Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? - His Crucifixion & Resurrection Explained (Easter Special)

Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Can the resurrection be trusted, and why does it matter today?

In this special Reasoning Through the Bible Easter study, some of the most common questions people ask about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection are answered with clear, biblical teaching. This episode looks at what the Gospels say happened, why the eyewitness accounts can be trusted, and why the resurrection is central to the Christian faith. It also explains how the resurrection connects to 1 Corinthians 15, the Passover, and the believer’s future bodily resurrection.

Topics include:

• Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
• Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus
• Can the Gospel accounts be trusted?
• Why the resurrection matters to Christians
• Jesus, the Passover, and the Gospel
• The future resurrection of believers

A practical and hope-filled Easter episode for listeners who want trustworthy answers about the resurrection of Jesus Christ [The Messiah] and its meaning today.

If you found this helpful, share it with a friend who has questions, subscribe for more verse-by-verse Bible study, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. Today's topic is on the resurrection, the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of us Christians. So if you're first tuning into us for the first time, we normally do verse-by-verse Bible study through the books of the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. We also provide free materials so that you can teach the Bible in your small group or church. If you go to our website, reasoningthruTheBible.com, you'll see all of our materials, all of our books that we've taught. Today, as we've said, is a special topic on the resurrection of Christ, why it's important, and why it is valuable to us. If we talk about the resurrection, it's going to be interesting because it is a central theme in the New Testament. Jesus predicted his own resurrection many times. It's mentioned in the Gospels prominently. The book of Acts mentions the resurrection over 40 times in 28 chapters. The resurrection is in every sermon in Acts. So all of the early sermons that the Christians preached all talked about the resurrection. So, Steve, this is a great topic. And I think we're going to be able to spend a little bit of time today and kind of get into some of the details, can we not?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, we have done some other topical studies on other holidays, but we've never done one on Easter. What we've done is we've gone out and looked at a search as to what are some of the most common things that people search during this time of the year. So we're going to be addressing some of those items today.

A Three Part Roadmap

What The Gospels Claim Happened

SPEAKER_00 2:04

So as we get into this, we've divided our talk today up into three main parts. We're going to at first very quickly go through the gospels and what are they claiming to have happened with Christ and his resurrection? Next, we'll very quickly get into can we trust those accounts? Are they valid enough that we should put our faith in these gospel accounts of Jesus rising from the dead? And then lastly, we'll spend most of our time talking about why does it matter? What does it matter to us whether or not Jesus rose from the dead and why is it important to all of us in this modern day? Let's go ahead and jump in. What does the Bible say happened as far as the resurrection of Christ? Well, all of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, clearly talk about the resurrection towards the end of each one of them. The Gospels record that they all saw this empty tomb. If we just look at the, first of all, just the physical amount of verses that talk about the last week of Christ's life, then we have a healthy portion of the entire New Testament is talking about the cross and the resurrection. It spends quite a bit of time. So the Gospels record, for example, that there was a group of women that followed Jesus from Galilee as he traveled into Jerusalem that last week, was with him the entire trip. They were with him every day in the temple. They were with him up to the cross. They watched the body being taken down from the cross, and they watched the body being put into the grave and the stone rolled in front of it. They were there the resurrection morning and saw Jesus' resurrected body. So there was this continual observation, according to the gospel accounts, of a group of women, plus the male apostles, but especially the women never left his side as he traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem the entire week to the cross, to the grave, and to the resurrected body again. So that is what they're claiming is that at no time could there ever be a mix-up between who died on the cross and the life of Christ. All four Gospels record an empty tomb. Then we also have, for example, in 1 John, the Apostle John, the first three verses of the entire book say, quote, we have seen with our eyes, we have looked at, and touched with our hands. So they claim to have seen the resurrected Christ, touched him with their hands. They were there with him. For example, last part of the Gospel of Luke talks about him eating fish with them. The last part of the Gospel of John, he was there cooking a fish breakfast on the shoreline of the sea. So the gospel accounts claim to have handled him, touched him, been with him, seen the resurrected Christ, spent many days with him. The disciples spent the rest of their lives maintaining that they saw him and touched him and were witnesses and never recanted their story. So what the four Gospels claim is that the same body that died on the cross is the same body that rose again. It had the same nail and spear holes, John 20, 27. Jesus invited Thomas, see the nail holes, poke your finger in the hole in my side. The resurrected body is physical. So that's what the gospels claim. And Steve, is that a strong claim for the resurrection of Christ?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Well, eyewitnesses are something that is used quite often in the court of law. So yes, I think it is very strong evidence. Now, people and skeptics want to throw it out because they say, well, how are we able to trust that? What people need to realize is that skeptics and atheists don't critique other ancient documents like they do scripture, because they have a bias towards not wanting to believe in God and not wanting to believe that Jesus Christ was God or that he was resurrected, that there are miracles. So an argument that they have is that, well, that's just what is recorded. We don't really know for sure whether or not they're eyewitnesses or not. Well, they say they're eyewitnesses, they record their activities, what they did, everything that you were just talking about. So everything leads us to believe that these were eyewitnesses to the accounts and actions that took place that last week and afterwards from Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. So yeah, I think that they're very good, valid sources.

Why Eyewitness Claims Matter

Early Sources And Fast Public Spread

SPEAKER_00 7:13

So that's what they claim. All four gospels claim to have been with Jesus for a period of time, seen him die, seen him be buried, and saw the empty tomb and saw him resurrected to the point where they spent time with him and handled his physical body when he was resurrected. That's what they claim. So the next question is: can we trust these accounts? The accounts of Jesus in the Gospels being raised were made by eyewitnesses. So that's our first point of support for why we can trust this. The Gospel of Luke, Luke was a very educated Greek physician. We know that from the style of his language, the it's a very educated style of Greek. We also know from his name and his history in Acts that he came from a Greek area. And he knew that he needed to investigate and write down what happened. And that's what he claims. The first part of his gospel, Luke 1, 2, says, quote, the things that we saw among us were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses. And the very next verse, verse 3, quote, I myself have investigated everything carefully from the beginning. So Luke was an educated person. He had access to the eyewitnesses, he had access to the temple records, and he went and spent a good bit of time investigating very carefully what happened and writing down the testimony of the eyewitnesses. The Gospel of John, chapter 21, verse 24. Quote, this is the disciple who was testifying about these things and wrote these things. He's claiming that the disciple that Jesus loved was himself. And he said, This is the one. I'm the one who saw these things. I spent three years with Jesus. I was there when they crucified him, and I was there and saw the empty tomb. So it claims to be an eyewitness account that was investigated carefully. And the next point, it was written down very early. The timeline given in the book of Galatians and the timeline given in 1 Corinthians 15 says that the apostles met together and double-checked each other's teaching within three to five years of the resurrection. If we follow the details of what it says in Galatians, then you'll see that Paul is claiming to have been saved on the Damascus Road within two to three to at the most five years after Jesus rose. He then claims to have gone to Jerusalem, met with Peter and John and the other apostles to make sure they were teaching the same things. And it was written down very soon after. They had another council where they got together. So within 14 to 17 years, the apostles had met together on at least two occasions and had made sure of what they were teaching and was writing this down within just a few years of it happening. The author Gary Habermas wrote a monumental work on the resurrection. And in that, he lists nine layers that have the resurrection documented within one to two years of the event that actually happened. Those nine layers talk about things that happened both inside the text and outside the text. And he's a great source for the resurrection. We would just refer our listeners to Habermas' work. We also have in the events of the Gospels and in Acts, the day of Pentecost was 50 days after the events of Jesus' death and resurrection. And that's where Peter and the rest of the disciples gave the first sermons. Well, there were thousands of people that were gathered in Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost, and they heard these events and saw the miracles that the apostles were doing in the book of Acts, the evidence that Peter and John gave in the early sermons, all of that happened in less than two months of the resurrection. So the word was scattered. All the people that came to Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost feast were sent back home into the countryside and the surrounding nations. So there were many thousands of people that saw the eyewitness accounts and it spread very quickly within a couple of months. And so, Steve, all of that to me adds up to the fact that we can trust the sources.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

There were three high holy days that all of the people were commanded to come to the place where the tabernacle or at this time the temple was. That was Passover, then 50 days later, the Feast of Pentecost. And then because both Passover and Pentecost were in the spring, in the fall, there was the feast of Boose. So everyone was commanded, if they could make it to come into Jerusalem at this time to celebrate these feasts. Because Pentecost is 50 days after the Passover, many people that had traveled a long distance would just stay in Jerusalem for that whole period of time rather than going all the way back home and then coming back, they would stay in the Jerusalem area. Other ones that lived around the Jerusalem area, obviously, they would go home and then come back in. So to your point, Glenn, you're correct. There was this massive influx of people that came into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, and many of them stayed there through till Pentecost. So during this time period between Passover and Pentecost, all of this activity is going on. Jesus is there for the 40 days after Passover speaking and talking to his disciples. There's appearances that are taking place. You know that they were telling other people what had happened. The resurrection was a main event that people would remember because it was such a cataclysmic event. So there's not just the recording that we have in the scriptures itself. As you noted, Habermass also quotes outside references from the scripture themselves that talk about this resurrection that happened and the activity that was going around it. So it's not just some type of an event that's off on its own, something that was secret. This was something that was talked about by many, many people, not just the disciples and the entourage of the women that you started off with. This was something that was a buzz amongst the city of Jerusalem all during this 50-day period between Passover and Pentecost.

Skeptics And David Hume’s Challenge

Why Resurrection Anchors The Gospel

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Let's talk for a second about what the critics have said. What charges have our critics leveled against the resurrection of Christ? And again, we would refer people to Gary Habermass's monumental work on the resurrection. He goes through and lists every critic and all the literature about what the skeptics and the critics claim against the resurrection of Christ, and he deals with each of them. For our purpose, most of those fall into some version of what the famous skeptic David Hume said. David Hume was the king of the skeptics. And we in our ministry did a separate session on David Hume. So we would refer people in general to Hume. But generally, what people today, most people, if they criticize Christianity at all, they're giving you some version of leftover, warmed over, reheated David Hume. And David Hume's strongest criticism were several. Perhaps arguably the strongest ones were saying that we can't trust the witnesses for some reason or another. They either got it wrong or it was passed down to us wrong or incorrect. Or universal human experience just shows that people do not rise from the dead. So to respond to that, we can indeed trust the witnesses. If we look at David Hume's challenge for what makes a good witness, Christianity has met that high challenge. We have strong witnesses. They were written down early. These things were done publicly in a public place. We have the documentation. There's multiple strong witnesses, and it's been passed down to us accurately. The second claim is that universal human experience shows us that people don't rise from the dead. Well, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, it's circular. We're saying that, well, how do we know people don't rise from the dead? Because universal human experience says they don't. Well, why does universal human experience tell us anything? It's because people don't rise from the dead. In fact, we are arguing in a circle. And in reality, it's just not logical. We're not talking about all the other times when people didn't rise from the dead. We're talking about whether this one with this one man Jesus, whether his body rose from the dead, anything in science or history, you can't prove the one anomaly by looking at all of the times when something didn't happen. The question is, did it happen here in this instance? And so the arguments of David Hume are circular and self-defeating. So to summarize this, what we said is the gospels very clearly claimed to be eyewitness accounts that saw the empty tomb, claimed to have handled the resurrected body of Christ and saw him over multiple days, that were then documented early and documented clearly with multiple strong educated eyewitnesses and passed down to us. The eyewitnesses confirmed with each other. They were written down early, and we have very early copies today. So all of that gets us to really the bulk of what we wanted to talk about today, which is why does it matter? What does it matter to me? And what does it matter to you and I today in this modern world? Where I want to go next is to read a section of the scriptures that tell us why it is so important for us today to hold to Jesus' resurrection. And I want to read a few verses here out of 1 Corinthians 15. The first eight verses of 1 Corinthians 15 say this. Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preach to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. In the first verse that we just read, he says, Quote, Let me remind you, brethren, of the gospel I preach to you. So, Steve, what is the connection between the resurrection of Christ and the gospel?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

The connection between the two is that the gospel is the good news. The good news that the kingdom was at hand, the Messiah, the one who had been talked about in the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, the anointed one had come and the kingdom was at hand. It was something that John the Baptizer spoke about and Jesus himself. Repent, for the kingdom is at hand. The king was here, but Jesus was also preparing his disciples for his suffering. It says in scripture, in a couple of the gospels, that he began telling them and teaching them that the Messiah must first suffer. This was in relation to his crucifixion. After that, though, there is the resurrection. The resurrection now gives us hope because the king isn't dead, the messiah isn't dead, he is resurrected, and scripture tells us that he's seated at the right hand of God the Father. Without the resurrection, we don't have anything. But the resurrection gives us truth of who he is, his power over sin and death, and also is what we call our blessed hope of his returning once again.

Old Testament Roots Of Resurrection Hope

Our Future Bodily Resurrection

SPEAKER_00 20:44

The beginning parts of the chapter that we read a minute ago, verses three and four, specifically say that the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. So the resurrection is said clearly part of the gospel. Then he says this was according to the scriptures. Verse three to five, he died, was buried, and raised according to the scriptures. So we have to ask ourselves the question of what scriptures was he speaking of? Well, of course it's the Old Testament. So he's claiming here that resurrection was a theme in the Old Testament. And I submit it was a central theme in the Old Testament. Just a few examples. Genesis 22, 5, Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham told the servant, quote, the boy and I will go worship and we will come back to you. And if you were with us when we studied Hebrews, it tells us in Hebrews that Abraham believed that the boy was going to be raised again. He believed in resurrection. Then in Genesis, Joseph died towards the end of Genesis. He died. In Egypt and asked that his bones be carried back to Canaan, which is Israel. If the body didn't matter, he wouldn't have cared. But Joseph wanted to be resurrected at home. In the book of Job, Job 19, verses 25 and 26, quote, For I know that my redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. The book of Jonah gives a resurrection, which Jesus mentions when he talks about the sign of Jonah. So we have here a very clear connection between the resurrection and the gospel. It is prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Christ. If we are right with God in this life and then we die and we stay dead, if we're annihilated at that point, we cease to exist after we physically die here on earth, then why does it matter if we're right with God? But since Jesus did rise from the dead, then now we have proof that there is life after death. Is because every other question in Christianity hails in comparison. And we really don't have to wrestle with those. Since Jesus truly did rise from the dead, do we really have to worry about some problem verse that we really can't answer? Do we have to worry about resolving the inerrancy of scripture or resolving some personal issue of mine of why I'm having trouble believing certain things? Did Jesus rise from the dead? Yes. Then whatever else the questions are, Christianity's true. If we look again in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 12, here Paul talks about Christ's specific resurrection and the general resurrection of all people. He says there in verse 12, now, if Christ is preached that he had been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? He very clearly is connecting Christ's resurrection from the dead with our resurrection from the dead. Therefore, our bodies will be risen from the dead. And Steve, that is a glorious thing, is it not?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

It does. It gives us hope of a glorified body. And that's what I'm looking forward to is that this body I have here is going to be resurrected and glorified. It's not going to be susceptible to any type of sickness or disease or any of those things. It's going to be a body as I think God originally intended for us to have. And it's going to be one that's going to be with us during those millennial reign of Jesus, the messianic reign, and then past that with the new heavens and the new earth. So our resurrected, glorified body is going to be our future vessel in which our spirit is going to indwell for eternity.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Life is very often full of suffering and pain, but we have proof in the resurrection of Christ that things will indeed be better in the end. And we have proof here. Paul gives it that section we just read. He says here in 1 Corinthians 15, 6 and following, that Christ appeared to more than 500 people at once, many of which are still here. You can go talk to them. They were walking around the countryside demonstrating. That's why Christianity grew so much, is because all of the evidence, all of the eyewitness accounts, James and Peter, and he says, even I, I saw this. So Paul is writing as an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus. There were many eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus. So what does it mean to us? It means that we don't have to worry about resolving some issue in Christianity because Jesus rose from the dead. We can have hope. Our old bodies will be fixed, and we will be able to fellowship with him in the end in the glorious day. That is the greatness of the resurrection. It says in 1 Corinthians 15, 20 that Christ's resurrection is the first fruits. So, Steve, if Christ is the first fruit, what does that imply?

SPEAKER_01 26:38

That implies that there's going to be more fruit. And I think the more fruit is us, the believers who are going to be resurrected again. We are the additional fruit from Jesus' first fruit of resurrection.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

In 1 Corinthians 15, again, down in verse 22, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ the first fruits, after that, those who are Christ's at his coming. So he's very clearly saying there, Christ is the first fruit. And our bodies will be raised just like Christ did. Philippians 3 21 says, quote, Jesus Christ will transform the body of our lowly condition into conformity with his glorious body. So we have here between Philippians 3 and 1 Corinthians 15, we will indeed be risen from the dead in our physical bodies. And these physical bodies will be like his. It will be raised again. Whatever physical problem we have here on earth will be fixed, and we will be raised in this body. That's why Christians have always taken care of our bodies. We believe we should take care of them. We should be honorable to our bodies. And when we die, Christians for 2,000 years have always buried our dead. Why? Because we're going to rise again. Our lowly body, our broken bodies will be like his glorious body. We will be raised physically from the dead in this current body, just like he was. And Steve, that's good news.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

And it's also why we refer to it as resurrection day. Also, the exchange between believers on that day is one will say, He is risen, and the person will respond, he is risen indeed. So it's all about his physical body that was buried as being raised again. The mantra isn't, oh, Jesus is back. He came back. No, he has risen. He is risen indeed. His body is risen. That's the whole point of what is referred to as Easter, but it's resurrection day. The physical body of Jesus Christ is risen again.

A Physical Jesus With Scars

Essential Doctrine Not Optional

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Therefore, when we add this together, we're told that we will rise just as he rose. He's the first fruits. All Christians will follow, and we will be in glorified but very physical bodies. He was raised physically, the tomb was empty. Jesus ate fish in Luke 24, 43, and at the end of John, Luke 24, 39. Jesus said, See my hands and feet, touch me and see, I have flesh. He had 12 appearances after he rose, 500 people at once. People saw, heard, touched him. The same body that died on the cross rose again from the dead. Philippians 3 tells us our physical bodies, the same ones we're in now, will be risen again. Just as a side note, what I've always found interesting is there's a verse towards the end of John. John 20, 19 says, the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, and Jesus came and stood in their midst. And many people take that to mean that Jesus walked through walls, but it doesn't actually say that. It just says they were there and the door was shut and Jesus came and appeared to them. He could have knocked on the door, he could have uh appeared without walking through anything. If we look at just plain physics, if you go from one dimension to two, you don't go through anything, you're just there. If you go from two dimensions to three, you don't go through anything, you're just there. And if you go from three dimensions to four or even other dimensions, it would seem that the same principles would apply. It could be that he was just there without physically walking through anything. He was not a ghost. He was very physical. He held things, he took things, they handled them. He had the scars on his hand and the holes in his side. He was very, very physical. Our bodies will be the same. We will be able to eat if we want to eat. If we don't want to eat, we won't have to eat. Our bodies will be healthy and will be that way for all eternity, which is the way that it was supposed to be in the Garden of Eden. Creation will be returned to its proper place. To get to the summary of what we're trying to do here, there are some very key doctrines that center around the resurrection of Christ. The same physical body that died on the cross was raised again. The resurrection body was the same body. The bodily resurrection is an essential doctrine simply because at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, verses 42 and following, speaking of the general resurrection, it repeats, it is raised, it is raised, it is raised. Philippians 3:21, transform our lowly body to be like his. And for us, the same body we're in now is going to be resurrected. The resurrection of Jesus is also essential because it says here twice in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 14, if Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain. And in verse 17, if Christ is not raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. So if we were to hold that Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, then our faith is in vain. We're still in our sins. Therefore, those that deny the physical resurrection of Christ are in the realm of non-Christian. They are outside the bounds of Orthodox Christianity into heresy and are therefore not Christian. And I want to be quite clear on that simply because Paul was clear on that. And that's why he wrote the entire chapter. He spent many verses on this. If we say that Christ is not physically bodily raised from the dead, their faith is in vain, our faith is futile, and we're still in our sins. Therefore, the resurrection of Christ is an essential Christian doctrine. He also says that the resurrection of Christ and bodily resurrection is important because in verse 18, if Christ is not raised, then all those who have died have perished. Our bodies are as much a part of us as our spirit is. Too many times we've let Plato's philosophy creep into Christian theology, and we have people teaching that the true self is the spirit and the body doesn't matter. I for many years viewed 1 Corinthians 15 through this wrong set of colored glasses, and it never made sense to me until I realized that 1 Corinthians 15 assumes that our body is as much a part of us as our spirit. It is not the case that the true self is the spirit and the body is irrelevant. No, no, a thousand times no. Our body is as much you and I as our spirit is. In 1 Corinthians 15, our resurrection seems to be a key part of the gospel itself. Christians have always held that our bodies will be rise again. 1 Corinthians 15, especially like verse 18, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. Well, that doesn't make sense if our bodies are not a part of us as much as our spirit is. So some people deny the resurrection. Some people deny it sort of in a backhanded way by saying our bodies don't rise, but our spirit lives as some sort of a ghost in heaven. And 1 Corinthians 15 denies this over and over and over again. Somewhere around eight or nine times, he says, it is raised, it is raised, it is raised. The same body that went into the grave will rise again. Steve, I just find this to be very critical, especially when in Acts every sermon mentions the resurrection. Every sermon, for example, even when Paul was speaking to the predominantly pagan peoples in Acts 17, these intellectuals and academics in Athens, they listen to him until he gets to the resurrection. And at that point, it says, some mocked, some said, I'd like to hear more, and some believed. So here's a question: Do we mention the resurrection enough in our sermons today?

Should Churches Preach It More

SPEAKER_01 35:50

I don't believe that it's specifically mentioned during sermons throughout the year. Obviously, during the Easter time, it's a major focus, but the rest of the time, I don't think there's very many sermons that are talked about that. And we we do see over in Acts, that was a major part of what Peter and John and the other disciples were also speaking about. Resurrection was a key. As we noted before, Passover and Pentecost, these two major feasts that brought people in on the day of Pentecost itself. It says that 3,000 souls came to belief in Jesus Christ. And then at Peter's second sermon, it says 5,000 people came to become believers in Jesus Christ. Those are huge, massive numbers. And Peter was up at the portico of the temple speaking and talking about Jesus. These people would not have believed in Jesus if Peter's message was just that, oh, Jesus was here, he came, he died, and he's going to come back someday. Well, that would have fit the pattern of other messiahs that had come, died, and claimed that they were the Messiah as well. No, the resurrection was a central part of it. And I argue that the resurrection was the actual thing that would tip a person's belief from non-belief to belief because it was something that happened, it was something that was talked about. The buzz was in the city of what happened. This was a cataclysmic event that people were talking about. So now when you have the apostles, the actual eyewitnesses, the people that had spent three years with him in his ministry out now talking about it as eyewitnesses as to what happened, it's very easy to see why we had thousands of people that were coming to belief in Jesus Christ. Resurrection was the main reason for that, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Since resurrection is spoken of so much and so frequently and so powerfully in all of the early sermons in Acts, should we be giving the resurrection now more? Should we, when we go out and evangelize, should we give the resurrection to non-believers as part of the gospel?

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Of course we should, because what is our hope? Our blessed hope is in Jesus' return, but it's also in us having a resurrected body, as I mentioned before. So, yes, I think that should be a part of our evangelism of people.

How Bodily Resurrection Could Work

SPEAKER_00 38:38

The questions that come up sometimes that I've seen in churches have to do with just the fact that we know the body decays after it dies. It goes back to dust, there's a few bones left, but the body does indeed decay. We're told, Jesus told the thief on the cross, you will be with me today in paradise. So we know that our souls are in heaven and separated from the physical body. Therefore, how is this bodily resurrection work? Well, in one sense, I kind of humorously say, if you can describe the medical description of the virgin birth, then I can try to give an attempt to describe the medical description of a resurrection. But I would say this the theologians that have taught this over the years, the scriptures don't really go into detail about the biology and the chemistry, but the spirit can exist without the body, but it's incomplete. It's not a whole, simply because, again, our spirit and our body make a unity together. And the spirit without the body is incomplete. So at the return of Christ, he returns with the saints. The souls reinform the body, and the particles are returned to life again because the soul comes back to it. The body dies today because the soul leaves it. And when the soul comes back to it, then the particles will reinform again. And so that's typically the description of the resurrection. And we don't have to have a one-to-one relationship between the exact same particles from when we lived on earth and the exact same particles when we die simply because there's times now where we lose cells. And I seem to be gaining cells over the years instead of losing them. But nevertheless, the resurrection is very much physical because Christ's body is very much physical. And it's part of the gospel because he tells us if the physical resurrection of Christ and even the physical erection of us is what he implies, is not the case, then our faith is in vain. We're of all people most to be pitied. It assumes we are a soul-body unity. And if there's no resurrection, then we have perished. The resurrection is that important.

Why Jesus Dies At Passover

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Yeah, I think that everything that you said, Glenn, on the resurrection is great. And our preparation for our teaching today, you mentioned that this has been lost within the church. And I think it's because it's not talked about very much in the church these days. But as we go out and evangelize other people, we can tell them, well, Jesus loves you, therefore, he wants to have a relationship with you. All of that's true, but resurrection is another point that we should include, I think, more often to tell people that our spirits are going to be reunited with the body and that it's going to live forever as a glorified body. I think that's something that we should include. Now, there was something else that had been brought up that people asked about. And one was why was it that Jesus died on the Passover versus the Day of Atonement? Why was he crucified on Passover? Because they say that the Day of Atonement was the actual day whenever the sins were forgiven for the nation and the sacrifice was made. Well, there's several things that we can look at. One is what did each festival symbolize? The Passover wasn't technically classified as a sin offering, but it doesn't mean that Jesus couldn't function as an atonement sacrifice when he was sacrificed at Passover. The other thing is that the Passover was a precursor to set up Jesus' coming. The Passover lamb was a type of Jesus Christ. The Passover lamb had to be male, he had to be without blemish, and he had to have no broken bones. All three of these things were fulfilled by Jesus. He was a male, obviously. He was without sin, meaning that he was without blemish. And as a typical thing that was done on the cross to hasten the death of people being crucified, their legs would be broken so that they would die a little bit quicker. As they went up to do this to Jesus, that they noted that he was already dead. Therefore, they didn't break his bones. So those three things were fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Jewish tradition also understood that the Passover sacrifice was a satisfactory sacrifice, that the Lamb removed sin from God's sight by dying under God's judgment. Therefore, it was covering the sins of those that were offering it up. And what originally was the Passover? It was originally performed under the tenth plague, whenever the people were coming out of Egypt. God had gone in and working through Moses to release them and bring them out of Egypt to bring them back into the promised land. So this was the tenth plague. This was the one that was going to kill all the firstborn male children throughout the land. So the people were to take the blood of the Passover lamb. And put it over the doorposts and the lintels of their door. And when the death angel came through, the death angel was going to pass over those houses that had that. And those houses were going to be protected from the death of their firstborn male children. That's why it's called Passover. Now, the doorpost and lentils, Glenn, that's the side parts of the doorpost and the lentil was what went over the top part of it. I think if you also look at Jesus and the crucifixion, what do you have? You have his outstretched arms and the nails going through his wrists and being a bloody mess and the crown of thorns as well. So even the action of putting the blood over the lintel and the doorposts on each side, I think is a precursor of Jesus' death through crucifixion. It's just fantastic how I think God put these things together. Individuals were literally saved from death based on the redemptive offering of the blood on the doors. So, in a like manner, death has passed over us who believe in Jesus Christ. And we also see that Jesus orchestrated his death to coincide with Passover. Everything was building up to this. John the Baptizer, when he was out there preaching in the wilderness, when Jesus was approaching, he said, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He said that in John 1, 29. And earlier you talked about the sacrifice that Abraham was making with Isaac. When that was taking place, Isaac asked Abraham, he said, Where's the sacrifice? He said, I see the sticks that are here for the fire for the burnt offering, but where is the sacrifice? And Abraham told Isaac at the time that God would provide the lamb. I'm going to read from Genesis chapter 22 some additional information. Verse 11 starts with this. But the angel of the Lord called him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. He said, Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him. For now I know that you fear God, that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. Verse 13. Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his thorns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Then in verse 14, Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it will be provided. This mount where Abraham went to offer up Isaac is the same mount where the temple was, and the people called it where the Lord will provide. And we see through Jesus Christ that the Lord provided his own Passover lamb in the form of himself to die and be crucified, buried, and resurrected. The last supper that we referred to was actually a Passover meal, and it represents the new exodus from slavery to sin. Jesus said at that Passover meal that he was establishing a new covenant. We've talked about that before. That's the new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31 and other places in Ezekiel and other prophets as well. Jesus' sacrifice was a better sacrifice than those that were given on the Day of Atonement, because his sacrifice was permanent, it was voluntary, and it removed sin altogether. It didn't merely just cover the sin, it removed it altogether. And that's a difference between the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement emphasized only a sin covering. Jesus' death liberated us from sin. And the final thing I want to mention here is that over in Romans chapter 3, it talks about and gives us the explanation of what God was working with because people also ask, well, how were the people saved prior to the crucifixion? We look back and we have belief in Jesus Christ. How is it that they were saved beforehand? It's always been through faith in God and through the promises that He gave. And I think Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 25 explain it very well. I want to read there, starting in verse 21. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. But it is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his God's grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly, that's through his crucifixion, as a propitiation or a satisfactory sacrifice in his blood through faith, our faith. Thus was demonstrated his righteousness because in God's merciful restraint, he let the sins previously committed go unpunished. Those are the sins from the Old Testament saints for the demonstration that is of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So Paul, I think, Glenn, makes it very clear here in Romans that the sins of the Old Testament saints, the ones who had faith, like Abraham, that believed in God's promises, were overlooked until the actual sacrifice that was made through Jesus Christ. And at that time, those sins are forgiven. And we look back and have belief in Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. The Old Testament saints look forward to a time whenever there was going to be a permanent sacrifice. It's very clear that God provided the Lamb Himself through Jesus Christ. And he did that so that he could both be just and the justifier for the sin debt that we all owe.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

One of the things that I think of is just from a practical standpoint to the average person, the Day of Atonement was a ceremony done in the temple by mainly just the high priest, except for the animal outside. I suppose a few men could see it, but the ceremony wasn't really visible to the population. They didn't see that. Whereas the Passover was done by every family, every husband, wife, and child in every town around the world, basically. And so it would, it meant a lot more. And there's elements in the Seder services that would just fit better with Christ. So when Christ died on the Passover, then it just made a lot more emotional sense to a lot of people. But here's another question, Steve. If we were to compare Jesus with every other founder of every other religion in the history of mankind, we look at Jesus compared to Muhammad or Buddha or Confucius or Zoroaster or anybody that ever founded a new religion or a cult or any of the, say, the uh ancient Roman gods or any of these things. What distinguishes Jesus from every other founder of every other religion?

What Makes Jesus Different

SPEAKER_01 52:19

They're all dead, and Jesus is alive. That's the main factor, and that's what we've just spent quite a bit of time in this study talking about, is that's the main difference. Jesus Christ is alive today, seated at the right hand of the Father, and we're awaiting his return, our blessed hope.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Exactly. Well, regardless of what you feel about their teachings, they're all still dead. And his body is very physical and still exists in the universe, in heaven at this point, and he will physically return to the earth, and we in our bodies will rise again. That is our blessed hope is that we will have this afterlife. We will have eternal life. God will resurrect us and fix nature. He'll fix us uh spiritually, fix us physically, and fix the world. All of that is tied up in the resurrection of Christ.

Share This Study And Closing

SPEAKER_01 53:16

We thank you so much for being with us during this special study of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, what's commonly referred to as Easter. We hope that you take this and it's answered some questions that you might have. But if there's other people, friends, family that are wondering the same type of questions, we hope that you would take this, forward it to them, share it with them, provide this study to them. It's an easy way if you're talking with somebody where you can't maybe answer all the questions over a cup of coffee, but you can say, you know what, I have something else that I can send to you after this that you can sit down at your leisure and watch. We hope that you would do that. We hope that it's going to be a blessing to you.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

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SPEAKER_01 54:12

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.