The resurrection is real

OPINION:

It’s Easter 2025, and as sure as the sunrise, attacks on the essential tenets of Christianity are rife.

Whether it be the revisiting of Shelby Spong’s claim that Christ’s resurrection is “not believable,” Billy Preston’s terrible half-baked scholarship or Bart Ehrman’s ubiquitous lectures whereby we’re told over and over again that credal Christian faith is little more than a fourth-century Constantinian construct, orthodox Christian faith is under attack.

Belief in an incarnate God who died for our sins and rose from the grave is foolish, so our critics say. Rational people do not believe such primitive stories. At best, they are mere metaphors that serve as an opiate for the masses. At worst, they are delusional and dangerous. Either way, no educated person really believes this nonsense. Everyone knows dead people coming out of the grave is the stuff of fairy tales and pixie dust. As much as we might wish such things to be true, they simply aren’t.

What are we to make of this skepticism? Is the story of an empty tomb and a risen savior little more than a childish fantasy, or is it something more, and how can we know?

Well, maybe rather than listening to people like Spong and Preston, who are nearly 2,000 years removed from the events about which they purport to be experts, we should go back and read the accounts of those who were there.

Some scholars suggest that St. Mark wrote his account of a resurrected Jesus as early as the 40s AD. This would place his reporting within a handful of years of the actual events he witnessed. It would be akin to you or me writing about the presidency of Barack Obama or what we saw while watching Tom Brady play football for New England. This is hardly the stuff of ancient history.

The apostle Paul’s letters to the churches in Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, Philippi and Rome are estimated to have been authored c. 48-59 AD. Again, what Paul spoke of was not old, unfounded conjecture. He was there. He saw what he saw, heard what he heard, and reported it as a firsthand account.

James most likely wrote his epistle between 45 and 50. Peter and Jude wrote theirs in the 60s. Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels were written around 80 AD, and John’s account is dated between 60 and 90.

The point is that what we know of Jesus’ resurrection was penned very early, and it was written not by second- or thirdhand sources but by those who said they saw the risen Christ and were tortured and or killed for telling the story.

Here’s the thing: Although some men might die for a lie that they think is true, no man will die for a lie when he knows it is false. Terrorists might fly airplanes into buildings if they believe the lie of Islamic martyrdom, but they won’t kill themselves for something they know is a sham in the first place.

Charles Spurgeon once said, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is one of the best-attested facts on record. There were so many witnesses to behold it, that if we do in the least degree receive the credibility of men’s testimonies, we cannot and we dare not doubt that Jesus rose from the dead. … The resurrection is a fact better attested than any event recorded in any history, whether ancient or modern.

Billy Graham later added, “There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three,” and that evidence is given to us by those who were part of the story and gave their lives to tell it.

“I know the resurrection is a fact,” said Chuck Colson, “and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one [of these men] was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world, and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”

“Why would the apostles lie?” asks Peter Kreeft. “Liars always lie for selfish reasons. If they lied, what was their motive? What did they get out of it? What they got out of it was misunderstanding, rejection, persecution, torture, and martyrdom. Hardly a list of perks!”

The bottom line is that if you want evidence for Jesus, it’s there, and it has been given to you by those who gave their lives so that you might have it.

“Christ the Lord is risen today, sons of men and angels say. Raise your joys and triumphs high; Sing, ye heavens and earth reply.” — Charles Wesley

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery).