The Resurrection of Jesus | Did It Really Happen and Why It Matters

In Episode 21 of The Proceeding Word, Ps Brian Heath and Emily Braithwaite explore one of the most important questions in human history: did Jesus really rise from the dead, and why does it matter?

Recorded over the Easter weekend, this episode unpacks the central truth of Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus. Ps Brian explains why the resurrection is not just a belief, but the foundation of the Christian faith, and what it means for every person today.

Looking at Scripture and historical evidence, this episode walks through four key areas that support the reality of the resurrection: the crucifixion of Jesus, the early reporting of the resurrection, the empty tomb, and eyewitness accounts. It also highlights the personal and transformative power of encountering the risen Christ.

More than just history, this episode brings a personal challenge. The resurrection cannot remain just a story. Every person must seek the truth and decide for themselves who Jesus is, and what they will do with that truth.

This episode concludes with an invitation to respond and a prayer for those ready to place their trust in Jesus.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

It needs to be just more than a story to us. It's up to every person to seek out the truth and decide for themselves. It gives every person who is prepared to place their trust in Jesus great hope in the situations that will present themselves that occur in life.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Preceding Word. I'm Emily Braithwaite here with Pastor Brian Heath in the studio.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

G'day Emily, it's good to be back.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

We are back again. You know, in recent episodes of The Preceding Word, we've been talking about some of what many would consider as life's most important questions. We've talked about who is Jesus really? What it means to be born again, why that's so important. We've talked about why Jesus died for us in the most painful and barbaric way, really, the death on the cross. And so today we're talking about something that's profoundly foundational to Christianity itself, and that's the resurrection of Jesus. Did it really happen? And why is that so important?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, well, it is so important. And you know, as you said in recent uh sessions, Emily, we've talked about the importance of knowing who Jesus is and the new birth.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

And it's important that we just don't receive him for who we think he should be, but that we accept him and acknowledge him for who he really is.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

And our new life in Christ begins when what we accept as being the truth becomes a revelation of who Jesus really is. And, you know, that was a revelation that Peter had in Matthew 16. Yes. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And, you know, every every person genuinely seeking the truth must go on this journey for themselves, of coming to a very personal decision about what they really believe regarding Jesus in their heart of hearts. It is actually a heart and mind decision.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

And if we're going to follow the teachings of Jesus and really effectively witness with authority, conviction, integrity, and even power, then this is one of the biggest questions that we must answer. In fact, the Apostle Paul uh wrote in Romans chapter 10, verse 9, he said, If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Powerful statement, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

It's a very powerful statement, and it's one of those verses in the scripture that is like a pillar of our faith when we come to this point of really knowing who Jesus is, knowing that he is the Lord, and that it that he has risen from the dead. Emily, Paul's own dynamic and powerful conversion is recorded in the ninth chapter of the book of Acts. And I would just encourage people who are listening to this podcast to go and read that chapter of Scripture. And it speaks about a man by name Paul who was Saul, the persecutor of the Christians, and had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was a man persecuting the early Christians. He was, according to the scripture, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. And then he himself had an incredibly transformational encounter with Jesus, the risen Lord. His immediate response to this unexpected and divine encounter shows the instant turnaround or the instant nature of his personal turnaround.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

And he's gone from being the man who's persecuting the church to saying, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said right back to him, I am Jesus, whom you were persecuting. So Paul became a great apostle of Jesus Christ, a true spiritual father to the early church, and is the known author of around two-thirds of the New Testament. So this is quite a turnaround.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

And it's written from the perspective of one who witnessed firsthand the risen Christ. So you can see that the resurrection of Jesus is central and critical to the Christian narrative.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

So Paul later on said in the first letter of to the Corinthians, to the Corinthian church, in chapter 15, verse 14, he says, Is Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

And so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God. So that's from the New International Version, and that talks about the critical importance of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I would go as far as saying that any type of Christianity that denies the physical resurrection of Jesus would certainly be a substandard form of Christianity, resulting in powerless religion. Yeah. So you can look at 2 Timothy 3, 5.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

No, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, you've got Paul's testimony there, but how do we know that Jesus actually rose from the dead? What kind of proof is there?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah, well, this is really important, and this is why we're doing this particular podcast. It's got to be one of history's most extraordinary claim. It can be investigated, and it has been thoroughly researched through the centuries. It's quite extraordinary that Jesus spoke prophetically about his own death and resurrection throughout the Gospels on several occasions. So, you know, we can see a little bit about that, one account of that is in Matthew chapter 16, verse 21. Remarkably, it's widely accepted by historians, both biblical and contemporary, that Jesus in fact was a real person and that he died by Roman crucifixion. Nearly all genuine experts agree with this. We do need to be aware who we listen to, as the scripture says, take heed who you listen to.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

And you know, there are some contemporary popular atheists, such as R Richard Dawkins, who said, you know, there's no real proof that Jesus existed. Yeah. Well, that has easily been contested in his debate with John Lennox, mathematician, professor, and apologist. But the best proof for me, Emily, is what happened to me personally.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I had many questions myself that I needed to answer, and now I know this is real. Like it says in Romans 8:16, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

I've proven it through my own investigation, and also I've experienced this reality in my own personal life. But I do realize that people and people who are listening today may need to go through their own search to find out who Jesus is, the proof of his resurrection. And, you know, that's a very personal journey, so we're encouraging that.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah. Now I went on that journey myself, and I do believe what you're saying that everyone's got to find out for themselves what they believe, and they have to go and seek that out.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So what would be a starting point that you would recommend?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Well, I think, you know, there are many people who who uh who have done the research, and these are reliable historians, archaeologists, and apologists, and and it's a really important thing to know. And there is an abundance of evidence that can be categorized into four groups.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

And the first group is the nature of the execution of Jesus. All these four groups, they begin with E, so they're easy to remember. And as I said earlier, nearly all scholars agree that Jesus died on the cross by Roman crucifixion. We need to realize that Roman soldiers did their job very well. And there is not one historical account of anyone ever who survived crucifixion at the hands of a Roman. A number of ancient historical sources recorded the crucifixion of Jesus. One skeptic and a respected historian and major scholar, John Dominic Croissan, said that he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can be. So it should be regarded as a historical fact. The second proof is the early reporting of the resurrection and the accounts of Jesus' resurrection began to spread not years and years later, but immediately following the death of Jesus. The Corinthian Creed, recorded in 1 Corinthians 15, summarizes the key tenets of the resurrection. Scholars believe that the creed dated back to just a few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. So we see this early reporting, it wasn't many, many years later, it wasn't 50 years later or a hundred years later.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

No, it was immediate.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah. And the earliest earliest followers of Jesus were absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus had in fact been risen from the dead.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Well, to the point of death, we'll see later in the New Testament.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah. So this is not a legend, Emily, that grew over time.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

No.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

The thinking is that earlier something is reported is more likely to be the truth. The third one, and you know, this resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, during the season, the symbol of the risen Christ is the empty tomb. That is the third one. Each of the four Gospels records the empty tomb. Jesus was proclaimed crucified and risen in the exact same city where he was executed. The enemies of Jesus were definitely not prepared for what happened because they had to make up a story that the disciples had stolen the body, which is quite ridiculous and was proven false. The report of the empty tomb was also very embarrassing for the Roman soldiers and authorities.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Oh, it would have been.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

You know, when we look at they did their crucifixions very well. Yes. They were diligent at their job. But imagine having the body stolen on your watch.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

They had quite the reputation that just went up in smoke.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

It did. And you know, we know that this theory is about ready to be proven in my next point as well. The reality, the evidence of the empty tomb, especially while under Roman guard, is evidence that demands a verdict. So the the uh next group is Emily is the eyewitnesses. Yeah. After his death and resurrection, Jesus' disciples not only saw him, but touched him and ate with him and walked with him. They also boldly proclaimed that they had seen the risen Christ. Jesus first appeared to Mary and then the women at the tomb. He appeared to Peter, then the twelve, and then later was seen by over five hundred at once. After that, he was seen by James, the brother of Jesus, who was a skeptic up until now. So the well known encounter of Thomas in the scriptures with the risen Christ is very much noteworthy. Thomas went from being a man of great doubt to saying, My Lord and my God.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

And then there is the Apostle Paul himself, who had that traumatic uh transformation encounter with the risen Christ on the road to on the road to Damascus.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

So Emily, I'd add at this point, many researchers who set about to disprove the fact of the resurrection have actually become believers themselves. So we would really encourage people who are listening in today to not only listen to what I'm saying, uh, but to do their research themselves. And you never know what might answer you might come up with. And to name a few of these, there is Simon Greenleaf. He was the founder of the Harvard Law School and author of the Treaties of Evidence. Another one is Anthony Flew, an avowed atheist and one of the most notorious critics of the resurrection who offered the hallucination theory. Right. In other words, those people, the 500, were actually having some kind of hallucination. It would be hard, though, to believe that 500 people may have an halluciation. So that's how he explained away the resurrection. And later he said, toward the end of his life, the evidence for the resurrection is different from claimed miracles in other religions. It's outstandingly different in quality and quantity. Isn't that an interesting statement for a man who was once a leading atheist? In more recent times, we have people like Lee Strobel, author and former investigative journalist from the Chicago Tribune, who went on a search to disprove the resurrection and became a Christian himself.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

There is Jay Warner Wallace, a former homicide detective who worked on coal cater cases, and he later applied his skills to the evidence around Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Yeah. And he believed that Jesus, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was risen from the dead.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Well, there's just so much evidence, really, of the resurrection. So thank you for taking us through those points.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

And again, I'd encourage all our listeners and viewers to go and research this yourself because I think the answers that you'll come across are just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, you know, this is really important to us today, Emily, because it validates who Jesus really is.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

You know, one of the original twelve, Thomas, who is recorded as having serious doubts about the resurrection of Jesus. When he encountered the risen Christ himself, this is the biblical account in John chapter 20, 28. He said, I need to see him, I need to be able to put my fingers into his wounds. And when he saw the risen Christ, Thomas answered and he said to him, My Lord and my God. That's a massive impact. So I think the, you know, the real, you know, when we really come to realizing who Jesus is, you know, we will say the same thing. My Lord and my God. Secondly, it gives every person who is prepared to place their trust in Jesus great hope in the situations that will present themselves that occur in life.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

There really is hope for the healing of the broken heart. There is hope for those that are addicted. And I've seen over the years many, many people who have set been set free to a better life and a better future because the resurrection is understood and experienced in their own life and experiences. There is that great old song that we used to sing, and sometimes we still do in church. It says, He is Lord, he is risen from the dead, and he is Lord. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Beautiful song.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

You know, in life people are going to have big problems, but really there is no problem too big for Jesus. I guess that we could call this the resurrection factor. Yeah. The fact that God restores marriages, heals people today, sets people free from addictions so that they can find a better future.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

So thirdly, I recently heard New Testament scholar and theologian, Dr. Gary Habamas, say that a recent book by non-believing Jews about the resurrection says that Christianity is what they regard to be a resurrection religion.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

That's quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

In other words, that is the theme that makes Christianity different from every other religion. There is only one religious leader who, you know, who has risen from the dead, and that is Jesus Himself. They believe it is the belief in the resurrection that empowers the teachings of Christianity to gain traction.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Even to the point of the willingness to die, which is a hallmark of the early disciples. And finally, when we receive Christ into our hearts and are really born again, the Holy Spirit can begin to powerfully work in us. This is what we call the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. And we've talked about that in previous sessions. And I'd encourage listeners to go back and find those if you can. Romans chapter 8, verse 11 says this if the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised him from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in us.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So powerful.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

So the Holy Spirit, after we are born again, after we've received him into our lives, is at work in our own hearts.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah. Wow. There's a lot of information there that you just brought to us, so thank you.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

What are the main takeaway points and what should we do about it?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Yeah, well, uh this weekend, as we're recording this, this is the weekend that globally we honor and celebrate the amazing sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Yeah. And on the third day he rose again. So it's being celebrated right across the globe this weekend, Emily.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

But that being the fact, it needs to be just more than a story to us. It's up to every person to seek out the truth and decide for themselves. Yes. That's what I've done, you know, earlier on in my life, that is what you've done. And so many people across the globe have come to the point of trying to figure out who is this person, Jesus? Was he is he really God? Is he really the Son of God? And it is the fact of the resurrection that sets him apart from every other religious leader in history. So it's up to every person to really delve in and to investigate for themselves history's most extraordinary claim. The reality is that Jesus is risen from the dead, I'm sure of it.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

And it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. But you have to prove it to you. And once you've done that, you can easily take the next step of inviting him into your life. And that is such a transformational thing. As I've followed him all these years, it's become a truth to me that as a Christian, the resurrection power of a Christ is indeed at the work in the heart and in the lives of every believer. And that gives great hope to those that are hurting, to those that are lost, to those that have lost their way.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Absolutely. I'd I'd love for you to just pray with us now, because there might be someone listening that wants to take that next step.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Well, it's an amazing day. Today, we're recording this on Good F Friday, and uh on Sunday globally and over this weekend, we will join with our brothers and sisters across the globe to celebrate the life, the death, and the resurrection of the one who has become our Lord Jesus. So let's say this together. Dear Heavenly Father. I know that I'm a sinner and I ask for your forgiveness. I also believe that Jesus Christ is your Son, He is the Son of God. I believe that He died on the cross for my sin, and that on the third day you raised Him to the Lord, and now He is seated with you in the heavenly places. I want to place my trust in Him as my Savior and will follow Him as my Lord from this day forward. Holy Spirit, guide my life and help me to do your will all the days of my life. I pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Amen. Thank you so much for that. Thanks for coming into the studio.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

It's a real pleasure, and this is history's greatest story, Emily. History's greatest love story. Really, really is the fact that Jesus came, the Son of God, died for us on the sin, on the cross. Yeah. Such a painful way to die, the Roman crucifixion, the death that no man could survive. But this man, Jesus, has risen from the dead, and he is Lord.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

And now we can experience for ourselves that resurrection factor.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Amen. Well, uh, thank you for joining us on the preceding word. Like, share, and subscribe, all those good things, and we'll see you on the next episode. God bless.