Examining the Evidence of Easter

You've read accounts in the Bible of how Christ impacted so many people, but we really know very little about the lives of those early followers of Jesus. The Chosen, I Have Called You By Name, imagines what life was like for those who followed Christ. Based on the widely acclaimed TV series The Chosen, this Focus on the Family book by bestselling author Jerry Jenkins brings color and depth to the people surrounding Christ.

You can find out more at focusonthefamily.com slash chosen. Of all human beings who've ever lived in history, the disciples were in a unique position. They were there. They encountered personally the resurrected Jesus. They knew for a fact, is this a lie or is it the truth? And knowing it was the truth, they were willing to die for that proclamation.

That tells me something about the veracity of their claims. Well, this Easter weekend, I wonder if you can celebrate with absolute confidence that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead. We want to give you some reasons to believe today on Focus on the Family with your host, Focus President Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, we have a great message from Pastor Lee Strobel today detailing the facts surrounding the events that we commemorate this weekend from today, Good Friday through Easter Sunday. As many of you know, Lee is a bestselling author and he's the founding director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University right up the road. Yeah, it's a great place and we're so glad to have Lee today on this broadcast. This content is included in Lee's book, The Case for Easter, and we've got copies of that here at the ministry.

Just follow the link in the show notes. And here's Lee Strobel speaking at Passion City Church in Atlanta on today's episode of Focus on the Family, and we're picking up right after his opening remarks. I'm just going to do something simple. I'm just going to tell you a story. It's a true story. It's my story. It's a story that begins in atheism because I decided at a rather young age that God does not and cannot exist. I thought that God didn't create people, but people created God.

Why? Because they're afraid of death. So they made up this idea of heaven and an afterlife to make themselves feel better about dying.

That's what I thought. I just thought the mere concept of an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe, come on. It's crazy.

It wasn't even worth my time to check out. Now, granted, I'm a skeptical person. It's sort of in my DNA. You know, my background is in journalism and law.

Can you imagine if you put those two things together? What kind of a jerk? Skeptic. What kind of a skeptic? I was a legal editor of the Chicago Tribune newspaper, and we used to pride ourselves on our skepticism. We wouldn't accept anybody's word at face value. We always wanted to try to get two sources to confirm a fact before we'd print it in the newspaper.

So no kidding. We had a sign in our newsroom that said, if your mother says she loves you, check it out. How do you know?

Maybe she's lying. Got any proof? Got anything to back that up? And that's okay.

That's all right. You want journalists to be skeptical, don't you? Sometimes, don't you wish they were more skeptical than they are? But my problem was that my skepticism bubbled over into cynicism, and it cemented me into my atheism. Now, because I had no belief in God, I really lacked a moral framework for my life. And I'm not saying all atheists think this way. I'm just telling you the way I looked at the world. I tend to be logical. I tend to be rational. So I said, okay, if there is no God, if there is no heaven, if there is no hell, if there is no judgment, if there is no ultimate accountability, then the most logical way for me to live my life would be as a hedonist.

Someone who just pursues pleasure. And that's what I did. So I lived a very immoral and drunken and profane and narcissistic, self-absorbed, really self-destructive in a lot of ways. That was my life. What people saw was me winning awards for investigative reporting.

What they didn't see was the other side, which was me literally drunk in the snow in an alley on Saturday night. I had so much rage inside of me, so much anger. And if you ask me back then, what's the deal?

Why the anger? I couldn't have told you. But looking back, it's clear what it was. I was always after the perfect high. I was always after the ultimate experience of pleasure.

But guess what? Everything let me down. Nothing lived up to the hype. So I had a lot of rage. I remember once, Leslie and I got in an argument, and our little daughter was there, and I had so much rage, I just blew up. And I remember I reared back, and I kicked a hole right through our living room wall. And my daughter's crying, and Leslie's crying.

It was like, hey, it was just another day in the Strobel house. In fact, I'm going to tell you the ugliest thing about me, which is when my little daughter, Allison, was just a toddler. If she was alone in the living room, playing with some blocks, toys, or whatever, and she would hear me come home from work through the front door, her natural reaction was just to gather her toys and go in her room and shut the door. Is she going to be drunk again? Is she going to be yelling and screaming and kicking holes in walls?

At least it's nice and quiet in here. Friends, that is the ugliest truth about me. Leslie was agnostic. She didn't know what to think about God.

If you've seen the movie on our life, which is on Netflix, by the way, so it's free, you'll know what happened. It was through the relationship that Leslie developed with a Christian woman who was a nurse, who shared the Gospel with her, who brought her to church. And after many months of checking things out, Leslie came up to me and said, Lee, I made a big decision in my life. I said, what? She said, I've decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ. And I thought, oh, no. For an atheist, this is the worst news you can get. Who knew what she was going to turn into, right?

Some holy roll or something? I didn't know. All I knew was this wasn't part of the deal.

This isn't what I signed up for. First word that went through my mind, divorce. But I stuck around. And a couple of things happened. On the positive side, there were a lot of changes in Leslie and her character and the way she related to me and the kids that were winsome and that were attractive and kind of pulled me toward faith. But at the same time, I wanted our whole life back.

I wanted the old Leslie back. And so I thought, what can I do to get her out of this cult that she's gotten involved in? And I thought, well, I got a good idea. I'll just disprove Christianity because then I'll get her out of this cult and we can go back to our life the way it was. And so I thought, how do I do that?

How do you disprove Christianity? Well, actually, I thought this has got to be pretty easy. I think I can do it in a weekend.

And here's maybe a three-day weekend. Okay. But because I knew the key to everything is the resurrection of Jesus.

Why? Because Jesus, in a variety of different ways, directly and indirectly, made transcendent and messianic and divine claims about himself. He claimed to be the Son of God. At one point, he gets up before a group, John 10, verse 30, and he says, I and the Father are one. And the word in Greek there for one is not masculine, it's neuter, which means Jesus was not saying I and the Father are the same person. He was saying I and the Father are the same thing. We're one in nature.

We're one in essence. And how did the audience understand what he was saying? They picked up stones to kill him because they said, well, you're just a man and you're claiming to be God. So Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, but so what? I can claim to be the Son of God. You can claim to be God.

Anybody can claim to be God. But if Jesus claimed to be God, died, and then three days later rose from the dead, that's pretty good evidence he's telling the truth, right? That's why the resurrection is the linchpin of the Christian faith. That's why the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 17, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

You're still in your sins. What was he saying? He was saying, look, Christianity is an investigatable faith. And if you investigate it and you find that the resurrection is not an actual historical event, you are fully justified in walking away from the faith.

That's how bold he was. Well, I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. I've seen plenty of dead bodies. I've not seen any of them come back to life. And so I thought I can easily disprove that Jesus returned from the dead. And so I want to kind of talk about what I discovered during what turned out to be a nearly two-year investigation into the minutia of the resurrection of Jesus, into the historical data. And I'm going to organize the data for the resurrection using four words that begin with the letter E. That way it gives you a framework.

And the reason I want to do this is a couple of reasons. Some of you may be like I was. You know, maybe a friend brought you today. You're not sure about this Christianity stuff. And so for you, I hope these four E's give you something to think about, about whether or not this is based on fairy tales and make-believe wishful thinking or actual historical truth. And then for those of us who are followers of Jesus, you know, 1 Peter 3.15 says that we are always prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have and to do it gently and respectfully. And so this will give you a framework that you can always remember. If anybody asks you why should I believe Christianity is true, you can say let me tell you about the four E's.

So what are the four E's? I want to emphasize, though, when I did this investigation, I was a skeptic. So I did not give the New Testament any special credence. Didn't consider it to be inerrant, inspired, the Word of God.

I do now. But I was a skeptic then. But I had to accept the New Testament for what it undeniably is, which is a set of ancient historical writings. And I knew just as you can investigate any ancient writings, whether they're by Suetonius or Tacitus or Josephus, you can take those same investigative techniques and apply them to the historical record for the resurrection to try to come to a verdict, is Christianity true?

And so that's what I did for a year and nine months in my investigation. So what are the four E's that summarize the evidence for the resurrection? The first E stands for the word execution, that Jesus was dead after being crucified. And I learned very quickly as I did my investigation, there is no dispute among scholars in the field. I'm not just talking about Christian scholars. I'm talking about the wide range of scholarship around the planet. There is virtually no dispute among ancient historians that Jesus was dead after being crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Why? Because when we study ancient history, we're lucky if we get one or maybe two sources to confirm a fact. And yet for the death of Jesus, we not only have multiple early first century accounts in the records that are contained in the New Testament, we've also got five ancient sources outside the Bible confirming and corroborating his death. We have Josephus, a first century Jewish historian who worked for the Romans, Tacitus, another early historian, Mirabar Serapion, Lucian, even the Jewish Talmud admits that Jesus was executed. In fact, no less of an authority than the peer-reviewed scientific medical journal of the American Medical Association conducted an investigation into the evidence for the death of Jesus.

Let me quote to you their conclusion. Clearly, the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead even before the wound to his side was inflicted. The first E is for execution. Jesus was dead.

The second E, I think is the most fascinating, stands for the word early. We have early accounts or early reports that Jesus rose from the dead. In other words, reports that come virtually immediately after his death.

Why is that important? Because like a lot of skeptics, I used to think that the resurrection of Jesus was a legend. But what I learned decimates the claim that the resurrection is merely a legend.

Follow me on this. I think this is fascinating. We have preserved for us a creed of the earliest Christians. In other words, right there in the first century itself, these Christians would rally around this creed based on facts that they knew to be true. Now this creed contains the essence of Christianity. It says Jesus died.

Why? For our sins, he was buried, and the third day he rose from the dead, and then it mentions the specific names of eyewitnesses and groups of eyewitnesses to whom he appeared, including opponents and skeptics. Now what's important about this creed is how immediately it developed after the death of Jesus. Remember we said it took time for legend to develop. Well, we can date this creed.

How? Because the Apostle Paul preserved it for us. He wrote a letter about 22 to 25 years after the death of Jesus. He writes a letter to the church in Corinth.

We call it 1 Corinthians. If you want to look up the creed later, 1 Corinthians 15 starting at verse 3. So he writes this letter 22 to 25 years after the death of Jesus, and in the context of how he writes it, it suggests that he had already given him this creed on an earlier visit.

He was just repeating it in the letter. So we can date the creed confidently to within 20 years of the death of Jesus. Now we could stop there, and that would be very impressive historically speaking when you consider the first two biographies of Alexander the Great by Arrian and Plutarch written 400 years after his life, and they're generally considered reliable. So 20 years is pretty good, but we can go back earlier.

How? Because we know that Paul used to be Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor, a hater of Christians. One to three years after the death of Jesus, he's on the road to Damascus. Boom, he has this encounter with the risen Christ. He becomes the Apostle Paul. Immediately he goes into Damascus and he meets with some apostles. Now many scholars say this is when the apostles gave him this creed that he later shared with the church in Corinth. Other scholars say, wait a minute, it may have been three years later. Three years later, Paul goes to Jerusalem and he meets for 15 days with two eyewitnesses to the resurrection who are named in the creed, Peter and James.

And the Greek word that Paul uses in Galatians to describe this 15-day meeting, historisai, suggests that this was an investigative inquiry. They're checking each other out. What did you know? What did you see?

What did you experience? They're checking each other out. Many scholars say this is when Paul was given the creed by two eyewitnesses named in the creed. But either way, this means within one to six years after the death of Jesus, this creed is already in existence and therefore the beliefs that make up this creed go back even earlier virtually to the cross itself. So friends, the point is there is no huge time gap between the death of Jesus and the later development of a legend that he rose from the dead. We've got a news flash that goes right back to the beginning. In fact, nowhere ever in history do we ever see a legend developing that fast and wiping out a solid core of historical truth. And that's not the only early report we've got. We've got others in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts, elsewhere in the epistles that were all circulating during the lifetimes of Jesus' contemporaries who would have been all too happy to point out the errors if they were making this stuff up.

Friends, we've got an execution. Jesus was dead. We have reports of his resurrection that are so early that you can't write them off as being a legend, but that's not all we've got.

We've got a third word that begins with the letter E. It's the word empty. We have an empty tomb. The historical record tells us that Jesus' body was placed in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish council. It was sealed. Matthew tells us it's guarded, and yet it's discovered empty that first Easter morning. Now, some critics believe, as I used to believe, that, wait a minute, I'll tell you why the tomb is empty. The body was never really in it. Don't you know they didn't bury crucifixion victims? They left them on the cross to be eaten by birds, or they threw them to the dogs. They didn't allow them to be buried. That's why the tomb was empty. Well, wait a minute.

I checked it out. What did I find? I found that when you read the Digesta, which is a summary of the Roman law and procedure from the first century, it specifically says that crucifixion victims, execution victims, can be buried. Not only that, we have in 1968 the remains of a crucifixion victim who had been buried that were discovered. Right there, from the first century, he was executed. They found him with a spike still through his ankle bone. So we have archaeological evidence that, yes, some crucifixion victims at least were buried, and we have good reason to believe that's what happened with Jesus.

So what happened to him? How did the tomb get empty? How can we know that it really was empty on that first Easter morning? Well, we could talk the rest of the day about all the various strands of historical evidence that established the empty tomb, but I'm just going to give you one fact, because to me this is conclusive, and here it is. Even the enemies of Jesus admitted that it was empty.

How do we know? Because when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus had risen, what the opponents of Jesus never said was, Bologna, go open the tomb and you'll find the body. That's all they needed to say. It would have put the onus on the disciples to prove it. But they didn't say that. What did they say? We know from sources inside and outside the New Testament that when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus had risen, what the opponents said was, oh, well, the disciples stole the body. Now think about that.

What is that? That's a cover story. They're implicitly conceding the tomb is empty. They're just trying to explain how it got empty. So either explicitly or implicitly, both the supporters and the enemies of Jesus are saying the same thing, that the tomb of Jesus was empty. I don't think that's ever been the question of history.

We're all conceding that. Really, the question of history is, how did it get empty? That is the question.

So you look at the usual list of suspects. The Romans weren't about to steal the body. They wanted Jesus dead. The Jewish leaders of the day weren't about to steal the body. They wanted Jesus to stay dead. The disciples weren't about to steal the body. They didn't have the motive. They didn't have the means.

They didn't have the opportunity. I think the best explanation for the tomb being empty is that Jesus physically returned from the dead, especially when we combine it with the fourth word that begins with the letter E, which is the word eyewitnesses. Not only was Jesus' tomb discovered empty, but over a period of time, Jesus appears alive in a dozen different instances to more than 515 people. People talked to him. They touched him.

They ate with him. Think of this. Remember we said earlier, we're lucky in ancient history if we have one or two sources to confirm a fact?

Well, get this. For the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus, we have no fewer than nine ancient sources inside and outside the New Testament, confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus. Friends, that is an avalanche of historical data. Of course, the historical record tells us this experience revolutionized the lives of the disciples. After Jesus is put to death, they're afraid they're going to get executed. They go into hiding.

They're going to go back to the fishing business. And yet, history undeniably tells us just a few weeks later, in the very same city where Jesus has been executed, these once cowardly disciples are now proclaiming with boldness that Jesus not only claimed to be the Son of God, he backed up that claim by returning from the dead. And they were willing to proclaim that message to their deaths. Now, how some of the disciples actually die gets a little cloudy in ancient history, but that's not my point.

My point is their willingness to die. Why were they willing to do that? Because they saw on CNN that Jesus had risen? No.

Because they read it in the New York Times? No. Because a Sunday school teacher told them?

No. Because they were there. Of all human beings who have ever lived in history, the disciples were in a unique position.

They were there. They encountered personally the resurrected Jesus. They knew for a fact, is this a lie or is it the truth? And knowing it was the truth, they were willing to die for that proclamation.

That tells me something about the veracity of their claims. Friends, I spent almost two years of my life investigating the minutiae historically around the resurrection of Jesus. And it all came down to a Sunday afternoon. And I realized, you know, at some point, every juror needs to reach a verdict. And I thought, you know what? The evidence is in.

After two years, I don't think I'm going to find some news flash, something I missed. So I said, I've got to reach a verdict. So I sat down with all the evidence I'd encountered over this two years, massive volumes of material, and I'm kind of sorting through it. And then I stopped and I go, wait a second. And I kind of stepped back and said, you know, in light of the avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, I realized it would take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. I mean, that was my conclusion.

It was like the scales just tipped like this. And I realized, based on the historical data, I was convinced Jesus not only claimed to be the Son of God, he backed up that claim by returning from the dead. And then you know how I felt? I kind of felt let down.

I did. I thought, it's been two years. Shouldn't an angel appear about now? I mean, that would be cool. An earthquake would be great.

Something dramatic? It was kind of let down after two years. Is that it?

Is that it? But then I read a verse, John 1-12. It says, But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. And I realized, okay, believing the evidence, concluding, reaching the verdict that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, backed it up by returning from the dead, that's great, that's important, it's not enough.

It's not enough. Believe plus receive. I had to receive.

Receive what? Receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased for me on the cross when he died as my substitute to pay for all of my sin. And when I would receive this free gift of his grace, then I would become a child of God. And so I got on my knees and I poured out a confession of a lifetime of immorality that would absolutely curl your hair.

And at that moment I received complete and total forgiveness through Jesus Christ and I became a child of God. Well, what a great message from Lee Strobel today on this edition of Focus on the Family. Wow, John, I always love it when biblical accounts are backed up by non-religious sources. And Lee Strobel did such a great job sharing some of those today.

And if you're wishing you could explain this content to a friend the way Lee just did, don't worry. It's all in his book, The Case for Easter, and we'll send that out to you for a donation of any amount as you support the ministry here at Focus on the Family. If you can't afford it, we'll get it out to you, we'll trust others, we'll cover the cost, because this is getting the Word of God out to people and that's what I'm excited about. You might not know this, but over the last year over 800 people each and every day have dedicated or rededicated their lives to Jesus Christ through Focus on the Family. And that's the most important thing that we do here.

It's the foundation for everything. So please donate if you can so that we can reach even more families in Christ together. Yeah, follow the link in the episode notes to get your copy of The Case for Easter, or because we're closed for the holiday weekend, give us a call on Monday at 800-AFAMILY. And as I mentioned earlier, we do have a CD of this message from Lee.

It's got quite a bit of additional content. It'd make a great resource for you to listen together as a family or to share with a friend. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for this Focus on the Family podcast. Take a moment, please give us a rating and share about this episode with a friend who needs perhaps to know about the facts regarding Easter. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. Use your resources to help families thrive for generations to come. Find out more at FocusLegacyCommunity.com. That's FocusLegacyCommunity.com.