pilgrim people

The empty tomb of Jesus is a powerful witness, but not one which alone establishes the factuality of the resurrection. Even after the women and Peter and John went to the tomb and verified that it was empty, they did not immediately begin to preach that Christ was risen, risking their lives. No, the text tells us that they went back to their homes. They weren’t convinced of anything, they were only grieved more than before. Tombs were often robbed in the ancient world, adding insult and injury to a person’s grief.

The testimony of the empty tomb was coupled with the testimony of the eyewitnesses, to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.5 “that he appeared to Cephas,” that is, Peter, “then to the twelve,” that is, the rest of the disciples (even though Judas Iscariot was no longer with them, they were still called “the twelve”).

And THIS, you see, along with the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost, is what caused these cowardly, panic-stricken group of men to risk life and limb by boldly and publicly preaching Christ as raised from the dead. They had seen him with their own eyes. It wasn’t a vision or a ghost, but Christ in the flesh, who even ate and drank with them. That is why, upon Christ’s commission to them to go into the world and preach the gospel, this band of disciples no longer feared death, and no amount of persecution could silence them. They had seen it for themselves: Christ had been raised from the dead.

This is why the physician Luke begins his gospel by saying, "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write down an orderly account for you."

It is why John begins his first epistle by saying, “That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands …that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you.”

These were not crazy men. They were simply reporting what they saw and heard with their own eyes and ears. This is why Peter says in his second epistle that they “did not follow cleverly devised myths” and why on the Day of Pentecost he preached in his sermon that God raised up Jesus from the dead “and of that we are all witnesses.” He would NOT have stood up in public during the Feast of Pentecost in front of thousands of fellow Jews and said such things unless he believed it was true.

And Paul says in 1 Cor 15.6 that Christ also “appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive.” If the Corinthians or anyone else had a doubt that Jesus had been raised from the dead, they could still, even in the year 55AD (when Paul wrote this letter) verify from hundreds of living eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen Christ. The resurrection of Christ is not a “spiritual experience” that we have in our hearts; it is a real event form history that could be verified by witnesses.

Paul also says in 1 Cor 15 that Christ “appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” He was the last apostle, the last one to have witnessed the physically raised Lord and be commissioned by him. He was not one of the original disciples; he was formerly Saul of Tarsus, a highly educated, extremely zealous Pharisee who hated the disciples and this new heretical sect known as Christianity. He, like everyone else in his day, was well aware of the fact of the empty tomb, but it was on the road to Damascus, as he went to arrest more of these Christians, that he was met by the risen Lord. THAT is what convinced this man who previously persecuted the church!

The factuality of an event is determined by the probability of the evidence supporting it. And the evidence shows from the testimony of the empty tomb AND the testimony of the eyewitnesses that the resurrection of Christ is a fact from history.