The Resurrection: A Historic Event

<p>Christianity is based on faith in Jesus and the factual, historical events of His life, death, and resurrection. Because of eyewitness reports, we can know these things really happened in time and space. Without the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christianity would be nothing but fairy tales. It would be nothing more than humanity’s attempt to explain reality.</p><p>.</p><p>When Jesus died on the cross, the Pharisees and the High Priest knew of Jesus’s claim that He would rise from the dead. They were afraid His disciples would steal the body and tell people that Jesus had resurrected. If that happened, everyone would follow Jesus instead of their teachings. So the Pharisees asked Pilate to secure Jesus’s tomb. Pilate gave them a Roman guard unit—soldiers from the best trained military force in the world at that time. If any of these guards fell asleep at their post, they would be executed. The Roman officials also put a seal on Jesus’s tomb. If this seal was broken, the penalty was death. Nobody would dare break a Roman seal.</p><p>.</p><p>So, when Jesus did rise from the dead, this was a problem for the Pharisees. They worried that His followers would tell everyone about it. So they came up with a plan: they would say the disciples stole Jesus’s body.</p><p>.</p><p>Yes, they would tell people that the disciples came and overpowered the best trained military force in the world, broke the Roman seal—risking the penalty of death—and stole Jesus’s body. People from that area knew how foolish this story was. Besides, when Jesus died, His disciples thought their Messiah had failed and got Himself killed. They didn’t understand that He would rise from the dead, even though Jesus had told them about it beforehand. All hope in Jesus died when they saw Him on the cross. Why would they steal a dead body?</p><p>.</p><p>The truth of the resurrection was apparent to the thousands of people who became Christians soon after this event (Acts 2:41; 4:4). Now we, too, can trust in the factual, historical account of t