Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead
by John Piper
1. Jesus himself testified to his coming resurrection from the dead.
Jesus spoke openly about what would happen to him: crucifixion and then resurrection from the dead. “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31; see also Matthew 17:22; Luke 9:22). Those who consider the resurrection of Christ unbelievable will probably say that Jesus was deluded or (more likely) that the early church put these statements in his mouth to make him teach the falsehood that they themselves conceived. But those who read the Gospels and come to the considered conviction that the one who speaks so compellingly through these witnesses is not the figment of foolish imagination will be unsatisfied with this effort to explain away Jesus’ own testimony to his resurrection from the dead.

This is especially true in view of the fact that the words which predict the resurrection are not only the simple straightforward words quoted above, but also the very oblique and indirect words which are far less likely to be the simple invention of deluded disciples. For example, two separate witnesses testify in two very different ways to Jesus’ statement during his lifetime that if his enemies destroyed the temple (of his body), he would build it again in three days (John 2:19; Mark 14:58; cf. Matthew 26:61). He also spoke illusively of the “sign of Jonah” — three days in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:39; 16:4). And he hinted at it again in Matthew 21:42 — “The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” On top of his own witness to the coming resurrection, his accusers said that this was part of Jesus’ claim: “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise’” (Matthew 27:63).

Our first evidence of the resurrection, therefore, is that Jesus himself spoke of it. The breadth and nature of the sayings make it unlikely that a deluded church made these up. And the character of Jesus himself, revealed in these witnesses, has not been judged by most people to be a lunatic or a deceiver.

2. The tomb was empty on Easter.
The earliest documents claim this: “When they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus” (Luke 24:3). And the enemies of Jesus confirmed it by claiming that the disciples had stolen the body (Matthew 28:13). The dead body of Jesus could not be found. There are four possible ways to account for this.

2.1 His foes stole the body. If they did (and they never claimed to have done so), they surely would have produced the body to stop the successful spread of the Christian faith in the very city where the crucifixion occurred. But they could not produce it.

2.2 His friends stole the body. This was an early rumor (Matthew 28:11-15). Is it probable? Could they have overcome the guards at the tomb? More important, would they have begun to preach with such authority that Jesus was raised, knowing that he was not? Would they have risked their lives and accepted beatings for something they knew was a fraud?

2.3 Jesus was not dead, but only unconscious when they laid him in the tomb. He awoke, removed the stone, overcame the soldiers, and vanished from history after a few meetings with his disciples in which he convinced them he was risen from the dead. Even the foes of Jesus did not try this line. He was obviously dead. The Romans saw to that. The stone could not be moved by one man from within who had just been stabbed in the side by a spear and spent six hours nailed to a cross.

2.4 God raised Jesus from the dead. This is what he said would happen. It is what the disciples said did happen. But as long as there is a remote possibility of explaining the resurrection naturalistically, modern people say we should not jump to a supernatural explanation. Is this reasonable? I don’t think so. Of course, we don’t want to be gullible. But neither do we want to reject the truth just because it’s strange. We need to be aware that our commitments at this point are much affected by our preferences — either for the state of affairs that would arise from the truth of the resurrection, or for the state of affairs that would arise from the falsehood of the resurrection. If the message of Jesus has opened you to the reality of God and the need of forgiveness, for example, then anti-supernatural dogma might lose its power over your mind. Could it be that this openness is not prejudice for the resurrection, but freedom from prejudice against it?



3. The disciples were almost immediately transformed from men who were hopeless and fearful after the crucifixion (Luke 24:21, John 20:19) into men who were confident and bold witnesses of the resurrection (Acts 2:24, 3:15, 4:2).
Their explanation of this change was that they had seen the risen Christ and had been authorized to be his witnesses (Acts 2:32). The most popular competing explanation is that their confidence was owing to hallucinations. There are numerous problems with such a notion. The disciples were not gullible, but level-headed skeptics both before and after the resurrection (Mark 9:32, Luke 24:11, John 20:8-9, 25). Moreover, is the deep and noble teaching of those who witnessed the risen Christ the stuff of which hallucinations are made? What about Paul’s great letter to the Romans? I personally find it hard to think of this giant intellect and deeply transparent soul as deluded or deceptive, and he claimed to have seen the risen Christ.

4. Paul claimed that, not only had he seen the risen Christ, but that 500 others had seen him also, and many were still alive when he made this public claim.
“Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:6). What makes this so relevant is that this was written to Greeks who were skeptical of such claims when many of these witnesses were still alive. So it was a risky claim if it could be disproved by a little firsthand research.

5. The sheer existence of a thriving, empire-conquering early Christian church supports the truth of the resurrection claim.
The church spread on the power of the testimony that Jesus was raised from the dead and that God had thus made him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). The Lordship of Christ over all nations is based on his victory over death. This is the message that spread all over the world. Its power to cross cultures and create one new people of God was a strong testimony of its truth.

6. The Apostle Paul’s conversion supports the truth of the resurrection.
He argues to a partially unsympathetic audience in Galatians 1:11-17 that his gospel comes from the risen Jesus Christ, not from men. His argument is that before his Damascus Road experience when he saw the risen Jesus, he was violently opposed to the Christian faith (Acts 9:1). But now, to everyone’s astonishment, he is risking his life for the gospel (Acts 9:24-25). His explanation: The risen Jesus appeared to him and authorized him to spearhead the Gentile mission (Acts 26:15-18). Can we credit such a testimony? This leads to the next argument.

7. The New Testament witnesses do not bear the stamp of dupes or deceivers.
How do you credit a witness? How do you decide whether to believe a person’s testimony? The decision to give credence to a person’s testimony is not the same as completing a mathematical equation. The certainty is of a different kind, yet can be just as firm (I trust my wife’s testimony that she is faithful). When a witness is dead, we can base our judgment of him only on the content of his writings and the testimonies of others about him. How do Peter and John and Matthew and Paul stack up?

In my judgment (and at this point we can live authentically only by our own judgment—Luke 12:57), these men’s writings do not read like the works of gullible, easily deceived or deceiving men. Their insights into human nature are profound. Their personal commitment is sober and carefully stated. Their teachings are coherent and do not look like the invention of unstable men. The moral and spiritual standard is high. And the lives of these men are totally devoted to the truth and to the honor of God.

8. There is a self-authenticating glory in the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection as narrated by the biblical witnesses.
The New Testament teaches that God sent the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.... He will glorify me” (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit does not do this by telling us that Jesus rose from the dead. He does it by opening our eyes to see the self-authenticating glory of Christ in the narrative of his life and death and resurrection. He enables us to see Jesus as he really was, so that he is irresistibly true and beautiful. The apostle stated the problem of our blindness and the solution like this: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.... For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6).

A saving knowledge of Christ crucified and risen is not the mere result of right reasoning about historical facts. It is the result of spiritual illumination to see those facts for what they really are: a revelation of the truth and glory of God in the face of Christ — who is the same yesterday today and forever.

WOW WOW WOW THANK U VERY MUCH

Since you believe in Jesus so much let me ask you this,


I you were to go back in time and tell Jesus his Death would result in the murder of MILLIONS in his name do you think he would have had the conscious to call God on his plans?


Now keep in mind that Jesus was all about peace. Do you think he would have had an issue with God over his plans if he knew the end result?

Before you answer keep in mind THREE inquisitions, the Aztecs, and the California Indians, The Phillipines, the Persecution of the Jews (which Jesus was!), and all those who died questioning the Church founded in Jesus's name.

I personally feel the resurrection was faked because no outsiders witnessed him visiting the Apostles. Both Romans and Jews were and Are literate and a person actually being seen after having been killed walking the streets would have been HUGE news and Rome would have noted it. There is no outside records of his resurrection.Constantine was the first HOLY ROMAN emperor and before him Christians were persecuted. With that not withstanding again had ANYONE risen from the dead both the Jews and Rome and even Egypt and Greece would have written record of it.

Much like Mormonism's flavor of their conception of Christianity I just can't buy it.


We have a sort of resurrection going on when people are recovered from the 'dead' or people who were clinically dead suddenly coming back to life a few hours later.

In today's era if someone actually died a violent death and rose from the dead three days later the news would be round the world in no time flat.

a drink of cold, clear, condensation-on-glass, of ice water would be a nice thing at this time.

1"My kingdom is not of this world that men should fight"
When Peter picked up his sword and cut off the guards ear, Jesus rebuked Peter and healed the man.

2. The empty tomb was not faked. Almost all New Testament scholarship agree on this fact. Just read 1 Corinthians 15, which is the earliest known creed which was given to Paul immediately after his conversion. "Given the early date of Paul’s information as well as his
personal acquaintance with the people involved, these appearances cannot be dismissed as mere
legends."


3. Jesus resurrection was a well known event.
Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar at Emory University, muses, “Some sort of
powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest
Christianity was.”5 And N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, “That is why, as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty
tomb behind him.”
There was literally an explosion of Christianity
How would so many Jews come to believe such an outlandish idea in the face of such brutal persecution.

4. Outside records of his resurrection include the famous Roman historian Josephus, Tacitus, and many others.

"This passage known as the Testimonium Flavianum occurs when Josephus is giving a historical account of the Roman Prefect of Judea Pontius Pilate,

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Antiquities 18: 63-64)"

So, I take it you were actually there to witness it then?



We had this discussion the last time you showed up, you can't point to what is written in the bible, and call it fact.

You dodged the question.


Also what NON biblical accounts are there?


Again ANYONE rising from the dead after a crucifixion would have been HUGE news.


AS I have been taught in school (college) the source is unreliable if it can not be confirmed by two means, ONE: More than one source of the same information is available, I. E. Roman documentation, Not Holy Roman Church, The Romans were big on storing historical information and kept damn good records. the Greeks were also considered the intellectuals of the day and they most certainly have had their accounts of it. Two, confirmation of the sources is available. Since the Church has all of the documentation, I.E. Scriptures under tight lock and key there is no way to confirm the authenticity of the information.

There is a reason why the scripture according to Judas is not released by the Church! There is a reason why they will not release any access to that information! They have been hiding something for 2000 years! The truth!

Also bear in mind any book written by man can be twisted to meet their needs. If God wrote it where is the original copy? Inspired by God is not good enough for me. One man's inspiration is another man's madness...

So again,

If Jesus knew his death would result in the murder of millions in HIS name, do you think he would have called God on it?

If Jesus was a man of conscious he would have. Please do not try to raise the whole prayer of the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wanted to know why God wanted him to die and God would not answer. I would bet if Jesus had told god to Push Off God would have been PIESSED OFF UNLESS God really was a God of love and then God would have understood!

Why is it you need to have faith in such potential lies when the real truth comes from his words?

I have heard the argument that Jesus says salvation was "through him," but time and time again people more intellectually inclined in Bible studies have brought up that that was a mistranslation of Jesus saying "Salvation through my word," which is said plainly in the bible in one place!

Believing in a Risen Savior is exactly like putting Jesus in the same light as God and that goes against the ten commandments of Judaism. I feel the whole concept is misleading. Putting faith in anyone other than yourself is really kind of giving up your free will. It does not mean you are free to do bad things. It just means you can choose what to do good or bad.


Also did not Jesus say to worry about God when it is time and for us to live good lives instead of worrying about some stupid book that has caused years of suffering and a negative effect on the growth of mankind as a whole??

I am not out to bash your faith. I just want you to see that there is more than one perspective in this and that I think you are approaching your beliefs in a haphazard fashion.

Was Jesus a prophet or Deity? If he rose from the dead he is a Deity!

I have said that it is possible that since the bible is very strongly metaphoric that the whole resurrection was "THE WORD OF GOD" arisen renewed through the Church (body of Christ) and not that Jesus himself walked down the streets in front of EVERYBODY. He only appeared to his faithful. If he appeared on Herod I think Heron would have taken notes and his actions after the death of Jesus would have been wholly different.

So now I ask you a third question in this as well,
Do you believe in Jesus or his teachings? It cannot be both ways because in life it is YOUR ass on the line, not his...

Also bear in mind Christianity may have been founded by a Jew it was adopted WHOLESALE by Constantine and the Holy Roman Church was founded in ROME! Ah those crazy Italians! Rome never really quite died like people think. It reorganized!

Um, Yes you can. Not all of it can be proven fact, but some of it can.

No one has any clue what Jesus might have said or not said. All we have to go on is extremely belated hearsay that was written by someone who had an OBVIOUS AGENDA.

So to claim that Jesus said anything is truly silly.

Actually scholars have a pretty good idea what was in the original text.

Scholars agree the gospels are actual attempts to write biographies about the life of Jesus, particularly his 3 years of ministry.

This agenda cost them everything. All the desciples went to the death believing they had seen the risen Lord and refused to recant. They lived lives of persecution, abandonment, and very little material wealth. It cost them everything. There was nothing to gain for them in this life by what they believed. No, they were looking for the greater prize.

If you narrow it down to a few questions, I will give a counter argument.

He was a Roman historian at the time and probably best known for his book Antiquities of the Jews. I think He wrote it about 93 AD.



"This passage known as the Testimonium Flavianum occurs when Josephus is giving a historical account of the Roman Prefect of Judea Pontius Pilate,

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (Antiquities 18: 63-64)"

You're using the book to support the book. That's about as circular as it gets.

If we did that with Greek Mythology we'd all still be worshiping Zeus.

No for instance:


"1. Jesus’ burial is multiply attested in early, independent sources.

We have four biographies of Jesus, by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which have been
collected into the New Testament, along with various letters of the apostle Paul. Now the burial
account is part of Mark’s source material for the story of Jesus’ suffering and death. This is a
very early source which is probably based on eyewitness testimony and which the commentator
Rudolf Pesch dates to within seven years of the crucifixion. Moreover, Paul also cites an
extremely early source for Jesus’ burial which most scholars date to within five years of Jesus’
crucifixion. Independent testimony to Jesus’ burial by Joseph is also found in the sources behind
Matthew and Luke and the Gospel of John, not to mention the extra-biblical Gospel of Peter.
Thus, we have the remarkable number of at least five independent sources for Jesus’ burial, some
of which are extraordinarily early.

2. As a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely
to be a Christian invention.

There was an understandable hostility in the early church toward the Jewish leaders. In Christian
eyes, they had engineered a judicial murder of Jesus. Thus, according to the late New Testament
scholar Raymond Brown, Jesus’ burial by Joseph is “very probable,” since it is “almost
inexplicable” why Christians would make up a story about a Jewish Sanhedrist who does what is
right by Jesus.1

For these and other reasons, most New Testament critics concur that Jesus was buried by Joseph
of Arimathea in a tomb. According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the
burial of Jesus in the tomb is “one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus."


"This doesn’t mean that there aren’t sources outside the Bible which refer to Jesus. There are. He’s referred to in pagan, Jewish, and Christian writings outside the New Testament. The Jewish historian Josephus is especially interesting. In the pages of his works you can read about New Testament people like the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, King Herod, John the Baptist, even Jesus himself and his brother James. There have also been interesting archaeological discoveries as well bearing on the gospels. For example, in 1961 the first archaeological evidence concerning Pilate was unearthed in the town of Caesarea; it was an inscription of a dedication bearing Pilate’s name and title. Even more recently, in 1990 the actual tomb of Caiaphas, the high priest who presided over Jesus’s trial, was discovered south of Jerusalem. Indeed, the tomb beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is in all probability the tomb in which Jesus himself was laid by Joseph of Arimathea following the crucifixion."

I didn't ask that many questions. the main question I ask you still holds.


Trust me, I have made A LOT of Catholic priests squirm as a teenager because of a good Lutheran Education! I even make pastors take note at what they say using the bible!

Let me explain WHY I ask the questions I am.

Jesus the Man or Jesus the Savior?

Was Jesus born of Man to experience the life of a man or did God create another Deity to expand his Pantheon?

If God said I am and Jesus comes along and shares a position with "Him" that puts Jesus in the same position as God and we are talking about a jealous God who said "THERE SHALL BE NO OTHERS BUT ME." That means that all of those misguided are praying to Jesus or Mary instead of directly to God. Why does anyone need an intercessor like Jesus if God is all that powerful. Because Jesus is going to absolve them of acting like a SH*THEAD in life sparing them eternal damnation?

Let me give you an idea of HOW polluted the church has become at least pointing the finger at the Catholics Directly! Do you remember this image?




Likewise this one?



Can you identify who is holding up the virgin in the first image and who is under the feet of the virgin in the second picture?


In the first classic Image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is a copy of a stone relief in the Vatican that has been dated to the beginning to the Holy Roman Church. I cannot find the pic of the original image online and cannot get it on from my text book.

Do you have any idea who the "angel" holding the virgin Mary up in the first image? TRY THE ROMAN GOD BACCUS! GUESS WHO HE WAS! Think the Greek version of him as Dionysus. The second image was a later translation of the original concept but although there are several winged people in it vs. one it turns out that they were personifications of the former Roman Gods giving way to the Greater God! PAGAN PAGAN PAGAN!

Worst still is the idea a religion can be founded on the murder suicide of a man! Needless to say most Christians have confused priorities on who to worship! You cannot worship God and Jesus in the same breath. It is a sin against the very doctrine the Church holds dear!

Figures it takes a bunch of humans to take a good idea and screw it up so thoroughly!


So if Jesus knew his 'sacrifice' would lead to the murder of millions would he have called God on it? i am going to keep asking because you are dodging the question! Answer CAREFULLY because I am not the one who will rip into you if you put your foot in your mouth. I'll just shred your argument to pieces if you are not careful in what you say.

Let me first ask you a question to clarify what you are saying. What millions of murders is Christ responsible for.


Christ was always in perfect fellowship with the father untill the very moments before his death.

You are BLATANTLY trying to avoid the question and I did spell it out who died in his name! DID YOU EVEN TAKE HISTORY CLASSES IN SCHOOL?

Fellowship is one thing but Jesus has been Deified! I have met your flavor of Christian before. You will not answer anything that does not meet your sensitive nature because the answers are too hard for you to answer evidently.

So what you in essence are telling me that the Three inquisitions sanctioned by the church were meaningless, the persecution of Jews in medieval Europe never happened, and that the Aztecs evidently never existed in the first place nor the California Indians?

I am really on the verge of calling you ignorant outright.

You really do not appear to be as educated as you would like us to think! It is not hard to answer a question without using these cheap dodging tactics to protect your beliefs.

You are blindly obedient and evidently prefer to live in deception rather than answer my questions with anything but a diverting question. Man how I would love to discus Plato and the Cave with you but you probably can't do philosophy without falling apart when presented a conundrum! I grew up among people like yourself and needless to say we DON'T get along because I am a lot smarter then they take me for and I dare ask questions that challenge their beliefs. I grew up with the bible pounded into me and now I pound back but softly with articulate and thought out questions and I never resort to one liners or diversion tactics.

This is a situation where I can feel no guilt saying "piss or get off the pot!" What is the matter. A simple question or questions scares you that much?

andy....hun....dearest lol

those things were committed by men hiding behind beliefs. not to mention....the other side has done their share as well. it's a mankind thing.

I thought that might be where you were going. You must be careful not to lay at the feet of Christ the terrible atrocities of the Past. "My kingdom is not of this world that men should fight", here Christ clearly condemns fighting for him. Christ taught us to turn the other cheek. When Peter caught off the guards ear, Jesus turned to Peter and rebuked him, then Jesus healed the guard. You never judge a philosophy by it abuse. These atrocities were not a fair representation of Christianity.

Try to ask clear questions.