Why the Resurrection of Jesus Is the Foundation of Christian Faith

Summary

This article explains why Jesus’s resurrection is the foundation of Christianity. The empty tomb, early eyewitness testimony, and the transformation and martyrdom of the disciples rule out alternative explanations. Christianity began and spread because Jesus truly rose from the dead. Like all historical facts, the resurrection rests on reliable witnesses. Jesus’s resurrection not only explains the church’s existence but also offers living hope and life-changing power today.

Christianity Stands or Falls on the Resurrection of Jesus

Without Jesus’s resurrection, Christianity collapses. The church’s existence makes no sense. It began only after His resurrection. A religion based on the easily disprovable claim that George Washington resurrected has no factual basis. Jesus’ tomb was empty. No one could find His dead body.

Why Christians Worship on Sunday

Jesus’s resurrection is why Sunday is the Christian day of worship. The first Christians were all Jews. For them, Saturday, not Sunday, had religious significance. Jesus’s resurrection triggered the shift.

Multiple Eyewitnesses and Early Testimony

The New Testament contains six independent testimonies of the resurrection. Matthew, John, and Peter were eyewitnesses. Paul’s writings suggest it was widely accepted as a fact in the 50s and 60s A.D. These writers didn’t invent the story.

Failed Alternative Explanations

The earliest explanation of the resurrection was that Jesus’s disciples stole the body. They’d have gained nothing by making up a resurrection story. Most of them lost their lives by sticking with it. How many people have you known who died for telling a lie they knew was a lie? The disciples utterly believed in the resurrection. It transformed them from cowardly hiders into bold preachers.

Jewish or Roman authorities didn’t move Jesus’ body. They’d have produced it to squash the preaching that Jesus had risen. They didn’t because they couldn’t.

Some insist that the women who first saw the empty tomb went to the wrong tomb. Joseph of Arimathea knew the right tomb. It was his. He would have corrected any such mistake. The Jewish and Roman authorities would have done the same.

Some claim Jesus somehow recovered from His wounds in the tomb. If so, He would’ve been a world-class liar. He encouraged His followers to believe in and preach His resurrection.

Transformed Disciples and Costly Faith

Jesus’s followers claimed to see Him alive from the dead. They didn’t hallucinate. None of them expected Him to resurrect. They had to be persuaded that He had risen from the dead.

“You’ve been duped,” a critic commented on this blog. His second comment: “It certainly is not because you personally witnessed Jesus stepping out of the tomb or because you really know what you’re even talking about.”

My response:

“My belief in the resurrection is based on the testimony of reliable witnesses, exactly as evidence is examined in our law courts today. See “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell. John Singleton Copley, one of the greatest legal minds in British history, said, ‘I know pretty well what evidence is, and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet.’ I don’t have to see John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln to know it happened.”

Trusting Reliable Witnesses

Much of what we believe is based on the testimony of reliable witnesses. According to tradition, all but one of Jesus’ disciples died because they preached that Jesus had risen from the dead. People don’t die for a lie that they know is a lie. By far, the best explanation of their martyrs’ deaths is that they saw Jesus after He rose from the dead and never got over it! That is why I believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus is alive to change your life today. He’s changed mine! He can do the same for you!

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