What really happened in 33 A.D.? Was Jesus resurrected? Do we have any proof? Andy Crouch dives into why he believes Jesus rose from the dead.
Questions for Discussion and Personal Reflection
- Do you agree that the truth of Christianity hinges almost entirely on whether or not the resurrection happened?
- How does your understanding of the resurrection inform your beliefs about Jesus?
Transcript
The heart of why I believe God exists is I really think the resurrection happened. There's, I mean, there's many possible reasons - there's many lines of evidence, right? That might suggest that that the Christian story is true and that the Christian God is the true creator God.
But to me, the single-most compelling one is how-how do you account for the historical fact of a crucified Jesus of Nazareth and 100 days later his disciples, his followers, these men and women who had been with him for a few years rather than being scattered and completely disillusioned and disappointed by his death are instead totally empowered, totally confident, willing to die themselves rather than deny what happened.
To me, that's the heart of it, that no body was ever found and instead what was found was this energized group of people who claimed they'd seen the one that they knew and love and loved who had died had seen him alive again. If that happened, a lot of other things become much easier to accept.
I mean, if that happened then there's this whole cascade, right? So then who Jesus said he was is much more likely to be true. And who did Jesus say he was? He said he was the son of the father, and he talks about the biblical God - the God of the Hebrew Bible as his father, so then all of that becomes more plausible.
So to me, it hinges almost entirely on this question of is it-is it conceivable that Jesus actually did rise from the dead? And if he did, then so many other things become much more likely. And there are lots of other reasons you can believe but to me, it all comes down to that-that Sunday in about A.D. 33.
What happened on that day? If-if there was no resurrection, if somehow everyone misunderstood, if somehow all the subsequent experiences were not based on anything true, then I don't know that I have any particular reason to believe in God, but if something happened that day, then I feel I must take everything else and the story much more seriously than I would otherwise.