I. INTRODUCTION

A. In Romans 1:4, the Bible states that Jesus "was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead." Indeed, His resurrection is the sign for all times that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Christ, the Son of God, and the coming Judge of the world (Acts 17:30-31).

B. For this reason, the enemies of Christ often target His resurrection in order to discredit Him.

1. If Christ's resurrection can be proved to be a fraud, then Christ also is a fraud and Christianity is a lie. Truly, His resurrection is the key to the Christian faith (1Cor. 15:12-19).

2. Therefore, opponents of Christianity seek to advance theories to disprove His resurrection.

C. Believers in Christ need to be prepared to defend the truth of Christ's resurrection against the theories of man (1Pet. 3:15). This defense is the goal of this lesson.

II. ANSWERING THE THEORIES OF MAN ABOUT CHRIST'S RESURRECTION

A. One theory supposes that the disciples of Christ stole His body from the tomb. This theory fails for several reasons.

1. Roman soldiers were posted at Christ's tomb to prevent this possibility.

a. The chief priest and Pharisees anticipated such an event and requested that Pilate assign soldiers to the grave, which they also sealed (Matt. 27:62-66).

b. These soldiers actually witnessed the angel who rolled away the stone from the opening of the tomb and "became like dead men" (Matt. 28:2-4). When they reported these events to the chief priests, the Jewish leaders gave them a large sum of money and ordered them to say, "His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep." The Jewish leaders also promised to keep the soldiers from any trouble with Pilate (Matt. 28:11-15).

c. If the soldiers were asleep, then they did not witness the disciples stealing the body and their testimony was invalid. If they were awake, then they would have prevented the theft. Either way, the theory of theft fails.

2. The disciples of Jesus were incapable of stealing His body from the tomb.

a. At the time of the resurrection, the disciples were utterly despondent. Their expectations concerning Jesus had been disappointed, and such a bold and daring act as stealing the body of Jesus was beyond their capacity.

b. The disciples would not have conceived a plot to steal Christ's body because they would not have believed a resurrection hoax themselves. Even when they received true reports of Christ's resurrection from trustworthy sources and saw Him themselves, they had difficulty believing it and were doubtful (Matt. 28:17; Mark 16:11-14; Luke 24:11, 33-39; John 20:24-25).

3. If the disciples had stolen the body, then they would have known Christ's resurrection was a fraud, and they would not have been willing to suffer as they did.

a. The apostles of Jesus and other witnesses of His resurrection did not become rich for their testimony, but rather they received persecution and even death (Acts 4:1-22; 5:17-42; 7:54-8:3; 12:1-4; etc.).

b. A self-invented fraud would not have given them courage and conviction to falsely proclaim the resurrection of Jesus at the peril of their own lives and for no benefit to themselves (see 1Cor. 15:13-19).

B. Another theory asserts Christ did not die on the cross but merely swooned. This theory also fails.

1. It is an impossibility that Jesus could have revived by any natural means.

a. His wounds were terminal, and the disciples were completely convinced that He was dead (John 20:25).

b. Some would point to Pilate's apparent surprise that Jesus died so quickly as evidence that He still could have been alive (Mark 15:44-45). However, the centurion verified that Jesus was indeed dead, and the soldiers even pierced His side with a spear, which was a terminal would itself (John 19:31-34).

c. His body was prepared, wrapped, and laid in the tomb by Joseph and Nicodems (Matt. 27:59-60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:50-53; John 19:38-40). They certainly knew He was dead and would not have buried Him if He were still alive.

d. Even if Jesus somehow survived, it is impossible by any natural means for a severely wounded man to spend thirty-six to forty hours in a sealed tomb, rouse himself, free himself from the burial wrappings, and remove the heavy stone to escape from the tomb.

e. The abundant evidence of Christ's wounds and the witnesses of His death make it logically impossible that He could have survived His crucifixion naturally.

2. The disciples of Jesus would not have been emboldened by a wounded and sickly Lord who would eventually die a natural death and be buried a final time.

a. The idea that Jesus did not die on the cross would mean that He survived as a badly injured man. His weak appearance would hardly inspire such a response as was given by Thomas, who said, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).

b. The Scripture describes the resurrected Jesus as being in normal health and moving about with ease, although He bore the wounds in His body. This is not the image of a man who had barely survived such a brutal torture as crucifixion.

c. If Jesus had naturally survived the crucifixion, then He would have later died a natural death. This would mean that the basis of Christianity was a hoax, and as noted before the disciples would not have been motivated to suffer as they did for a fraud they invented.

C. A third theory describes the resurrection of Christ as a mass hallucination. Again, this theory fails.

1. Before answering this theory, let us consider it more closely.

a. The idea of this theory is that visions of Jesus after His burial were in the imaginations of despondent, self-deluded disciples. By this theory, these disciples were not lying about what they had imagined, but they were misinterpreting their imaginations for reality.

b. Advocates of this theory point to Paul's vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-7) and claim that it and other visions of the disciples were no different than later visions that were claimed by such persons as Mohammed or Theresa of Calcutta.

2. This theory is easily dismissed by the empty tomb of Jesus.

a. If the disciples of Jesus had merely imagined that Jesus lived after His crucifixion, then their enemies could have easily refuted them by the presence of His body in the tomb.

b. However, the body was gone. We already considered the problems with the notion that the disciples stole the body, and if their enemies had taken it, then they would have produced it as evidence to stop the rise of Christianity.

3. If visions of Christ's resurrection were hallucinations, then there is no explanation for why they would have ceased after forty days.

a. According to the Acts 1:3, Jesus appeared to the apostles for forty days and then no more. The only other similar appearance of Jesus was to Saul of Tarsus, which he described as the last of these appearances (1Cor. 15:8). If these were random, deluded hallucinations, then they would not have suddenly ceased altogether.

b. If the disciples were only imagining visions of Jesus, then it seems likely that they would have seen Him again on the Day of Pentecost. Instead, they received the Holy Spirit as Jesus had promised them (Acts 2:1-4).

4. Such mass hallucinations are simply impossible and unbelievable.

a. This theory requires for many people individually and collectively to have had the same imagined vision repeatedly from Jerusalem to Damascus. This simply could not happen.

b. Consider the list of witnesses to Christ's resurrection in 1Corinthians 15:3-8.

i. Would Peter imagine that which he did not expect (Matt. 16:21-22)?

ii. Would the apostles imagine that which they did not believe (Mark 16:11, 13)?

iii. Could five-hundred people all have the same deluded vision at the same time?

iv. Could Saul of Tarsus, who was the most violent opponent of Christianity, have such a convincingly powerful vision of Jesus that he would completely turn to the other side and give up everything that was precious to him (Phil. 3:1-11)?

III. CONCLUSION

A. As these theories of man concerning Christ's resurrection fail, the word of God succeeds.

1. The resurrection of Jesus was a real, miraculous, historical event that changed the world.

2. The proof of His resurrection crushes all theories raised up against it (2Cor. 10:3-6).

B. As the truth of Christ's resurrection stands, the salvation He brings continues to spread to every soul who believes in Him.