The Resurrection of the Christ

The Resurrection of the Christ THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST
By John T. Smith The outstanding event of world history is the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. No other is comparable to it. No event, upon either the sacred or the secular page, has wrought such marvelous changes upon the world of mankind. Verily, the resurrection of Christ is the center of the ages. All that went before it pointed forward to it. All things since point backward to it, and have been molded by it. His resurrection is the power which transforms the world, and forms the only ground for the Christian’s hope of another life. Thus argued Paul, when he said: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. ... ye are yet in your sins. They also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). Thus everything depends upon the resurrection of Christ. It is the most indispensable fact in the experience of the human family. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, every soul takes a leap into the dark at death, and the black crepe of hopelessness hangs eternally from the door of every heart. If his resurrection be proven, Christianity is established; if disproved, the whole system is a “will- o’-the-wisp,” offering nothing as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast.

I do not flatter myself this morning that I shall be able to present a single new thought upon this great theme. But I do wish to reaffirm my faith m him as the risen Lord, and to reiterate and emphasize our answer to such as deny the resurrection of the man of Galilee. A number of dlfrerent material facts concerning this extraordinary and remarkable man are as clearly and strongly attested as any occurrences of history. And it is understood that his enemies have never denied or even questioned these. These attested facts are as follows: There once lived such a man. He lived at the time assigned him in the gospels, and in the very country where gospel writers represent him as living, i.e. in the land of Palestine, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar. That he was arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, in Jerusalem. He was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, the grave closed by a great stone and sealed with the Governor’s signet, and to prevent deception, a guard of Roman soldiers was set to “make it as sure as you can.” And then, wonder of wonders, the body'was missing from the tomb on the morning of the third day.

“What became of the body of Jesus?” has constituted the battleground of the friends and the foes of Jesus from that mornmg until this morning. His friends declare he arose from the dead, and that “he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs” (Acts 1:3). His enemies, Jews, atheists and modernists, deny this, and propose to account for the disappearance of the body on the ground of trickery and fraud, or some other basis than a resurrection of the body. Hence, to determine what became of the body is the task of his friends today. As before said: upon the settlement of this question hangs the hope of the world. To the battle then, ye foes of Christianity! You shall be permitted to strike first. What say you, became of the body of Jesus? How do you account for the fact that it was missing from the tomb on the morning-of the third day? And as far' back- as we are able to trace, these enemies have had about the same three arguments or explanations to advance through all the years.

First, they say the body was taken out of the tomb' by the authorities and placed somewhere else.: That it did not arise from the dead, but was removed to another grave or resting place by the Roman authorities. But is there the semblance of truth or reason in this assertion ? Can • anybody accept this attempted explanation? If that were the truth, when the story was being spread to every nook and corner of the land that he had risen and was alive from the dead, why did they not produce the body and thus expose the fraud? How simple and easy that would have been, and it would have settled the matter and silenced forever the heralds of his resurrection. Does any sane, sensible man think for a moment that the Roman authorities, hating the Jews as they did, would connive with them to palm off a deception and a cheat upon the world ? Obviously, they would have done anything in their power to stop the spread of the story of the resurrection of this leader of the Jews. Why then did they not produce his dead body? Only because they could not. They did not possess it.

Secondly, the foes of Jesus say he was not actually dead when placed in the tomb, but only in an uncon-scious state or a swoon, and that later he revived; regained consciousness, and of his own strength, es-caped. This also is too unreasonable and absurd to be accepted. He had been nailed to the cross, hands and feet. Had hung there many hours in pain and in agony. The centurion had been sent to see if he were dead, and had thrust a spear into his side, out of which came forth blood and water, indicating that he was dead. Also, he had been officially pronounced dead before he was taken from the cross. But granting that he was not actually dead, still in his weakened condition after the loss of so much blood, it would have been impossible for him to make his escape, since the stone which closed the grave was, as Mark (16:3-4) says, “exceedingly great.” And had Jesus possessed the natural, physical strength to escape, the Roman guard would have discovered his attempt, and would have halted it. Hence, this story is unbelievable, and has no foundation in fact. The third subterfuge advanced by the enemies of Jesus is that his disciples stole his body from the tomb, and bore it away and concealed it. But the enemies of Jesus themselves had taken every precaution that this very thing might not occur. To prevent this or any other fraud, the Roman guard had been placed at the tomb. “The chief priests and Pharisees were gathered unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away. . . . Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as you can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch” (Matthew 27:62-66). But on the morning of the third day, the guard still confessedly present, the body was missing. Wonder of wonders! What became of the body? ‘'His disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept,” say the guards. But can we believe this statement? Is there any semblance of truth in it? If, as they confess, they were asleep when the body disappeared, how could they know whether it was stolen, or simply arose and walked away?
Moreover, if it were stolen, how could men, con-fessedly asleep, know who did the deed? Upon this one count alone their testimony is unworthy to be believed. But who believes their word—that “we slept”? These men were Roman soldiers, and they knew full well that the penalty for sleeping on guard was death, according to the Roman law. It will be recalled that when Peted escaped from prison, Herod commanded that the guards be put to death (Acts 12:19. See also Acts 16:27). Why were the guards not punished if they slept?

We further inquire, what motive could the disciples have had for stealing the body ? It could not have been in order to preserve it, in anticipation of his resurrection, for they did not believe he would arise. When Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples that Jesus was alive and had been seen of her, they “believed not” (Mark 16:10-11. See Luke 24:1-11; John 20:9). There was nothing to be gained by pretending that he was alive, and therefore no motive to prompt these poor, weak, fainting disciples to steal the body. This is but another fabrication told to deceive. In his great Commentary on the New Testament, Dr. J. W. McGarvey says: “His enemies of that generation, men of learning and ingenuity whose honor was involved in the issue, were able to invent no better account of said disappearance than this absurd story, put into the mouths of the soldiers; and men of subsequent ages have made no improvement on this original falsehood.”

Then WHAT DID BECOME OF THE BODY? And a mighty chorus of voices breaks forth in thunderous roar, challenging the tempest’s loudest shock, and resounding to earth’s remotest bounds, “He arose from the dead.” “He is alive.” But is this testimony credible? Can we accept the evidence of these witnesses? It has been said there are two things, either of which would invalidate their testimony. These are: first, the witnesses were honestly deceived, or secondly, they were deceivers, dishonest men. They could not have been both deceived and dishonest. I repeat, what of the credibility of their testimony? Can we believe it? Come now ye enemies of the cross! Stand up like men, and fairly examine the testimony of the unconquered host who say, “Jesus arose from the dead, and reigns a king in glory.” They affirm, “We knew this man of Galilee intimately from the time of his baptism, throughout a period of three and a half years. That we walked and talked with him over the hills and vales of Judea, Samaria and Galilee. We sailed with him on the sea of Galilee, and were with him day and night. We heard his wonderful teaching and beheld his matchless life. We were with him at the last supper, and heard him announce that the tragedy was at hand. We went with him to the garden of Gethsemane, that never-to- be-forgotten night, and heard his prayers and saw his agony there. We witnessed his arrest, his trials, and saw him nailed to the cross. We believed this ended all. And even when we were told that he was alive, ‘we believed it not.’ To our great surprise, we learned from some who visited the tomb early on the morning of the third day, that he was alive, and had been seen by some. After this, he made a number of appearances, sometimes to a part, and at other times to all the eleven. 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 . . . after that, he appeared to James; then to all the apostles.’ As before his crucifixion, we were with him much after his resurrection. We beheld him with our eyes, and handled him with our hands. We ate and drank with him, and talked with him of things pertaining to the kingdom. We were with him forty days, and then followed him out to Bethany, and saw him, after pronouncing a blessing upon us, taken up into heaven. Even while we were looking, a cloud received him out of our sight. And while we gazed steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, two men stood by us in white apparel, and said: ‘Ye men of Galilee, Why stand ye looking into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven’ ” (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9-11). Answer now ye enemies of the cross! Is this the fiction of excited minds? Can his appearance be considered an hallucination ? Such a deception would be psychologically impossible, since his appearances were not in visions and dreams, or seances, but they saw him with their own eyes, more than five hundred of them at one time. With every opportunity to see and to know, it was impossible for them to be deceived.

But, say the foes now, the witnesses were not honest men It was not a matter of deception. They knew they were perpetrating a falsehood upon the world. They knew they did not see Jesus of Nazareth alive from the dead after his crucifixion. Thus they would disqualify the witnesses on the ground of dishonesty. They charge, “You lie when you say you saw Jesus alive from the dead.” Yet those witnesses tenaciously held to their story, and defended their honesty unto their death. Was it ever known that a hand of men would fabricate a story and all and every one of them maintain the same story, always and everywhere, through torture and even to death, without even relenting? That they did maintain their story through indescnbaole suffering and torture, and finally to death, is an undeniable fact. They were despised and rejected as was their Lord, They were naked, hungry, cold, and distressed. They were tortured in every possible way for their story—beaten with rods, scourged, stoned, imprisoned, but they never denied their first story, that Jesus of Nazareth arose from the dead. They maintained it first and they maintained it last; through life and through death. And it would require more credulity to believe them dishonest, than to believe their story—that he arose from the dead.

Since, therefore, in the face of I he facts, they could not have been deceived; and since their recorded teachings as to moral life and conduct bear every evi -dence of unmistakable honesty and integrity, and that they further proved their honesty and unbounded con-fidence in the story, by- death, to the last man of themr their testimony must be true and altogether dependable. Jesus arose from the dead. Thus are his claims established and the man of Galilee fully vindicated. Jesus has triumphed over death and the Hadean powers, and “Brought life and immortality to light, through the gospel.” Peter says, “God hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

Paul says: He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).
To the Corinthians, Paul wrote: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

Jesus says: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Peter says: “Because it was not possible that he should be holden of death” (Acts 2:24). At his last recorded appearance, to John, on the isle of Patmos, he said: “I am the first and the last, and the living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of hades” (Revelation 1:17-18).

Then, shout the glad news to the remotest bounds of the habitable earth, death no more hath power, the grave no more hath room. Today, we are mariners upon life’s sea; but with the word of God as our chart and compass, hope as the anchor of our souls, and the risen Lord as our pilot, we shall weather every blast, and one day cast anchor in that blissful harbor beyond this stormy sea. For we travel to that land which God has said he will give us. Yea, “We hasten to that glad springtide where the winds do not beat, and the clouds do not drench, the spring of the glad forever.” That land of which it has been said:

“Go wing thy flight from star to star
To world as far as the universe spreads its flaming walls;
Take all the pleasures of the spheres And multiply each through endless years
One moment of heaven is worth them all.”