And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:17, ESV)
“Either I did or didn’t; we can’t have it both ways,” I told my skeptical friend and colleague. I had just accomplished a rare feat in my previous round and was eager to share it with a dear friend. His reaction caught me by surprise. At first, I didn’t know if he was “pulling my leg” or whether he truly doubted my testimony. It soon became apparent he was skeptical about my better-than-normal round.
So, what does one do in a case like this? Of course, the answer is that we go to the evidence. Was I playing with anyone? Did anyone else observe my uncharacteristic good play? Was anyone around able and willing to testify about my report? I knew what had occurred over the previous four hours, but I needed corroborating evidence and eyewitness testimony to persuade my buddy. Not long after this conversation, my three playing partners arrived.
When asked by my “doubting-Thomas-friend” to verify my story, they, at first, to see me squirm, denied my report. After a few seconds and some hearty laughter, they chimed in, one by one, to confirm my round. That settled the issue; eyewitnesses observed and corroborated a historical event’s accuracy, which was done without collusion.
Lee Strobel, an award-winning investigative journalist with a law degree, was skeptical about the historical accuracy and verifiability of the death of Jesus Christ. After seeing his wife converted to Christ, he took it upon himself to disprove the veracity of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, as only an investigative journalist with legal training can do, he left no stone unturned.
Exploring all the historical data he could unearth, Lee began to doubt his doubts. His personal views were starting to crumble in the face of the eyewitness accounts regarding the death of Christ Jesus. He thought that if he could disprove the death of Christ, then the report of any resurrection would collapse as well. After all, he reasoned, “You can only have a resurrection if the one in question has died.”
Lee Strobel had taken at face value some of the counter-arguments made through the years that Jesus had merely “swooned.” That is, Jesus, according to this theory, hadn’t died; he had passed out under all the stress. Consequently, rather than being resurrected, Jesus was resuscitated.
After investigating peer-reviewed medical journals, reading the reports of famous, atheistic theologians (an oxymoron if there ever was one), researching the historical writings of first-century Jewish, Greek, and Roman historians, and eliminating fallacious arguments against the reliability of the New Testament documents, Lee Strobel had to admit, “Jesus truly died on a Roman instrument of torture, the Cross.”
In his efforts to bolster his unbelief and maintain his “debauched lifestyle,” rather than disproving the death of Jesus, Lee had lost a major plank in the platform of his skepticism about Christianity. At this point in his crusade, he had not answered the question regarding the “bodily resurrection.” However, he had resolved the issue of the death of Christ Jesus; Jesus was, indeed, crucified on a cross outside of Jerusalem, and history had demonstrated this fact without a doubt.
Prayer: Jesus, by your Spirit, please draw men and women to the evidence of your death and resurrection. Then open their eyes to see the meaning and significance of your death and resurrection from Scripture.