Chapter 33 — Defeating Death: Jesus' Death and Resurrection
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics (Komoszewski & Bowman, 2024)
---
"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Corinthians 15:17)
Paul's words cut to the core. Christianity rises or falls with the resurrection. Every claim about Jesus, his deity, his authority, his power to forgive sins and judge the living and the dead, comes down to one thing: was the tomb empty on the third day.
This isn't a peripheral doctrinal point. It's the center.
Chapter 33 of The Incarnate Christ and His Critics surveys that evidence. And it shows why, if the resurrection happened, everything the church has believed about Jesus falls into place.
The Historical Bedrock: Paul's Testimony
Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians around AD 54-55, perhaps twenty-two years after the crucifixion. It contains the earliest written record of the resurrection testimony:
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." (1 Cor. 15:3-8)
A few things here matter historically. Paul uses the technical language of oral tradition, "delivered" and "received." That shows he's passing on something he was handed by earlier sources, not inventing it himself. Most scholars date this tradition to within a few years of the crucifixion; some place it as early as one to three years after. That makes it one of the earliest testimonies to any event in the ancient world.
Paul also appeals to living eyewitnesses. "Most of whom are still alive" reads almost like an invitation: go ask them yourself if you doubt me. That's the kind of thing you say when you're confident the witnesses will back you up, not when you're inventing a legend.
The Sequence of Events
Paul's four-point summary matters: death, burial, resurrection, appearances. Jesus died, and multiple sources attest to it, including the Roman execution record and the testimony of Jewish opponents who had every reason to say otherwise. He was buried, so there was a body in a known place. He was raised: the tomb was empty. And he appeared. The disciples saw him, physically, after death.
If the body were still in the tomb, the resurrection claim would have been easy to disprove. Just produce the body. Both the Jewish leadership and the Roman authorities had strong motives to do exactly that, and neither ever did.
The Explanations That Don't Work
Over the centuries, critics have proposed alternatives to the resurrection.
The wrong tomb theory says the disciples went to the wrong tomb. It doesn't explain why the authorities couldn't just produce the body from the right one. It doesn't explain why the disciples were convinced enough to die for their belief. And it doesn't explain how the women, the disciples, and the authorities all somehow got confused about the same location.
The swoon theory says Jesus didn't really die, that he revived in the tomb. But Roman crucifixion was designed to kill, and Roman soldiers who let a victim survive faced execution themselves. A battered, half-dead Jesus limping out of a tomb wouldn't have convinced anyone he'd conquered death.
The legend theory says the resurrection story developed gradually over decades. But Paul's testimony dates to within years of the crucifixion, long before there was time for legend to form. And the first disciples, who knew whether Jesus rose or not, were willing to die for the claim.
The hallucination theory says the disciples hallucinated appearances of Jesus. But Paul records Jesus appearing to more than five hundred people at once, and mass hallucinations of that kind simply don't happen. It doesn't account for the empty tomb either.
The theft theory says the disciples stole the body. Matthew records that this was the story the Jewish authorities circulated (Matt. 28:11-15). But people don't die for claims they know are lies, and the disciples were eventually martyred for their testimony. The most compelling explanation for their willingness to die is that they weren't lying.
Why the Resurrection Vindicates the Deity of Christ
Jesus himself connected his resurrection to his divine authority. He claimed the right to raise the dead (John 5:21-29). He said, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). And he predicted his own resurrection (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34), a prediction you'd only expect from a fraud, or from the eternal Lord who holds death itself in his hands.
If Jesus rose from the dead, it vindicates every claim he made. It shows he had authority over death. It confirms that his forgiveness was real, and it establishes that the cross accomplished what the gospel says it accomplished.
Paul puts it this way: Jesus "was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4). The resurrection is the divine seal on Jesus' identity.
A Personal Word
Every Christian eventually has to decide what they think happened on Easter morning. It's not a decision you can avoid by calling yourself a "spiritual" person who focuses on Jesus' teachings, because his teachings, as we've seen, are inseparable from his claims. And those claims include that he would rise from the dead.
The tomb was empty. The witnesses were real. The disciples' lives were transformed, and the church was born.
He rose, and because he rose, death is not the end. Not for him, and not for us.
"Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:54-55)
---