What would you do if, hypothetically, you found out that Jesus did not rise from the dead? I am not sure what evidence would even be sufficient for that conclusion, but suppose the evidence was very strong.
Personally, I would be forced to leave Christianity. And I think Paul the Apostle would too. In I Corinthians 15:17, he says that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless” (CSB). In other words, the resurrection is so central to Christianity, that if it didn’t happen, then Christianity is false. Yet, thanks be to God, Christ did indeed rise from the dead, and your faith is not worthless!
How do we know? In the same chapter of I Corinthians, Paul tells us the answer. He starts out by reciting an early church creed in verses 3-7 that testifies to the resurrection and provides testimonial evidence that it occurred. Paul says,
“For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”’
And then he adds in verse 8: “Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.”
Based on this confession, we know that Christ’s death, burial and resurrection were prophesied in the Old Testament, that Christ fulfilled these prophecies, and that there is eyewitness testimony to verify this.
Paul says that he received this message, which means that he did not invent it, but that the church believed it before him. In fact, scholars date this Christian creed to within just a few years after the death of Jesus or even earlier. So, from very early on, Christians professed the resurrection of Christ, as well as the testimonial evidence supporting it.
Some skeptical scholars attempt to give naturalistic explanations to account for this evidence, such as the hallucination hypothesis. They say that the eyewitnesses did not really see Jesus alive after his death, but instead experienced grief-induced hallucinations of him.
While this may be plausible in Peter’s case, it does not fit much of the other eyewitness testimony. For example, Paul says that Jesus appeared to more than 500 people at once, but hallucinations do not happen to groups. Further, Paul himself did not grieve Jesus’ death, so was not primed to hallucinate him. Yet, he saw the risen Jesus and became one of Christianity’s most ardent witnesses.
There are, of course, many other points of evidence that prove Jesus rose from the dead. If you are interested in investigating the evidence for the resurrection for yourself, I recommend starting with Gary Habermas and Mike Licona’s The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel Publications, 2004).
I think that at the end of your investigation, you will be more confident in the resurrection, not less. And you will be able to say with all the saints: “Christ is risen, indeed!”
