The presidential election is about nine months away, and I we’re not going to be talking about any politics, but I do want to ask you this one question, how do you pick your candidate? I know some people vote on one issue. If a candidate agrees on that one issue with the voter, then they vote for them. Personally, I have to have multiple reasons to vote for a any candidate. Those that I vote for have to agree with me on a lot of areas to earn my support. And I’m like that on a lot of issues, I think that’s why it takes me so long to do anything.
I have to have multiple reasons to agree or disagree with an idea or argument before I commit to it. And that’s why I tell people, if you can build a case to convince me of something, I will be convinced. But so often when I enter into a discussion, I watch as people argue a point, and when I bring up counter point, they don’t deal with it; rather, they move onto something else. When I see this happen, it tells me that they don’t have responses for those counter points, which means, they haven’t convinced me, because I need a well thought out position in order to change my point of view.
This brings us to where we’re at in our series on the Arguments for the Existence of God. Where we’re going to begin today in 1st Corinthians 15. Because that’s what we’re trying to do with this series. It’s not one argument for the existence of God, that points us to him, but rather several. And just like it takes multiple angles for me to accept or reject an idea, we are providing multiple arguments that point to God’s existence, not just one. So as we open up to 1st Corinthians 15, let’s talk about where we’re at in this series.
In the first two weeks we looked at two arguments for the existence of God, that, left on their own, merely give reasons why a god, in the general sense of the word, could existence. The first of these arguments was the Fine Tuning Argument. Which basically is understood as, the universe is so perfect for life to happen, that it appears to be created. We shared several quotes by atheists that affirmed this perceived fine tuning, that if just one aspect of this universe was changed, life as we know it could not happen.
The second argument was the Moral Argument. In this argument we talked about, not if something was right or wrong, but rather, where does our foundation for morals come from. We showed, again through atheists, that without a god to give us an objective moral standard, the standard falls to us. But in that scenario, any common morals that we might share, have at their core a shifting self-centeredness that has no true objective foundation on which to rest.
As I said earlier, each of these arguments, left on their own, merely point us to a god in the general sense. But what we also showed each week, that the God of the Bible claims to be the Creator of the fined tuned universe. That the God of the Bible claims to be the source from which morality has it’s foundation.
It is here that we’re going to shift our focus from the general arguments of the existence of God, to the more specific, argument for the Christian God. And we’re going to do this through the resurrection of Jesus. Because it’s in the resurrection of Jesus that the whole of the Christian message rests.
It is here where we pick up Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians 15, starting in verse 3.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Paul binds the credibility and the future of Christianity to the moment in time where Jesus rises from the dead.
So for the Argument of the Resurrection, let’s look at five points that go into building this argument for the existence of God:
First, Jesus is a real historical person. This is the foundation of the argument because there are people that don’t believe Jesus even existed. But in his article, An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus, Tim O’Neill argues that, “Scholars who specialize in the origins of Christianity agree on very little, but they do generally agree that it is most likely that a historical preacher, on whom the Christian figure ‘Jesus Christ’ is based, did exist. The numbers of professional scholars, out of the many thousands in this and related fields, who don't accept this consensus, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Many may be more cautious about using the term ‘historical fact’ about this idea, since as with many things in ancient history it is not quite as certain as that. But it is generally regarded as the best and most parsimonious explanation of the evidence and therefore the most likely conclusion that can be drawn (https://strangenotions.com/an-atheist-historian-examines-the-evidence-for-jesus-part-1-of-2/).”
In other words, Tim O’Neill is saying that the vast majority of scholars, from all backgrounds, including atheists, agnostics, and Jewish, conclude that there was a Jesus in the first century on which the Christian religion is based.
This is important, because there are a lot of internet blogs, and writings out there that say that Jesus wasn’t even a historical figure. But the evidence is not on their side, because the vast majority of all scholars that specialize in early Christianity, agree that Jesus was a real historical figure.
Second, Jesus was crucified. We can take for granted the knowledge that Jesus crucified, but there are people that do not believe this. But in his book, The Resurrection of Christ, atheist scholar Gerd Ludemann, wrote, “Jesus death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.”
Another New Testament scholar named John Dominic Crossan was part of the group called the Jesus Seminar. That group’s sole mission was to separate the miraculous Jesus from the historical one. Crossan wrote, “Jesus’ death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixion we would still know about him from two authors not among his supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus.”
Jesus’ death on the cross is agreed upon as one of the most attested to and historically accurate events in all of human history. Even great moments such as Julias Caesar crossing the Rubicon River, or the life of the military leader Hannibal, do not have the historical clout of Jesus’ crucification.
Third, the tomb was historically empty. Skeptic D. H. Van Daalen states, in one of his last articles entitled, Resurrection of Jesus - the great mystery, leading people to believe in the Easter message today, writes “…it is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions…From the differing and in part unharmonizable, even contradictory, data about the discovery of the empty tomb it can at most be inferred that the tomb on Easter morning was probably empty, but nothing more.”
Daalen is saying that at the very least we know that the tomb was empty. But that’s where he stops. In other words, even skeptics of who Christians say Jesus is, agree that the tomb in which he was put in after his crucifixion was empty. So as far as historians are concerned, the tomb was empty when the disciples looked upon it that first Easter morning.
Fourth, there were eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Again Gerd Ludemann the atheist German scholar, wrote, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ (What Really Happened to Jesus?).” But it wasn’t just to his disciples the Jesus appeared. James, Jesus’ half-brother who was a skeptic, and Paul the persecutor of Jesus’ disciples, who were both adverse to Jesus, but both confirmed that they saw Jesus’ resurrected body.
C.S. Lewis wrote this, “The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection (Joyful Christian).”
These eyewitness accounts are what Paul in 1st Corinthians 15:5-9 references. And it is verses 3 and 4 that we get the earliest creedal mention of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Atheist scholars Gerd Ludemaan (The Resurrection of Jesus, trans. by Bowden (Fortress, 1994), 171-72.) and Michael Goulder (“The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in Gavin D’Costa, editor, Resurrection Reconsidered [Oneworld, 1996], 48.), and Non-Christian scholars Robert Funk (Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus, 466.) and A.J.M. Wedderburn (Beyond Resurrection (Hendrickson, 1999), 113-114.), all agree that what Paul is referencing here is a creed that was developed within the first two years of the Christian faith. The early Christians believed they saw Jesus resurrected and they shared it everywhere.
Finally, the response of the disciples. The resurrection event radically changed the lives of the disciples. New Testament scholar and former priest Luke Johnson, wrote in his book, The Real Jesus, “Some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was." This is why other New Testament scholars like N.T. Wright, though not an atheist nor a skeptic, end up concluding, “That is why, as a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him ("The New Unimproved Jesus," Christianity Today).”
Eleven of the Apostles died through martyrdom. The only apostle not to die was John, who got off with being boiled in oil. Not only these original disciples, but also both the skeptic James, and the persecutor turned disciple Paul, died as martyrs believing that they saw Jesus resurrected.
Walking through the evidence given in this argument, former L.A. cold case detective and atheist J. Warner Wallace said this, “In the end, I came to the conclusion that the gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts that delivered accurate information about Jesus, including His crucifixion and Resurrection. But that created a problem for me. If Jesus really was who He said He was, then Jesus was God Himself. If Jesus truly did what the gospel eyewitnesses recorded, then Jesus is still God Himself.”
With words from such men as Napoleon Bonaparte who said, “I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man…Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men will die for Him (Quoted from Ritzema, E. [Ed.]. [2012]. 300 Quotations for Preachers. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.).” can help us understand just the who is Jesus, because this is what all of these arguments boil down to: is Jesus who he says he is? Is Jesus the one who claims to be the Creator? Is he the one who claims to be the source of Morality? If Jesus was truly resurrected, as seems to be the best explanation of the historical case, then the question we must ask ourselves is, am I not accepting Jesus as Savior because of the evidence, or because of what I would have to now change because of who Jesus is?
The other day I read an article from a pastor who was speaking to a man about this very issue. Listen to what the pastor wrote, “Recently, I spoke with a man who had heard the story of Jesus and the resurrection several times in his life. Yet, this man seemed deeply defensive, even hostile, to the idea of becoming a Christian himself. I pointed out to my friend that he seemed not merely to disagree with the Gospel message, but also prone to attack it. I asked him why this was so. After a quiet pause, he answered, “Okay, Scott, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you the real reason why I dislike Christianity. It’s not because the evidence is unconvincing to me. In fact, the opposite is true. But I still don’t ever want to become a Christian because if I do, Jesus will ask me to forgive my father for the ways that he hurt me (https://scottsauls.com/blog/2019/04/21/intelligentatheistschristians/).”
And this is the real crux of the situation. No argument will ever make someone who is opposed to Christ accept him. The Fine Tuning of this universe, the foundation on which Morality rests, nor the historical reality of the Resurrection. The situation is, we are opposed to Jesus, because of what he calls us to. A rejection of what we want, and an embrace of what he wills.
This leads us into our last argument for next week.
But for now, I want to challenge you, on two fronts. First, if you do not believe in Jesus, what is holding you back? Is it that the arguments are not convincing, or is it that what Jesus desires from you just seems to be to high a price? We must wrestle with both, because if Jesus is who he says he is, then the decision we make to either follow him or not is an eternal decision.
Second, if you do believe in Jesus, then I want to challenge you to research the historicity of the resurrection. Looking into the points we’ve made today. And then, at Jesus’ resurrected feet, fall down and worship him. Because if Jesus is truly raised from the dead, then he is, as Napoleon stated, “no mere man.” Jesus is indeed the Good Creator God that left his throne to die on a cross for the sins that we commit. He has taken our place for the punishment of those sins, and now invites us into a relationship with him, where all is forgiven, and new life awaits, both now and into eternity. Amen.
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