In the beginning, many believed the promises of Jesus of Nazareth. Believers’ doubts were weakened by accounts of Jesus’s resurrected as He fulfilled His promise to resurrect bodily from the dead. Hostile enemies like Jesus’s brother James and Saul as the persecutor of the church converted attesting to have witnessed Jesus risen from the dead.

Today, those who accept the teachings of Jesus find Jesus’s resurrection among all His miracles most reasonable to believe that the Creator of life and of everything could and would resurrect the Christ who was unjustly murdered. Having receive multiple eyewitnesses weighed upon a personal examination, thousands found Christ’s promises to resurrect to be truly accomplished.

Historians recognize that Paul converted having been a persecutor of the church and then seeing Jesus alive, so Paul became a preacher and apostle (Galatians 1:13–16). Early Christians recognized Paul’s authorship of 13 of the 27 writings of the New Testament of the Bible. Likewise, historians accept that Jesus’s brothers notably James did not believe Jesus was the Son of God, but they came to convert after Jesus’s resurrection. The brothers of Jesus became preachers and leaders in the church (1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:18–20). Paul recorded that James was one of the initial witness of Jesus resurrected. To secular historians, these events are an unexplained phenomena.

In AD 54, Paul reported the gospel message from his conversion that occurred two or three years after Jesus’s crucifixion. That first Christian message is the gospel that Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Paul listed numerous eyewitnesses seeing Jesus alive from the dead even 500 witnesses at one time (1 Corinthians 15:5–8). Secular historians admit that the Christian faith began because carrots people experienced Jesus risen from the dead. According to the Gospels, they saw, heard, touched, and ate with Jesus who was bodily restored to life after three days having been crucified and confirmed dead (Luke 24:36–42).

What is the best explanation for various people experiencing Jesus risen bodily from the dead? To secular scholars, the experiences of Jesus’s resurrection are phenomena — events for which they cannot explain the cause. Alternatives explanations to Jesus’s resurrection build on possibilities but cannot sufficiently explain all these historical facts. Those whose minds are open to the considering the witnesses find the best explanation is that Jesus bodily rose from the dead.

Citing eyewitnesses of Jesus’s resurrection was the preaching that established the church — God’s people. In the physician Luke’s writing of “Acts of the Apostles,” Luke recorded early speeches from Peter and Paul that historians date before the book of Acts. In Luke’s record, Peter preached presenting evidence that Jesus resurrected from the dead such as the fulfilling of resurrection predictions in the Jewish Scriptures, Jesus’s missing body, and eyewitnesses of Jesus resurrected (Acts 2:14–36). Likewise, Luke recorded that Paul preached the same evidence of people seeing Jesus alive and becoming witnesses to the all (Acts 13:26–41; cf. 1 Cor 15:1–11).

From the beginning of the church, the experiences of Jesus bodily rising from the dead changed people’s lives. Witnesses would not recant their witnesses even in the face of death. Their life-changing faith has passed through centuries transforming many people and eventually the world. Because of faith in Jesus’s resurrection, Christians believe that on the last day they will resurrect like Jesus rose from the dead in glorified bodies to eternal life (Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 6:14; 15:51–53). Today, the followers of Christ urge everyone to read the words of Jesus in the Gospels, trust the witnesses, meet with a church of Christ, and believe, repent, and be baptized (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38).

Similar posts:

“The Case for the Christ of the New Testament“

“The Apostles’ Evidence for Jesus as the Christ“

“Christian Beliefs that Predate the Christian Scriptures“