Session 4 of 9

Foundations

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Read

¹Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, ²by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.

1 Corinthians 15:1–8

Think

Everything hangs on this. Paul says plainly that if Christ has not been raised, Christian faith is useless. So it’s worth asking whether it really happened.

Some facts are accepted by most historians, believing and not: Jesus died by crucifixion; his tomb was found empty; many people, including sceptics like his brother James and the persecutor Paul, were convinced they had met him alive; and his frightened followers were transformed into people willing to die for that claim.

Alternative explanations, such as hallucinations, a stolen body or the wrong tomb, each struggle to account for all of these. The simplest explanation is the one the first Christians gave: God raised him.

If it’s true, it changes everything. Jesus is who he said he was; death is not the end; and the future is new creation, not nothing.

Go deeper: Did Jesus really rise from the dead? →

Talk it over

1. What do you find most convincing about the evidence? What still puzzles you?
2. Why do you think the first witnesses listed in the Gospels being women matters? (In that culture, their testimony wasn’t valued.)
3. If Jesus is alive, what difference does that make to your week?

Learn by heart

But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.

1 Corinthians 15:20

Pray

Risen Jesus, you are alive. Let that hope fill my life.