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THE EMPTY TOMB In the companion book to the 2009 East Tennessee School of Preaching lectureship, my old teacher James Meadows listed several false ideas that people have come up with about the resurrection of Christ: 1. “First, there is the ‘resuscitation’ or ‘swoon hypotheses’ (the only theory that denies that Jesus really died). The swoon theory was first proposed by German rationalist, Venturina, in the eighteenth century, and later advocated by Paulus and Hase in the same century. Strauss, the German infidel, at first held this view, but later ‘laughed the theory out of court.’ Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield (a Britisher) in his book, The Passover Plot (1966), expressed the theory like this: ‘The Martyred Saviour nailed to the cross in Jersualem 2,000 years ago was actually a young genius, a sort of Stokely Carmichael of his time. He was a Jew who had plotted his crucifixion: He arranged to be drugged so that he would appear dead on the cross. Then later he revived to fake the “miracle” of the resurrection.’” 2. “Second, in order to avoid the fact of the resurrection, the skeptics say that the disciples only spoke of Jesus living in spirit—‘the spiritualistic theory.’ The disciples, it is said, hoped so much that he was alive that they were impelled to announce on the third day that he was still alive, but only in spirit.” 3. “A third theory, still held by many today, is the vision theory. This theory holds that Jesus’ body remained in the tomb, but he appeared to the disciples in a vision and in a glorified state. This theory substitutes one miracle for another.” 4. “Fourth, the body was stolen, either by the disciples or by the enemies of Jesus.” 5. “A fifth explanation states that the women found the wrong tomb. Kirsopp Lake ‘suggests that the evidence of the empty tomb is inconclusive because the women did not visit the place where Jesus was actually buried.’” Of course, if you believe the Bible, then you don’t believe any of these theories. Read the end of Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John, and you’ll read about an empty tomb. Jesus died, but He didn’t stay dead—He was resurrected! Furthermore, notice a few things the Bible tells us about the resurrection of Christ: The Empty Tomb Declares the Deity of Jesus Paul wrote that Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4 ESV). Our brother David Lipscomb observed: “God declared this truth with power by raising him from the dead. He had declared him in other ways and on other occasions to be his Son, but the truth was settled by the power that raised him from the dead. This was the sign of all signs to which Jesus pointed the Jews who asked for a sign. (Matt. 12:38-40).” No wonder, then, that when Thomas saw the resurrected Christ, he said, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The Empty Tomb Declares Future Empty Tombs In Corinth, some were saying that there was no resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12). “Just who they were who were teaching this, whether Greek philosophers or Jewish Sadducees, we are not informed,” noted our brother Howard Winters (cf. Acts 23:8). “But if there is no resurrection of the dead,” wrote Paul, “then not even Christ has been raised. […] But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:13-20 ESV). Of course, if there is a “first” of something, there must at least be a second. And indeed, there will be a second, and a third, and a fourth, and so on. As Jesus said, “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29 ESV). The Empty Tomb Declares the Coming Judgment Speaking of judgment, Paul preached that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31 ESV). Indeed, there’s a great day coming when, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10 ESV) |