NO RESURRECTION

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

The very heart and soul of our faith is the resurrection of our Lord from the dead of His own volition. The empty tomb is His Deity immortalized. It was my mission to prove that it wasn’t so. I thought my wife was really weird believing such nonsense so I went to work to think through really strange believing such silliness so I went to work to think through the alternatives from the book “Evidence Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell. Not necessarily in order of importance but here are a few alternative views:

Fraud Theory: The soldiers were paid by the Jewish leaders to say that the Apostles stole the Lord’s body while they slept. There was a death penalty for the guards of the tomb if they fell asleep. Even if this was true, do you really believe all the Apostles that were martyred confessed with their last breath insisted He rose from the dead if He didn’t?

Swoon Theory: Some claim the vinegar was drugged to make it appear that He died when He really went into some kind of a coma. The Centurion who put the blade of his spear into the Lord’s heart knew better and so did those who buried Him. He was really dead.

Vision Theory: I suspected that all those who saw Him alive were just stoned on drugs and were all hallucinating. Well this doesn’t hold water because they couldn’t have all been seeing the same illusion for forty days and then imagine Him to disappear into a cloud. I don’t think so!

Spirit Theory: I was taught that Jesus the man became Jesus the God at His baptism and died Jesus the man when He gave up His Spirit the God from the cross. Believing that God could be crucified and die was not a consideration. The Bible teaches Jesus was fully God and fully man at all times and that His renewed body is how we will be. The angels testified that He would return (bodily) as He left the ground and we who believe have been looking skyward in expectation of Him ever since.

The conspiracy theories and stories have been merchandised ever since but we who are born again know the truth because He lives on in us. I know, I know my Redeemer lives. How about you?