Last Sunday was the day Christians celebrated the Resurrection. This year, the message of hope was partially obscured by the blood and death in the streets of the Holy Land. Three thousand years ago, David Ben Jesse, king and prophet of Israel, foresaw the resurrection of the Messiah. On that basis he expressed his assurance of personal resurrection in a paean of praise,
I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the Sheol, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand (Psalm 16:7-11 NIV).
Fifty days after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, Peter boldly rushed into the streets of Jerusalem before the powerful religious leaders, before whom he had previously fled in fear. He proclaimed that Jesus, whose body had disappeared despite all their best efforts, had been raised from the dead and fulfilled this prophecy.
Peter proclaimed, “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him …” (Acts 2:22-25a NIV).
It is important to note that this message was delivered just outside David’s tomb where thousands were gathered to mourn David’s death.
Peter interpreted Psalm 16 as follows, “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah [or “Christ” – both Greek and Hebrew words mean “the Anointed One”], that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of the fact.
This brilliant, extemporaneous message was delivered by a man who displayed nothing but obtuse, impetuous zeal all through the Gospel record. But here he explains that even his newfound courage and power is testimony to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead – exactly as He predicted he would be. He explains that the Spirit of God predicted by Joel the prophet and promised to be sent by Jesus after His ascension to the God the Father had come upon him and changed him.
With this newfound boldness, Peter accuses the religious leaders of murdering the very Messiah for whom they claim to have waited. He further accuses them of fulfilling the very prophecies they claim to believe by their wicked deeds.
Needless to say, if these religious leaders could have disproven in any way what Peter proclaimed to the people in the very city where all of these things had just taken place, they had every motive to do so. But they could not dispute the evidence that Jesus’ body had miraculously disappeared despite the elaborate precautions they had taken to prevent its theft. Nor could they prove their contention that the disciples had stolen it.
The tomb was guarded by a quaternion of battle-hardened Roman soldiers, which meant 16 men to a watch. They had sealed the tomb with a boulder that would have weighed in excess of a ton. They also had set the seal of Tiberius Caesar on the tomb, which meant that all the power of Rome would come after anyone who broke the seal.
Their only explanation was the lie that they paid the soldiers to say, “The disciples stole the body while we were asleep.” Vegitius, in his ancient military classic about the Roman legions called,” The Institutes Of The Roman Legions,” records that sleeping on watch meant instant execution.
Even if all 16 soldiers could have been asleep, which is preposterous given the circumstances, they would have certainly been awakened by a 2,000-pound boulder scraping against the rock face of the tomb. Then there would have been the evidence of several disciples’ bodies to display, for they would have certainly killed many of them. But there was no such evidence brought forth because there was none.
Factors like these caused one of the greatest legal minds in history to declare the resurrection of Jesus Christ the most established fact of ancient history. Simon Greenleaf, who was head of the Harvard Law School for over 30 years, used his method of evaluating evidence from his world acclaimed work, “The Laws of Legal Evidence.” It is in three volumes and considered the world standard for evaluating good evidence from bad. As a result of his investigation, he wrote a classic book entitled, “The Testimony Of The Evangelists.”
Greenleaf concluded that Jesus’ resurrection is supported by fuller and better evidence than any other event of ancient history. I believe this also. And I believe the greatest hope for mankind today is contained in this prediction Jesus made of his own resurrection, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”