The Evidence for the Resurrection

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I had the opportunity this week to reread a story that I read a number of years ago about a man by the name of Frank Morrison. Perhaps you have heard of this man. He was a most unlikely Christian. In fact, he was a well-educated British lawyer by profession, but Morrison had been greatly influenced by a group of German skeptics by Huxley and others who denied the Bible or even that miracles are possible.

Morrison declared himself philosophically to be a skeptic, especially when it came to the issue of Christianity. For years, he promised himself that one day he would write a book that would refute the central issue of Christianity, and that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Eventually, as he aged, he decided that he had the time and the energy to do it, and he set aside a number of months in which to conduct his investigation. After months of carefully examining all of the documents and all of the New Testament documents in particular, he embraced Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He wrote what has become a classic apologetic for the resurrection called Who Moved the Stone?

You know as believers. We hear a story like that about someone who's come to faith in Christ by examining the Gospel records, and it's a great encouragement to us. It's a wonderful thing, and yet it really isn't surprising. You see when you objectively look at it, the evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming.

Sir Edward Clarke, who was also an attorney in Britain, often argued before the highest court in the land there wrote this, "As a lawyer, I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court, I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling.

Luke puts it this way. In the book of Acts, Acts 1:3, He says to His disciples, [Jesus] … also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs….

As one author writing of that Acts passage says, the disciples came to their Easter faith through inescapable empirical evidence available to them and available to us through their written testimony.

I think when you look at the Gospel records, all of them obviously are profound. But I think the most compelling from the standpoint of evidence is that of the Apostle John. I want us to turn this morning to his gospel, John 19.

We'll begin in verse 31, As we go through this passage, you'll discover that John documents for us four unassailable arguments or evidences for the resurrection. I think John includes them to confirm and strengthen our faith as believers. And that's important because let's face it. The resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity. No other religion in the world claims anything like it.

In fact, Jay Oswald Sanders wrote of the four major world religions that are based on personalities rather than on philosophical systems, and he said,

This Christianity alone bases its claim to acceptance on the resurrection of its founder. If it's not a fact, our preaching is emptied of content. Instead of being a dynamic message, it merely enshrines a fragrant memory. Our faith is without a factual basis and is therefore empty. The Scripture writers become purveyors of intentional lies, and the Scriptures themselves are unreliable. Deliverance from the penalty and power of sin is no more than a mirage. And the future life is still shrouded in midnight darkness. [Thus, he writes,] Paul makes Christianity answer with its life on the truth of the resurrection. But it's not just our faith that is at stake on the resurrection.

It is the credibility of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the imminent Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield wrote, "Christ himself deliberately staked his whole claim upon his resurrection. When the Jews asked him for a sign, he pointed to this sign as his single and sufficient credential."

The resurrection is absolutely crucial. You see, without the resurrection, Jesus of Nazareth is just one more charlatan in a long line of deceivers.

Philip Schaff, the Church historian, writes, "The resurrection of Christ is emphatically a test question upon which depends the truth or falsehood of the Christian faith. It is either the greatest miracle or the greatest delusion which history records."

The Apostle John wants us who have embraced Jesus Christ to know that our confidence in the resurrection is not some kind of blind leap of faith, but it's based on unassailable evidence which he himself and other eyewitnesses beheld.

But I think John has another purpose in mind as well. It's not simply to confirm the faith of all of us who have embraced Christ. John wants these verses, like his whole book, to bring his readers to true faith in Jesus Christ. I can tell you that as I prepared this message this week, and even as I preach it to you this morning, that's my prayer as well.

My prayer is that both of these things will happen: that those of you who have embraced Jesus Christ will have your faith strengthened and encouraged as we look at the weight of evidence that John presents, and that those of you who have not will come to behold the Lord Jesus Christ and come to know Him even today. Let's look at the evidence that he presents this morning.

The first argument for the reality of the resurrection that John gives us begins actually before Easter Sunday. It begins on Friday. It's found beginning in verse 31, and it's this. The first argument for the resurrection is that Jesus was certifiably dead. Now that is crucial because without a death there can be no resurrection.

A couple of centuries ago, a man named Venturini, promoted the idea that Jesus didn't really die, but He swooned. He merely went into a coma-like state and was buried, and in the coolness of the tomb He resuscitated.

Well John shatters that ridiculous idea in this paragraph. Notice what he writes beginning in verse 31, then the Jews because it was the day of preparation, that is, it was Friday. At 6 o'clock that evening, the Sabbath began so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath. "… for that Sabbath was a high day." It was a special Sabbath connected to the feast of unleavened bread. Notice the hypocrisy of these Jewish leaders. They're willing to murder an entirely innocent man, and yet they're afraid of contaminating themselves by breaking their rules and the rules of God regarding the keeping of the Sabbath.

[So, they] … asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and the other who was crucified with him, but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

Now that paragraph describes an absolutely brutal process. A person who was crucified could survive for days. Even some were documented up to a week to survive, hanging there on the cross. But the Romans had devised a system when they wanted to hasten the death of the condemned criminal. They would come behind with an iron mallet or iron bar. Picture, something like our sledge-hammer and with absolute unmitigated violence. They would crush the legs of the prisoners as they hung on the cross.

Archaeology has unearthed a contemporaneous crucifixion, a first century victim of crucifixion, and that victim shows this very process. One of his legs is broken cleanly; the other is absolutely shattered. Why did they break the legs? Well, breaking the legs made it impossible for the victim to continue to push up with his legs, gaining another breath of air. And so, by breaking the legs making that process impossible, it hastened and hurried the death of asphyxiation, which was the death of the cross.

So, a team of soldiers started with the men on each side of Christ, and when they get to Christ, they see that He's already dead, and so they didn't break His legs. We're told in verses 36 and 37. This was a fulfillment of prophecy. The prophecysaid that not a bone of Him would be broken, and they would look on Him whom they pierced, and so it was to fulfill that great prophecy. But Jesus is dead. Now remember, these are hardened soldiers. These are veterans of this detail of crucifixion. They knew what death looked like. They'd seen it many times before.

So, there was no doubt in their minds, when they come to Jesus, that he is in fact dead. But it was part of their assignment to be sure. And so, verse 34, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear.

You've probably seen as I have these delicate paintings of Jesus hanging on the cross with little drops of blood here and there with a small little prick in his side, with a drop of blood coming out. That is absolutely foreign to this scene.

The soldier pierces His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out, and he who has seen has testified and his testimony is true, and he knows that he's telling the truth so that you also may believe. John says listen, I saw it. I was an eyewitness of it.

You see what happens is one of the soldiers on the detail to ensure that these prisoners die before sunset concludes that Jesus is dead. But just to be sure, he takes his spear, and he thrusts it up through the chest cavity of Jesus Christ into His heart. And blood and water came flowing out.

Now, there's been a lot of discussion about what this blood and water represent, but don't miss John's main point. Don't miss what he wants us to understand, And that is the soldiers knew Christ was dead, but just to make sure one of them thrust this spear up into the chest cavity of Jesus Christ into His heart to ensure that He was in fact dead. This wasn't a little pinprick. This was a violent thrust.

Jesus didn't swoon. Jesus didn't drop into a coma. He was certifiably dead, and that is the first part of the case for the resurrection because you can't have a resurrection where there is no death. John wants us to know. He says, I saw it with my own eyes. I know exactly what happened. Jesus was dead.

John's second argument for the resurrection is that Jesus' body was carefully secured. Jesus' body, now dead, was carefully secured notice verse 38. "After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate granted permission, so he came and took away His body."

Usually, the family would be able to claim the body if someone had been crucified.

But in the case of sedition that is rebellion against the government of Rome, they were left on the cross as a testimony to their crime, and as a deterrent for those who would try to thwart the mighty will of Rome; often allowed to hang there until the Scavengers picked their bodies apart.

The family would not have been allowed to claim the body of Christ, even if they'd wanted to. But remember, at this point, only Mary believes in Jesus. All of His brothers, and as far as we know His sisters had rejected Him. They came, remember, earlier in His ministry with Mary to come because they had concluded that He'd gone mad. So, even if they had wanted to claim the body, they wouldn't have been able to, but there's no indication they had any interest.

So instead, Joseph of Arimathea comes, and he's accompanied in the burial by Nicodemus. Don't miss the significance of this. These two men. we're told by the other Gospel writers, were both members of the Sanhedrin, both members of the Jewish Ruling Council. Nicodemus, of course, had come earlier to Jesus by night. He had come in that famous passage in John 3, and heard those wonderful words that we recite so often in the Gospel of John, and through that he had apparently come to faith in Christ, but he had remained a secret disciple because of fear of losing his reputation and his status in the council.

The same, apparently, was true with Joseph. Both of these men, secret disciples. I don't know what prompted them to come out and claim Jesus Christ. You know, before His death, they refused to acknowledge that they were followers, and now He's dead, and they come to claim His body. I don't know what prompted them. It may have been guilt, maybe thinking that if they had only spoken up His life might have been saved. We're not told, but Joseph goes and claims His body.

Pilate grants him the body, probably because Pilate concluded that Jesus was not truly guilty of sedition, and so he gives the body to this member of the Sanhedrin. Two members of the Sanhedrin come to bury Jesus Christ.

Now notice that John records in some detail the way the first century Jews buried a body or prepared a body for burial. Nicodemus, we're told in verse 39, who had first come to Him by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes about a hundred pounds' weight. That's about seventy pounds by our counting.

Nicodemus was obviously a wealthy man, and he comes with this collection of spices to prepare the body of Jesus Christ. That seems like a huge amount seventy pounds. But that's not unheard of. You remember Rabbi Gamaliel, who was Paul's professor, a contemporary of Jesus Christ. He was buried, we're told, with eighty pounds of spices. Now notice verse 40, … they took the body of Jesus and [they] bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

What the Jews would typically do with the body is they would first wash it, and then they would straighten it now. Unlike the Egyptians, they didn't remove any of the internal organs. Instead, they simply prepared the body, and then they took strips of linen cloth about a foot wide, and they'd wrapped them around the body, the full length of the body.

Interspersed in the layers of that those strips of linen cloth would be these spices. Now the spices serve several purposes. First of all, they were sort of natural preservative preserved the body.

They also served the purpose of a sort of perfume and aroma, a fragrance that mitigated the smell of decaying flesh, and thirdly they were often of a gummy sort of sticky substance, and they actually served as a kind of cement between the layers that were wrapped around the body to form it into one unified hole, a solid covering for the body. Seventy pounds of spices wrapped among those linen claws, wrapped around the body of Christ. Often only the face was left exposed.

Verse 41, Now in the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had been laid. We're not told here, but one of the other Gospel writers tells us that this was Joseph's tomb prepared for himself, perhaps or his family.

This seems to have been just a temporary holding place verse 42. Therefore, because of the Jewish day of preparation, that is, because the Sabbath was near when they couldn't do any work. Since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Perhaps there was another place that Joseph had in mind for the future. We're not told, but he puts Jesus' body here, now having been washed and straightened, having these strips of cloth wrapped around them, bound tightly with the spices, seventy pounds of spices of a sticky gummy substance wrapped in there so that it forms one unified covering for the body of Jesus, and he places it in a tomb.

The tomb was probably a cave like tomb dug out of the side of the hill from all the descriptions, the Gospel writers give us. Matthew adds in chapter 27 that Joseph, in addition, rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb.

Now this stone served two purposes. The first was to keep scavenging animals out and away from the body, and the second was to prevent grave robbers from taking the body. This was a common problem in the ancient world. We read about it often in secular writings, and so this stone would have been purposefully huge. It was there to prevent a single person or one or two people from opening it and taking the body.

So, it was large enough to require several men to move it. But Matthew explains that the body was not only secured in these ways, but it was also secured in more dramatic ways. Turn to Matthew 27:62, "Now on the next day [this would have been Saturday.] the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate,"

Now this is a remarkable combination of people strange assortment of bedfellows here. The scribes were absolutely Pharisees, and they were committed to their doctrine, but the chief priests were Sadducees and the Sadducees and the Pharisees hardly ever had anything in common. Here the only thing they share in common is the mutual hatred of Jesus Christ.

They come to Pilot, and they say this. … "Sir, we remember that when He was still alive, that deceiver said, 'After three days, … [I'm going] … to rise again.'" You know it always surprises me that the disciples never got it. I mean the enemies of Jesus got it. They understood what He was claiming, and they said we know what He claimed.

Verse 64, "Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise, His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people 'He's risen from the dead,' and the last deception will be worse than the first," [The first deception claiming to be Messiah, the last deception being a risen Messiah; that'll be worse.}

So Pilate says in verse 65, You're right. That's a problem.

… "You have a guard. [I'll give you a guard take the Roman soldiers with you] go make it as secure as you know how." And they went and made the grave secure and, along with the guard, they set a seal on the stone.

So a Roman guard of at least four soldiers. There were always at least four one for each watch of the night, while the others rested, and no more than sixty somewhere between four and sixty soldiers went to the tomb of Christ.

Now, if you were given the assignment of guarding a dead body, what would be the first thing you would do? It's exactly what these men did. You would open the tomb to make sure that it was still there before you began your responsibility. So, they ensure that the body of Christ is still there.

They cover the tomb again with the stone, and then they affix to the tomb a Roman seal. This usually consisted of a cord or rope, part of which would be secured with wax to the face of the wall of the tomb.

The other part would be secured to the stone that rolled and moved, so that any movement would break that seal, and then at each end of that chord would be placed some wax and stamped into that wax would be a Roman insignia. On the power of Rome, you're not to break this seal. You're not to move this stone, and then they set up a twenty-four-hour watch.

You know, it fascinates me that one of the most common attacks on the resurrection is to claim that someone stole Jesus' body. But as we've seen, John and Matthew demolished this theory by detailing how carefully the body of Jesus was secured, Nobody's going to be able to steal this body.

On the other hand, those who claim that Jesus just sort of swooned, and then what was resuscitated in the coolness of the tomb. They have a real problem because they have to explain how a man with such incredible physical trauma and such an incredible loss of blood could have freed Himself from those linen wrappings hung together with this blue substance of these seventy pounds of spices somehow extricate Himself from that Houdini like; then opened the stone; moved the stone that covered the tomb, which was designed to require several men to move; either sneak past or overpower carefully trained Roman guards; and then somehow convince His disciples that He's the Son of God risen from the dead.

Listen folks, it takes far more faith to believe that theory than to embrace the biblical doctrine of resurrection. John says Jesus was certifiably dead, and His body was carefully secured. John's third argument for the resurrection is that Jesus' grave was clearly empty. Jesus' grave was clearly empty.

You see how he's building his case. He starts with the reality that Jesus actually died, certifiably so. Then he adds that His body was secured so that no one could steal it. No one could remove it. It couldn't just disappear. And yet you've come to Sunday morning, and the tomb is empty. You see from that first Easter Romans, Jews, friends and foes have all unanimously agreed that the tomb of Jesus Christ was empty.

Notice what John writes John 20:1. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the . stone had already been taken away from the tomb.

Now putting the gospel accounts together. It appears that Mary Magdalene, along with at least three other women, come to the tomb. They probably left their homes somewhat before daybreak while it was still dark. Now, Jesus Christ has already risen from the dead. In fact, the angels have already come to roll away the stone, accompanied by a great earthquake.

The Roman soldiers, seeing this, seeing the body is gone, have disappeared, gone eventually to even speak to the leaders of Israel. So, Jesus is gone. The angels didn't move the stone to let Jesus out, remember. He had a glorified body that was able to walk through walls. Getting out of the tomb wasn't a problem for Jesus. The stone was moved not to let Jesus out, but to let us in to see that in fact the body was missing.

So, here come Mary and the women. They leave their homes shortly before dawn. Jesus has already raised. The stone has already been moved. They arrive at the scene to discover that, in fact, and they probably arrived there just after daybreak. the stone was already taken away. They'd been worried about how they were going to move this stone that required several people to move. What's her first reaction? Verse 2?

…she ran [away] and came to Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they've laid in notice. Their first response is not he has risen, but his body has been stolen. Verse 3, So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together. I love verse 4 my father-in-law used to say you need to read the Scripture with a sort of sanctified imagination.

You picture Peter, you know a little older little plumper, a little slower, and John, young and spry and fast, and the two of them running together initially, and then Peter begins to huff and puff a little bit, and John out distances him.Verse 4 [they]

… were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter. This of course is John, and he came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. [So John's giving us an eyewitness account. Here he says he came first to the tomb, and he stays at the mouth of the tomb.]

He looks in, and he sees this remarkable scene, but he stays at the door. Then Peter, we're told verse 6 came. Also, he finally caught up breathing hard following him and entered the tomb. He goes in, and he saw the linen wrappings lying there.

He uses the same expression that John used of what he saw back in verse 5 and the face cloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Now this is fascinating. This language paints an amazing picture for us.

Listen to how D. A. Carson in his commentary describes it, He says, What seems clearest here is the contrast with the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus came from the tomb still wearing his grave clothes. Jesus' resurrection body apparently passed through His grave clothes, spices, and all in much the same way that He later appeared in a locked room.

So, what they're seeing there in that tomb is those linen wrappings with the seventy pounds of spices still there, but the body of Jesus has come through it, and the weight of the spices has caused the whole thing to collapse into a pile there on the slab. Jesus' body is gone, and the burial cloth that was around His head. It's been neatly rolled up and laid over by itself laid to one side.

Now what was immediately obvious to John anyway was that Jesus had not been humanly removed from those grave clothes, nor therefore from the grave. Because notice John's response verse 8 so the other disciple would come first to the tomb that is, John.

He also entered, and he saw and believed. John understood that there was no human way to get Jesus out of those grave clothes either to steal His body or for Jesus to remove Himself. They were in such a form that it was clear that something miraculous had occurred.

It wasn't that he understood the Scripture verse 9. He didn't yet understand that Jesus would rise from the dead. What he saw in that tomb caused him to believe that Jesus was alive.

So, they went away to their own homes, Peter to his; marveling as we read in Luke, and John convinced that Jesus was alive.Now what I want you to think about is, what happened in regard to the tomb that morning? Think about what we have just read on that first day, putting together what we read earlier this morning with John's testimony here on that first Sunday there were multiple witnesses to the empty tomb.

There were the two angels who rolled away the stone to let us in. There were the Roman soldiers somewhere between 4 and 60, who saw that the body was missing, saw that the tomb was empty. There was Mary Magdalene and at least three other women who were with her; there was Peter; there was John; even Jesus' enemies admitted that His grave was empty and that His body was gone.

According to Matthew, the Jewish leaders bribed the Roman guard to say the disciples had stolen the body. Now that's ridiculous for who was it that initiated the guard to make sure the disciples don't steal the body.

It was the religious leaders, and what fascinates me as you go into the book of Acts, and as you go into the early history of the Church, neither the Romans nor the Jewish leaders ever furnished the body of Christ to shut up the apostles. Believe me if they could have, they would have.

The tomb, however, was empty. Now there's one other strange theory that I need to address here. A famous liberal theologian by the name of Pearop Lake came up with the ludicrous theory that the reason it seemed the tomb was empty was because the women went to the wrong tomb that morning. And next door was the real tomb with Jesus' body in it, and it's still there.

As this theory goes, the women arrive. They get to the wrong tomb, and they ask the gardener. Where is Jesus? What have you done with Him? And the gardener responded He's not here, and the women all run off to tell everyone that Jesus is risen before the gardener can say, He's not here; He's over there.

This is ridiculous, but Matthew, Mark and Luke all record that these same ladies, these ladies who attended Jesus and His disciples in Galilee; who came with Him for the feast of Passover; who were there at the crucifixion, also attended His burial and saw where He was laid. We read it this morning in Luke 23:55, now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed and saw the tomb. They saw His burial. They saw how His body was laid, and then they returned with prepared spices and perfumes, and on the Sabbath rested according to the commandment.

No, they didn't get the wrong tomb. They knew exactly which tomb it was. The tomb was empty. There is no question from the historical record of the New Testament and secular history that Jesus' grave was clearly empty.

Now John presents his case. He says, Listen, Jesus was certifiably dead. Jesus' body was carefully secured, and yet the grave was clearly empty. That brings us to John's fourth and final argument, and that is that Jesus was certainly alive. Jesus was certainly alive.

You see as important as the empty tomb is. The early church did not believe in the resurrection because they saw an empty tomb. It was because they saw a living Savior. The one exception of course we read here in John was John the Apostle. He's the only one, the only one of the Apostles who saw the empty tomb and saw the grave clothes and came to believe. The rest of them didn't believe until they saw the Lord.

So, the way God chose to establish that Jesus was alive was through appearances. Jesus, after His resurrection, made fourteen different appearances to more than five hundred people in at least ten different locations over a period of sixty years.

Let me just give you these briefly. The first of these post resurrection appearances is recorded in John. It was to Mary Magdalene beginning in verse 11 of John 20. This is a fascinating story and one that we will look at in detail in the years to come, but I just want you to get the punch line this morning.

Notice verse 18 of John 20 Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples, I have seen the Lord and that he said these things to her. Jesus early that morning after his resurrection appears to Mary.

His second appearance is recorded in Matthew 28, still early that morning through the other women that had accompanied Mary to the tomb.

His third appearance and this is fascinating, is recorded in Luke 24. It was to Peter, to Peter, we're not told what Jesus said to Peter, but Peter, who had denied Him at least four times one in addition to what Christ had prophesied, He appears to Peter.

His fourth appearance was later on that Sunday. It's still on the first day of the week later in that day to two disciples on the Emmaus Road. This is recorded in Luke 24, and you remember that He taught them about Himself, but they didn't recognize Him until He broke the bread and then He disappeared from their midst. They returned to Jerusalem to tell the apostles.

The apostles, we're told, later that same evening, still on the first day of the week, are gathered in a room. Ten of them, Judas, of course, is now dead, and Thomas isn't there. This is recorded for us here in John 20:19 - 25.

All five of those appearances occur on that first Sunday. Now the next appearance, the sixth appearance happens eight days later. On the following Sunday evening. The apostles are gathered again, and this time Thomas is with them, you remember.

Thomas said, listen, I know you say you've said you've seen Him, but unless I can put my hands in the nail print in the nail prints and in his side, then I'm not going to believe, verse 26, after eight days again. This is Sunday. A week later, his disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them.

Jesus came, the doors having been locked, and stood in their midst, and said peace be with you. I'm not sure I would have been at peace. You probably wouldn't have either. Then he said to Thomas. Reach here with your finger and see my hands, and reach here with your hand, and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving but believing.

Now Thomas, my name's sake, it's a pretty hard wrap. You know he's called doubting Thomas.

But listen, Thomas responds in faith, exactly the same way the other Apostles did when they saw the resurrected Lord. They didn't believe till they saw Christ except for John, and when Thomas sees Christ, he believes. But Thomas adds something that has gone down in sacred history because he utters those exalted words of Jesus Christ, He says, My Lord and my God, my Master, my King and my God.

John records the seventh resurrection appearance in chapter 21. It was to the seven Apostles at Galilee, recorded in the first fourteen verses.

The eighth appearance is recorded in 1 Corinthians 15. It was in the Galilee region to five hundred disciples at one time. In fact, Paul says when he writes to the Corinthians, that most of them are still alive, you can talk to them, they saw Him.

His ninth appearance was to James. This is wonderful, to James, his half-brother, the one who didn't believe in him. You know how hard that must have been for Christ to grow up in a home, knowing that you're the eternal son of God and your own siblings don't believe it. So, he appears to James. we're told. And James believes, and in fact, he becomes a leader in the Jerusalem Church, and he ends up writing one of the epistles in our New Testament, the epistle of James.

His tenth appearance was to all the Apostles in Galilee, recorded in Matthew 28.

His eleventh was at the ascension recorded in Acts 1.

His twelfth appearance was to Stephen. You remember there in Act 7 when Steven's being stoned, and he looks up and he sees Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God.

Two years later, Jesus appears to Paul on the Damascus Road, recorded in Acts 9.

And sixty years later, the fourteenth and final visible appearance of Jesus Christ occurs to John the Apostle, a little speck of dust called Patmos recorded in Revelation 1.

John Walvert, in his book Jesus Christ Our Lord, writes, "Taken as a whole, the appearances of Christ are of such various character and to so many people under so many different circumstances, that proof of the resurrection of Christ is as solid as any historical fact that can be cited in the first century. Listen, you were taught things in your history class based on far less evidence than we have with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

John's case for the resurrection is unassailable. Jesus was certifiably dead. His body was carefully secured. His grave was clearly empty, and Jesus was certainly alive. John closes his case in chapter 20 by urging us to respond, notice verse 29, he quotes the words of Jesus about Thomas. Jesus said to Thomas, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed?"

Probably better to take this as a statement, he says to Thomas, because you've seen Me you have believed. Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." John is talking to us his readers. He's saying, You haven't seen Him, but you still must believe in Him just as I did. Notice his invitation verse 30.

Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of [His] … disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written.

Here's why I wrote so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah of the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name. You see John wants us to respond like Thomas did. He wants us to fall down before the risen Christ and cry out my master and my God.

The resurrection is God's power on display. The most profound illustration of the power of the resurrection I ever encountered was in the life of a man named Ron. Sheila, and I met Ron's wife, Shirley at Grace Church in Los Angeles many years ago. Shirley had prayed for Ron to come to faith in Christ for twenty years. She'd been a faithful Christian wife.

But Ron was an avowed atheist when they began their marriage, and he had softened through the years to when I met him, he was an agnostic. Confident of only one thing, and that's that you can be confident of nothing.

But Ron loved his wife and as a major anniversary approached, he said to Shirley, He said, "Listen honey, I love you. I want to celebrate our anniversary. I want us to go on a trip. You pick the place, and that's where we'll go well. Grace to you was sponsoring a trip at the time to Israel, and that's where Shirley wanted to go.And so, she raised this, and Ron scratched his head and said, Well, okay, I mean that isn't exactly what I had in mind, but if that's what you want to do. So Ron, by God's providence, Ron and Shirley ended up on the same bus with Sheila and Me.

We had several opportunities to sit over a meal and talk about what we were seeing; talk about the historical reality of Jesus Christ and His claims. After ten days of touring Israel, Ron and Shirley flew out of Tel Aviv.

Shortly after takeoff, Ron leaned over to Shirley, and he said something to her that absolutely floored her. He said, Shirley, I just want you to know that I've become a follower of Jesus Christ.

He went on to describe that as an American, he had always thought of Jesus is some kind of fairytale, but being there in the land of Israel had forced him to deal with the reality that Jesus is a historical figure, who made historically reliable claims that are either true or not true.

By God's providence on our last day in Israel, Ron found himself alone for five to ten minutes in the garden tomb. Gordon's calvary it's called. Probably not the place where Jesus was buried, but much like the tomb He would have been buried in, and he found himself standing in there alone, which, if you've ever been to that site, is a miracle in and of itself.

And it was there he said that he confessed Jesus as Lord and believed in his heart that God had raised him from the dead. That's the power of the resurrection.

If you're already a Christian, as most of us are this morning, John wants the evidence that he's presented to strengthen and encourage your faith.

But perhaps you're sitting there this morning in agreement with everything I've said about Jesus' resurrection. You can honestly say, Yeah. I believe that; I believe that Jesus was raised from the dead.

Let me tell you that is not enough. The devils believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. The Roman soldiers believed that Jesus was raised from the dead. The Jewish leaders believed that Jesus was raised from the dead, and yet none of them confessed him as Lord and Savior.

The question is this, have you ever fallen down before Jesus Christ like Thomas did and confessed Him to be your Master and your God. If not, then I can tell you this morning on the authority of the Word of God, that you are still in your sins, and you are headed toward a Christless eternity. This is what Paul says. Paul couldn't make it any clearer. In Romans 10, listen to what he says, Romans 10:9.

He says, here is the message of faith I'm preaching to you. This is what faith is, "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord," [it doesn't mean just saying Jesus is lord. It means acknowledging Him to be your Lord and Master, the way Thomas did. It means turning to Him following Him.] "and" [if you] "believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." You must not only believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and that He did what the Scriptures record, and that that was sealed by His resurrection. You must be willing to confess Him as your Lord, your Master your King. And you must believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Then you can experience the power and the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for the clarity of Your Word, thank You, for the evidence that John presents. Lord, that even though we weren't there, we can see these events through his eyes and through the eyes of the other gospel writers.

Lord, thank You for the unassailable evidence that is presented. Lord strengthen and confirm our faith those of us who know and love Jesus Christ.

And Lord for those who have never bowed their knee and confessed Jesus as Lord, May this be the day.

We pray it in His name, Amen.