Ep. 38 – Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?

Well, we’ve been on quite a journey over the last 37 or so episodes. We have been doing our best to look at Jesus from a number of angles. What was He like? What did He do? What did He teach? What did He claim? And then most recently, why did He die? And we saw that even though Jesus was killed by His opponents, apparently it was all according to God’s plan. And He was accomplishing all kinds of glorious things as we’ve seen in the last couple episodes. But in these next couple of episodes, we come to a major moment in the life of Jesus; the major hinge point in Christianity. His resurrection!

And this couldn’t be a bigger deal. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19— 17 “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” He’s saying if Jesus was not raised, if He didn’t physically, bodily, come back from death, Christianity is useless.

So today we need to ask, did it really happen? Was Jesus really raised from the dead? Here’s how we are going to answer that question. We are going to loosely follow the method of a scholar named Gary Habermas who uses what he calls the minimal facts argument. In 2,000 years following the death and resurrection of Jesus, there have been roughly six alternative explanations that have really stuck of what happened to the body of Jesus. Almost every natural or secular explanation for the resurrection, comes back to one of these six. So using Scripture and history, we want to put each of these alternative explanations on trial, and show that the Bible’s explanation of Jesus’ resurrection is the best one. Our hope in this episode is to give us confidence that Jesus really is alive. He really did rise from the dead.

Jesus is alive! The Bible’s explanation really is the best explanation! Yes it’s supernatural. But friends, God is supernatural. Jesus, who is God, really did live as one of us. And after His death, He really was raised. Physically, bodily, forever.