The Gospel of Jesus Christ (17) The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (2)

“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20:19-21)

​We’ve been talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Last Sunday, we started to talk about the most important event in the history of Christianity—the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reason the resurrection is considered the most significant event in Christianity is because everything we believe in is actually based on it.
 
Last Sunday, we talked about what Paul said about the resurrection of Jesus Christ: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1Co 15:17)
 
That Jesus was raised from the dead is crucial to our faith because everything we believe in as Christians loses its meaning if Jesus wasn’t resurrected. The event clearly shows us that death is not the final destination here on earth. By overcoming death and being resurrected, Jesus showed us that there’s eternal life waiting for us after death, which is definitely far more important than the temporary life we have while living on earth.
 
If there’s no eternal life, there’s no reason for us to sacrifice our time or money here on earth. If there’s no afterlife, the best way to live on earth is just to live doing whatever we want to do.
 
But if there really is eternal life after death, and where we live after death is dependent on how we live on earth, it completely changes everything. No matter what good things we see in the world, we won’t find any value in them because none of them are eternal and we can’t take any of them with us after death. As Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.” (Jb 1:21)
 
If we have this eternal point of view based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we won’t seek temporary pleasures on earth. In fact, those whose eyes are open to eternal values can never be satisfied with temporary things on earth. We won’t enjoy the things we used to enjoy in the past not because they no longer give us pleasure, but because we know that they are insignificant compared to the eternal value we have found in the risen Savior.
 
The apostle Paul also professed that all the things he had once considered gains were now losses and even garbage to him because he found the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. He even said he wanted to participate in His suffering and become like Jesus in His death if that were necessary for him to know Christ and join in His resurrection.
 
That’s the eternal perspective we must also have as Christians. Without this perspective, we can’t keep our faith in the midst of attacks, temptations, worries, and trials from the world or follow His way as His disciples. That’s the reason we need to fix our eyes on Jesus at all times so that our lives can be built upon the truth of His death and resurrection.
 
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also important because it tells us that the forgiveness and righteousness we find in Christ is perfect and eternal. I said that even though the death of Jesus Christ is very important in Christianity, our salvation was not made complete on the cross but in the empty grave where God the Father raised His Son from the dead.
 
The crucifixion tells us that Jesus paid the ransom for our sins with His blood and death. And the resurrection tells us that God fully accepted and approved the work done on the cross. That’s why I said that the resurrection of Jesus serves as a form of vindication.
 
That’s the reason the apostle Paul said, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Rm 4:25)
 
Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is essential to our faith because it allows us to see eternity and put our hope in the world to come—the kingdom of God—and because it guarantees that our justification was truly made complete in God’s sight. Now, there’s nothing left to pay for the salvation of those who believe in Jesus Christ.
 
Yet despite its significance to our faith, it’s still one of the hardest things to believe in because we’ve never seen anyone raised from the dead. That’s the reason the gospel may sound foolish to non-believers. They don’t think it makes any sense for the dead to be raised again.
 
Then, why do we believe in the resurrection? And how can we approach non-believers who have difficulty believing in God because of the resurrection? Is the resurrection story reliable and trustworthy? Those are the questions I want us to think about today.
 
I once watched a movie called ‘예수는 역사다’ which is called “The Case for Christ” in English. The movie is based on the book “The Case for Christ” by a journalist named Lee Strobel which talks about how he came to believe in Jesus.
 
Strobel was both a journalist and a lawyer. He was a non-believer when he married his wife, Leslie. When Leslie became a Christian and started taking their kids to church, it caused conflict in their marriage.
 
Strobel hated it so much that he started to investigate all the facts surrounding the case for Christianity. He applied what he had learned as an investigative journalist and a lawyer to determine whether there is any credible evidence to back up the Bible’s assertions about the existence of God and the salvation of mankind through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
 
Strobel did his best to prove that Christian faith is false. He interviewed a dozen experts in Christian theology to better understand the Bible, its teachings, the life of Christ, and whether any of those things are believable. He also talked to some experts who devoted their whole lives to proving that Christianity is fictitious.
 
Then, a religion reporter told him that the Christian faith primarily hinges on the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that if that were proven to be false, then everything would fall apart. So, Strobel set up an unused room in the basement to gather evidence to disprove the resurrection of Jesus.
 
However, the more he studied the historical evidence that supports the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the more he couldn’t help but believe that it really happened because there were events that couldn’t be explained without the resurrection of Jesus, which means that Strobel believed in the resurrection not because he chose to believe in it but because there was no way not to believe in it in the face of historical records and their accuracy. So he ended up becoming a Christian, and he is still Christian now.
 
The movie changed my perspective on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before I watched it, I thought I believed in the resurrection even though it was hard to believe. But after watching it, I realized that there is actually strong historical evidence that the resurrection really happened. One piece of evidence was how Jesus’ disciples lived after His death.
 
As you may know, when Jesus was arrested by soldiers, all of His disciples abandoned Him and ran away from Him out of fear of suffering and death because of Jewish leaders.
 
Their fear peaked when Jesus was crucified. Jesus, whom they had followed for more than three years, was executed. His crime was treason against Caesar, which meant that they could also be executed if they were found to be disciples of Jesus. That was the reason Peter denied Jesus three times.
 
So, after Jesus was crucified and buried, they hid themselves and locked the door, because they were afraid of persecution and death. They gathered together full of fear. There was no hope.
 
But then, Jesus came to them through the locked door and declared peace to them. Jn 20:19 says,
 
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:19)
 
After being resurrected, Jesus went to His disciples and showed them His resurrected body. Jn 20:20 says, “After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”
 
Before meeting the resurrected Jesus, they were filled with fear. They were hopeless. They were cowards who separated themselves from the outside world. They hid themselves by locking the door. However, after seeing Jesus resurrected and touching His body, they were filled with joy. Their sorrow was gone and joy filled their hearts again. After that, Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (Jn 20:21)
 
After seeing Jesus resurrected, His disciples were overjoyed and filled with hope. They saw eternal life in Him. They were filled with eternal hope. And 50 days later, the disciples received the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended to heaven, and they began to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, especially the fact that Jesus was crucified but resurrected from the dead.
 
This is what Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost.
“This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him…  God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.” (Ac 2:23-24, 32)
 
It's hard to believe that Peter said this given that he had denied Jesus three times less than two months ago. So, we can't help but ask what turned him into such a courageous proclaimer of the gospel. The situation didn’t change. The threats remained the same. The disciples suffered a great deal of persecution for their proclamation of the gospel and were even publicly martyred. But they didn’t stop proclaiming the gospel. Instead, they rejoiced in the suffering they encountered as they were speaking the name of Jesus.
 
Acts 5:40-42 says, “They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah” (Ac 5:40-42)
 
Ever since the disciples started to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, they were always subject to hardships and persecution. And, about 30 years after they first began to proclaim the gospel, the worst persecution in the history of Christianity took place.
 
On the night of July 18, 64 AD, an enormous fire broke out in Rome. The fire lasted six days and seven nights, then flared up again for three more days because of strong wind. As a result, ten of the fourteen sections of the city were destroyed.
 
A lot of people lost family members and houses. They were furious and wanted to know who set the fire.
 
Soon, a rumor arose that the emperor, Nero, had ordered the city destroyed so that he could rebuild it again. Nero tried to suppress the rumor, but he realized that people would keep thinking it was him as long as there was no one else to blame. So, he had to point to someone else as the fire starter.
 
At that time, many Jewish people and Christians lived in two of the four areas that didn’t burn, so Nero decided to blame the Christians because he hated them.
 
He said that Christians set the fire because of their abominations and hatred of humankind. That made no sense at all, and many intellectual people didn’t believe that Christians actually did it, but the general population started to believe it. They likely needed to blame someone and pour out their anger.
 
As a result, Christians were cruelly persecuted and tortured. Although Christians were initially only charged with the fire, they were soon persecuted merely for being Christians. Nero commanded Roman soldiers to arrest all Christians and kill them.
 
According to historical records, before killing the Christians, Nero used them to amuse people. He opened his gardens for shows and ‘games’. Some Christians were dressed in furs to be killed by starved animals. Others were crucified. Still others were set on fire early in the night so that they would illuminate the streets all night long, like street lamps.
 
Many Christians died because of the persecution. It’s also likely that both Peter and Paul were executed during this time.
 
This happened in 64 A.D., only 30 years after Jesus was crucified. But surprisingly, a lot of Christians chose not to deny Jesus as their Savior and Lord but rather to die in His name.
 
At that time, Nero didn’t order Jewish people to be killed, just Christians. But it wasn’t easy to distinguish between them because both groups believe in the God of Israel. If you go to the Jewish people and ask, “Do you believe in God?”, they would say, “Yes, I do.” And if you ask the same questions to Christians, they would also answer “Yes.”
 
But there was one question that Jewish people and Christians would have different answers to. If you ask Jewish people, “Do you believe in Jesus?”, they would answer, “No, he is a heretic.” But if you ask Christians, “Do you believe in Jesus?”, they would answer, “Yes, He is my Savior and Lord who died for my sin but was resurrected from the dead.”
 
That was the only question soldiers would ask people to see if they were Christian or not. If you were in that situation and soldiers came to you and asked the same question, what would you answer? Would you be able to say, “Yes, I believe in Jesus”, knowing that you would be tortured and killed as a result? This is a very tough question to answer because we’ve never experienced this situation.
 
However, according to history, many Christians willingly died for the name of Jesus. Of course, many Christians betrayed Jesus in the face of persecution, but there were still many true Christians who kept their faith and chose to die rather than deny Him. How do you think that was possible?
 
In those difficult times, three letters were sent to Christians: the gospel of Mark, Hebrews, and first Peter. 1 Pt 1:6-9 says,
 
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pt 1:6-9)
 
What we know from this is that most Christians who died during the persecution under Nero hadn’t even seen Jesus face to face. They hadn’t seen Him personally but they loved Him, believed in Him, and kept their faith in the face of all kinds of severe trials.
 
Peter also said, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” (1 Pt 4:12-14)
 
This passage shows that Christians were able to not only endure the persecution but rejoice in their suffering. There’s no possible explanation for this other than the resurrection.
 
If they really saw the risen Savior or heard about Him from witnesses of the event and believed in Him, their hope for eternal life in Christ would enable them to overcome and even rejoice in the trials and keep their faith despite severe persecution.
 
Hebrews 11:35-38 says,
“Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated - the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.” (Heb 11:35-38)
 
That was the kind of life early Christians chose to live to keep their faith in Jesus. Who would choose this kind of life? If they really chose this life, it was only because they put their hope not in the world they were living in now, but in the world to come—the kingdom of God, where they would live eternally with the Lord.
 
That’s the reason I think the disciples’ lives after Jesus’ death are the strongest evidence that they saw the risen Savior. Their genuine faith during their worst suffering proved the certainty of the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing else can explain why early Christians died for the name of Jesus.
 
This is a mystery to historians. Many of them agree on three facts: that there was a man named Jesus born in Israel two thousand years ago, that He was crucified, and that His body went missing.
 
For the third fact, they offer a number of hypotheses as to why Jesus' body is missing. The most popular theory is that the disciples stole His body.
 
This is actually written in the Bible. After realizing that Jesus’ body was gone, Jewish leaders told soldiers, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” (Mt 28:13-14)
 
Then, if Jesus’ disciples really stole His body, which is very unlikely because the tomb was sealed with a big stone and guarded by Roman soldiers, what would be their reason for doing so? Some say it would be to create their own religion and gain power by falsifying the resurrection of Jesus. They actually gained a lot of power and followers by preaching that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. So, this theory sounds plausible.
 
But there’s a huge flaw in it. It may explain why the disciples stole Jesus’ body, but it can’t explain why they didn’t betray Him in the face of severe suffering and even death.
 
If the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus to build their own religion, they would have betrayed Him during the persecution under Nero because no one dies for false faith. That’s why I believe that early Christians’ lives and their genuine faith are strong evidence of the resurrection of Jesus.
 
They were persecuted and even killed for preaching the gospel, but they were no longer afraid of death because they had seen the eternal life in Jesus. In other words, they proved that Jesus Christ was indeed raised from the dead by willingly choosing to suffer and die to defend the truth.
 
Then, that’s how we should respond as well. We should meet Jesus who was raised from the dead. We should see eternal life in him. We should be filled with joy and peace in Him. Only then, can we go to the world as witnesses and disciples of Jesus and testify to the fact that He was raised from the dead and thus is the Son of God through our changed lives.
 
Even now, Jesus is sending each of us to the circumstances we’re in, to our homes, to school, and to those around us who don’t know this amazing gospel yet.
 
I really want us to truly believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, trust Him, and put our hope in Him so that we can show that He is truly our Savior who died for our sins but was raised from the dead by the power of God.
 
Let’s pray.
 
[Prayer]
Dear God, thank You for giving us this opportunity to think more deeply about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 
Oh Lord, because we’re weak and finite beings, we can’t fully grasp this truth on our own. So, please send us the Holy Spirit who guides us to the truth and fill us with His wisdom and power so that we may firmly believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, go out to the world where You send us, and boldly proclaim that He is the Savior and Lord.
 
We want to be filled with the same kind of joy and peace that the disciples found when they saw the resurrected Lord. Give us Your presence and open our eyes to eternity so that we may continue to put our hope in Your kingdom which is unseen but eternal, not in the world we’re living in now, which is seen but temporary.
 
We pray that we may be Your sincere and faithful disciples who lead many others around us to the truth of Jesus Christ. Please equip us with Your word and empower us through the Holy Spirit.
 
We pray all these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. How did you first come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus? Was it easy or difficult? Why? What do you think are the best ways that you can help non-believers believe in the resurrection of Jesus?
 
2. What are some changes you’ve experienced in the past or that you want to have in the future because of your faith in the resurrection of Jesus?