CA312

Christian Evidences LESSON 09 of 12

The Evidence of Biblical Christianity, Part 3

Victor M. Matthews, STD

Former Professor of Systematic
Theology Grand Rapids
Theological Seminary

This is lecture 9 of the course entitled Christian Evidences. In this

section of the course, we are talking about some of the evidences
for the genuineness of Christianity. We’re working on a theme
that if Christianity is genuine, then we would expect supernatural
evidence. In lecture 7 we talked about the origin of the Jewish
religion and the evidence of fulfilled prophecy. In lecture 8 we
talked about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and His claims
as an evidence that Christianity is genuine. And now in this ninth
lecture, I want to talk about the evidence for Christianity in the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Importance of the Resurrection

There are three main points that I want to state briefly. First,
something by way of background material on the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection was a fulfillment of Old
Testament prophecy. There are many verses in the New Testament
that point to Old Testament prophecies. I would like to take two
passages from the book of Acts, however, just to illustrate how in
the New Testament the disciples in the early church looked upon
the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a fulfillment of many of the
verses of the Old Testament, verses that had to do with the Old
Testament Messiah.

For example, in the book of Acts 2:25–32 we have a strong

affirmation. Here Peter on the day of Pentecost states in Acts 2:25,
“For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always
before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be
moved.” This is a fulfillment of Psalm 16:8–11. Then, in the same
chapter, Acts 2:34–36, we have a similar statement showing that
the New Testament church believed the resurrection of our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
In Acts 2:34, “For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he
saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right
hand,” and then to verse 35, “until I make thy foes thy footstool,”
and so forth. This is a quotation from Psalm 110:1.

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Lesson 09 of 12 The Evidence of Biblical Christianity, Part 3

And in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Acts, we have in

verse 32 and 33 a quotation of the second psalm in verse 7. In
Acts 13:32–33, where Paul is preaching at Antioch, he said, “We
declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which is
made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their
children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written
in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
thee.” In Acts 13:35, we have Paul stating, “Wherefore, he saith
also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to
see corruption.” This is the quotation of Psalm 16:10. And in
Acts 13:34, Paul made the statement, “And as concerning that he
raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.”
This is a quotation from Isaiah 55:3. This will suffice to show
that the New Testament church firmly believed that many of the
prophecies of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the historical
resurrection of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, from the dead.
It’s rather important to see that.

The second point by way of background material on the

resurrection of our Lord has to do with the truth that the
resurrection was predicted by our Savior Himself. In John 2:18–
21 we have the Lord Jesus referring to His resurrection. At the
beginning of His ministry He said, “Then answered the Jews and
said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou
doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” In verse 21, “But
he spake of the temple of his body.” So, at the beginning of His
ministry in John 2, we see the Lord Jesus Christ predicting His
resurrection. By the way, this also would be a good passage to
show that when they insisted that He give a sign to validate His
teaching, He pointed to His resurrection. He pointed to the reality
of a historical vindication of His teaching in that God would bring
Him out of the grave.

Third, at the confession of His deity in Matthew 16, we find the

Lord Jesus Christ referring to His resurrection. In Matthew 16:16,
where Peter makes that great statement, “Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God,” the Lord Jesus Christ went on in verse 21,
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how
that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised
again the third day.”

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Lesson 09 of 12 The Evidence of Biblical Christianity, Part 3

The fourth point that I have here concerning the resurrection as

referred to by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is found in Matthew
20:17–19. This refers to the final journey of the Lord Jesus Christ
to Jerusalem: “And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve
disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up
to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief
priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death,
And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and
to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.” From these
verses it’s clear that the Lord Jesus Christ often predicted His own
resurrection.

The third point that I want to bring out in this lecture that has
to do with background material on the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ is that the resurrection of our Savior is declared in
the New Testament to be of vital importance. First of all, it is of
vital importance concerning our salvation. We have Peter, for
example, in 1 Peter 1:3 stating, “Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Here Peter is attributing almost
everything in the Christian life to the reality of the resurrection.

We understand also in Romans 10 that the resurrection is a part

of the believer’s confession of salvation, “That if thou shalt . . .
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved” [v. 9]. My friend, that’s a very important point,
that belief in the historical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ
is a necessity for personal salvation. It’s the believer’s confession.
To confess salvation is to confess that the Lord Jesus Christ was
raised from the grave.

Another point from the New Testament to show that the

resurrection is of vital importance for genuine Christianity is
found in 1 Corinthians 15:17, and there the apostle Paul made the
statement that “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet
in your sins.” There’s no question to what the apostle Paul lived
upon: the salvation of the believer as having its main root in the
historical resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the same passage—point
number four now for the importance of the resurrection—we find
that the believer’s resurrection from the dead is also rooted in the
resurrection of our Savior. In 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul said, “But
now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of
them that slept.” Here we realize that Christ is our first fruit, and
therefore, since He is that, we too shall be resurrected from the
grave.

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Lesson 09 of 12 The Evidence of Biblical Christianity, Part 3

In Romans 1:4, you recall that the resurrection is used as an

affirmation of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ—this is point
number five now—where Paul stated that God has declared the
deity of the Lord Jesus Christ by “his resurrection from the dead.”
The next point, number six, concerning the importance of the
resurrection is that it is looked upon in the New Testament as an
evidence for the genuineness of Christianity. In Acts 17, the apostle
Paul preaching in Athens to philosophers, the Epicureans and the
Stoics, made the statement in verse 31, God “hath appointed a
day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance [or it
could well be translated “God hath offered faith”] unto all men,
in that he hath raised him [that is, the Lord Jesus] from the dead.”
It’s rather important to see that the apostle Paul firmly believed,
and he was preaching to men who were of good intelligence—they
were philosophers, they were the Epicureans and the Stoics of the
day—he is reminding them that God had given evidence, He had
given faith, had offered faith to all men, in that the Lord Jesus
Christ was raised from the dead—an evidence for Christianity.

The seventh point to show how important the resurrection is in

the New Testament is that it is the very content of the gospel.
There are many, many passages that would be helpful here.
Perhaps the most important one is in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4. In
verse 1, the apostle Paul states that he declares the gospel, and
in verse 3, Christ died, he said, “for our sins according to the
scriptures,” and in verse 4, “he was buried, and that he rose again
the third day according to the scriptures.” This shows that in the
New Testament church that the resurrection was a part of the
content of the gospel. When you would define the gospel or define
Christianity, if you even do it in the twentieth century in New
Testament terms, to be truthful to the Bible, you must believe in
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Point number eight to show the importance of the resurrection

is that it was the message of the early church. There are many,
many verses where we have the statement right within the verse
itself, “whereof we are witnesses.” For example, in Acts 1:21–
22, we have a statement concerning that. They were concerned
because of the death of Judas, and the disciples got together and
said, “Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all
the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning
from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken
up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his
resurrection.” You find that the same emphasis, “whereof we are
witnesses,” is found in not only in Acts 1:22, but in chapter 2 of

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the same book in verses 22 to 36. It’s found in chapter 3, chapter

5, chapter 10, and chapter 13. A person cannot read through the
book of Acts without realizing that one of the main facets of the
message of the early church was the historical resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the grave. These men looked upon it as having
empirical truth. They said, “We are witnesses of his resurrection.”

The last point that I want to bring out here, point number 9
concerning the importance of the resurrection for the New
Testament, is found in Philippians 3:10, as well as many other
passages in the New Testament. This shows that the New Testament
believers, the New Testament itself, looked upon the resurrection
as a provision for the grace and the power of God in the Christian
life. Paul in Philippians 3:10 said, “That I might know him, and
the power of his resurrection.” This was vitally important for the
apostle Paul. Paul not only believed in the resurrection but also
believed that the resurrection was a source of great help for the
grace and the power of God in one’s daily life. This, of course, is
the key to the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of the book of
Romans: to understand that we have not only died in Christ but
also have been resurrected together with Him.

Here are nine evidences now from the New Testament to point
out how important it was for the early church to believe in the
resurrection, and they surely did that.

The Nature of the Resurrection

The second main point in this ninth lecture raises the question
concerning the nature of the resurrection. What kind of a
resurrection was it? A good deal can be said about this, but I want
to be simple and brief here. I have three points under this area.
First of all, when you ask about the nature of the resurrection, the
New Testament comes back with the answer that it was a historical
resurrection. The many verses that I just referred to, together
with the description of the resurrection itself and the events
surrounding it as given in the Gospels, all serve to emphasize
that the raising of Christ from the dead was a transaction that
happened in time and in space in history. Surely we find that in
the New Testament. The apostle Paul, when he was before those
great leaders Agrippa and Festus in Acts 26:26, boldly made the
statement about the resurrection, “This thing was not done in a
corner.” What a statement to make. If the resurrection was only a
symbol back in those days, if the resurrection was only a symbol of
religious truth, if Christ did not come out of the grave, how could
the apostle Paul, an early convert to Christianity right in the very

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day when the resurrection could have been proven false, have
boldly stood before these two important leaders, King Agrippa
and Festus, and make this statement about the resurrection “that
this thing was not done in a corner”? We understand now from
this that the resurrection is historical.

Secondarily when we ask the question about the nature of the

resurrection, the New Testament comes back by stating that it
was a bodily or physical resurrection. Many have taught that the
resurrection was only that of the resurrection of Christ’s spirit
or His teaching. My friend, the Bible condemns this as false. In
His postresurrection appearances, the Lord Jesus Christ made it
a point to emphasize His bodily presence. You recall that John
in his first chapter of the first epistle made the statement that
they “handled” the Lord Jesus Christ. You recall that Luke the
physician, in the first chapter of the book of Acts and in verse 3
makes the very plain statement, “To whom also he [that is, the
Lord Jesus Christ] shewed himself alive after his passion by many
infallible proofs.” The Lord Jesus Christ invited Thomas to come,
you recall, in John 20 and to put his finger into the print of the
nails and to thrust his hand into His side. No wonder Thomas
bowed before Him and said, “My LORD and my God” [v. 28]. What
kind of a resurrection was it? It was a bodily, physical resurrection.

Third, when we ask about the nature of the resurrection from the
New Testament, the answer comes back it was a representative
resurrection. The Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead
as our representative. His resurrection was the first step in His
glorification. We’ve already seen in this lecture series that He
came into the world as our representative. He lived and died
as our representative, as we understand from Romans 5 and
Galatians 4, and now we recognize that He arose from the dead
as our representative. No wonder Paul states in Ephesians 2:5–
6, “Even when we were dead in sins, [God] hath quickened us
together with Christ . . . and hath raised us up together.” Yes,
Christ’s resurrection was a representative act in history, and all
believers not only lived in Christ, not only died in Christ, but also
were raised from the grave in the mind and the eye of God in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Evidence for the Resurrection

The third main point in this ninth lecture has to do with the
evidence for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. What
evidence do we have? What kind of evidence can be stated? Is
Christianity only a group of myths and legends? No, not at all.

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The first evidence is an empirical one. If you lived in that day, you
could go and look at the empty tomb. The tomb was empty. The
gospel record is emphatic on this point. All four of the gospels
plainly and boldly make the statement that the tomb where the
Lord Jesus Christ’s body was laid was empty. The twenty-eighth
chapter of Matthew and the sixth verse makes that statement.
Mark 16:6, Luke 24:3–6, and John 20:1–2 all affirm that the tomb
was empty.

Now how can a person account for the empty tomb if Christ did
not rise from the dead? His friends could not steal the body. It
was sealed with the Roman seal and the Roman guards stood at
the door of the tomb. His enemies were determined to prove that
He was dead. They wanted the body in the tomb. Now how can
one account for the empty tomb if there is no resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ from the dead? It has been well written that
there is no hint anywhere in the New Testament that the fact of
the empty tomb was ever question by either friend or foe. Had
the body of Jesus never left the tomb, the Pharisees would have
thrown the tomb open for inspection and invited the dukes of
this new heresy to see for themselves the body of Jesus still lying
where it was buried. Had the disciples believed in only a spiritual
resurrection as held by some present-day liberals, the tomb in
which His body lay would have become a shrine for those pilgrims
who always frequent the tombs of great or well-beloved persons.
The strange indifference of the early church to the tomb of Jesus
finds a simple explanation in the fact that the body was not there.
The fact that the apostles preached the resurrection in the very
city where Jesus died and was buried is presumptive evidence in
favor of this great miracle.

This is a quotation from that fine little book, The Case for the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by Chester E. Tulga [Chicago, IL:
Conservative Baptist Fellowship, 1951].

The second evidence for the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
from the grave is the evidence of the grave clothes. We recognize
from John 20:3–8 that the grave clothes were an evidence to Peter
and John of the reality of the resurrection. These two men, when
they heard the message that Christ’s body was not in the tomb,
ran to the tomb and looked in. The linen clothes which had been
wound about the body of the Lord Jesus were still in that shape,
but it was now empty. It was sort of a mummified or cocoon
shape, but empty. The same is true of the napkin which had been
wound about the head of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ had simply
passed through the grave clothes as He was to later pass through

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Lesson 09 of 12 The Evidence of Biblical Christianity, Part 3

the closed doors where the disciples were assembled together. It

states very significantly in the twentieth chapter of the gospel of
John that the disciples looked, saw the grave clothes, and believed.
Verse 8, for example: “Then went in also that other disciple, which
came first to the sepulcher, and he saw, and believed.” A great
empirical evidence for the reality of the historical resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead has to do with the grave clothes.

The third item concerning evidence of His resurrection has to do

with the postresurrection appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It would seem that there were at least ten separate appearances
of Jesus Christ after His resurrection. First of all, he appeared
to Mary Magdalene (John 20:11–18), secondarily to the women
returning from the tomb (Matthew 28), and then to the two
disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24). Fourth, he appeared
to Peter (Mark 16:7) and then to the ten disciples in the Upper
Room (John 20:19–23). Next He appeared to the disciples with
Thomas present (John 20:24–29), then to the disciples beside the
Sea of Tiberius (John 21), and then to more than five hundred
disciples in Galilee (Matthew 28:16–20). Then He appeared to
James (1 Corinthians 15:7), and then ninthly He appeared to the
disciples on the Mount of Olives (Luke 24:50–53 and Acts 1),
and last of all, a postascension appearance, when He appeared
to the apostle Paul. The record of that is in 1 Corinthians 15:8.
In commenting on these appearances, Luke the physician said
the Lord Jesus “ shewed himself alive after his passion by many
infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of
the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” [Acts 1:3].

Other Evidences Concerning the Resurrection

And now I want to be rather brief on some of the other evidences

concerning the resurrection: for example, the change in the lives
of the disciples. When the Lord Jesus was arrested in the Garden
of Gethsemane, the disciples forsook Him (Matthew 26). None of
them came forward to testify for Him at the trial. Peter denied the
Lord. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus left the disciples without
hope. Following the crucifixion the disciples went into hiding
because of fear of the Jews (John 20:19), but following the day
of Pentecost, when the disciples were anointed with the Holy
Spirit and taught the meaning of the resurrection, their lives
were transformed. Peter, who had denied the Lord, spoke boldly
in public and before the Sanhedrin at the supreme court, and he
accused those responsible for the death of Christ and affirmed the
reality of the resurrection (Acts 2 and 4). In a similar way, all of the
disciples publicly witnessed to the resurrection. What evidence

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do we have of the resurrection? Not only the empty tomb, not

only the grave clothes, not only the many appearances of the Lord
Jesus, as important as all of that is—we have the change in the
lives of the disciples.

The next one is the observance of the Lord’s Day. God had
instructed the Jewish people to worship Him on Saturday, the
Sabbath, but in the New Testament following the resurrection,
we find the disciples worshiping God with other Christians on the
Lord’s Day (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16; Revelation 1). How do we
account for this change? It was the resurrection. The Lord Jesus
arose from the grave on Sunday, He appeared to the disciples on
that first Sunday, and the following Sundays, and Sunday became
known as the Lord’s Day.

Another evidence for the resurrection is the existence of the early

church, and then last of all, the testimony of the apostolic church.
Clement of Rome, for example, plainly made the statement,
“Having therefore received their order and being fully assured
by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and established in
the Word of God with full assurance of the Holy Spirit, they went
forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand.” This
was written by Clement in AD 95. It is a testimony that the early
church firmly believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.

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