Luke 24:1-12 English Standard Version The Resurrection 24 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 8 And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. We have now jumped forward in time all the way from the Day of Preparation to the Sunday after Passover. The women have come back to the tomb to anoint Jesus with more spices. They apparently knew that a large stone was rolled in front of the tomb (probably common practice to keep animals out), but it does not seem that they knew that the entrance was sealed or that a guard was posted, for all of that seems to have happened after they left. Their only concern on the way was who would move the stone for them because it was too large for any of them to move alone or even for all of them to work together to move.
When they got to the tomb, they found that the stone had been rolled away for them, which I'm sure made them happy, but then when they looked for the body of Jesus to anoint Him with more spices, the body was not there. They began to weep because they assumed someone had stolen the body. Somehow they missed the two angels that had been there (for one of the angels had rolled the stone away for them according to John's account, and he was sitting on top of the tombstone waiting for them, and it seems this angel does most of the talking too, but there definitely was another angel present according to Luke's account). We see the main group looking in the tomb for Jesus and the angel speaking to them, yet John lets us know that Mary Magdalene has turned around away from the tomb to cry and she actually sees Jesus appear to her and He talks to her to comfort her. She was the only one looking in the right place (outside the tomb) to see Him. The women Luke spoke to all heard the angel ask them why they were looking for the living among the dead. They were told "He is not here. He is risen, just as He said!" They would be told to go back and tell His disciples what they had seen and heard, but before that, the angels would help them remember the things that Jesus said and that He told them that He must suffer and die and be buried and then would be raised on the third day. Only then did the women remember His words and their mourning was turned into joy. They quickly ran to the place where the Eleven (Judas has already killed himself so the group formerly called the Twelve will be called the Eleven for a while) and the other disciples who were with them what they had seen and heard. It is unfortunate, but the testimony of women was not believed in the first century--which is one of the ways that we know that the disciples didn't make this story up, as they never would have had women be the first witnesses if they had--so Peter and John run to the tomb as fast as they can to see what the women were talking about (and being as competitive as they are, they made it into a race of sorts). John gets there first and is just looking in from the outside and Peter comes from behind and just runs past John and straight into the tomb. You can just see the difference in their personalities in this. The Bible tells us that John saw the evidence of the empty gave clothes and the shroud folded neatly in its place and he believed what the women had said--that Jesus had risen from the dead. Peter was a little harder to convince as the text says that he went home marveling at what had happened. Peter went looking for answers and left with more questions than when he had gone. It will take some time for him, but he will get there too. Luke also names many of the women who were witnesses by name so that people from that day could go and talk to them for themselves. It is a pattern that we have seen with Luke that he has talked to real people and he is encouraging his readers to fact-check him by talking to the sources for themselves. We have lots of evidence here as well as from the other gospels that the myths that are out there about the crucifixion being faked or the resurrection being faked are not credible. Let's spend just a moment on some of these items because I have a few moments today and now seems to be an appropriate time. 1) The "Swoon" Theory: This theory imagines that Jesus didn't really die, but He simply passed out from the trauma or exhaustion and that He just really needed to take a really long nap and then He was able to wake up and be okay. There are several issues with this. First is that crucifixion killed people 100% of the time. We see that they even knew how to break the convicts' legs if necessary to speed the process along. There is even medical evidence presented by Luke (a medical doctor) that they pierced Jesus' side with a spear to see that the blood and water came out separately (a sign of heart failure) and even if He had not been dead at that point, if you run someone through with a spear and pierce their heart, hitting several other vital organs along the way probably, they for sure would be dead at that point. Jesus did not just take a long nap--we also have the issue of the sealed tomb at that point. 2) Jesus didn't really die on the cross but was swapped out last-second for someone else (some say Judas was the one that died on the cross, others say it was Barabbas who died on the cross as he should have, and others don't name the person they think stood in Jesus' place). Besides all the theological issues that would create of God being a liar and no sinner able to die on the cross and take the sins of the world on himself because all of them would have their own sin, John and the women have been watching Jesus the whole time and they are sure that it is Him. They have heard His voice from the cross and Jesus spoke to John to tell John to take care of His mother and that Mary was now going to be like a mother to John as well. No stand-in for Jesus would have had these kind of conversations from the cross. We also see that Jesus bore the wounds of the crucifixion afterwards not just in HIs hands and feet, but as mentioned before, where His side was pierced by the spear. It was really Him and He really died on the cross as you could not fake those injuries. 3) There is a theory that Jesus' resurrection was only spiritual and not physical. Mostly this theory was perpetuated by the Gnostics who wrote many false gospels and they believed that the body was evil and that one day we would just be disembodied spirits free from our evil flesh, so they could not believe that Jesus would come back to life in a body of flesh, but we'll see that Jesus was very much alive with a real body that they could touch and He was able to eat meals with them to prove to them that He was no disembodied spirit. There were many eyewitnesses after the resurrection that saw Him and touched Him. 4) Many today believe the story told by the Pharisees that the guards fell asleep and the disciples stole the body. This is just a dumb story. The Roman guards would have been executed if they feel asleep while they were on guard duty. The fact they were bribed and were not executed should tell us that no one in authority over them believed this is what really happened. Also, if the guards were asleep, how were they so sure the disciples came and stole the body. You wouldn't be able to see who did it if you were asleep, right? This is probably the story people have latched onto the most because it's the one the Sanhedrin and the Roman government agreed to tell the people, but, again, the evidence isn't there as Jesus appeared to many hundreds of people afterwards. He wasn't in the tomb because He was risen. 5) Group hallucinations: I won't even talk about this one much other than to say this doesn't happen. There is no way the women all hallucinated and saw the same angels say the same thing--that's a vision, not a hallucination, because a hallucination is an individual experience, and it definitely doesn't happen with a group of 500 or more people like is recorded in 1 Corinthians 15. The stories people will tell themselves to not have to believe the truth of the resurrection are ridiculous, but we are told in the Bible that people would exchange the truth of God for a lie and would believe fables and myths rather than to believe the truth of God's Word that tells them that they are sinners in need of repentance and a Savior. The message "You must be born again" is not one they want to hear, so they will believe anything else. I would posit as well as many other theologians and apologists who say this that it takes much more "faith" to ignore this evidence and believe something else than to believe the clear evidence presented in Scripture for the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus on the third day. Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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