Reasonable Faith – Matthew 28:11-15

The case for the historical resurrection of Jesus is a strong one. Several books have been written making the case. Three stand out. The Resurrection of the Son of God, by N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, by Michael Licona, and The Case for the Ressurrection of Jesus, by Gary Habermas. Jesus really rose from the dead. It is reasonable faith that believes this.

While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. (Matthew 28:11-15 ESV)

What is your confidence when you tell the good news to people that Jesus, the king, has been resurrected from the dead to become our Savior?  You didn’t witness the resurrection but are relying on the witnesses to it.  And here one of the eyewitnesses gives us a reason to believe and I will give you some others:

(1) If in fact the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body, the guards at the tomb would have been executed for dereliction of duty.  But it is unreasonable to believe that this band of Jesus’ disciples would have or could have overcome a Roman guard in order to steal the body and it is reasonable to believe that if the chief priests believed this is what happened they would not have had the guards executed.

(2) If the disciples knew that they had Jesus’ body it would mean they were purposely lying as they perpetrated the belief around the world wherever they preached that Jesus was alive.  This means that not one of them ever broke the bonds of silence about this matter and were each willing to die for a lie.  Can we imagine them doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, wanting to help people have something big to believe?  But if they don’t believe it themselves how do they live with themselves?  No one broke ranks and disputed the resurrection.  If they did it to enrich themselves, they failed. It brought early deaths for nearly every one of them.

(3) How do we explain Paul, a staunch enemy of the fledgling faith, committed to imprisoning believers, suddenly converted to the cause after he claims to have seen the risen Christ on the road to Damascus?  Some have argued that the original apostles were subject to a mass hysteria and delusion of seeing Jesus alive, ridiculous on the face of it.  But Paul was certainly not part of that delusion.

What is sad is that the ones who did have a reason to deny the truth and perpetrate a lie, the chief priests, knew the facts about Jesus’ resurrection and chose despite that to pay the guards a bribe to lie.  We may and must boldly proclaim the truth that Jesus is alive.  It is reasonable to believe and we have further evidence of that through what he has done in our lives.  Christ arose!!