The Resurrection of Jesus #4

The New Testament records that Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, and the church has confessed this from its earliest days as the vindication of his identity and the cornerstone of Christian hope. Paul preserves what many scholars regard as an early creedal formula, one he says he “received” rather than composed, stating that Christ “died for our sins according to the scriptures… was buried, and… rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Without the resurrection, Paul argues, “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Biblical Account

The four Gospels agree that on the first day of the week women went to Jesus’ tomb and found it empty, but they differ in details that later harmonizers have long tried to reconcile. Matthew names “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” as the ones who came (Matthew 28:1); Mark names “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome” (Mark 16:1); Luke lists “Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James,” with other unnamed women (Luke 24:10); John narrows the account to Mary Magdalene alone, at least at first, coming “early, when it was yet dark” (John 20:1). The Gospels also vary on the angelic witnesses at the tomb — Matthew and Mark describe one figure, Luke two men, and John two angels seen later by Mary alone inside the tomb (Matthew 28:2-5; Mark 16:5; Luke 24:4; John 20:12). In John’s account, Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” run to the tomb after hearing Mary’s report, and the beloved disciple “saw, and believed” on the evidence of the grave clothes alone (John 20:3-8).

Later that day, and in the weeks that followed, Jesus appeared repeatedly to his followers — to Mary Magdalene in the garden, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to the assembled apostles, and, as Paul separately records, to Peter, the Twelve, more than five hundred believers at once, James, and finally to Paul himself (1 Corinthians 15:5-8).

Theological Significance

The New Testament treats the resurrection as the Father’s vindication of Jesus and the guarantee of a wider resurrection still to come, which Paul calls the “firstfruits” of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15:20). It is celebrated as Easter, the oldest and most central feast of the Christian calendar, and it stands, in the church’s historic confession, at the center of the gospel it proclaims.

The historicity of the resurrection has been defended by Christian apologists on grounds including the empty tomb, the reported appearances, and the disciples’ transformation from a scattered, frightened group into public witnesses willing to suffer for their testimony; it has been disputed by skeptics on other grounds, including proposals of legendary development or visionary experience rather than bodily encounter. That debate is treated at length elsewhere on this site rather than adjudicated here. What the New Testament writers themselves emphasize is not primarily a fact to be verified from the outside but a proclamation to be believed: that the crucified Jesus was raised bodily, appeared to named witnesses, and remains, in Paul’s words, the ground on which “ye are saved” (1 Corinthians 15:2).