If there is no resurrection from the dead, if Christ has not been raised, then the Christian faith is empty, meaningless. It all hinges on the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It will not do to make the resurrection a metaphor for human renewal or the changing of the seasons or some other sentiment. The Christian faith is a claim and something that really happened. It is a historical claim. We say that a Jewish rabbi was handed over by the Jews to the Roman authorities and that he was crucified and buried on Friday and that he was raised early on Sunday morning, the first day of the week.

Someone once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Who first said it is disputed. It has been attributed to P. T. Barnum, to a banker, and to other possible sources. Whoever said it first, it captures the spirit of skepticism perfectly. The skeptic, i.e., the one who doubts everything and everyone but himself will not credit any authority beyond himself and his own sense experience, i.e., what he knows from his own eyes, ears, nose, and touch. Such an approach to knowing things is not without its difficulties. Our senses are generally reliable but they are not infallible. Sleight of hand works because the sleight of hand artist is able to distract us or create an illusion.

Of course, when pressed, the skeptic cannot really meet his own test. After all, how, on his own terms, does the skeptic really know that he exists? He depends on someone one else to tell him. Most of us have awakened from a dream that, weird as it might have been, seemed completely real. Yet when we awakened we realized that it was not real at all. Yet, few skeptics are so radically consistent and to be completely skeptical about everything—even themselves and their own sense experience. They tend to apply their skepticism selectively. It is often aimed at the heart of the Christian religion, the resurrection.

The Apostle Paul recognized how central the resurrection of Christ is to the Christian faith. He wrote:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain (1 Cor 15:12–14; ESV).

If there is no resurrection from the dead, if Christ has not been raised, then the Christian faith is empty, meaningless. It all hinges on the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It will not do to make the resurrection a metaphor for human renewal or the changing of the seasons or some other sentiment. The Christian faith is a claim and something that really happened. It is a historical claim. We say that a Jewish rabbi was handed over by the Jews to the Roman authorities and that he was crucified and buried on Friday and that he was raised early on Sunday morning, the first day of the week.

The gospel writer Luke was one of the most skilled and careful historians in antiquity. He recorded the scene when the disciples found the empty tomb:

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest (Luke 24:1–9; ESV).

Luke did not describe a metaphor or a figure of speech. Luke narrated the story of a missing body. The disciples went with the intent of finishing the care of the body for burial. They had run out of time on Friday before sunset, before the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. Now it was Sunday morning and so they brought spices fully expecting his corpse to be where it had been laid—in the tomb purchased by Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50). In the narrative he takes us into the tomb. We see the puzzled disciples. They were stumped for the same reasons that you and I would be stumped: “Now that is odd. We put him here. What happened?” Luke, ever the careful historian—he does not appeal to the supernatural carelessly when ordinary providence will do—tells us that something remarkable happened. The Lord answered their question. They recognized what kind of person it was, an angel. They were properly afraid. The angel spoke sense. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” Jesus did not belong to the class of tomb dwellers any longer because he was no longer dead. The angel reminded them of Jesus’ own words, which took on new significance, not that they fully understood everything.

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