Ephesians is starting to flow into rough draft, but it will be a while before I start to publish the fruits of study here because it truly is a heavily theological letter. However, as I study Ephesians, I find that John MacArthur’s book “The Truth Wars”, though based on Jude, has bearing upon Ephesians.  Ephesians is about truth and MacArthur’s book is about the state of truth in our post-modern society.  It is extremely timely to share a bit of what I’ve been reading because MacArthur is right – we are in the middle of a war for the very definition of truth.

In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul wrote that Timothy and the church at, ironically enough, Ephesus, might “know how people ought to act in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” MacArthur points out early in the book that there has arisen an “idea that the Christian message should be kept pliable and ambiguous” and this seems “especially attractive to young people who are in tune with the culture and in love with the spirit of the age.”

MacArthur notes that “much of the visible church nowadays seems to think Christians should be at play rather than at war. The idea of actually fighting for doctrinal truth is the furthest thing from most churchgoers’ thoughts.”

Some of this is perhaps understandable. In the United States, most Christians have never known persecution for their religious faith. Some of us recognize the seeds of persecution in the acts of 911, but truly, to be perfectly honest, the attacks were motivated by cultural disagreements as much as by religion. We are not used to needing to defend the faith and it is easy to become lulled into thinking we never will need to. We are also surrounded by a culture with a deepening skepticism about truth and the fruit of truth claims.

The early Church leaders, starting with the apostles, were absolutely convinced that they knew the truth and the Truth was Jesus. Knowing this and being equally convinced that they must tell the world, they did as they had been tasks. Most of them ran into trouble with the Jewish or Roman authorities (often both working together) early on. Many of them died for their refusal to compromise on the truth. They understood that they were in a war for the truth and that war means casualties. Yet, the war they fought didn’t require they pick up swords or torture or kill others. It required that they love others enough to tell them the truth, even if it meant they themselves might be martyred for what they were teaching. In the past, it was considered heroic to give your life for what you believed in. Today, that is no longer necessarily the case.

In our modern times, terrorists and suicide bombers have co-opted the term “martyr”, strapping on suicide belts and blowing themselves up in the vicinity of those they call “infidels” because their victims do not believe. Do you see the subtle and yet cavernous distinction. The Christian martyrs chose death over compromise of their beliefs. The modern-day Islamic “martyrs” choose death as a means of murdering those who do not believe as they do. There is a complete difference between the two sets of “martyrs”. By turning the definition of martyr on its head, the terrorists have given people the impression that adherence to truth – any truth – is dangerous.

Of course, Christians should know there is a difference between God’s truth and whatever the various entities of the world might call truth. The difference does not lie in the tenets of the truth, but in the Person Who is the Source of Truth – Jesus Christ. It is because of the Source of Truth that Christian truth is worth fighting for. It is because of the Source of the Truth that Christians who refuse to compromise on the truth are the ones killed, not the ones doing the killing.

God is Truth, which means that truth is not some amorphous thought construct to be debated, but is embodied in a Person Who defines what is truth. And, that makes all the difference!

[The following is a reprint of a Holman Bible Dictionary article that I found useful in explain Bible study to my youth Sunday School class.]

 

The science of interpreting the Bible (or any piece of literature) is called hermeneutics. Interpreting the Bible is not a simple process of reading what has been written. The art of biblical interpretation developed slowly. While there have always been some people who interpreted the Bible in ways similar to what we do today, the science of biblical interpretation began to develop in the days of the Renaissance and Reformation and was given new importance by the work of Luther and Calvin.

 

The meaning of a piece of writing is seldom clearly self-evident to anyone who happens to read it. This is especially true of a very old document, written for someone who lived in a very different cultural-historical setting. If we want to interpret a piece of literature, we must ask at least five questions:

1) Who was the writer and to whom was he writing?

2) What was the cultural-historical setting of the writer?

3) What was the meaning of the words in the writer’s day?

4) What was the intended meaning of the author and why was he saying it?

5) What should this mean to me in my situation today?

These basic questions lead into other questions that must be explored in a serious attempt to understand the message of the Bible. The reader today must somehow try to enter the world of the biblical writer and seek to understand what the writer was saying. Then he must bring that ancient message into today’s world where the reader lives.

There are some basic principles that should be observed by the interpreter of the Scriptures.

1) The Bible is a divinely inspired book (2 Tim. 3:16) and should be reverently approached. Perhaps the reader should hear what was said to Moses as he stood before the burning bush: “Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5). We must be careful to reverence the divine character of Scripture.

2) The Bible has a genuinely human element, also, since God used ordinary people to write the Scriptures. Recognition should be given to the human elements utilized by the Holy Spirit in giving us God’s Word. To miss the human element is as much a mistake as to miss the divine element.

3) The primary aim of the interpreter is to discover the original meaning of the author who wrote the passage under consideration.

4) Preference should be given to the interpretation which is clearest and simplest, the most obvious.

5) Only one meaning should be given to any passage of Scripture, unless a later passage of Scripture assigns it a second meaning. Only an inspired writer of Scripture can be allowed to give a passage more than one meaning.

6) Careful attention must be given to the literary form of a passage in determining its meaning. 7) Careful attention must be given to the historical situation of a portion of Scripture.

Interpretation begins with a historical task. The interpreter needs to know as much as possible about the writer and his cultural-historical setting. If we know nothing concerning who wrote a passage, when it was written, or under what conditions it was written, we are almost left to guess what its meaning might be. Knowing what an author has experienced and what the thought forms of his day were aids us in understanding his writing. It is important to know the approximate date when a passage was written. For instance, words about God’s Spirit written before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost might be given one meaning while they would be given a different meaning after Pentecost. The reader also needs to know who the intended recipients of a passage were. Words addressed to unbelievers would be interpreted very differently from words addressed to believers. The meaning of a passage might depend upon knowing whether the original audience was Jewish or Gentile. The interpreter also needs to know what occasioned the writing, or why the writer wrote his message and what his purpose was.

A literary task follows the historical task of the interpreter. The literary task begins with the task of translation of the Scripture from the ancient Hebrew and Greek into the language best understood by the interpreter. Translation is itself a stage of interpretation. For translation is more than simply substituting English words for the Greek and Hebrew words. If you cannot do a good job of translating Greek and Hebrew into English (or whatever your language is), then you must rely upon good translations of the Bible. You really should utilize several good translations to help you understand what the ancient writer was trying to say to you.

Lexical study is the next phase of your literary study of the Bible. You must consult a lexicon or dictionary to find the meaning key words had when the original writer used them. His words may have a different meaning today, and you must know what they meant when originally used.

The next stage of the literary task of the interpreter is the grammatical or syntactical phase. Here, you must examine the form of the writer’s grammar: what is signified by the grammatical constructions, the verb forms used, what is given emphasis in a sentence, the relationships of the words to each other, etc. The tense, voice, mode, case, etc. of the words used is very important in understanding what the writer was trying to say to you, the reader. These matters are acutely important in the work of translation, but they also must not be overlooked in the process of interpretation. You should consult good critical commentaries that analyze these grammatical matters for you, even if you do your own translation.

Rhetorical analysis is another important phase of the literary task of interpretation. Here, the interpreter seeks to determine what kind of rhetoric, or language, the ancient writer was using. It is extremely important to recognize the various literary forms that are used by the different writers of the Bible. Major portions of the Bible are written in ordinary prose, plain descriptive narrative. Other portions are pure poetry. Sometimes vivid figures of speech are incorporated in narrative portions. Such figures of speech must be interpreted in their symbolic sense rather than as literal, descriptive language. Portions of the Bible are written in apocalyptic language, a well-known literary style often used in the ancient world, but hardly known to us today. Apocalyptic literature employs vivid symbols and fanciful images to convey some message or mystery or prophecy in a veiled, highly imaginative way. The Book of Revelation and certain portions of Daniel and Ezekiel are examples of apocalyptic literature in the Bible.

Consideration must be given to the context of a passage of Scripture. No portion of Scripture ought to be interpreted without regard to its content. The context is the setting in which the particular passage is located. Generally, the paragraph in which a statement appears is the minimum context. However, the context of a passage may be the whole chapter in which a verse occurs; it could even be the entirety of a book, in the case of the shorter books of the Bible. Meaning that is given to a verse, without regard to its context, is very likely to be the wrong meaning. The Bible is made to say many things the original writers did not intend by interpreting particular statements without regard to their contexts.

The literary task of the interpreter must include comparing the meaning given to a passage to what is taught elsewhere in the Scriptures. This does not mean that we should arbitrarily force one viewpoint upon all of the Scriptures. But it does mean that we should be careful not to interpret Scriptures in such a way that we introduce contradictions into our interpretation of the Bible. There is an overall unity to the Bible; it teaches one theme, one message. But within that unity, there is also diversity. There is diversity due to the vast amount of time spanned in the writing of the Bible. There is diversity due to the many different authors employed by the Holy Spirit. There is diversity due to the progressive nature of revelation. God gradually revealed more and more of Himself and of His will for humans as the message of the Bible proceeded from Genesis to Revelation. While there is progression, there is not contradiction in the Scriptures. The careful interpreter will always want to compare an interpretation of a passage with what the Bible teaches elsewhere to see if the interpretation “fits” with what the Bible says in other places.

There is a personal, spiritual task of the interpreter. One who would be a good interpreter must be devoted to diligent, careful study of the Scriptures (2 Tim. 2:15), prayerfully seeking the leadership of the Holy Spirit continually while interpreting the Scriptures (John 16:12-15; 2 Pet. 1:19-21). Only illumination or divine guidance can lead to correct interpretation. On the one hand, the Bible is a piece of literature that is to be interpreted just like any other piece of literature. On the other hand, the Bible is unique in that it is inspired by God through the Holy Spirit; one who reads the Bible should therefore seek the guidance of God in understanding what is written there.

One additional task remains for the interpreter. Seek to apply the teaching of the Bible to your present situation. It is important to know what the Bible said to its original readers, the people to whom it was originally addressed. But it is equally important to apply the ancient message to us today in our life situation which may be very different from that of the ancient world of Moses or Jesus or Paul. If the Bible is a living revelation of God to us, as we say it is, then we must do more than decipher its ancient history. We must apply the principles discerned in that ancient history to our life situation today.

J. Terry Young

 

The title refers to what a DJ friend of mine calls it when he can't settle on a music genre. Tim works for an eclectic station and thus usually does his shows based on jazz, contemporary, Gospel, some particular genre, but when he can't seem to settle he calls it Musical Chopsuey. I'm in flux study-wise at the moment, so I'm utilizing Christian Chopsuey.

Basically, I'm using up some time while I wait upon the Lord with regard to the next area of Bible study. As many of you know, I teach from the overflow of my Sunday School class. I learned this concept from a retired missionary to the Arctic who, as a Southern Baptist woman, would never ever claim the title of preacher, but who led a lot of Bible studies/church services by "teaching from the overflow." I love working with youth (grades 7-12), but there are limits to what many of them can grasp and, so the more mature thoughts find their expression here. The problem is that I can post to this blog every day, but I only need a Sunday school lesson once a week. I'm waiting upon the Lord for my next set of instructions with regard to this blog.

In the meantime, I'm following general instructions and basically making use of my intellect. When it comes to interests, I'm a bit wide-ranging.

For example, I'm reading John MacArthur's "The Truth Wars" currently. I'm about halfway through it and I have found a lot to agree with him on. The Church has always and continues today to be in a battle against heres(ies) that many of us do not want to fight. We'd rather just not argue and make nice with the heretics that are trying to hijack the Christian faith so that we don't have to be seen as confrontational. Oh, my, that's the new slur, don't you know? We wouldn't want to be "confrontational".

I actually don't like confrontation for the sake of confrontation myself, but I do like to respond to lies with truth, particularly information or Scriptural truth. So, while I wait for Jesus to speak to me on Ephesians, I'm going to throw some thoughts out there. Probably I'll touch on MacArthur's book. My lunchtime read currently is The Screwtape Letters. A few of those seem very much like people and attitudes I know today, so I may just type them up for reader enjoyment. I'm also working on an archeology study as part of a class I'm taking, so I'll probably throw some of that in. Don't worry, I'm not leaving the Bible study forever. I'm just waiting for the Holy Spirit to flesh out my understanding of Ephesians. And, since the topics I'm touching on are all Biblically-related, I think we won't be very far from the Source.

And, who knows, maybe my topics will spawn some good discussions.

BJ noted something this morning that I thought was very interesting. The first Easter was not a celebratory day for Jesus' disciples. They were hiding in Jerusalem, grieving and in terror for their own lives. Some were already headed out of town. The women were headed to care for the body of the man they had thought was the Messiah. It was a depressed and desperate time for the Church. Yes, Mary Magdalene and a few others found reason to rejoice that day when they saw the Risen Savior. Yet, some of the disciples remained clueless for days afterward and they remained sequestered in apparently fear for more than a month after. It wasn't until the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost that the disciples found their joy. When they did, they burst out into the streets of Jerusalem and began to tell everybody the good news --

HE IS RISEN!

All subsequent Paschas were celebrations unlike the first!

Being a Baptist by membership, I don’t really observe most of the liturgical calendar, but I have several friends of other denominations that do, so for Easter, I thought I’d touch on that subject with special emphasis on Easter.

 

Although the dates of observance and specific practices of the Christian festivals developed over the centuries, major festivals all center on the life of Christ. As the church grew, some felt the need for ordered worship increasing along with the need for focusing on the central affirmations at the heart of the Christian message. By the 5th century, the basic elements of the church calendar were firmly established, although modifications continued to be made throughout the Middle Ages and the Reformation. The symbols and rituals of the festivals vary according to denomination, culture, and personal preference.

 

The original Christian festival and the basic building block for all the church year is the Lord’s day, Sunday. The earliest Christians set aside Sunday, the day of the resurrection, as a time of special remembrance of Christ. By the 2^nd century, most Christians were observing a special celebration of the resurrection at Easter. In most areas, the season before Easter, later called Lent, was a time of penitence and the training of new Christians. Similarly, the 50-day period after Easter was one of triumph during which fasting and kneeling to pray were forbidden. This period culminated in Pentecost, which means “50th day,” the celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit. By the 3^rd century, many Eastern churches held a special observance of Christ’s birth and baptism at Epiphany. In the 4^th century, most Christians began to celebrate Christ’s birth at Christmas and to observe Advent as a period of preparation.

As the dates and practices for these celebrations became more standard throughout the Christian world, the dimensions of the church year were established. Advent came to be regarded as the beginning of the church year and the half-year between Advent and Pentecost, the period during which all the major festivals occurred, came to be regarded as a time for Christians to concentrate on the life and work of Christ. The rest of the year, from Pentecost to Advent, became a time for concentrating on the teachings of Jesus and the application of those teachings in the lives of Christians. The development of the church calendar helped to assure that Christian worship would deal with the entire breadth and depth of the Christian gospel.

 

Not surprisingly, given the centrality of the resurrection of the early Christian faith, the special celebration of the resurrection at Easter is the oldest Christian festival, just a bit later than the weekly Sunday celebration. Although the exact date was in dispute and the specific observances of the festival developed over the centuries, it is clear that Easter had special significance to the early generations of Christians. Since Christ’s passion and resurrection occurred at the time of the Jewish Passover, the first Jewish Christians probably transformed their Passover observance into a celebration of the central events of their new faith. In the early centuries, the annual observance was called the “pascha,” the Greek word for Passover, and focused on Christ as the paschal Lamb.

 

Although the New Testament does not give any account of a special observance of Easter and evidence from before A.D. 200 is scarce, the celebrations were probably well-established in most churches by A.D. 100. The earliest observance probably consisted of a vigil beginning on Saturday evening and ending on Sunday morning and included remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion as well as the resurrection. Evidence from shortly after A.D. 200 shows that the climax of the vigil was the baptism of new Christians and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. By about A.D. 300 most churches divided the original observance, devoting Good Friday to the crucifixion and Easter Sunday to the resurrection.

The early centuries saw considerable controversy over the proper date for the Easter celebration. This might have reflected the Jewish and Gentile divide within the Church. A minority, influenced by the Jewish origins of Christianity, insisted that the celebration should occur on 14 Nisan of the Jewish calendar, the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John.  Most Christians rejected this practice because it meant that the special yearly celebration of the resurrection would usually not occur on Sunday, the weekly day of the resurrection. Since about A.D. 300, the date of Easter has been determined by a complex calculation using the lunar calendar. In general, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.

Since Easter occurs in the spring, many of the traditional non-Christian springtime symbols of the renewal of nature became attached to the Christian celebration. In some cases an attempt has been made to Christianize the symbols. Thus, for centuries many Christians have regarded the egg as a symbol of the resurrection. The English word “Easter” comes from the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn. Although this is perhaps an unfortunate naming, it does not invalidate the purpose of the celebration called “Easter”.

“Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without foundation, and so is your faith [Or preaching is useless, and your faith also is useless].  In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified about God that He raised up Christ—whom He did not raise up if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
Therefore those who have fallen asleep [John 11:11; Acts 7:60; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–15] in Christ have also perished. If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.” 1Corinthians 15:12-18

Nothing is more central to the Christian faith than the resurrection. Without it, Christians are worshipping the air. The apostles believed because they’d seen the risen Christ. Paul hoped that the Corinthians would believe because they trusted what Paul had told them, that he had seen the risen Christ. We are not just worshipping the air, but the God Who is there and has not been silent.

A look at the Resurrection requires a look at the alternative theories to the Resurrection. After all, there are many people who insist that miracles like resurrection just don’t and can't happen, so there must be an explanation other than actual resurrection for what occurred in Palestine 2005 (thereabout) years ago.

One thing that almost all Bible scholars, including the staunchly skeptical miracle-deniers, agree on is that Jesus’ disciples believed He’d risen from the dead. They were so convinced that they came out of hiding, flooded into the streets of Jerusalem and began preaching the very thing that had gotten their rabbi killed. Whatever might have convinced them of His Resurrection, they were mega-convinced. This means they didn’t steal the body because people are unwilling to die for what they know to be a lie. The apostles and many other early Christians who claimed to be witnesses to the Resurrection died martyrs’ deaths for the belief that Jesus was risen from the dead. We can speculate about what really happened, but we cannot argue that the apostles made it up, because they showed no signs of wavering in the central conviction of their faith – that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead.

Philip Schaff, the great historian wrote, “the purpose of the historian is not to construct a history from preconceived notions and to adjust it to his own liking, but to reproduce it from the best evidence and to let it speak for itself.” Lots of people have tried to explain away the resurrection, which is the central theme of Easter. We’re not allowed to just make up history as we go along. While many theories have been advanced attempting to show the resurrection as a fraud, I think we must be conscious of two principles when look at the evident and evaluation what happened on that first Easter. First, alternate explanations must take into account all the acts surrounding the resurrection. Second, we must not force the evidence into a preconceived conclusion, but let the evidence speak for itself.

I’m only going to look at a few of the most popular alternative explanations that have been advanced. Let’s be honest upfront and recognize that those advancing these theories have mostly been unbelievers in Jesus Christ or liberal theologians who very often operate out of a desire to explain away the resurrection. They reject evidence not because it is insufficient, but because they fear its moral implications on their lives.

The first alternate explanation advanced is the “swoon” or “resuscitation” theory.  This theory advances that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. He only fainted. In the cool of the tomb, He revived and sought out His disciples, who in their state of grief just mistook His survival for resurrection.

Okay, you can stop laughing now! Seriously, does anyone think Jesus could conceivably have survived hours of beating, then nailed to a cross, suffocating in his own pulmonary fluids, losing blood in the hot Israeli sun, stabled in the side, and merely fainted from exhaustion? In the coolness of the tomb, He revived, stretched, worked the kinks out, threw a heavy stone away from the opened and departed? Can you breathe yet?

This theory ignores the evidence to a ridiculous degree. It would require a greater miracle than the resurrection. In the cool damp air of the tomb, instead of dying from blood loss, pulmonary edema, and hypothermia, Jesus was healed. Upon throwing the stone across the garden, he fought off the Roman guard posted outside His tomb and then appeared in perfect health to His disciples.

Verses showing this theory to be unsupportable:

John 19:31-35 “The Jews therefore, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath for that Sabbath was a high day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and broke the legs of the first man, and of the other man who was crucified with Him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.”

Mark 15:43-45 “Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. And Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead. And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.”

These circumstances proved Christ died. He was dead in the judgment of the soldiers, who were professional executioners, in the judgment of Pilate, in the judgment of the Jews who requested the guard for the tomb, and in the judgment of the women who went to the tomb to further prepare the body by heaping spices over the body. Let’s try to remember that the people of the 1^st Century were intimately familiar with death. They lived in a society where people died at home and family members cared for the body of the deceased. They knew what death looked like.

Matthew 28:6 “He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.”

Mark 16:6 “And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.”

John 20:5-8 “…and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷ and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸ So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb entered then also, and he saw and believed.”

The swoon theory cannot explain the linen wrappings lying undisturbed, exactly as they had been when around the body of Christ. Christ would have had to perform a miracle of wiggling out of the wrappings which were wound tightly about the body with over a hundred pounds of spices in the wrappings without someone to help unwrap Him, as in the case of Lazarus in John 11. Brock Gill’s got nothing on this guy!

If Christ had only swooned, He still would have been half dead. A great deal of time would have been needed for recuperation. In His weakened condition He could not have walked the seven miles on the Emmaus road. It would have been impossible for someone who had gone through what Jesus suffered in the crucifixion to so quickly give the impression that He was the Conqueror of death and the grave, the Prince of Life. In fact it was this belief which turned the disciples around and became the foundation of the rest of their ministries. A beaten and weakened Jesus would not have inspired anyone to give His life for the faith.

A second alternate explanation is the “Hallucination” theory.  This theory says that all of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances were really only supposed appearances because the witnesses were actually hallucinating.

I work for community mental health and have access to actual psychiatrists, most of whom are atheists, but all of them say pretty much the same thing. Contrary to a popular book in the 1970’s, there is no such thing as group hallucinations. Hallucinations, according to psychiatrists, are individual manifestations of illnesses. Yes, illusionists can make a crowd for a few seconds believe they’re seeing something they’re not really seeing, but Jesus appeared before crowds of people and interacted with them for extended periods of time. There is no evidence that 500 people can see the same hallucination at the same time. There’s never been a documented case of a crowd of that size having a sustained illusionary experience. The disciples detailed in the New Testament don’t show any evidence of mental illness. They were reluctant to believe in the resurrection in the first place! They were not amendable to delusions.

Scriptures showing this theory to be unsupportable:

Mark 16:11-16 And when they heard that He was alive, and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. And after that, He appeared in a different form to two of them, while they were walking along on their way to the country. And they went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either. And afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. ^“He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

Luke 24:11-12 And these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.  (But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at that which had happened.)

John 20:24-30 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.” ²⁸ Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

The hallucination theory is simply not plausible because it contradicts laws and principles which psychiatrists say are essential to hallucinations. Psychiatrists claim only certain kinds of people have hallucinations, usually high-strung, highly imaginative, and very nervous people and even those rarely absent of schizophrenia. But Christ appeared to many different types of people, not restricted to people of any particular psychological make up. Hallucinations, which are usually restricted to when and where they occur, are linked in an individual’s subconscious--to his particular past experiences and this was certainly not a part of any past experience. Hallucinations usually occur in a nostalgic atmosphere or in a place of familiar surroundings which places the person in a reminiscing mood. Hallucinations occur in people when there is a spirit of anticipation or hopeful expectation. The historical record shows no such anticipation existed. They were prone to disbelieve even after they were told of the resurrection.

For further study see, Evidence That Demands A Verdict, p. 257f, and The Resurrection Factor, p. 82f.

A third alternate explanation is the “Impersonation” theory. This views the appearances of Christ as someone impersonating Him. Those holding this view point to the evidence that sometimes His disciples didn’t recognize him.

This ignores some strong Biblical testimony. The disciples were reluctant to believe in the resurrection, were doubtful and would have been hard to convince unless it was really Him, as was the case with Thomas.  It would have been impossible to impersonate Christ’s wounds. This was Christ’s proof to Thomas that it was really Him (John 20:24). At times their inability to recognize Him was a phenomenon of His glorified body brought about by His own purposes as in Luke 24:16, “But their eyes were restricted that they should not recognize Him.”  These men had traveled with the Lord for three years and it is incredible that anyone could have gotten away with an impersonation particularly due to their reluctance to believe.  They were meeting in locked chambers in some instances, and He suddenly appeared in His glorified body. No one could impersonate such a miraculous act other than the resurrected Christ.

A fourth alternate explanation is the “Spiritual Resurrection” theory. This is the view that Christ’s resurrection was not a real physical resurrection. Proponents here assert that Jesus’ body remained in the grave; His real resurrection was a spiritual resurrection.

Note what William Craig says in his book entitled, Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection, Our Response to the Empty Tomb:

“We need to see clearly that there can be positive theological implications of the resurrection only insofar as its historical reality is affirmed. While many theologians may find such a conviction hopelessly antiquated, the man in the street knows better. His common sense tells him that there is no reason why a dead man should be decisive for his existence today, and I agree with him. Once doctrinal teachings are detached from their historical realities, we have entered the arena of myth. And there is simply no good reason to prefer Christian myths over other myths or, for that matter, secular philosophies. The resurrection is only real for our lives today if it is a real event of history.” (Introduction, p. xiii)

A physical body did disappear from the tomb. If it was only a spiritual resurrection, then what happened to the body? History shows there was a body there and it disappeared. The enemies of Christ were never able to produce the body nor disprove the resurrection.

The resurrection accounts are not presented in parabolic or symbolic language, but as hard fact. John 20 is full of what Greek grammarians call vivid historical present tenses to stress the historical reality of the Gospel message.  The record states He was touched and handled, that He had a body, and that He even ate with the disciples (Luke 24:30, 41; John 21:12).  First Corinthians 15 teaches us that Christ not only arose, but that He arose bodily. He possessed a glorified body which had unique capacities. First Corinthians 15:44 calls it a spiritual body, but it was nevertheless a physical body as well. Note the following facts about the body of Christ:

• He could appear in different forms (Mark16:12).
• He could eat though it was not needed for sustenance (Luke 24:30).
• He could appear and disappear and could pass through solid objects (John 20:19, 26).
• He could pass in a moment from one place to another (Luke 24:31).

Philippians 3:21 shows that His body was glorious and unique, but nevertheless, still a body which Scripture says we will someday receive a similar one. Jesus’ body was spiritual, glorified, and yet a physical body of flesh and bone.

A fifth alternate explanation is actually the first one advanced. It is the “Theft” theory. The Jewish authorities claimed it in the beginning. “The disciples stole the body and claimed that He rose from the dead.”

Matthew 28:11-15 Now while they were on their way, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. And when they had assembled with the elders and counseled together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ ^“And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.

Again, such a theory ignores the evidence of the linen wrappings and the empty tomb. If someone had stolen the body, they would have either taken the body and left the wrappings scattered or piled in a heap, but only resurrection could account for the position of the linen wrappings with the body absent.

Further, there is the question of the probability of who COULD and WOULD steal the body under the circumstances.  The Romans would not; they were there to guard it with their lives by Roman law. They had sealed the tomb and were there to protect it against theft. The presence of the Roman soldiers and the Roman seal over the door made the possibility of the religious leaders claims of theft a thousand times more difficult if not impossible.

The religious leaders had provided their own refutation against such a theory (Mat. 27:63-66).  The women could not for they could not have removed the stone and were wondering who would remove it for them when they went early Sunday morning to finish burial preparations (Mark16:3-4).  The disciples would not because they were perplexed and scattered, huddled together in hidden rooms. Two had even left town and were on their way to Emmaus. The likelihood of these timid, scared Galilean disciples stealing the body of Jesus out from under the noses of a guard of highly disciplined and skilled Roman soldiers while they all slept (an offense punishable by death) is ridiculous.

A sixth alternate explanation is the “Unknown Tomb” theory, which was also presented early on to explain everything away. This theory says the disciples did not know where the tomb was located and could not have found the empty grave. This theory depends on the belief that those who were crucified were tossed into a common pit and were not allowed to be buried.