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Now, this afternoon we're talking about the resurrection. I was on the way driving in going, what in the world am
I going to start off with? Because there are so many issues to address. There's the issue that is very common these days of what day was the crucifixion, how long was
Jesus in the tomb, at what time did the resurrection take place? And we will address those things. Then there's the issue of, for example, what
Jehovah's Witnesses believe, that Jesus Christ was raised only spiritually from the grave, that he was not raised physically whatsoever.
There's the Muslim claim that Jesus did not really die on the cross. All these things that we're going to try to get around to addressing depending on the phone calls and how many people call and which direction they're taking the conversation.
But one of the first things I figure we had to address right off the bat was the fact that of all the claims of Christianity, the resurrection is the one that mankind has seemingly dedicated the most time to trying to figure out a theory to explain away the miraculousness of the resurrection.
Now, of course, there are some people who don't even believe that Jesus Christ ever existed. They don't believe that he ever lived.
But they are, fortunately, in the vast minority these days because there's plenty of evidence that he did indeed live.
Even the Jewish people accept that he lived, that he was a teacher, and that the stories we have from him are at least generally accurate in what they have to say.
But, given that Jesus lived, then you come up with basically a humanistic attitude toward the resurrection.
That is, obviously, there's no way, if one rejects the fact that miracles exist and that miracles can happen, there's no way for the resurrection to have taken place.
There must be some naturalistic explanation for the resurrection. And a number of theories have been put forward.
Undoubtedly, one of the most popular theories is the swoon theory. Ever heard of the swoon theory?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. You've heard of the swoon theory. There's a big difference between death and swoon.
Yes, a very big difference between that. So people can understand what the swoon theory is.
The swoon theory is basically that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross, but he swooned. He simply passed out.
And the guards, whoever was mistaken, they thought he was dead. He wasn't.
They took him down. In the coolness of the tomb, he revived and came out of the tomb and convinced his disciples he was alive.
And then, generally, as people would say, sometime later, who knows, when he was 67 years old, he died a natural death, and that was it.
And this was the beginning of Christianity. Well, the swoon theory has so many holes in it, it's almost unbelievable, just to start off with, what the swoon theory has to say.
First of all, you've got a person who was crucified, and the gospel narratives tell us what happened relevant to the whipping, the scourging, the loss of blood, the nailing of the hands and feet to the cross, the piercing of the spear into Jesus' side, the fact that the
Roman guards standing there could tell the difference between a person who had passed out and a person who was dead.
They were trained to know that. If they messed up, it would be their life, so they obviously knew what was going on.
So that doesn't obviously jive with the swoon theory whatsoever. Then you have Jesus being wrapped in a burial cloth, laid in a cold tomb.
How that's supposed to revive someone, I'm not sure. It's sort of hard to breathe when you're wrapped in a burial cloth.
You do not have any medical attention being given to him whatsoever, so it would be much more likely that he would die rather than simply revive from some coolness of a tomb.
How he managed to get out of the burial cloth, the Gospels tell us, one of the Gospels tells us that the burial cloth that was wrapped around him just basically collapsed, that it hadn't been unwound and then wound back up.
It just basically collapsed itself. Was that burial cloth similar to mummification,
Jim? Well, there's a lot of questions about that. Of course, if you believe that the Shroud of Turin is correct, then that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense because the
Gospels tell us that there was a wrapping around the face that was taken off and laid aside, but there would seem to have been a wrapping.
Same with Lazarus. Lazarus had, he said, release him from those burial clothes. He was bound by them.
He was just some loose thing that was just sort of laying on him. He could have loosed himself from it, but obviously there needed to be something more than that.
That's one of the reasons I don't accept the Shroud of Turin as being the actual burial cloth of Jesus because it doesn't really jive with what the
Gospels themselves say concerning him. But anyhow, how he managed to extract himself with hands and wrists that would have been basically obliterated by the nails, how he managed to stand up on feet that had just been recently nailed to a cross, then, in his weakened condition, managed to roll away a very heavy stone from the entrance of the tomb, fight off the
Roman guards who obviously would have attempted to keep him in there or sneak by them or something like that, if they're
Roman guards. There are some who feel that they're temple guards. But even the temple guards themselves were under the same strictures that the
Roman guards were. In the Mishnah, we read that the temple guards, if they ever were to fall asleep, would receive a whipping and their garments would be burned.
So obviously they would not try to fall asleep either. But whoever the guards were, and they're most probably
Roman guards from what Matthew has to say about him, managed to slip by them or fight them off or something like that, walk the determined distance into Jerusalem to find the disciples, and then have completely healed scars to show the disciples somehow managed to show up inside of a locked room.
I mean, I think we've made it pretty obvious so far that the swoon theory just doesn't hold any water whatsoever.
It has no way of jiving with the facts that we have them. About the oldest theory that has been put forth to explain the resurrection away is the theft theory.
And that is the disciples stole the body of Jesus and then to have a job,
I guess, after the death of Jesus, they started preaching the resurrection and started their own church. Well, this one, of course, we're even given the origins of this one by Matthew.
Because Matthew tells the Jewish leaders, approached the guards and gave them money and said, this is what you're to say, and if it comes to the governor's ears, we will intercede for you.
Well, the reason that they had to say this was that if the guards admitted to having fallen asleep, if they were
Roman guards, they were subject to the penalty of death. So obviously, the Jewish leaders would have had to have interceded on their behalf to keep them from dying.
And since this is found even in the New Testament, it's not too surprising to find it common today. It has been brought up numerous times.
Refuting it is rather interesting because, first of all, just on a very psychological basis, this band of disciples, as we see them presented, of course, someone who believes in this would say, well, that's their writings, they must be saying it that way.
Well, Luke wasn't one of them. And you'd have to assume that all of them are lying. This band of disciples, from all the evidence we have, were a very downtrodden, downcast group of people who were not out to go stealing bodies, fight off Roman guards, or anything of the kind.
These were not trained soldiers who'd slip past Roman guards and rob tombs.
They had no reason to do it. They were not inclined to deceiving people in the first place.
There's no evidence that they were. There is no way to explain the fervor with which they proclaimed the gospel by saying that they themselves were well aware of the fact that they were lying to people.
The Jews themselves did not react in such a way as to accuse them of having stolen the body.
They circulated the story, but whenever Paul or Peter or these others actually confronted the
Jews, the Jews were not recorded as having accused them of doing that because it would have been folly for them to have done that.
There were over 500 people that had seen Jesus alive after his resurrection, alive at that time. So the theft theory dies for lack of support.
It's just simply some way of getting around the clear evidence as presented in the New Testament about the resurrection. There's nothing in the
New Testament that would support it. There's not even anything really within the secular time period that would say, yes, the disciples were this great
A -team group of individuals that came running in with their M -16s and stole the body.
What they did with it, of course, is not known. The Jews later on in later history would accuse them of that after the witnesses were dead, but when the witnesses were alive themselves, we don't have any evidence that they talked about that.
So the theft theory, that's a very difficult word to say. The theft theory simply does not jive with the facts as we have them.
But very briefly, I'd just like to point out that another theory that has been given is the hallucination theory, that the appearances of Jesus Christ were mass hallucinations.
We're going to go to Phoenix, and one of our faithful callers is standing in a phone booth.
Hello, Edwina. Hello, Edwina, can you hear me? Hello, Edwina, can you hear me?
Okay, you're on the air. Oh, hi. Can you hear me all right? Yes. I just want to ask a question about in Luke 24, verse 13, where Jesus is walking with those two men along the road.
Yes. And it said that they couldn't recognize him. Uh -huh. Why was it that they couldn't recognize him?
Okay, I just happened to have my Bible open to that passage. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus encountered two disciples, and he walked with them.
And it says in verse 16, but they were kept from recognizing him.
And later on, it's in verse 31, it says, then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
It's very clear that a power was acting upon them to keep them from recognizing him.
It was not that he was unrecognizable, but that there was a power, God's power working on them to keep them from recognizing him until the purpose that he wished to work in their lives was accomplished.
So it wasn't that Jesus was some different person or was appearing in different forms and things like that and confusing people, but it was the fact that Jesus himself was exercising a power to keep them from recognizing him.
They were kept from recognizing him by the power of God itself. Oh, okay.
Okay? All right, thanks. Okay, thanks a lot, Edwina. Bye -bye. Bye. And just before Edwina's phone call, we had been talking about another one of the theories that is put forth to explain away the resurrection, and that is the hallucination theory.
And that is that all the appearances of Jesus Christ, as we have them recorded in the New Testament, were due to mass hallucination.
The disciples so much wanted him to be alive that they all hallucinated that he had risen from the dead.
Now, that's rather interesting, obviously, considering the fact that Jesus had to repeatedly appear to the disciples just to convince them of the reality of the resurrection.
Those who are wishing for something so strong that they create hallucinations aren't going to be sitting there going,
Well, I'm really not sure. Sort of like Thomas was called Doubting Thomas because he did not believe in the resurrection until he had bodily proof standing in front of him.
People who would suggest this have to assume that all the disciples were under the same mental state, that they are all subject to hallucinations, and not all people are subject to hallucinations, that somehow this hallucination could be agreed upon by a large number of people.
This type of thing just doesn't occur very often at all. 500 people don't normally have the same hallucination at different times, in different circumstances, in different surroundings.
Hallucinations normally take place when a person is encountered with a familiar situation that reminds them of something.
You don't have 500 people who would be using the same context and the same situation to remember something like that.
It's obviously a very broad attack upon the very credibility of the disciples themselves.
The disciples were a very variegated group of people. They did not come from the same backgrounds.
They did not have the same type of mental makeup. Matthew was as different from Simon the
Zealot as you could have. Obviously, people who are that different don't tend to have the exact same hallucination at the exact same time, in the exact same detail.
Obviously, these people were in different states of mind. John the Beloved was one who would be more willing to allow for the miraculous to take place.
Thomas wasn't. Mary was weeping. Some were afraid. When you look at the very mental states they were in, they weren't even in the same mental states.
You have different people, different contexts, different mental states. It simply does not allow for any type of mass hallucination to be taking place.
Finally, the last theory that we'll look at, that we'll at least give any credence to, is the wrong tomb theory.
This one is one of my favorites. The women, John and Peter, went to the wrong tomb.
The scriptures tell us that Mary and the women followed after and saw the place where they laid
Jesus. These people would say they may have seen it, but then in the darkness of the Sunday morning they went to the wrong tomb.
It was empty. There was nobody there. Maybe they had visions of angels and ran off and started the whole thing. This is how it happened.
This can be dealt with so quickly. It's rather well done when I heard someone first do this.
That is, if it's just the wrong tomb, if Jesus died and his body was in the tomb and they went to the wrong tomb, it would have been so easy for the
Jewish leaders to have wiped out Christianity. As soon as Peter and John and the others started preaching, they could have just gone to the right tomb, rolled away the stone, taken the dead body out, stuck it on a cart, carried it through downtown
Jerusalem, put it back in, and that would have been the end of Christianity. Obviously, they did not do that.
I'm sure if they had been able to do that, they would have done that, but they didn't. Obviously, the idea that the women went to the wrong tomb was contradicted by the fact that they were there when
Jesus' body was laid in the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who we were told are involved in laying him there, they would have known.
As soon as someone told them about the resurrection, they would have gone to the tomb and found it sealed, the guard there, the body inside, and they would have put a kibosh on it.
But none of those things happened. Obviously, the idea that the wrong tomb was gone to and this is how the whole thing started ignores the vast majority of the evidence and the context of which we're speaking.
Those are some of the theories that have been raised by folks concerning the resurrection and how to explain away the resurrection.
Most people who are coming, for example, from an atheistic viewpoint, not just atheist, but anti -theist, there's a bit of a difference there.
An atheist just simply says there is no God and anti -theist is militant in his denunciation of those who believe that there is a
God. I've encountered a few of those in my lifetime. These people probably aren't going to get too much into these theories because they're going to go farther back than that and attempt to deny
Jesus even existed. In fact, during this week on a secular radio station, I heard a program where a guy called in and said that the
Dead Sea Scrolls show that Jesus is completely different than the
New Testament presents him, that Jesus actually did write things. There's a Joshua mentioned in the
Dead Sea Scrolls and these people think that that's Jesus and this Joshua wrote things. They identify him as a teacher of righteousness, all these other wonderful things.
This is sort of some of the areas that more of the anti -theists are going into than these theories, which were very, very common back in the last century.
In the rationalist German viewpoint that came out that time, people had to come up with a rationalistic explanation of all miracles.
For example, when Jesus walked in the water, you know what that really was. There was a sandbar there. The disciples were confused and they thought he was actually walking in the water when actually he was walking in the sandbar.
Maybe when Peter got out of the boat, he was also in the sandbar. Then he stepped off the sandbar and started to sink and Jesus reached down and picked him up and he got in the boat.
This is how people are trying to explain away all the miracles that occur in the
Bible. That's quite convenient. A storm's just blown over and all this is going on and Jesus just happens to know where that sandbar is and takes him all the way from shore right out to where they are.
There has to be a rationalistic explanation if you deny the miraculous. If you deny the supernatural, there must be a rationalistic explanation.
One scholar responds to the resurrections that Jesus performed of Lazarus and the widow of Nain's son as rescues from an early grave.
These people weren't dead. Jesus just resuscitated them and all things like this. So anyways, that's where a lot of these theories came from.
They're a little bit out of vogue these days because people are now getting to the point where they're simply denying that Jesus ever existed and go from that way.
You don't have to deal with the resurrection. You don't have to deal with the New Testament. Just throw the whole thing out the window and start from scratch.
That's how they're dealing with that. Another aspect of the resurrection that we're going to address this afternoon is the fact that there are some groups that deny the resurrection by saying that Jesus Christ rose only spiritually from the grave.
One of the major groups that does this is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society or Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ died on a stake.
They believe that Jesus did not have a spirit. No men have spirits actually.
But that Jesus was a man who died on a stake. He was buried. As one early
Watchtower Society publication put it, the man Jesus is dead, forever dead.
That he was not resurrected physically from the grave, but that he was recreated as a spirit being.
Now in Watchtower theology, they are teaching that Jesus was created as Michael the archangel, that he then became a man.
Michael the archangel is a spirit. Then he became a man, Jesus Christ. Then when we come to the quote -unquote resurrection, then we have
Jesus being recreated as Michael the archangel. This is the Jehovah's Witnesses position relative to the resurrection.
What does the Bible say about the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Was it spiritual or was it physical? We're going to address that subject right after we talk to Dell and Glendale.
Dell, can you hear me? Dell, you're on the air. Oh, hi Jim. Hi. I'm glad you're back on.
We're glad to be here. I missed you. I want to ask you something.
I guess I'll tell you something and ask you. As I was studying about the resurrection, you know, over the last about 15 years or so, it began to dawn on me how real it was.
What helped me to realize that was to realize how
Christ had to lead the apostles who were right there with him all the time, step -by -step through telling them he was going to die, and his actual death, and then his burial, and then his resurrection, and then revealing himself to them and crowning it with Thomas, you know, doubting
Thomas. Did you get that impression of like step -by -step, even though he told them they didn't understand until he showed them what happened?
Oh, yes, indeed. In fact, the disciples, as the Bible presents it, were very confused, very flustered all through the gospel narratives.
The writers tell us that the disciples did not understand that the Messiah must suffer and die.
Common Jewish expectation at that time was that the Messiah who would come would be a human conqueror, a military leader.
In fact, as I was listening this week to a program where a
Jewish person was on discussing his views of Jesus, that was one of the reasons he rejects Jesus, is that Jesus died.
I think I heard the same program. Yes, in fact, a friend of mine was on that program. I had arranged for him to be on that program,
Chuck Hoppus. But anyways, this is what they were expecting. They were expecting a military leader, not a suffering servant.
So by far, Jesus had to, as Luke puts it, by many convincing proofs, prove to the disciples that he was indeed alive from the dead and that he had indeed been resurrected.
Just the mere fact that when it dawned on me that they had to go through that step by step, realizing that's what helped me to realize the real reality of his resurrection.
Indeed. Oh yes, I noticed it, and it's very clearly presented in the...
I noticed it, and it's very clearly presented in the New Testament that Jesus had to prove his resurrection even to his disciples.
They did not understand it until after the resurrection itself. You just verified the same thing to me.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye -bye. Briefly before we take our break,
I was mentioning that the Jehovah's Witnesses deny the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believe that he was resurrected as a spirit being,
Michael the archangel. And go around proclaiming this in their books, in their literature.
At this time of year, they would probably bring this up if you were talking to Jehovah's Witnesses. But what does the Bible say about the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Well, for example, in John chapter 2, verses 19 through 21, Jesus, when talking about the temple, said,
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. When talking to the Jews, when they asked for a sign.
And they didn't understand what he was talking about. John goes on to say he spoke of the temple of his body.
And the fact is very clear that Jesus said that in three days he would raise up his body.
The body being the body that he was crucified in. But relevant to what Jehovah's Witnesses were saying right beforehand, we want to define what a resurrection is.
The Greek term anastasis, which is resurrection, means a standing again. And to qualify as a true resurrection, that which died must come back to life again.
Now, in the Jehovah's Witness position, they do not have a resurrection. There is no resurrection, really, in Jehovah's Witness theology.
Because that which died was a human being, Jesus. That which was raised was a spirit being,
Michael the Archangel. That is not a resurrection. And hence the society, if it were to be honest with itself, would have to say that they believe in the recreation of Jesus Christ as a new being,
Michael the Archangel. But that is not what the Bible presents. The Bible presents the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Physical man died. A human body died on the cross. And a human body was raised from the dead.
Now, that human body was glorified. And is far beyond what we can understand, as 1
Corinthians chapter 15 says. But it was still the physical body that died on the cross of Calvary.
Now, this can be seen from many ways. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the physical appearances of Jesus Christ after his resurrection were simply the materialization of physical bodies to convince the disciples of the resurrection.
In other words, Jesus had to fool them into believing he had risen from the dead. That is actually deceptive on Jesus' part.
But that is what Jehovah's Witnesses are saying. I recall going over to California once. We had gone over with some friends to Disneyland.
It wasn't open yet. We were driving around in the area there. We saw these two gentlemen standing out on a street corner about 8 o 'clock in the morning on a
Saturday morning, all alone. Nobody was around them. They were holding these magazines out.
We're talking this place is dead. There's nobody there. There's these two guys holding these magazines. I sort of peered through the window.
I recognized them as Watchtower and Awake magazines. So we had a radical change in driving plans.
We hung a UV in the middle of the street. I and one of the people that was with me got out of the van, grabbed our
Bibles, and spent about an hour talking to these two Jehovah's Witnesses on the sidewalk. We eventually started talking about the resurrection of Christ.
That's what they're saying. We've got to realize that angels can materialize bodies. Since Jesus was resurrected as Michael the
Archangel, he materialized a body to prove his resurrection. That proves nothing.
That's deceptive. If that body had not actually risen from the dead, that's not a resurrection. But that, of course, is what they were saying.
They were very adamant on that point. We tried to point at them to Luke 24, beginning verse 36, where it says, while they were still talking about this,
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost or a spirit.
He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet.
It is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones. You see,
I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. While they still did not believe it, because of joy and amazement, he asked them,
Do you have anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish. He took it and ate it in their presence.
You can't get much more straightforward than what Jesus did for the disciples in this situation.
They thought they had seen a spirit. They thought they had seen a ghost. This is what
Jehovah's Witnesses are actually saying that they saw. Jesus was raised as a spirit, and not as a physical being.
Jesus said, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your mind? He thought of that as a doubt, and not as a true faith at all.
The word actually is spirit in the Greek New Testament. The NIV translation is a little unfortunate there.
They thought they saw a spirit. He said, No, you are confused. Look at my hands and my feet.
It is I myself. Touch me and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see
I have. He has flesh and bones, and he is saying, A spirit does not have flesh and bones.
He shows them his hands and his feet. He invites them to examine him. This, of course, is a classic refutation of what the
Jehovah's Witnesses teach about Jesus actually being a spirit when he was raised from the dead. Another passage that is very clear on this is
John chapter 20, where we have an even fuller exposition of the resurrection and Jesus' interaction with the disciples, especially relevant to Thomas himself.
Thomas, who did not exercise faith in the resurrection when he was told by the others, himself said,
Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand to his side,
I will not believe it, in John chapter 20. So in verse 26, a week later, on the next
Sunday, his disciples were in the house again. Thomas was with them this time. Though the doors were locked,
Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here, see my hands, reach out your hand and put it to my side.
Stop doubting and believe. Jesus knew exactly what Thomas had said, even though he was not there a week before him.
Thomas says unto him, My Lord and my God. A passage that gives many Jehovah's Witnesses a lot of trouble because they deny the deity of Christ.
Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. Jesus had many resurrection appearances where he interacted with the disciples.
We are not told a lot about exactly what was said during that time, but we know that Jesus opened their minds to the
Scriptures so they could understand that what happened to Jesus was what was necessary to fulfill the Old Testament Scriptures themselves.
So the Jehovah's Witness position that Jesus was raised spiritually and not physically, you might ask the question, what happened to his physical body if he was not raised physically?
Well, the publication, The Time is at Hand, this is a much older publication, page 129, said,
Whether it, that is, Christ's body, was dissolved into gases or whether it is still preserved somewhere as the grand memorial of God's love, of Christ's obedience, and of our redemption, no one knows.
So here you are given two possibilities. It was dissolved into gases, and notice there is no scriptural reference there because it is sort of hard to find one because the
Bible never says anything like that. Or, possibly, it is on display somewhere as a great memorial of God's love, which is just as absurd from a biblical viewpoint.
This is about all they can say about the resurrection, about the physical body itself. Here we have one of those examples where mankind has got to have a man -made answer for everything.
Jesus went throughout the land using physical examples to teach spiritual truth, and there are many people, even in that day and even in our day, who can't handle those spiritual truths, so they've got to have an understanding of their own comprehension to explain away what occurred.
I'm reminded, I can't find it, I was looking for it a minute ago, of the time when the people in Acts had asked what shall we do?
I believe it was Peter who said believe in the Lord, that God raised him up from the dead.
That's the whole miracle of the situation. The resurrection was the central aspect of the preaching of the early church as found in Acts.
In fact, Paul almost got laughed off of Mars Hill for bringing up the resurrection of the
Greeks because the Greeks, of course, rejected the very idea that there could be anything of a resurrection because they did not believe that the physical body was good.
They were dualists. They felt the physical body was evil. In the book of Colossians, chapter 2, verse 9, we read for in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.
This was written after the resurrection. This is a passage that most Christians don't utilize when talking about the resurrection. After the resurrection,
Paul can say in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives or dwells, present tense, in bodily form.
Jesus Christ, frequently we have Mormons say to us what happened to Jesus' body? I say
Jesus has a glorified resurrection body. That proves God has a body. No, it doesn't prove
God has a body. The gospel is not that men can become gods, but that God became a man. That's a unique situation.
One time where God took on the human nature in Jesus Christ to provide for our redemption.
We do not become gods, but God became a man to provide redemption for us. So there are a number of passages that would very clearly refute the idea that Jesus was simply raised on a spiritual level.
The angel said this is where he was. He is not here. He is risen. The very word resurrection means that which died being raised to life again.
It's very clear that Jesus Christ was raised bodily from the dead according to the teachings of the scriptures.
There are many groups today, even Christian groups, teaching all sorts of interesting things relevant to the time of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
You have some cults involved with this. The Worldwide Church of God, Armstrongism, publishes some little pamphlets.
I brought some with me today. Here's a pamphlet published by the Worldwide Church of God called
The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday. They're basically saying that the resurrection took place on Saturday, the day before Sunday.
What day was the resurrection? On page 8, for example, I'm looking at this. Jesus was already risen on that sunrise
Sunday morning. Of course he was. He rose from the grave in the late afternoon, near sunset, on Saturday itself.
They say that Jesus was buried late Wednesday afternoon. They place the time of the crucifixion as Wednesday.
They are literalists. They believe that Jesus had to be in the grave 72 hours.
72 hours exactly. If he was placed in the grave late afternoon
Wednesday, Wednesday to Thursday, Thursday to Friday, Friday to Saturday, he would have had to have been raised on Saturday afternoon.
It's interesting that there are a number of Christian groups that also push the idea of a Wednesday crucifixion.
But, they still worship on Sunday. They still call Sunday the Lord's Day.
They still say he rose early Sunday morning, but that would have placed the time beyond 72 hours in the tomb for the
Lord Jesus. I was a little bit surprised a couple weeks ago to get the
April edition, April 1987 edition of The Evangelist, the voice of the
Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. On page 11 of this, under the caption,
Brother Swaggart, here's my question, we read the question. It says, did Jesus really die on a
Friday, which we now call Good Friday? If that is the case, how could it have been possible for him to have been in the grave for three full days and nights?
His answer says, no, Jesus was not crucified on a Friday. He was actually crucified on a Wednesday.
He was put in the grave Wednesday, just before sunset, and was resurrected Saturday at sunset.
The reason, I suppose, the church has mistaken Friday as the day of crucifixion is because the scripture mentions the
Sabbath, and people just assume that it was speaking of the regular Jewish Sabbath. There is no indication in the
Bible that he was buried Friday at sunset. He goes on to basically present the same idea that was presented by Herbert W.
Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God, and some other cultic and neocultic groups relevant to this idea that Jesus was buried on Wednesday afternoon.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, we've been talking about for about an hour. We've looked at some of the modern theories that men have made up to explain away the resurrection of Christ.
We've looked at what Jehovah's Witnesses believe about the resurrection. They actually don't have a real resurrection. They have a recreation of Jesus Christ as Michael the
Archangel. Now we're getting a little closer to home. I know a number of Christian people who are putting forward the idea that Jesus Christ was crucified on Wednesday afternoon and then raised on Saturday afternoon and then appeared for the first time on Sunday.
There are a number of reasons why people do this. First of all, the main reason that I understand is that they feel that it would be wrong to not hold to a literal 72 hour period.
Jesus said that as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, even so must the son of man be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights.
The literalistic interpretation would mean that beyond a shadow of a doubt, with no questions whatsoever,
Jesus had to be in there an exact 72 hours. In fact, I'd imagine that they'd have to believe that if he was laid in the tomb at 4 .02
PM that he burst free from the grave at 4 .02 PM exactly as well.
This is the main driving reason behind the many theories that have been given to support this idea of a
Wednesday to Saturday crucifixion scheme. We're going to look a little bit more at that as we take some of our callers and listen to what they have to say.
We're going to go to Glendale and we're having a little bit of a problem with the phone figuring out exactly how it's supposed to work.
We're not in the normal studios we were when we did the program before. So I'm going to try talking to Ken in Glendale.
Ken, are you there? And you can hear me. Okay. Something for both of us here.
Bear with me for a minute. I'm no expert. We've talked before and I'm a regular contributor.
The situation you're talking about, this three days. I can't give you the verse. I think one of them has to do with Jonah and the whale.
There are at least twice where Jesus says three days and three nights. Okay. Now twice three days and three nights.
You have to give that credence. You have to say if he twice specified three days and three nights then you've got to think about it.
The second thing is as you may or may not know I've investigated quite substantially in the worldwide
Church of God and thanks to the literature you provided me, I got away from it. I think though that when people like Jimmy Swigert and Fred Price and Dan Schaefer and Jerry Falwell and some of the better known
Pentecostal preachers, which I know you don't think a lot of, are going more and more to this three day thing because it literally makes sense when you look at the entire picture.
I'm talking, I sent you a column about a year and a half ago and even though you may not care for the minister in which this article appeared, biblically and scripturally it made total sense to me and this has to do, again
I have no big authority, with the double Passover day that particular year, the
Nisan or whatever it is. You mentioned something about Jerry Falwell?
Yeah, yeah. I'm on his mailing list too. I'm on a lot of them and this question was asked to him and of course even
Zola Levitt. I don't know if you know Zola. Zola is coming to this conclusion.
He has very emphatically said, well maybe I'm changing my mind a little bit on this.
He hasn't come right out and specifically said that he buys the three day theory, but now he is challenging the old.
Now, I don't know exactly remember that the worldwide
Church of God probably did say 72 hours exactly, but I don't think you're really, maybe they said that but these others haven't.
They're talking about three days. Now, an early early or late Saturday night resurrection could certainly have made sense because, you know, the scriptures say they came in very early on Sunday morning and they thought it was
Sunday and that's why they recognize it. All I'm saying is there are a lot of evidences in the
Bible and there are more and more Bible student preachers who are going toward this
Wednesday crucifixion with a late Saturday resurrection.
Let me point out a couple things, Ken, on this point. I was about to get to that, in fact, while you were on hold.
I'm assuming you can't hear me on hold? I can hear you right now. Okay, but when you were on hold you didn't hear that I had just brought up the idea of the 72 hours.
You were kind of chastised. You were ridiculing the fact, well, exactly 72 hours.
No, I was just pointing out this is one of the main reasons that this theory has developed and part of the support that is mentioned of this is the idea that the
Passover that year, that these Passover celebration was called a
Sabbath in the Old Testament and that this Passover occurred on Thursday in the year that Jesus died and hence when the
New Testament says that he was crucified on the Preparation Day, the Day of Preparation, that that could be the
Preparation Day for this other Sabbath which happened on a Thursday hence this is a Wednesday. Two Sabbaths in that week.
Now let me point out a few things about that. First of all, that has to assume that we know the exact year in which
Jesus was crucified and the fact is nobody does. Well, okay.
All I want to say about that is that that may be a clue as to what the exact year was.
If you reason from that direction. See my line of logic in that point
I think is as good as yours. That may be a basis on which we can determine the year.
But we can't do that though. There's no way to figure back that way because as you know the calendar was messed up somewhat.
I mean Jesus was born anywhere from 3 to 6 BC and 4 to 5 probably the most accurate range.
Actually the most recent is 7 years. It's 7 years off. But we're not totally sure of that and it's the same way in attempting to determine the exact date of any time back then.
We don't know how long Jesus' ministry was. Some people would opt for a 2 year ministry, most for a 3, some even for as long as a 4 year ministry.
And so even if you take 30 years after his birth is when he began his ministry, we don't know what year that was.
We don't know how long the ministry itself was. Don't we have Hebrew scripture back at that time that identifies the
Hebrew calendar which we can reconcile with the current calendar. I mean they kept meticulous records of these things.
Up until AD 70 they did. And certainly the Jewish scribes know when the
Jewish holidays would fall at any given period all the way back to Adam and Eve probably.
Well I'm not so sure about that at all. Let's say Noah, Abraham, how far still? No, I'd have to disagree with that because if they were that meticulous with dates they would be just as meticulous with genealogies.
And yet for example when the people returned from the captivity, there were certain people who could not become priests because they could not prove their genealogy.
And then of course after AD 70 and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, all the records were destroyed and there was no way for anyone to prove what their genealogy was after that.
And obviously the record keeping was, you could no longer force that issue.
Then came the Dead Sea Scrolls. Would you believe Isaiah 53?
And would you believe the actual dates? I'm not trying to give you too much. All I'm saying,
Jim, is that I don't think that this is a doctrine that you can take a substantial stand on.
Jesus twice said three days and three nights has got to leave it open at most to question.
At most to question. Don't you see? That's my only point. Okay, but I think that there is much other data that demonstrates that that usage is a common usage, a common phraseology, especially by the usage of the word the preparation day.
Now I am unaware of any usage in secular or religious literature of the term preparation day for any day other than Friday.
In fact, there was no word for Friday other than preparation day used in the
New Testament. In fact, as I understand even in modern Greek, it's still the same word because of the way the
New Testament uses it. And so we would have to assume, we would have to assume, A, that this was a high
Sabbath day that landed on a Thursday. It could have been a Monday or a Sunday, either one. And we also must assume that the gospel writers in the only time it ever appears, uses the technical term for Friday of a
Wednesday. With no other supporting evidence that they ever did that at all anywhere in the
New Testament or any secular literature. The following day was the Sabbath. But they didn't use the term preparation day for any day but Friday.
That is a technical term. How do you get away from the three days and three nights? There are many ways of,
I'm not trying to get away from them at all, but I think it's a misunderstanding to be so literalistic with three days and three nights as to mean that has to mean 72 hours.
It didn't mean that to the Jews. I said let's don't pin this all on Herbert Armstrong and say that he has, you know, because he specified specifically 72 hours, three days and three nights.
Okay, I'm not. 68 or 70. I'm not. How about Jimmy Swagger? Is that better? Yeah, okay. Because that's what he said.
Yes, I have six Bibles. You know, the
New American Standard, and well, all of them.
Every one of them, including the Reader's Digest. You know, he even got that Bible. It's only 12 hours in the
Reader's Digest, right? But all I'm saying is, you know, I've been taught that if Jesus said it, and if he said it twice, then
I believe it. Now, he said this and he said it twice. I'm not saying,
Jim, change your mind. I'm saying, Jim, keep an open mind. And I'm saying that when people that have studied this thing for years and years and years are now changing their view.
And I'm also saying that periodically, somebody comes up with a revelation, Jim, and I'm going to shut up and get off of here, that negates what people have thought.
What do you mean a revelation? Careful how you use that term. I've been talking to Mormons all week.
That is a new thought. Are they finding out things, going back to Scripture, you know, and every once in a while you read where well,
St. James, the gosh, now you got me. Not St. James. King James!
There are lots of things in the King James Versions that have been changed by later editions.
And you have said that many times yourself. You're talking about translations? Yeah, translations.
Obviously, I guess one of the most better known is Hell. And evidently,
Hell is mistranslated all through the King James Version. And yet, they keep printing these things but they don't change it.
But you see, all of the other ones, the New American Standard and New International Version, have picked it up and used it as Hades correctly.
But the King James, the only point is that you have to be very careful about what you're dogmatic on.
I agree. I've been taking up all of your time. It's time for a commercial, but I just wanted to get that point across.
Thanks a lot for the call. Let me just begin answering the points brought up by Ken.
I'm referencing a Harmony of the Gospels written by Dr. A .T.
Robertson. Dr. A .T. Robertson was a Southern Baptist scholar, probably about the greatest Greek scholar that America has ever produced.
And he addressed this point rather briefly, but I think fairly well in his notes on special points at the back of his
Harmony. The Harmony, I think, is still available and it might be good for you to read that. After dealing a great deal with the actual day of the crucifixion, the hour of the crucifixion, the time of the resurrection of Christ, he says the following things.
Quite an effort is made in some quarters to show that Jesus remained in the tomb 72 hours, three full days and nights.
The effort seems due to a desire to give full value to the expression three days and to vindicate Scripture.
But a minutely literal interpretation of this phrase makes on the third day flatly erroneous. A good deal of labor has been expended in the impossible attempt to make three and four equal each other.
There are three sets of expressions used about the matter besides the express statements of the Gospels about the days of the crucifixion and resurrection.
Let us examine these lines of evidence. 1. Luke settles the matter pointedly by mentioning all the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection,
Luke 23 .50 -24 .3. The burial took place Friday afternoon just before the
Sabbath drew on, Luke 23 .54. The women rested on the Sabbath day, Saturday, Luke 23 .56,
and went to the sepulcher early Sunday morning, the first day of the week, Luke 24 .1. There is no escaping this piece of chronology.
This is all the time there was between the two events. Jesus then lay in the tomb from late in the afternoon of Friday till early
Sunday morning. The other Gospels agree with this reckoning of the time as we have already seen. That is what he is referring to in what went before this, and that is why
I suggest you read the whole passage. 2. But how about the prediction of Jesus repeatedly made and once illustrated by the case of Jonah that he would rise after three days?
Are two nights and a day, and two pieces of days, three days? Let us see. First of all, the well -known custom of the
Jews was to count a part of a day as a whole day of twenty -four hours. Hence, a part of a day, or night, would be counted as a whole day, the term day obviously having two sentences, as night and day, or day contrasted with night.
So then, the part of Friday would count as one day, Saturday another, and the part of Sunday the third day.
This method of reckoning gives no trouble to a Jew, or to modern man for that matter. In free vernacular, we speak the same way today.
He says, besides, the phrase on the third day is obliged to mean that the resurrection took place on that day, for if it occurred after the third day, it would be on the fourth day, and not on the third.
Now, it so happens that this term third day is applied seven times to the resurrection of Christ, and he lists those seven times.
These numerous passages of Scripture, both prophecy and statement of history, agree with the record of the fact that Jesus did rise on the third day,
Luke 24 7. Moreover, the phrase after three days is used by the same writers, Matthew and Luke, in connection with the former one, the third day, as meaning the same thing.
Hence, the definite and clear expressions must explain the one that is less so. The chief priests and Pharisees remember that Jesus said, after three days
I rise again. Hence, they urge Pilate to keep a guard over the tomb until the third day, not the fourth day.
This is their own interpretation of the Savior's words. Besides, in parallel passages in the different Gospels, one will have one expression and another the other, naturally suggesting that they regarded them as equivalent.
On the third day cannot mean on the fourth day, while after three days can be used as meaning on the third day.
Matthew 12 40 is urged as conclusive the other way, but the three days and three nights may be nothing more than a longer way of saying three days, using day in its long sense.
And we have already seen that the Jews counted any part of this full day as a whole day. Hence, this passage may mean nothing more than the common after three days above mentioned, and, like that expression, must be interpreted in accordance with the definite term on the third day, and with the clear chronological data given by Luke and the rest.
They seem to be conscious of no discrepancy in these various expressions. Most likely they understood them as well as we do, at any rate.
And so this is what he had to say about that. There's much more information presented relative to the exact day of the crucifixion by Dr.
Robertson in this passage. And there is also another article that we might refer to, and that was in the
Personal Freedom Outreach newsletter a while back. This was the April -June 1986 edition, written by Dr.
Robert Morey, called Did Christ Arise on Sunday? And possibly, given the number of phone calls, we may look at that one in a few moments as well.
Before we take the next phone call, I just want to mention one other aspect of this as well. If we say that every chronological statement, such as three days and three nights, must be taken literally 72 hours, then there's two aspects of the
Bible that now become uninterpretable. First of all, in the Old Testament, we're told that Israel would be off the land, would be in captivity for 70 years.
Now, when you realize that Nebuchadnezzar first placed Israel in captivity in 605, 19 years before he eventually destroyed
Jerusalem in 586. 605 is when the captivity period began, and the
Jews returned to their land in 537. You realize that unless you count, as the
Jews did, in this case, a part of a year as a full year, just as we're talking about right now relevant to the resurrection, you can't get 70 years out of 605 to 537.
But when you reckon inclusively, as is very common in ancient reckoning systems, then you have the part of 635, the part of 537, you have the full 70 years.
Try to interpret that without understanding it in that way. Same situation relative to the transfiguration.
According to, I believe it's Matthew and Mark, it was six days after Jesus said, there are some of you who are standing here who will not die until you see the kingdom of God.
Six days later, the transfiguration took place. Luke says it was about eight days.
Now, if you take that very literally, then obviously you have discrepancy between Luke, Matthew, and Mark.
But if you reckon inclusively, as Luke seemed to have been doing, he was reckoning inclusively, comes up with eight days, whereas the others not reckoning inclusively came up with six days.
So here you have two different situations in the Bible where reckoning inclusively was part and parcel of what was going on and what they understood to be happening.
So to say that Jesus' use of the three days, three nights relevant to Jonah means it had to be 72 hours ignores how the
Jews themselves counted time and how they understood those things. And so there's some more information to be thrown upon the fire of your thinking about this issue this week.
It's about 30 minutes, about 27 minutes past the hour of 4 o 'clock. We go to Litchfield Park, right?
Litchfield Park, and talk to Ron. Hello, Ron. Hello, James. How are you? How are you doing today?
Pretty good. Okay, I'm pretty much in harmony with what you're saying. I'd like to look at Luke Luke 2354 and the day, that day was the preparation and the
Sabbath through on 56 and they returned and prepared spices, anointments and rested the
Sabbath day according to the commandment now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, etc. Now if we go back to the account in Matthew, I think it clinches the whole controversy here because, okay
Matthew 27 verse 62, now the next day that followed the day of the preparation the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto
Pilate etc. Okay down in verse 64 command therefore the supper occur, be made sure until the third day lest the disciples come by night, etc.
Now if we go back, go down to verse 1 of chapter 28 in the end of the
Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week and we see elsewhere in the scripture where it is called in the account of the crucifixion, it's called the preparation of the
Sabbath. Okay in the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week the only
Sabbath that is ever mentioned in this context, in the context of Christ's crucifixion, is the traditional weekly
Sabbath. Right. Especially with attaching it to the first day of the week that came right after the
Sabbath celebration itself. Also relevant to what you're saying about numbers in the
Bible and they could often not be taken totally literally but often in a more general sense it probably answers a lot of the so -called, possibly answers a lot of the so -called discrepancies in numerology in the
Old Testament of date. There are a number of things like that. I find myself amazed that we agree on something there
Ron. Oh I think we probably agree more Jim than you might imagine.
Okay. Thanks for the call sir. Bye bye. I think there's some good points that Ron brought up at that point relevant to the fact that I'm not going to disfellowship someone from fellowshipping with me if they want to believe that Jesus was crucified on a
Wednesday and rose on a Saturday but I think if they're going to be consistent with history that they should be worshipping on Saturday as well if that's the day of the resurrection because that's why the
Christian church celebrates and worships and gathers on Sunday is because this is in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ.
If he rose on the Sabbath day itself you would think that they would have continued to meet on the
Sabbath day but it's always on the first day of the week that Jesus appears to them and it's after the Sabbath when the first day is beginning to dawn that this resurrection takes place and this is when it is announced.
I think there's just too many problems with that. I think it's an interesting idea to bring in the idea of the
Passover being a Sabbath day but again I point out to you it's not mentioned as being such in the
Gospels themselves. This is an interpolation into the text and there's no way to prove what year it took place or to you know it's basically
I don't want to believe that it was less than 72 hours and so there are things
I can read into at this point. That's fine but I think that it's wrong especially for the cultic group such as the
Worldwide Church of God to then condemn people for celebrating
Good Friday. Now obviously let me make it very clear I do not agree with the great deal of religiosity and religious acts that have been attached to this season.
I heard on the news a shocking thing. Nine people in the Philippines that nailed themselves to crosses on Friday.
Literally nailed themselves to crosses. We're talking nails through the hands and the feet and the whole nine yards.
I think that is just a terrible thing. I think it's obviously excessive and the whole
Easter idea of little bunnies and eggs and things like that I think is completely false and wrong and has no place in Christian worship at this time of the year.
But at the same time I don't think that I believe that the clear teaching of the Friday crucifixion and the
Sunday resurrection should be thrown out as being some sort of pagan idea either. At the same time
I think if you worship on a Sunday you should think about what you believe about this because that's going to be important to what you have to say about that.
That's the very idea that's brought up by Dr. Robert Morey in an article he wrote Did Christ Arise on Sunday?
Dr. Morey says the issue of which day Christ arose from the dead should not be dismissed as being trivial. The phrase the
Lord's day refers not only to the day Christ was resurrected also to the day the early Christians set aside to worship them in Christ.
The late Herbert W. Armstrong and followers of his worldwide church of God deny both. Armstrong in his booklet
The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday claims the Sunday resurrection is quote merely tradition taught from childhood and carelessly assumed unquote.
Armstrong wrote that wise and prudent theologians do not know where Christians get the idea of a
Friday crucifixion and Sunday resurrection. Why? Because he states it is not true. The worldwide church of God teaches a
Wednesday crucifixion in a week that contains an additional Sabbath day. This Wednesday crucifixion error also has been picked up and is taught by some
Christian groups. Armstrong further taught that Saturday is the proper day for worship and argued that Christ arose on that day.
Therefore he maintained Saturday is the Lord's day. Armstrong said that Christians who gather at Easter sunrise services are in spite of their sincere intentions offering worship that is not acceptable to God.
Armstrong also taught that anyone violating the Saturday Sabbath would bring eternal death upon himself. The proof that Christ rose on the first day of the week which according to the
Roman calendar was called Sunday is not an easily established as some would suppose. The opening verses in the resurrection accounts in all four gospels do not say enough to answer the question.
Matthew wrote that the women started out to visit the tomb just as the Sabbath was ending and the first day of the week was about to begin.
Matthew 28 1. Mark wrote that the women did not get to the tomb until the Sabbath was over and the sun was just beginning to rise on the first day of the week.
Mark 16 1 -2. Luke and John omit any reference to the Sabbath and simply state that the women arrived at the tomb during the early dawn of the first day of the week.
John adds the light of the early dawn was still dim. If this were all data available on what day
Christ arose from the dead, there would be no way logically or exegetically to pinpoint whether it was the Sabbath, Saturday, or the first of the week
Sunday that Christ arose. All that is said in the opening resurrection accounts is that the women found the tomb empty when they arrived on the first day of the week.
However, Dr. Luke comes to our rescue. He is the only gospel writer who gives the additional date that conclusively demonstrates that Christ arose on the first day of the week.
In Luke 24 1, Luke wrote that the women arrived at the tomb on the first day of the week. In Luke 24 13, it is written that two of Christ's disciples were traveling to Emmaus on that same day.
The day of the disciples traveling was the same day that already had been mentioned in verse 1, the first day of the week.
This is clear from the content. In Luke 24 17 -21, the two disciples explain why they were so sad.
They had hoped that Jesus was the long -awaited Messiah, but he had been crucified by the chief priests and the rulers. They expressed surprise.
The stranger did not know about all this because today is the third day since these things happened.
The disciples clearly identified the day of their travel as the third day since the crucifixion.
Notice, not the fourth day. The identity of this day already has been given by Luke. Christ appeared to these disciples on the same day on which the women had visited the tomb.
Thus, the third day was the first day of the week. Now, I'm stopping here with what Dr. Morris says.
Jesus said he would rise on the third day. Everyone agrees on that. Well, the disciples said that the third day was the first day of the week, so obviously he rose on Sunday.
In Luke 18 33, Christ said that he would be killed, but he would rise from the dead on the third day. Christ clearly stated that his resurrection would take place on the third day after his death.
Once all the data is put together, it reads like this. The day of Christ's resurrection would be the third day after his death.
The third day after his death, the disciples were on their way to Emmaus. This third day was the same day on which the women went to the tomb.
That day was the first day of the week. Only one logical and exegetical conclusion is possible. Christ rose on the first day of the week, which was the third day after his death.
Sunday, not Saturday, is the Lord's day and the proper time to worship him. So wrote
Dr. Robert Morey in the Personal Freedom Outreach Newsletter, April, June 1986. I think we need to make that point very clear.
The disciples were on the road on the third day after these things happened. Now think with me. The disciples, what would they have said if Jesus had been crucified on Wednesday?
Well, Wednesday was the first day. Thursday, second day. Friday, third day. Saturday, fourth day.
They are now into the afternoon of the fifth day. Five days. There is no way you can get five days out of three days.
That just doesn't work. They said to Jesus, it's been three days since these events took place.
Not five days, three days. Here we are in the afternoon of the first day of the week.
It's Sunday afternoon. The disciples are walking with Jesus and they say it's been three days. Now, if you got it any other way, you have to come up with four days, five days, somewhere around in there, and that's not what it says.
I think Dr. Morey has seen that's the case. Dr. A .T. Robertson has seen that's the case. I know there are people who disagree with that, but I have not seen them deal with what
Dr. Morey brings up here, or what Dr. Robertson brings up, that Luke really identifies the chronology very clearly.
That the crucifixion was on Friday afternoon. The women rested on the Sabbath day on Saturday. The very next day, the first day of the week, they get up to go to the tomb to embalm the body further.
The spices they prepared. On that very same day, Jesus appears to them, to the disciples, to the two on the road to Emmaus.
That is the first day of Sunday, and that is when the resurrection took place. The first day of the week, which is the
Lord's day. I think this is fairly straightforward in what it's saying. I would suggest, obviously we didn't put this newsletter out, but I think it's an excellent organization.
It's worthy of your contacting them. Find out what they have to say. Personal Freedom Outreach is an organization. Steve Cannon is their local representative around here.
If you wanted to get in touch with them, you could do so at P .O. Box 26062 St. Louis, Missouri 63136
They always have fascinating articles in their newsletters. I think Steve has said some of ours are interesting too, so I guess when they like us, we like them.
I think it's very clear from what the scriptures have said there, that this is the case. We're going to go to Sun City and talk with Lydia.
Hello, Lydia. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? We're doing pretty good. I've been listening to this program and what gets me is
I don't care who says what. I believe in the Bible.
I believe that Christ rose on the first day of the week. But my glory is that He arose.
Right. And all the controversy cannot change that. Indeed. And I just wanted to say that because there's been so much on the radio lately about these differences of opinion and theologians and that and the other thing.
I do believe that the end of the Sabbath, which would be Sunday morning, I believe in that.
But I'm just so grateful and so thankful that He did arise. That's the main message of the
Bible. That's very certainly true. That's right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your call. Bye -bye.
That, of course, is something that needs to be stated. We sometimes examine issues and controversies and things like that, but we don't want in any way for anyone not to understand that it's very clear that Jesus Christ did rise from the grave.
Whether you believe it was on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, I guess in the eternal scheme of things it's predominantly irrelevant.
He did rise from the grave. There is strong evidence that He rose from the grave. He predicted that He would rise from the dead.
And as Paul says, He was delivered up because of our transgressions. And He was raised up for the sake of our justification to make us right with God.
We can stand in the right relationship with God because Jesus Christ is alive. He stands at the right hand of the
Father. He is our intermediary. And because He rose from the dead, we have the promise that we too shall rise from the dead to have eternal life with Him.
And that is the glorious fact of what we're going to be celebrating tomorrow. But the fact that Jesus Christ is alive,
He is our Lord and Savior. He is not a dead God that we venerate, a dead hero.
You can go to the funerals of all the other religions and you can find people flocking to their graves, their tombs, their sepulchers, remembering them as great men.
But you will not find anyone flocking to the tomb of Jesus to simply remember Him as a great man.
You will find people going to the tomb of Jesus Christ to remember Him as the risen Savior, as the risen Lord.
And that is a beautiful fact, a beautiful truth that we as Christians hold dear at this time of year.
And I hope that we hold dear every day of our lives, every Sunday, when we come to church on the
Lord's Day. It is Resurrection Sunday because we are walking, hopefully, in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.
And that is a wonderful truth we have. I've asked the folks in there to find He's alive someplace and get us a chance to listen to the song.
I love listening to it myself. And it has a beautiful message. It's told from Peter's point of view.
You got that already in there? Before the sunrise
I heard something at the wall The gate began to rattle and the voice began to call
I hurried to the window and looked down into the street expecting swords and torches and the sound of soldiers' feet
There was no one there but Mary So I went down to let her in John stood there beside me as she told us where she'd been
She said they've moved him in the night and none of us knows where The stone's been rolled away and now his body isn't there
We both ran toward the garden then John ran on ahead We found the stone in the empty tomb
But the winding sheet they'd wrapped him in was just an empty shell
And how or where they'd taken him was more than I could tell
Well something strange had happened there but just what
I did not know John believed a miracle but I just turned to go
Circumstance and speculation couldn't lift me very high Cause I'd seen them crucify him
Then I saw him die Once again guilt and anguish came
Everything I'd promised him just added to my shame When at last it came the choices
I'd denied I knew his name Even if he was alive it wouldn't be the same
But suddenly the air was filled with strange and sweet perfume Light that came from everywhere drove shadows from the room
Jesus stood before me with his arms held open wide And I fell down on my knees and just clung to him and cried
He raised me to my feet and as I looked into his eyes
Love was shining out from him like sunlight from the skies
Guilt and my confusion disappeared in sweet release And every fear
I'd ever had just melted into peace Francisco with a song that's he made famous I remember the first time
I heard that I will never forget the first time I heard it I did not hear Don Francisco do it first I heard the
Minister of Music at North Phoenix Baptist Church who was at that time Forbes Woods student and at that last section where he sings
He's Alive, North Phoenix's choir is about 250 -300 voices and they stood up and at that time we didn't have dimmers in the lights, they were on or off and TV lights are pretty on when they're on So they stand up, the lights come up the cross lights come up and they belt out that He's Alive thing and just blew everybody right out of the pew it was just unreal
I just look at goosebumps when I think about it it was just absolutely fantastic and that's a very favorite song of mine that reminds me of what the
Apostle Paul wrote when he says Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand for what
I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that He appeared to Peter and then to the twelve after that He appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time most of whom are still living though some have fallen asleep then
He appeared to James, then to all the Apostles and last of all He appeared to me also as to one abnormally born so He declares here that the very part and parcel of the gospel is the death burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ we serve a risen master, a living
Lord not simply a memory of a man who was a great man who lived 2000 years ago but a living
Lord who is involved in our lives today and this sets Christianity apart from all simply ethical or moral religions or philosophies or systems of living where man is left to his own devices to live life as he may live in Christianity we have a risen
Lord who lives His life through us as we yield ours to Him and this is a vast difference from anything that could be presented that would be similar to it or any parallels relevant to pagan religions or anything like that we might have in the world
Christianity is a living religion with a living Lord and a living Savior and that is an exciting thing for us to be proclaiming
I think sometimes the resurrection of Christ falls out of our presentation of the gospel and that's unfortunate it shouldn't because it was very part and parcel of what the church themselves taught and preached as they went out into the world it wasn't something sometimes we feel ashamed to present the resurrection because it's such a miraculous thing but the disciples when they went out into the world did not say come have a religious experience with me they said this happened
Jesus Christ was crucified, He was buried and He rose again, it's a historical fact it took place and because of that historical fact you can have a relationship with Him He wants to be your living
Lord and Master and that is where salvation is found they never hung their head in vain even when Paul went to the very intellectual people of his day on Mars Hill he proclaimed to them the resurrection they scoffed, they said no way can't be and today our intellectual people say the same thing they come up with theories and theft theories and hallucination theories to get rid of the fact that Jesus Christ who claimed to be the resurrection of life went on to prove that He was indeed the resurrection
He said that He would raise from the dead, He did and that is not something that we need to apologize for or to be afraid of I heard you discussing the matter with a gentleman who was an atheist one time he challenged the fact of Jesus' very existence and asked well where's the body?
and that's the good news guy that's the good news because Jesus is alive today I remember that when he wanted to deny that Jesus ever existed he says we've got the bodies of all these others where's
Jesus' body? and that's the very point Jesus' body is alive and well after 2000 years and that's the very vindication of the claims that He Himself made to be the
Lord and Master well I've enjoyed this afternoon talking about the resurrection of Christ I hope that you will be in your place of worship tomorrow morning praising the risen