•Rev Abel Ukachi Amadi
Evidences abound that Jesus rose from death bodily and there are witness accounts of people that saw Jesus alive after His death.
A former atheist and now Christian apologist, Lee Strobel, wrote: “While we only have one or two sources for much of what we know from ancient history, we have nine ancient sources – inside and outside the New Testament – confirming the testimony of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus.”
Thomas actually touched Jesus body to prove that Jesus rose bodily (John 20:27).
To affirm the reality of His bodily resurrection, Jesus appeared to Mary, His disciples and was seen by 500 other persons. These evidences cannot be mass hallucination. A mass hallucination like that is not possible. Reports of multiple people hallucinating (either from drugs or extreme stress) have been documented, but in every case each person claimed to have seen something completely different. You do not have a mass of people hallucinating about the (exact) same thing, yet hundreds and hundreds of people all proved the reality; that they saw the risen Jesus.
Peter said convincingly, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, but we were eyewitnesses of Jesus bodily resurrection. Fables are well-crafted stories, but they are not real. The resurrection of Jesus was real and actually took place.
When Mary Magdalene, Peter and other disciples ran to Jesus’ tomb, they did not find Him in the grave, but saw His grave cloths lying in there. They acted as if they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead (John 20:9).
As the Apostle Paul put it, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile,” (1 Corinthians 15:17).
Resurrection completed the work of redemption. Without resurrection, all that Jesus did on the cross would be in vain. Jesus died to take away our sins, but Paul said if He had not risen, what He did on the cross would be useless and we will still be in our sins.
Jesus defeated sin at the cross, but had to go to the domain of the manufacturer of sin and defeated Satan right in there — Hell. That was total victory over Satan and sin, and would not have happened, if Jesus did not resurrect. That was a fulfillment of prophecy in Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. Jesus made a public show of Satan by defeating him in public.
Today, we have faith that Jesus’ resurrection actually happened, and that the story of the resurrection is not just another fairytale that we grew up with as children and have begun to outgrow it. There are historical evidences, not just inside, but outside of the Bible that Jesus arose bodily.
For us believers, we did not witness it, but believed it. We may be prone to doubt, but Jesus said blessed are those who did not see, but believed (John 20:29).
How do we believe? We believe the record of those who saw it and how do we know it? We saw that they died for this truth of His resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus guarantees the resurrection of all believers who died in Christ on the last day. It guarantees that Jesus has authority above all realms. Jesus was given a name after resurrection because he went to the realm of darkness for a conquest and He won (Philippians 2:9).
*Rev. Abel Ukachi Amadi is General Superintendent, Assemblies of God Nigeria
