When one has honestly taken the test of applying the facts of the resurrection to their own lives, there remains but three alternatives. The resurrection was a fraud perpetrated upon humanity, a fancy in the minds of a few cult-oriented people, or it was a fact proven by the evidence presented. It could not be a fraud, because it is not natural for men to suffer and die for something they know is untrue. It could not be fancy because time would have proven a small cult principle to be false and would have faded long ago. It must be a fact because many across the annals of time have tried to prove it false in many different ways, and the faith of millions survive.

How has such a belief survived for so long? The belief in the Resurrection began immediately following the recorded event. A myth takes many years to grow gradually to the point of whole-sale acceptance. The immediacy of the acceptance kills the mythical theory.

The evidence surrounding the body of Jesus lends support to the belief that He arose from the dead. If his enemies had stolen the body, they could have produced it at any time and put an end to the belief that he arose from the dead. If the disciples had stolen the body and hidden it, then they suffered and died for what they knew was untrue. This is beyond cultish fancy. They would also have contributed to their own murder at the hands of their enemy because of a lie.

Would honest, intelligent, law-abiding men commit themselves to be victims of cultish fancy? The narratives of the Gospels and the letters of the Apostle Paul provide a genuiness and indicates a carefulness of investigation that results in a substantial, verifiable fact. The theme of the Resurrection is as much of a feature of the Bible as is the subject of Christ himself. The claims of the resurrection are as significant to Christianity as the claims of Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the Living God. It takes the proof of the claims of the Virgin Birth, the Sinless Life, the Sacrificial Death and the Victorious Resurrection to complete the plans of God’s Eternal Purpose for man to motivate him to surrender his life in sacrificial service with the hope of receiving that eternal inheritance beyond death and the grave.

Of all the other signs, wonders and miracles which Jesus did in the presence of many witnesses—stilling the storm, feeding the five thousand or even the raising of Lazarus, only the resurrection was suitable as the type proof that would call man out of a life of sin and lead him into a life of service.

Why would this single event motivate man to action, when nothing else seemed to? Because, in every age man continued to believe that death came to man because of sin. Therefore, man can believe that he can escape the corruption caused by sin only by the death, burial and resurrection of a Sinless One who could wipe away all that sin and open the gate of death to being raised to eternal life. This concept is met only in the fact of the Resurrection. If God did not suffer His Holy One to see corruption, but raised him from the dead because He was well-pleased in Him because of his Sinless, obedient life of service, man can find believable Hope in such a One. God approved of His Son and thereby confirmed His teaching as truth.

Jesus said to the people living during his earthly ministry: “Ye search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me; and ye will not come to Me that ye have eternal life” (Jn. 5:39). Of what value would that faith in Jesus had been without his being “the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One,” the Son of God who raised from the dead. Nothing short of the claim and the proof of his being Deity by the Resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4) would have been effective in His work as the Saviour of mankind.

Jesus died for our sins, and was raised for our justification. We, then, live a new life made possible by a living Savior, who himself, died and raised from the dead that we might too, by following his life on earth, follow his example in death and be raised to live eternally with Him. This is His great example of faith, love and Obedience. When we respond in like kind, we receive the same promises.

-Gene A. Ellmore-