As we continue our apologetics blog series, we decided in the spirit of Easter to look at the reliability the claim of Jesus’ death and resurrection. To do this, we look at the story of Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel had always been a self-proclaimed atheist. “The mere concept of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving creator was absurd on the surface of it,” Lee said. At one point, a neighbor named Linda kept inviting Lee’s wife Leslie to go to her church with her. In order to get the neighbor off her back, Leslie agreed to go. After attending Willow Creek Church, Leslie felt the experience had left an impression on her and she wanted to go back.
Lee was having a hard time understanding his wife’s new interest. “I didn’t want to be married to a Christian,” he said. “I didn’t sign up for this.” He knew what he had to do. He’d go to church with her and make her see the reality of the “cult” that was sucking her in. Lee tagged along with his wife one Sunday morning. Following the sermon on “Basic Christianity,” Lee felt inspired to use his journalistic skills to disprove it. That journey would take a year and nine months, with Lee eventually writing down the pros and cons of Christianity on a yellow legal pad. First, he looked at whether or not Jesus really died and was resurrected. That’s really the most important aspect of Christianity. And he summarized this with the 4 E’s
The first E stands for execution, was Jesus dead after being crucified? And the answer is absolutely yes, there is no record anywhere of anybody ever surviving a full Roman crucifixion. Even the secular Journal of the American Medical Association, carried an investigation into the medical and historical evidence for the death of Jesus and said clearly that Jesus was dead. We also see five ancient sources outside the Bible, confirming and corroborating that he died. , Josephus, first century Jewish historian who worked for the Romans, Tacitus, another early historian.
Second E is early. We have early accounts or early reports that Jesus rose from the dead. In other words, reports that go right back to the beginning. Why is that important? As Lee Strobel put it “Because I used to think, like a lot of skeptics, that the resurrection was a legend. And I knew it took time for legend to develop in the ancient world. So I figured, you know, 100, 150 years after the death of Jesus, legends developed, mythologies were spun, stories were invented, and that’s where the idea of the resurrection came from.” But the truth is that the earliest Christians right there in the first century would rally around based on facts that they knew to be true. They said that Jesus appeared to over 500 people, and saying that those people were still around so you can go question them.
Third E is for empty tomb. There’s lots of reasons why we believe the tomb is empty, but I think the most convincing is that even the opponents of Jesus admitted that it was empty. How do we know? Well, because when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus had risen, what the opponents of Jesus said, the disciples stole the body. Think about that. That’s a cover story. They’re admitting the tomb is empty. They’re trying to explain how it got empty. So everybody’s admitting the tomb is empty. That’s not the issue. The issue is, how did it get empty?
Then the fourth E stands for eyewitnesses. Not only was Jesus tomb discovered empty, but over a period of time, he appears alive in a dozen different instances to more than 515 people to skeptics and doubters, to men, to women, to groups, to individuals, indoors, outdoors, daytime, nighttime, the disciples talked to him, they ate with them, they touched him. But here’s what’s interesting about the eyewitnesses in ancient history, we’re lucky if we have one or two sources to confirm a fact. Well 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. That is an avalanche of historical data.
We can have faith this Easter that Jesus really died and was resurrected! Not just that but He died for your sins so that you could be forgiven!
