Fully Devoted: JesusSample

Is it True? 

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. … For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 1 Corinthians 15:13-14, 16-17 NIV

Those are harsh but true words from the Apostle Paul. If Jesus didn’t come back from the dead then our entire faith is useless. One of the things that makes Christianity unique is the fact that it is based on a historic event. 

Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions, had this to say about Christianity: “Christianity is basically a historical religion. That is to say, it is founded not on abstract principles but on concrete events, actual historical happenings.” The foundation of the Christian faith is the claim that something happened in history. 

That event is the resurrection of Jesus. If the Resurrection happened, Christianity is true. If it didn’t, then it’s false.  Which brings us to our next question: Did Jesus come back from the dead?

This is a question that many people have tried to answer, some of them Christians, and others of them skeptics. A fascinating detail is the number of skeptics who set out to disprove the Resurrection and became Christians in the process. Some examples are: J.D. Anderson, William Ramsay, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Gilbert West, and Frank Morison. Their journeys all brought them to believe in the event they originally set out to disprove.

Gary Habermas, a historian and philosopher of religion, is considered to be one of the foremost experts on the resurrection of Jesus. He embarked on one of the most intense investigations ever done on what modern scholars believe about the resurrection of Jesus. He and his team went through thousands of different sources, from both skeptics and believers, to come up with a list of what he calls the Minimal Facts. In order for one of these facts to make it on this list, the majority of sources they investigated had to agree it happened. Remember, those sources included many atheist and skeptical scholars.

What are these facts? 

1. Jesus was a real person who died by crucifixion on a Roman cross.
2. Jesus’ tomb was found empty and His body was missing. 
3. Very soon afterward, Jesus’ followers had experiences they believed were actual appearances of a resurrected Jesus.
4. Because of those experiences, these followers went from cowering in fear to being willing to die for their belief in Jesus’ resurrection.
5. The message of Jesus and the Christian church started right after Jesus was killed, right where Jesus was killed: the city of Jerusalem.
6. James, Jesus’ own brother, who was not a Christian at first, became a Christian after the death of Jesus because he believed his brother really did come back from the dead.
7. Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, went from hunting Christians to starting churches because he had an experience he believed was with the risen Jesus.

What is the best explanation for these facts? Different explanations have been presented by skeptical scholars, but none of them have been convincing, even to other skeptics. If you begin by assuming God is fake and miracles are impossible, then of course any explanation will seem more plausible than a miracle taking place. But, if you’re open to the possibility that God might exist, then the best explanation is that Jesus did what He said He was going to do: rise from the dead.

And that would change everything. Because if Jesus really did conquer sin, death, and Hell by rising from the grave then He really is the Lord of Life and the King of Creation. And we’ve been invited to trust Him and to follow Him. 

Journaling Questions

• What verse or passage stands out to you the most from today’s reading? Write it in your journal.
• Do you think Jesus really did rise from the grave? Why or why not? 
• If someone asked you why you believed Christianity was true, what would you tell them?