The beginning of Acts gives us a clue as to what happened in the 40 days between Jesus’s resurrection and ascension into heaven: ‘After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.’ (Acts 1:3)
Christianity is based on historical fact: God’s intervention in history in the person of His Son, Jesus, whose life, death and resurrection form the foundation stone of our faith. (1 Cor 3:11) Christians need to be able to defend their faith and Luke’s purpose in his gospel and the book of Acts is to give them solid facts to help them do this.
The death and resurrection of Jesus are pivotal to our faith, being the fulfilment of prophecy and the vindication of all Jesus said and taught. As such, many have attempted to come up with alternative explanations:
- that Jesus didn’t really die; he merely fainted from exhaustion and loss of blood. Everyone thought him dead, but later he was resuscitated and the disciples thought it to be a resurrection. The sceptic David Friedrich Strauss – himself no believer in the resurrection – gave the deathblow to any thought that Jesus merely revived from a swoon: ‘It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which He had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.’ [David Frederick Strauss. The Life of Jesus for the People (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879, 2nd ed.), Vol. 1, p. 412.]
- that the body was stolen by the disciples while the guards slept (Matthew 28:1–15). The depression and cowardice of the disciples provide a hard-hitting argument against their suddenly becoming so brave and daring as to face a detachment of soldiers at the tomb and steal the body. They were in no mood to attempt anything like that!
The authorities would have loved to produce a body to refute the claims of the disciples that Jesus was risen, but the fact that they never did so is compelling evidence that there was no body to produce. The Bible gives an account of several post-resurrection appearances (see Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, 1 Cor 15), not only to one or two people but to five hundred at one time (1 Cor 15:6). We need to have the confidence to proclaim our risen Saviour as those early followers did. Peter proclaimed, ‘God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.’ (Acts 2:32) May this be our proclamation also and may we be equipped to share the gospel with confidence in its truth and historical veracity.
