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The Resurrection of the Great King
Mark 16:1-8
Introduction: 1) I have a friend named Mike who is an atheist, or at least an
agnostic. Several years ago he came over to our home to have dinner with my
family and me. Later when he and I were visiting I asked him, “What is the
bottom-line when it comes to Christianity?” He quickly responded and said,
“That’s easy. It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” He then quickly added, “If
the resurrection is true than so are a number of other things: 1) There is a God; 2)
Jesus is that God; 3) The Bible is true; 4) Heaven and hell are real; and 5) Jesus
makes the difference whether you go to one or the other.”
2) My friend Mike is right on all counts. I have often wished my seminary
students and fellow theologians saw the issue as clearly. Christianity stands or
falls on the historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. No resurrection,
no Christianity. In 1 Corinthians 15:17. Paul plainly writes, “And if Christ has not
been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
3) In Mark 16:1-8 the resurrection of the Great King is addressed. Mark will note
several evidences for the resurrection of Jesus. We will quickly examine them and
then, step back and, provide a “birds-eye” view of this most critical issue of the
Christian faith. We will note the possible options, examine the different theories
that have been set forth, and then conclude with the massive evidence that leads us
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to proclaim, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” We will discover the witnesses to
the resurrection are not shaky. They are rock solid!
I. The Witness of Mark’s Gospel 16:1-8
Two of the women at the cross (15:40) also see where Jesus is buried
(15:47). When the Sabbath was over they, Mary Magdalene and
Mary the mother of James, along with Salome, “brought spices, so
that they might go and anoint” the body of Jesus (16:1). They knew
exactly where He was buried, and they wanted to perfume His body in
a final act of devotion.
“Very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they
went to the tomb” (16:2). This would be Sunday morning. John 20:1
informs us they left for the tomb while it was still dark. They were
concerned about how they would get to His body (v. 3). Verse 4 says
of the stone in front of the tomb –“it was very large.”
When they arrived at the tomb they were met with a surprise: “they
saw “that the stone had been rolled back” (v. 4). They entered the
tomb to find an even bigger surprise (v. 5), “they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe.” No doubt he was an
angel, and not a surprise: “they were alarmed.” Fear, wonder,
amazement, astonishment and distress gripped their soul. This word
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“alarmed” is the same word used in Mark 14:33 to describe the agony
Jesus experienced in the garden of Gethsemane.
Interestingly Luke (24:3-4) and John (20:12) inform us that there were
actually two angels present, the number to establish a valid witness
(Deut 17:6; 19:15). Matthew (28:5) and Mark simply focus on the
spokesman, the one who conversed with the women.
Aware of their distress the angel seeks to calm and to assure them by
revealing the greatest surprise of all (v. 6), “Do not be alarmed. You
seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not
here. See the place where they laid him.” I deeply appreciate the
insights of James Edwards at this point, “The Crucified One, says the
angel, has been raised! The angel invites the women to see the place
where they last saw the body of Jesus (15:47). The references to the
place of his burial and to Jesus as the crucified one are of crucial
importance. The women are not directed to a mystical or spiritual
experience or to a numinous encounter. They are directed specifically
to Jesus, who died by a crucifixion they witnesses, was buried in a
place they witnessed, and now has been resurrected. The verbs in v. 6
refer to both sides of the Easter event. The announcement of the
divine emissary establishes an inseparable continuity between the
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historical Jesus and the resurrected Jesus. The one whom the angel
invites them to know is the one whom they have known. The
announcement of the gospel is literally, the gospel, good news, and
the place from which the gospel first preached is the empty tomb that
both received and gave up the Crucified One. A new order of
existence is inaugurated….At this moment and in this place the
women are witnessing “the kingdom of God come with power” (9:1).
(Edwards, 494).
The evidence is undeniable. The tomb is empty! Now the women
have a new assignment. There is no need to anoint a dead body that is
no longer there. It is time to start proclaiming the good news of a
risen Lord and Savior who has left the tomb! The angel instructs
them to begin with those who had abandoned and denied Him, “But
go (pre.imp), tell (imp) his disciples and Peter (unique to Mark!) that
he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he
told you.” (v. 7). What a word of grace! What a word of forgiveness,
hope and promise. What a pledge for a new beginning from the very
place where they first began to walk with Him. Peter would
especially be grateful for this word!
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Stunned beyond measure, the women “went out and fled from the
tomb” (v. 8). They were overcome with “trembling and
astonishment.” And, “they said nothing to anyone (at least initially),
for they were afraid”. There reaction is not what you would expect is
it? I believe Sinclair Ferguson helps us put things in perspective:
“Should they not have returned home rejoicing in the news they had
heard? Is there not something unexpected about this response? That
in itself is a mark of its authenticity (if we were to invent the story we
would not end it in this way). But it is more. In Mark’s Gospel, this
fear is always man’s response to the breaking in of the power of God.
It is the fear the disciples experienced when Jesus stilled the storm;
the fear of the Gerasenes when Jesus delivered Legion; the fear of the
disciples as they saw Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem to die on the
cross. This fear is the response of men and women to Jesus as he
shows his power and majesty as the Son of God.” (Let’s Study Mark,
271).
And thus Mark’s gospel comes to an end and an abrupt one at that.
Verses 9-20 are not found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts,
though there is nothing in them inconsistent with the Scriptures.
Mark’s sudden ending was what he wanted. It makes clear that the
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disciples of Jesus were stunned by all of this. They did not expect the
resurrection. They did not know how to respond, at least initially.
How would they respond to all of this? How will you?
II. Resurrection Options
When we approach the issue of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, we are confronted
with three basic options.
Option 1: Jesus’ resurrection is false—a great hoax. Jesus did not rise from
the dead and certain persons, probably the disciples, fabricated a lie and
pulled off one of the best hoaxes, if not the greatest hoax, of all time.
Option 2: Jesus’ resurrection is fiction—ancient mythology. The early
church made Jesus into someone He really was not by telling stories about
Him that they embellished more and more over time. Eventually, believers
turned Him into God incarnate who died on a cross for our sins and later
rose from the dead. Although none of these events really happened, the
stories about Jesus continue to evoke wonder and inspire us to live more
noble lives, even today.
Option 3: Jesus’ resurrection is fact—the supreme event of history. The
New Testament accurately records the historical and supernatural
resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. His resurrection was bodily
and permanent.
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So here are the viable options. There really are no others.
III. Naturalistic Theories That Reject the Resurrection
Naturalistic theories attempt to explain away the idea that Jesus was bodily
resurrected by the supernatural power of God. These theories prefer any
naturalistic explanation of the event over a supernatural one. There are 10
that are worth noting, and one I throw in for comic relief (#10)!
1) The swoon theory. This view argues that Jesus did not really die but
fainted because of the enormous physical punishment He suffered. Later
regaining consciousness in the cool, damp tomb, He unwrapped Himself
and got out of His grave clothes. He then managed to move aside the
large stone that sealed the entrance to the tomb. Bruised, bleeding,
battered, and beaten, Jesus emerged from the tomb and convinced His
followers that He had risen from the dead.
For example, in his best-seller, The Passover Plot, Hugh Schonfield says
Jesus planned the whole thing with help from Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus
was drugged while on the cross, making it appear that He had died.
Unfortunately, He was seriously injured and actually died a short time
later. An outrageous expression of this view is that of Barbara Thiering,
who teaches at University of Sydney, Australia. She says Jesus was given
snake poison to fake His death and later recovered. He would go on to
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marry Mary Magdalene and later Lydia, and He would father several
children!
2) The spirit theory. Jesus was not raised bodily, but He returned in a spirit
form or as a spirit creature. This view is held by the Jehovah’s Witnesses
cult, which teaches that Jesus was created by God as the archangel
Michael and that while on earth He was only a man. Following His death
on the cross, God restored Jesus in a spiritual form only. The Watchtower
Society asserts, “King Christ Jesus was put to death in the flesh and was
resurrected an invisible spirit creature.”
3) The hallucination theory. Ian Wilson, believes that Jesus
preprogrammed His disciples to hallucinate by means of hypnosis. He
says, “It is possible that he [Jesus] prepared his disciples for his
resurrection using the technique that modern hypnotists call post-hypnotic
suggestion. By this means he could have effectively conditioned them to
hallucinate his appearances in response to certain prearranged cues…”
4) The vision theory. The disciples had experiences they interpreted or
understood to be literal appearances of the risen Jesus. The disciples saw
visionary appearances of the risen Christ and He communicated to them a
call and mission. Though not identical, this view is similar to the spirit
theory.
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5) The legend/myth theory. Basically the view of the infamous Jesus
Seminar, this theory holds that over time the Jesus stories were
embellished and exaggerated. The resurrection is a “wonder story”
indicating the significance the mythical Jesus held for His followers.
6) The stolen-body theory. This is the earliest theory that attempts to
explain away Jesus’ bodily resurrection. It goes back to Matthew 28:11-
15, which records that the soldiers who guarded Jesus/ tomb were bribed
by the Jewish leaders to lie and say, “ ‘ “His disciples came during the
night and stole Him while we were sleeping”’”. Occasionally, it is alleged
that the body could also have been stolen by the Jewish leaders, the
Romans, or even Joseph of Arimathea.
7) The wrong-tomb theory. Belief in Jesus’ bodily resurrection rests on a
simple mistake: first the women and later the man went to the wrong tomb
by accident. Finding the wrong tomb empty, they erroneously concluded
that Jesus had risen from the dead.
8) The lie-for-profit theory. Jesus’ alleged resurrection was perhaps the
greatest religious hoax ever attempted and was perpetrated by His
disciples. Jesus’ death by crucifixion was a huge disappointment, but His
followers saw a way to turn it for good and financial profit. They
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proclaimed that Jesus had risen, built a substantial following, and profited
from the monies they fleeced from the people who believed their lie.
9) The mistaken-identity theory. Sometimes related to the wrong-tomb
theory, this view says the women mistook someone else for Jesus. They
perhaps ran into a gardener or a caretaker in the garden. Because it was
early in the morning and still dark, they could not clearly see this man.
They wrongly thought he was Jesus.
10) The twin theory. In a 1995 debate with Christian apologist William
Lane Craig, philosopher Robert Greg Cavin argued that Jesus had an
identical twin brother. Separated at birth, they did not see each other
again until the crucifixion. Following Jesus’ death, His twin conjured up
a messianic identity and mission for Jesus, stole His body, and pretended
to be the risen Jesus. All we can say here is “incredible! What an
imagination!”
11) The Muslim theory. Islam rejects the biblical witness of Jesus’
crucifixion, teaching instead that God provided a substitute for Jesus,
perhaps even making the person look like Jesus. Surah 4:157 in the
Qur’an says, “They declared: ‘We have put to death the Messiah Jesus the
son of Mary, the apostle of Allah.’ They did not kill him, nor did they
crucify him, but they thought they did.” Muslims do not agree on who
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took Jesus’ place. Candidates include Judas, Pilate, Simon of Cyrene, or
even one of the disciples. Muslims do not believe in Jesus’ bodily
resurrection because they do not believe He died on the cross. Instead,
Surah 4:158 declares, “Allah took him up into Himself.”
IV. Evidences for the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus
Virtually all scholars acknowledge a number of historical facts surrounding
Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. These include the following:
1) Jesus died on a Roman cross by crucifixion.
2) Jesus was buried in a tomb not far from the crucifixion site.
3) Jesus’ death threw the disciples into a state of despair and despondency,
believing that their Lord was now dead.
4) Jesus’ tomb was discovered to be empty shortly after His burial.
5) The disciples had real and genuine experiences that convinced them
beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus had risen from the dead and that
He was alive.
6) These experiences with the risen Jesus radically transformed the disciples
into bold witnesses of His resurrection from the dead, a witness that led to
martyrdom for many of them.
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7) The message of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection was the heart of the
gospel from the beginning of the church’s existence.
8) This gospel was preached in Jerusalem, the very city where Jesus had
been crucified and buried.
9) The good news of Christ’s death and resurrection was foundational in the
birth of the Christian church.
10) Sunday, not the Sabbath, became the day of worship for the church in
celebration of the Lord’s resurrection on that day.
11) James, Jesus’ half-brother and an unbeliever, was converted following
an appearance of his resurrected brother.
12) Saul, a persecutor of Christians, was converted to Christianity following
an appearance of the risen Christ.
Therefore, and this is critically important, any theory or explanation of the
empty tomb must properly account for all of these facts.
Now, it is interesting to note that no one witnessed the actual resurrection of
Jesus. In fact, the Gospels make no such claim. The belief and
proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection are based on the fact that He died, He
was buried, the tomb in which He was buried was discovered to be empty
and the disciples had experiences that convinced them that Jesus had
supernaturally and bodily risen from the dead.
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Having established these historical faces, we can build a very strong case for
Jesus’ bodily resurrection. Fourteen evidences will be set forth.
1) The failure of naturalistic theories to explain the event. Naturalistic
arguments did not stand up to careful analysis. Virtually all of them have
been abandoned or substantially revised. Proponents were selective in
the biblical data they affirmed, accepting whatever helped their theories
and rejecting whatever did not.
2) The birth of the disciples’ faith and the radical change in their lives.
Something happened that caused Jesus’ followers to believe that they had
genuine encounters with the risen Lord. Furthermore, these encounters
with Jesus changed them from fearful cowards in hiding to bold
witnesses of the resurrected Christ. In addition, according to church
tradition, each disciple, with the possible exception of John, died as a
martyr. Each died alone, and yet each one died still proclaiming Jesus as
the risen Lord with their dying breath. The importance of this
observation can scarcely be overstated. Although people will die for a
lie, thinking it is the truth, they will not die for what they know is a lie.
3) The empty tomb and the discarded grave clothes. The Christian
movement could have been quickly crushed by producing Jesus’ dead
corpse. Evidently, no one was able to do so. Paul’s early testimony in 1
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Corinthians 15 supports the truth of the empty tomb, and the account
itself is simple and lacks legendary development. The disciples could not
have preached the resurrection in Jerusalem had the tomb not been
empty.
4) The fact that women saw the empty tomb first. In the Jewish culture
of the first century, women were not qualified to be witnesses in a legal
proceeding. Deemed unreliable, they could not testify in a court of law.
Given this fact, it is astonishing that the Bible records that women saw
the risen Jesus first. If the early church was trying to persuade people to
believe that Jesus rose from the dead, saying that women saw Him first
was not a wise strategy. If the account of the empty tomb is fictional, it
is also inconceivable that women would be the first witnesses to the
event. The only reason to record that women saw Him first is that
women saw Him first.
5) The change in the day of worship from the Sabbath to Sunday. For
centuries Jewish identity has been connected to the observance of the
Sabbath, a day that is honored and kept sacred to the Lord. Yet
something extraordinary happened around A.D. 30 that caused a large
group of Jews in Jerusalem to change their day of worship from the
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Sabbath to Sunday. That event is the bodily resurrection of Jesus from
the dead.
6) The unlikely nature of mass hallucination. Mass hallucination is not
just unlikely, it is actually impossible! Hallucinations are inner,
subjective experiences of the mind. They occur personally and
individually, not as a group experience.
7) Post resurrection appearances. The New Testament records many
occasions when Jesus appeared to his followers following His
resurrection. Thirteen distinct appearances are recorded in Scripture (See
Matthew 28; Luke 24; John 20-21; Acts 1; I Corinthians 15; Revelation
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We can make several important observations about these appearances.
The disciples claimed that Jesus appeared at different times and to
different people.
Some appearances were to groups, while others were to
individuals.
The differing though complementary nature of the resurrection
appearances support their authenticity.
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The appearances lasted for 40 days and then came to a complete
and abrupt stop. Acts 1:4-11 tells us why: Jesus’ ascension back to
heaven. No other compelling alternative explanation exists.
8) The 50-day interval between the resurrection and the bold and public
proclamation of the gospel at Pentecost in Jerusalem. Jesus’ disciples
did not proclaim the gospel of the risen Lord for 50 days after the event
took place. Why? What would explain this delay? Again the biblical
witness is clear and compelling. They waited until Jesus had ascended
(see Luke 24; Acts 1) and until the Holy Spirit had come to empower
them for witness (see Acts 2). Christ had to leave before they would act
on their own, and the Spirit had to come to give them boldness for
witness.
9) The inability of the Jewish leaders and the Romans to disprove the
message of the empty tomb. It is an undeniable fact of history that those
who opposed and crucified Jesus could not disprove His resurrection. All
they had to do was produce the body of Jesus to put an end to the
Christian movement. Simply put: there was no body to produce.
10) The unexpected nature of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. The disciples
did not anticipate that Jesus would rise from the dead, though He had
predicted this miracle on several occasions (see Mark 8:31-33; 9:31-32;
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10:32-34). In fact, Mark 9:32 tells us they did not understand. Perhaps
they thought He was again speaking in parables. When Jesus was
crucified, their hopes were dashed. A dying and rising Messiah was not
what they expected, in spite of the fact that the Old Testament predicted
Him. The fact that the disciples were fearful, despondent, and in despair
is especially fatal to any type of hallucination or hypnosis theory. All the
evidence strongly affirms that the disciples did not anticipate Jesus’
resurrection.
11) The conversion of two skeptics: James and Paul. John 7:5 makes
clear that James, the half-brother of Jesus, was an unbeliever in Jesus as
Messiah prior to His crucifixion. Yet something happened that
transformed James from a doubter to a believer, from a skeptic to a leader
in the church at Jerusalem, from one who thought his brother was mad
(see Mark 3:21) to one who willingly suffered martyrdom for the gospel.
James was killed in A.D. 62 for his faith in his brother Jesus as the risen
Christ. Something remarkable occurred that brought about this radical
change in James. Saul of Tarsus violently persecuted the church (see Acts
7:58; 8:1-3; 9:1-2). However, something happened in Saul’s life that
changed him from a persecutor of Christ to a missionary and evangelist
for Christ. His own testimony, recorded several times in Scripture,
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affirms that he saw the resurrected Christ (see Acts 9:3-6; 22:6-10; 26:12-
19; 1 Corinthians 15:8; Galatians 1:15-16). Saul was not open to the
gospel. It took the resurrected Lord to convince him that Jesus was indeed
the Christ.
12) The moral character of the eyewitness. The New Testament provides
the greatest teachings found in any literature on love, truth, honesty, hope,
faithfulness, kindness—and the list goes on. These teachings came from
the pens of men like Matthew, John, Paul, James, and Peter, all of whom
claimed to be eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus. To affirm their teachings
and yet reject their witness of Jesus as a lie or mistake is illogical and
nonsensical. If we accept their teachings, we must trust their testimony
about Jesus.
13) The accepted character and claims of Jesus. On numerous occasions
Jesus spoke of His crucifixion and resurrection. He claimed He was God
(see John 8:58; 10:30; 14:9), and He said He would come back from the
dead (see Matt. 16:21). To claim Jesus as a great religious figure and
moral teacher while believing that His prediction of His resurrection was
wrong would make Him either a liar or a lunatic. The resurrection is
essential to the confession that Jesus is Lord. Everything hinges on it.
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14) Reliable eyewitness documents recording the events. The New
Testament is the most well-authenticated document of antiquity, a fact no
textual critic of any theological persuasion would deny. More than 5,600
Greek manuscripts of the New Testament exist. These are of an earlier
date and of a more reliable nature than any other work of antiquity.
Eyewitness followers of Christ wrote many of them, and the books
themselves have the ring of history. No religion has in its scared writings
what Christians have in the New Testament.
These arguments form objective, historically verifiable evidence of Jesus’
resurrection. Combined with a believer’s personal experience of Jesus as
living Lord, they provide ample reason to believe that Jesus was
physically raised from the dead by the mighty hand of God.
V. Why the Resurrection is Important
The resurrection is theologically significant for the Christian faith. It
verifies the truthfulness of the deity of Jesus Christ (see Acts 2:22-24; Rom.
1:3-4), and hope for the believer’s resurrection (see Rom. 6:8-9; 1 Cor. 6:14;
15:20-28; 2 Cor. 4:14; 5:10; Phil. 3:21; 1 Thess. 4:14; 1 John 3:2). The
resurrection indicates God’s approval of Jesus—who He is and what He
said. God’s approval includes Jesus’ message about the way people can
receive eternal life (see John 14:6).
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The resurrection is at that core of the Christian gospel and Christian
theology. It tells us that the God who raised Jesus from the dead exists. It
establishes Jesus’ Lordship. The resurrection promises victory over death
(see John 14:1-9; 1 Cor. 15:55-57), and it is a pledge of God’s final
judgment (see Acts 17:31; Heb. 9:26-27).
Jesus said in John 10:18, “No one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down
on My own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up
again.” Christ is the firstfruits of the resurrection which all who are in Him
will enjoy (1 Cor. 15:22). Romans 4:25 teaches that Christ has been raised
for our justification. The Bible teaches a close connection between the penal
substitutionary death of Christ on the cross and his resurrection. Both are
tied to the miracle of salvation.
The classic and definitive text on the resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15. It is
both apologetical and theological in its treatment of this great doctrine. Both
the death of Christ and his resurrection are a part of the definition of the
gospel. That gospel is that Christ died for our sins, according to the
Scriptures, he was buried, and on the third day, he was raised once again
according to the Scriptures.
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Paul has in view the Old Testament Scriptures and texts like Genesis 22:1-19; Psalms 16:8-11; 22; Isaiah 52:13-53;
Jonah 1:17; 2:10; Zachariah 12:10.
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The resurrection itself is the crowning moment of the work of atonement
provided by our Lord. It is a Trinitarian accomplishment with each person
of the Godhead participating (Rom. 1:1-4).
Jesus is indeed the risen Lord. You can reject Him, but you cannot ignore
Him. What Jesus did in rising from the dead demands a response. How will
you respond to the risen Lord and King of the universe? It is a question that
cannot be avoided.
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Most of the content of this message was taken from Discovering the Biblical Jesus.
