The Lord Is Risen Indeed
Uplook2 – April 2025 — Grace & Truth Magazine
The Lord Is Risen Indeed
In the course of his discussions with his friends, the patriarch Job posed two questions of far-reaching importance. The first question is recorded in Job 9:2 ( KJV ): “How should man be just with God?” Later, in Job 14:14, we read the second question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” A clear and conclusive answer could not be given to either question, and a strain of great pathos, or sorrow, runs through the two chapters.
We see Job’s attempts at answering the first question in Job 9, but he discarded them one by one as worthless. Job ended with a cry for a “daysman” (v.33), meaning a “mediator” – a cry that was not to be satisfied for perhaps 2,000 years, when the true Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5), the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared. In Job 14 we find the patriarch reasoning in favor of resurrection by the analogy of a “cut down” tree which, after many years, springs to life at “the scent of water” (14:7,9). Through this, Job believed there would be a resurrection, even though he could not, during the time when he lived, point to any definite word from God to settle the point.
Today we occupy a far more privileged position than Job, for the Lord Jesus has appeared and has “brought life and immortality [incorruptibility] to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). The Lord’s death and resurrection supply us with the answer to both questions. By His being risen, we may be justified, and the fact of resurrection is put beyond all question.
When the apostles first preached the gospel, they used the resurrection of Christ as the dominant point to impact the consciences and hearts of men. The priestly caste in Jerusalem at that time held the doctrine of the Sadducees, not having a belief in resurrection, and the impact of the apostles’ preaching was felt most keenly by them. They were stirred to fury when the apostles “preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead” (Acts 4:2).
We see in Acts what the religious leaders did in their efforts to counteract the witness of the apostles. They imprisoned them; they beat them; they urged and commanded them not to preach in the name of Jesus; they threatened them; they even martyred Stephen. There is one thing however – one conclusive thing – they did not do: the priests did not meet the apostles with bold and flat denials. They could not give conclusive proof that Christ was not risen, nor show that the apostles were tricky impostors. They did not do these things because they could not do them. It was not possible!
We find the opening chapters of Acts more significant as we remember Matthew 28:11-15. There, these same Sadduceean priests had stooped to a big act of bribery in connection with the soldiers assigned to watch the grave of the Lord Jesus. They also committed themselves to an even more expensive act of bribery, if necessary, in connection with the governor in order to pervert their witness to His resurrection. Yet it is evident that, when only a few months had passed, the lie they had winged on its way had proved itself too fragile to be depended on. They dared not take their stand upon it.
“With great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4:33), and signs and wonders were wrought by God in confirmation of their testimony. A notable sign was the curing of the lame man who for many years had lain at the beautiful gate of the temple. This especially raised the ire of the chief priests because the whole episode was a notable ratification of the resurrection, and in Acts 4 three things are emphasized in connection with it. As much as they longed to invalidate its witness, they:
- “Could say nothing against it” (v.14).
- Had to confess, “we cannot deny it” (v.16).
- Found “nothing how they might punish them” (v.21).
We all know that when men are confronted with a fact they hate, they will deny it if they can; and if they cannot deny it, they will speak against it. They will criticize the mode or the method of the thing, when they cannot refute the substance of it. Lastly, as a more desperate effort, they will attack and persecute those who witness to the fact, if they furnish them with the smallest pretext for it. All three devices failed in connection with this miracle; and it would be equally true to say that they failed against the truth of the resurrection of Christ to which the miracle bore witness.
Had there been no resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first few years, when the assertion of it was fresh in everybody’s mind, was the time when the alleged deception would have been easily exposed. The attempt that was made by the religious leaders and supported by bribery obtained a certain acceptance among the Jews, but there is no record that they ever dared to produce their so-called evidence in public, where sifting and examination of it could take place. This is most significant.
What we have been pointing out is in the nature of negative evidence in favor of the truth of the resurrection. It is strong, but the positive evidence is even stronger, which we will consider now.
In the early verses of 1 Corinthians 15 Paul cited six sets of witnesses, all of whom vouched that they actually saw Christ risen from the dead:
- Peter;
- The Twelve;
- Five hundred brethren at once;
- James;
- All the apostles;
- Paul himself.
The list of witnesses is by no means exhaustive, for there might have been other occasions when He was seen (consider Mt. 28:16; Lk. 24:13-31; Jn. 21:1-14; Acts 1:1-11). We could add to these the occasions when He showed Himself to some of the women who believed. The six cases the apostle Paul cited in 1 Corinthians 15 give sufficient witness: three individuals and three groups. We are reminded that in Scripture the number three is indicative of witness (see Mt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1).
Take a moment to consider the three individual witnesses. Their epistles show us the kind of men they were, and we know much about Peter and a great deal as to Paul. Peter was warm-hearted and impulsive, yet a broken-hearted man when he saw the Lord in resurrection. James was evidently a calm man of judicial and even critical mind. Paul was a bitter opponent up to the moment in which he saw the Lord in His risen glory, and the sight totally transformed him. The three were very different in upbringing and temperament, yet their very differences render their agreeing witness the more impressive.
Add to this the witness of the three groups. Of a lone individual it might be alleged that he was impressionable by nature, a bit of a visionary; but this could not be said of the Twelve or of all the apostles. An appearance to an individual might be unknown to others, but that would not be the case when He appeared to 500 brethren at once. No fact of history is better attested to than the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Two men living about the middle of the eighteenth century, Lord Lyttleton and Gilbert West, wrote books which became famous: the former on the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the latter on the resurrection of Christ. Both were unbelievers and swayed by popular infidelity. The two felt the time had come to administer a death blow to Christianity. They selected two themes, believing them to be the most vital points in the line of Christian defense. If the resurrection could be proved a myth, and Saul’s conversion a delusion, then the defeat of Christianity was assured. They agreed upon their tasks, separated to study their themes and write their books. When they met with their completed works, they discovered that they each had written in exactly the opposite sense to that which they had intended. Both had been convinced of the reality of that which they had disbelieved. Saul’s conversion had about it every mark of reality. The evidence for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was complete and convincing!
We may well say, “The Lord is risen indeed!” with confidence and exultation. During the early days of the Soviet regime, Russian Marxist Anatoly Lunatcharsky lectured for an hour and a half in Moscow against Christianity. He aimed at proving it to be a superstition without any basis in fact. Having finished, he proposed a discussion but stipulated that no speaker should take more than five minutes. A young man in the audience, deeply moved, mounted the platform. He gazed at the throng and then in loud tones gave the well-known Easter greeting, “Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen.” The whole audience rose as one and thundered out the response, “He is risen indeed!”
The young man turned to the lecturer and said, “I have nothing more to say.” And in truth on that point nothing more needed to be said. The evidence for the resurrection had long before been tested to the utmost. The truth of it remains unshaken.
By Frank B. Hole (adapted)