus rose from the dead.
So, Luke is a historian. He wasn’t himself an eye-witness to these things. But he tells us at the beginning of his gospel that he “followed all things closely for some time” and wanted to write an orderly account so that the reader “may have certainty concerning the things [we] have been taught” (1:3-4). He no doubt read other eye-witness testimonies and did interviews. And when he came to the resurrection, he provided for us all the evidence for why any other scenario than Jesus actually and bodily rising from the dead simply doesn’t work as you consider the facts. Then, he gives us the testimony of angels, the women, Peter, and Jesus’ himself that Christ’s resurrection really did happen.
So, what now? Well, if Christ really rose from the dead, it means a number of things. But let me name just two. First, it means that our hope of eternity is sure and that all who have died trusting in Christ have not perished but are with the Lord now, waiting the resurrection of their bodies. And if our ultimate hope is fine, then you and I can live our lives knowing that everything is going to be okay. Actually, okay is an understatement. Everything is going to be amazing. I don’t mean I can assure you the health issue will go away or your financial struggles will be resolved now. But, ultimately, after these few decades of your life, everything will be glorious. So, trust the Lord and rest in him. And it also means that Jesus Christ is reigning at God’s right hand as Lord of all. And if that’s true, then it means that there needs to be no greater or deeper desire in our lives but to serve, love, and obey him. That Christ was raised and reigns should be the most important reality in our lives. Every decision we make—what our schedule looks like, whom we marry, what we do with our money, what we watch, what we do with our bodies, everything—should be filtered through the lens of what would be most honoring to the risen and reigning Lord. Therefore, this morning, let’s confess our faith in the crucified and risen Lord and our desire to obey him with our lives as we come to the table this morning. Amen.