THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

( Acts 2 : 22 - 38 )

Did Jesus rise from the dead? What contemporary evidence is there to back up the claim that he did? In this sermon, preached in Greyfriars Presbyterian Church, Mt. Eden, Auckland on 4 May 2003, Rob Yule examines the often-neglected evidence of the book of Acts. He shows that there were credible witnesses who met Jesus alive, that the early Christian preaching of Jesus’ resurrection invited falsification if it hadn’t actually happened, and that only an event like the resurrection can fully account for all the facts involved in the origin of the Christian movement.

The message of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is profoundly relevant. Death is universal. This is illustrated by the old syllogism used to teach deductive logic:

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man

Therefore Socrates is mortal.

In our liberated age we have learned that this applies to women as well as men. All human beings are mortal. Socrates’ wife is mortal too. Every human being - every one of you - will one day die. Nothing can be more relevant than this central affirmation of the Christian message - that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is alive: he offers meaning and new life to all who believe in him.

The resurrection of Jesus has profound and important implications:

1. It Reveals God’s Purpose (2:22-24)

We know how a higher court - the Court of Appeal or the Privy Council - can overturn the verdict of a lower court. That’s what was involved in the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus crucifixion, by both Jews and Gentiles (anomoi, ‘those without the law’, Acts 2: 23) was a cruel miscarriage of justice. In raising Jesus from the dead God reversed this unjust decision by evil people and gave a just verdict in Jesus’ favour. The resurrection was God’s approval or vindication of Jesus. Just as signs, wonders and miracles were God’s endorsement of Jesus’ life (Acts 2: 22), the resurrection was God’s approval of his death (Acts 2: 24).

God had foreknowledge of Jesus’ death. God wasn’t wrong-footed by it. God’s purpose wasn’t thwarted by the schemes and treachery of evil people. All this happened ‘by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge’ (Acts 2: 23, NIV). God anticipated it. God used Jesus’ death to bring us forgiveness, his rejection to gain our acceptance. The worst human beings can do is outflanked by God’s grace.

The resurrection of Jesus is the basis of the Christian’s confidence that God can bring good even out of evil. ‘We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him’ (Romans 8: 28, NIV). All things - even evil things - work together for the good of those who love God.

How do we know this ? What’s the basis of our assurance that good triumphs over evil and God’s purpose wins out over human treachery ? We know it because Jesus’ resurrection demonstrates that God can take the very worst that human beings can do - execute his beloved Son - and turn it to the good of humankind. Like a master chess player God can salvage a winning move when his opponent has just cried ‘Checkmate’. The resurrection reveals God’s victory over evil.

2. It Fulfils Scripture Prophecy (2:25-28)

The reason we know that the death of Jesus didn’t take God by surprise was because it was predicted in the Bible. Many prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus’ death on the cross, when he was utterly helpless (eg. Psalm 22, Isaiah 53). We know that the resurrection was God’s intended outcome because it too was predicted in Scripture prophecy. Peter quotes Psalm 16: 9-10 (NIV): ‘My body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay’.

David was the author of this psalm. But Peter says these words from Psalm 16 can’t refer to David, because David died, his body experienced corruption, and his tomb is still here in this city, Jerusalem (Acts 2: 29).

There’s an important truth here about the nature of the resurrection. The biblical understanding of resurrection involves incorruptibility. Jesus’ body did not experience corruption or decay.

In the early sixteenth century the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger did a grim painting of ‘The Dead Christ’. The power of death is emphasised by the long, narrow, horizontal nature of the painting, 200 cm (6 1/2 feet) wide and only 30. 5 cm (1 foot) high. Painted in 1521, it shows the extremities of Christ’s body - his face, hands and feet - already beginning to decay, with portions of blue and black decaying flesh.

Holbein’s painting was viewed by the great Russian writer Dostoevsky in the Public Art Gallery in Basle, Switzerland, in 1867. It had a profound and disturbing impact on him. Dostoevsky’s wife Anna found him transfixed for a long time, looking at it. Dostoevsky refers to it in his novel The Idiot (II, 4): ‘There are some people who might lose their faith after looking at this painting.’ Elsewhere he reflects (III, 6):

‘Here one cannot help being struck with the idea that if death is so horrible and if the laws of nature are so powerful, then how can they be overcome ? How can they be overcome when even He did not conquer them, He who overcame nature during His lifetime... ?

Dostoevsky found this an enormous challenge to faith. Has death overcome life ? Has nature overcome the Creator ? I regard Dostoevsky as the greatest Christian writer, because he squarely faced such great issues of faith and doubt. He strove for the rest of his artistic career to worthily represent the biblical view of resurrection.

The resurrection is the central theme of Dostoevsky’s last novel, The Brothers Karamazov. The novel ends with a group of young boys gathered around the gravestone of a friend:

‘Karamazov’, cried Kolya, ‘is it really true that, as our religion tells us, we shall all rise from the dead and come to life, and see one another again ?’

‘Certainly, we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see one another, and shall tell one another gladly and joyfully all that has been,’ Alyosha replied, half laughing, half rapturously.

‘Oh, how wonderful it will be !’ Kolya cried.

The Bible tells us that Jesus’ body didn’t experience corruption. Jesus’ resurrection is not only the triumph of life over death. It is the triumph of life over corruption - decay, decadence, disintegration, decomposition. Life has conquered death. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Christ has been raise incorruptible.

3. It Satisfies Historical Proof (2:29-36)

There are two major elements in historical proof, providing us with persuasive confirmation that an event actually happened: that there are credible witnesses, and that it gives a coherent explanation of all the evidence, including negative evidence.

The evidence of eyewitnesses (2:32)

‘God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.’ The ‘we’ were Peter and the eleven apostles (Acts 2: 14). The apostles were chosen to be witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 1: 22). ‘God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen - by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.’ (Acts 10: 40-41, NIV).

Twenty years later (according to 1 Corinthians 15: 6) Paul can still refer to eyewitnesses, including more than 500 believers, some of whom, he says, have already ‘fallen asleep’, but most of whom are ‘still living’. To ‘fall asleep’ was how the early Christians referred to death. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, death is not a permanent state, annihilation ; but a temporary state, like sleep, from which we’ll one day be woken up ! So characteristic was this terminology among the early Christians that it became our name for a place of burial: a ‘cemetery’ or ‘sleeping place’.

Paul’s reference to those ‘still living’ implied that in his day there were still eyewitness whom you could talk to about it, people who met Jesus alive in the days after his death, people who could vouch for the reality of his resurrection.

The silence of detractors (2:29)

There is a powerful negative factor that corroborates the positive evidence of the eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive: the inability of the opponents of the Christian movement to produce the body of Jesus. To falsify the early Christian preaching, all the religious and political authorities in Jerusalem had to do was produce Jesus’ dead body. No argument would have been necessary. He would have been dead and discredited. The Christian ship would have been scuttled before leaving harbour.

Peter invited such falsification when he said that King David’s burial place ‘is here to this day’ (Acts 2: 29): in Siloam (Silwan), in the Kidron Valley, south of Jerusalem. Evidently Jesus’ body wasn’t there ! The opponents of the Christian message, even those who’d crucified Jesus just fifty days earlier, couldn’t produce it. This would have been the quickest way to falsify the early Christian preaching. The silence of the Jews, said A. M. Fairburn, is just as significant as the speech of the Christians.

Jesus rose from the dead. He is alive. You can meet him. You can discover God’s purpose for your life, even in the midst of sorrow, suffering, and bereavement. Jesus is alive. Through him you can receive God’s forgiveness for your sins. Just as in raising Jesus God overruled the wrong that people had done to him, so God can annul the mistakes of your past and the wrong you have done. ‘Turn back to God ! Be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven.’ (Acts 2: 38, CEV).

Rob Yule, 4 May 2003

© 2003, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church