Eyewitnesses of the Resurrected Lord

It’s very important for us to understand that the church’s faith in the resurrection of Jesus does not rest on inferences drawn from a missing body. It is not simply that people found an empty tomb and then made the gratuitous assumption that the only reason that could explain the emptiness of the tomb would be that Jesus had been raised from the dead. No, the faith of the church does not rest on that kind of speculation, but it rests upon the witness of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, of the authors of the New Testament, who said that they are proclaiming for us what they have seen with their eyes and heard with their ears.

It is not simply the empty tomb, but it is the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, where Paul tells us He appeared to the women. He appeared to the Twelve. He appeared to Thomas, who was skeptical. At one occasion, He appeared to five hundred people at one time. And Paul says that “as one born out of due time, he appeared also to me,” (1 Cor. 15:8) so that the testimony of the New Testament to the resurrection of Jesus is the testimony of those who saw Him, who touched Him, who ate with Him, and who spoke with Him.