Infallible Proofs

Acts 1:3 “To whom also he 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:”

The resurrection is central to the Christian narrative. Did Jesus really arise from the dead? If He did not, He will just be another false prophet. He claimed that He will raise up the temple of His body after three days (John 2:19), so if He did not, He would be found a liar.

But if He really did, then all that He claimed to be is true. He is the way, the truth and the life, and no man comes to the Father except by Him. If He rose from the dead, He really is the Promised Messiah; He is before Abraham; He is the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13, and He is the Son of God, the manifestation of God in human form. He is also the Resurrection and the Life, the Bread of Life, and all He said about the kingdom of God and the end times is true. We can completely rely on everything He said, because His resurrection from the dead makes it all valid and sure.

In our lives, it also has tremendous effect. If Christ did not rise up from the dead, then our preaching is in vain and our faith is also in vain, and we are yet in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17). But because He rose from the dead, we now should walk in newness of life, just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father (Romans 6:4). Also, if the Spirit of God dwells in you, the same Spirit who rose up Jesus from the dead will also quicken your mortal body (Romans 8:11).

The Uniqueness of the Resurrection of Jesus

In the Old Testament, there had been incidents of people being resurrected from the dead. In 1 Kings 17:17–24, we can find Elijah bringing back to life the son of the widow of Zarephath. In 2 Kings 4:18–37, Elisha also resurrected the son of the Shunammite woman. Also, a dead man was raised back to life when his carcass touched the bones of Elisha in 2 Kings 13:20–21.

In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead. There were also some saints that were resurrected when the Lord died (Matthew 27:52–53). We also hear about a testimony or two where people were declared dead for some time, and then were brought back to life miraculously. But how is the resurrection of the Lord different from them?

All of the other resurrections were just temporal resurrections. Meaning, those who were raised back to life were only raised temporarily, as they eventually died again. They were resurrected to the same bodies—earthly bodies which were still subject to sickness, aging, and corruption. So they eventually died again because the bodies they were raised to are the same mortal bodies that we all have.

But not with the Lord Jesus Christ. He rose into an incorruptible body, a glorified body, and He is alive forevermore.

We will also be receiving the same kind of body when the Lord returns for the church. He is called the Firstfruits of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20), firstborn of the dead (Revelation 1:5), because He was the first risen from the dead to the incorruptible, glorified body, and later on we will be receiving the same when He comes;

1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

1 Corinthians 15:51–53 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Romans 8:23 “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

Who Rose Jesus from the Dead?

This will be confusing for someone who believes God is a Trinity, or One God in essence, but three in persons. The Bible says it is God who rose Him from the dead;

Acts 2:24 “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”

Who is God here that rose Jesus from the dead? Is it the whole Trinity, the whole Godhead who rose Him? Or is it the Father? Or is it the Son? Or maybe the Holy Ghost?

Let us just say that God here is the Father. So the Father rose Jesus from the dead, just as in Romans 6:4;

Romans 6:4 “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

But why in Romans 8:11 is it the Spirit which raised up Jesus?

Romans 8:11 “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

While in the book of John, Jesus said that He Himself would raise Him up from the dead, pertaining to His body as the temple;

John 2:19–22 “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.”

So who raised Jesus from the dead? Is it the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost? If one believes in three persons in the Godhead, this is such a problem, as these Scriptures would contradict themselves. But believing in the Oneness of God—that God is One, in essence and in person, numerical and indivisible—this would be consistent with the whole Scriptures. Jesus saying, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up,” would completely make sense, because He and the Father are one (John 10:30), and the Holy Spirit is not a third person but God in Spirit form, so the Holy Ghost can also be called the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9) and Spirit of God (Genesis 1:2, 1 Corinthians 3:16).

The Belief on the Resurrection of Jesus Is Essential to One’s Salvation

Romans 10:9 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

We know that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16), and the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:1–4).

Therefore, believing His resurrection from the dead is part of that good news that we received and obeyed, as the gospel needed to be obeyed (2 Thessalonians 1:8). His resurrection applied to our lives is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which will enable us to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

Objections on the Resurrection

Many people throughout the ages have rejected the good news that someone who died on the cross and was buried rose again after three days. This would really be impossible for men, but not with God. The One who died is no ordinary man, and His death and resurrection were already prophesied by the Old Testament. But the unbelieving heart would always find some reasons to doubt this despite the compelling evidence. These are some of the most common objections to the Resurrection:

1. That Jesus’ Body Was Stolen by the Apostles

This claim is the most common, even circulating in the times of the Apostles, because it is the easiest way to explain away the empty tomb. Why is the tomb empty? Where is the dead body? If they were able to produce and show the people the dead body of Jesus of Nazareth, the claim of the resurrection would have been easily shunned. His dead body could have been their trophy, the ultimate sign of their victory over the One who claimed divinity and authority. But they could not show His body. How would they explain it? By putting the blame on the disciples. The religious leaders paid the soldiers who watched the grave to fabricate the story that the apostles stole His body the night before;

“Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, ‘Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.’ And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”
— Matthew 28:11–15

These soldiers who witnessed how an angel from heaven descended to roll away the stone from the mouth of the grave told a different story—a not-so-plausible one—because they were paid a large sum. The Apostles were in hiding since the Lord was captured (except for John, who was there during the crucifixion). They were afraid for their own lives, and it was very unlikely that these frightened men would go to the grave to steal the body, when they knew soldiers were there to guard it.

2. That the Apostles and Other Witnesses Were Hallucinating

Some would say that maybe they really saw Jesus after His death, but perhaps they were hallucinating. When a person desires to see something, sometimes our brains play tricks on us, showing us illusions because of wishful thinking, making people deluded. Maybe that is what happened to those who saw Him?

If that is the case, the apostles and other witnesses would not pass the criteria of hallucination because of their desire to see Jesus again. They had no expectation to see Him. They totally forgot about what the Lord told them about His resurrecting. Also, some of the witnesses were not believers of Jesus. For example, James—believed to be Jesus’ brother (or half-brother, since Joseph was not Jesus’ real father)—was not a believer in the Lord when He was alive, but after the Resurrection and Jesus showing Himself to him, he became a believer. Before the Lord appeared to him, he had no expectation or desire to see Him again, because he was not even convinced that He was the Messiah when Jesus was alive.

Also, there were more than 500 eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive. While hallucination is a proven phenomenon by science, mass hallucination is not. Not even two persons would hallucinate exactly the same thing at once—how much more 500? Lee Strobel said,

“I went to a psychologist friend and said, ‘If 500 people claimed to see Jesus after He died, it was just a hallucination.’ He said hallucinations are individual events. If 500 people have the same hallucination, that’s a bigger miracle than the resurrection.”
— Lee Strobel

So it is impossible for more than 500 people to be hallucinating at the same time about the same thing. If they all saw the same thing—and not everyone was of the same disposition, mindset, and feeling towards the Lord Jesus—then they must have seen a real thing, not something imaginary.

3. That the One Crucified Was Not Jesus

Another objection made against the resurrection was that Jesus did not die on the cross in the first place—that He was replaced by another man who looked like Him and was made to appear to be Him. For example, the Qur’an teaches that Jesus was not killed nor crucified, but that it was made to appear so to them (Surah 4:157). If it was not Jesus who died on the cross, then appearing to the people later and deceiving them into believing He was resurrected would be possible.

This objection is hard to prove because the Romans were experts in execution and deception would have been difficult. Jesus was well known by everyone at that time, and to have Him replaced is not very probable. Also, the crucifixion of Jesus is one of the most reliably attested facts in the ancient world—historians, even those who object to the Resurrection, still attest to His death. This theory is highly speculative and unnatural—more so than the Resurrection itself.

The Qur’an teaches Jesus was just some prophet, a man, not God. Jesus being raised from the dead would prove Him to be more than just a man, greater than the founder of Islam, Muhammad, who died in AD 632. Their teaching that Jesus did not die on the cross is an attempt to negate the Resurrection claim, so Jesus would be put on the level of just a good man, a moral teacher.

That someone died on the cross that day and was called “King of the Jews,” and that He was a teacher—these facts cannot be refuted. It was the talk of the town, and no one could have missed it. Cleopas thought that only a stranger would not know about it;

“And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, ‘Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which have come to pass there in these days?’ And he said unto them, ‘What things?’ And they said unto him, ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.’”
— Luke 24:18–20

Even the well-known Jewish historian Josephus, in his writing Antiquities, mentioned Jesus:

“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly, they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.”
— Josephus, Antiquities 18:63

Though Josephus was a non-Christian Jew, he attested to the death of Jesus on the cross by the hands of Pilate. He is regarded as an authoritative historian of the nation of Israel, having been born a few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

What Are the Infallible Proofs That He Was Risen?

Infallible Proof #1: The Empty Tomb

The tomb where the Lord was buried lies just inside or near Jerusalem. Today, there are two possible sites of the grave where He lay: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (inside the Old City of Jerusalem) and the Garden Tomb (outside the Old City). But during the time of the Lord and the apostles, this tomb could easily be located by any skeptic. Its emptiness is why the priests had to fabricate the story of the body being stolen—because no corpse was found.

“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
— Matthew 28:6

This is what the angel told the women on the first Resurrection Sunday. It was also an invitation for anyone to witness the empty tomb. The angel rolled the stone away (Matthew 28:2). Why? Not so Jesus could leave (He could have done so without help) but so the world could see the tomb was empty.

Infallible Proof #2: Eyewitnesses

More than 500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus alive:

“And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:5–8

Perhaps someone resembled Him? Or perhaps they saw His spirit? Maybe it was a vision? Thomas thought so: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). But Jesus appeared to Thomas, inviting him to touch the nail-pierced hands and His side. He even ate with them (John 21:31), proving He was resurrected bodily, not as a ghost.

In legal matters, one witness can be scrutinized, but two or more corroborating testimonies carry great weight. The Bible requires two or more witnesses to establish testimony or accusation (Deuteronomy 17:6, Hebrews 10:28). Over 500 witnesses at once is overwhelming evidence. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (AD 53–57), many of those witnesses were still alive. The Corinthians could have interviewed them personally.

Harvard law professor Simon Greenleaf wrote:

“In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true.”
— Simon Greenleaf, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence

What would those 500+ witnesses gain by lying? Did they become wealthy or powerful? No. They faced beatings, persecution, and even death because of their testimony.

Infallible Proof #3: The Change in the Apostles

Before the resurrection, the apostles were afraid, self-conscious, and directionless. Peter—who seemed their leader—denied the Lord three times and disappeared on crucifixion day. They were nothing like the apostles who were willing to die for the gospel after the resurrection. What caused such a dramatic change?

Two reasons explain it:

• They really saw Jesus alive. A man will die for what he knows to be true. They could not deny what they saw, even under persecution and threat of death. Had they conspired to lie, at least one would have recanted when threatened. But none did.
• They received the Holy Ghost. Acts 1:8 says, “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me … unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Knowing the truth and having the Spirit’s power, they became fearless witnesses even unto death.

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead; then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years without denial. They were beaten, tortured, stoned, and imprisoned. They wouldn’t have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men—and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Impossible.”
— Charles Coson

Infallible Proof #4: The Growth of Christianity

Christianity has grown and outlived many kingdoms. How could this be possible if the resurrection—its most profound foundation—is based on a lie?

One respected Pharisee of the New Testament era was Gamaliel. He warned the Sanhedrin:

“Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel … and said unto them, ‘Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee … he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.’”
— Acts 5:34–39

Gamaliel urged them to back down: if this movement was merely human, it would collapse as previous uprisings did. But if it was God’s work, they could not stop it and would be fighting against God. Two thousand years later, Christianity has spread worldwide, founded upon the resurrection.

Hallelujah! Jesus Is Alive!

Two thousand years after the event that shocked the world—the One who died has conquered death forever. No ordinary man can do this. He is not merely a teacher, a prophet, or a king. He is the God-Man, God Himself clothed in flesh, who came to destroy the devil’s power over death and free those enslaved by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). He is the One who lives; He died, and behold, He lives forevermore, holding the keys of death and hell (Revelation 1:18).

“Jesus saith unto him, ‘Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’”
— John 20:29

Although we were not eyewitnesses to that very event, a promise was given to us by Him:

John 20:29 “Jesus saith unto him, ‘Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’”

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus should remain profoundly true in each of us. It is the foundation of our faith and the foundation of our hope. Though we live in a fallen world—creation marred by sin—and though our bodies are subject to corruption (and the whole creation subjected to vanity unwillingly, Romans 8:20), we have assurance that He will redeem us completely, until the “redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:14). Even now we groan within our spirits for the redemption of our bodies; we are waiting and looking for our blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our risen Lord.