A Truth Stranger Than Fiction
By William Badke
A few years ago, I came across a book entitled The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. It claimed that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, but revived in the tomb, later leaving Israel to raise a family in France. More recently, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has revived the Holy Blood theory and turned it into a blockbuster book and coming movie.
My problem, maybe yours too, is that with all these strange explanations of the resurrection of Jesus out there, it’s really hard to know what to believe. The Bible says He died for us and rose from the grave. But some people have suggested that He wasn’t actually dead and managed to escape from the tomb. Others insist to the contrary that there’s a grave some- where in Israel with His bones in it.
I used to have a lot of questions about this myself. Now, after spending years studying the resurrection, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Bible’s account of it isn’t nearly as far- fetched as we might think. Sure, there are lots of reasons not to believe Jesus is actually alive, but, there is one fact that always brings me up short—the empty tomb.
A bedrock reality is that the Roman authorities hung Jesus on the cross, and put Him in a tomb with an armed guard outside. On the third day, the tomb was empty. So where did the body go?
Some have argued that Jesus’ own followers stole His body, though no one knows how they could have gotten past the armed guards or why they would have died in such large numbers at the hands of their persecutors if it had all been a lie.
Other possible theories about the empty tomb have emerged as well. One asserts that the Romans or a groundskeeper moved the body—but why didn’t the authorities produce the corpse when Jesus’ followers claimed He’d risen from the dead?
Another claims that the disciples of Jesus went to the wrong tomb—but why then didn’t the authorities show that Jesus was still lying dead in the right tomb?
The view that He didn’t really die but revived in the tomb falls apart, due to two facts: the Romans always made sure crucified people were dead, and it’s nonsense to believe that a man as badly injured as Jesus could convince anyone that He’d risen gloriously from the dead.
The story of the resurrection has a lot of critics, to be sure. You can dismiss it if you want, but what if it’s true? First, it would tell you that the rest of the Bible’s story about Jesus is true as well. Jesus made no bones about showing His followers that He was more than a man. The gospel writer John called Him “the Word,” meaning the message from God. John argued that He was actually God in human flesh:
In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and He was God…So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.1
What John was saying is that Jesus is God who took on human flesh to live a perfect life in front of us, though His divine glory could not be hidden.
Second, it would mean that He is still alive. The Da Vinci Code puts a Jesus who was never actually dead into a situation in which He was doomed to die for real eventually. His revival was temporary. A resurrection doesn’t do this. If Jesus beat death, He beat it for good. He is alive.
Third, it would turn His death into our reason for hope. Jesus made it plain long before His crucifixion that He was going to die on behalf of others and rise from the dead. His own life was flawless. Not even His enemies could pin anything on Him. If He rose from the dead, having conquered death, then His most significant claim is true—that He died to pay the penalty for our rebellion against God. He died as the ultimate blood sacrifice, carrying all we had ever done on His own back, suffering for us so that we could have a way back to the One who made us.
In this last thought lies the essence of our meaning. If we were made to belong to God, if we lost our connection with Him through our own bid for independence, then Jesus is the way back. Through His sacrifice, the barrier has been broken down; He is alive, and we can go home.
BIBLICAL REFERENCE:
1 John 1:1, 14.
William Badke is a librarian at Trinity Western University and author of the new book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Meaning of Everything (Kregel Publications, 2005). Find out more about him at www.meaningofeverything.com.
Copyright © 2005 by William Badke. Used by permission. All rights reserved.