JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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His skeptical disciples (they did not believe He would rise from the dead) that He had overcome
death triumphantly. Hardly plausible! Such a theory takes much more faith than believing the
biblical account.
The lie invented by the chief priests and the elders of that day—that the disciples came
and stole the body while the soldiers slept, has been accepted by some people as the truth. This is
highly implausible for several reasons.
The disciples had nothing to gain by lying and starting a new religion. There is no way
they could have sustained such a life of hardship, ridicule, hostility, and martyrdom it they knew
what they were preaching was a lie.
These disciples were Jewish theists. To think of first-century Jews making up a religion
for gain, was tantamount to lying against the God of Israel, as Paul himself argues in 1 Corinthians
15:12-19. They had been taught that the Law, sacrifices, and the Sabbath itself must be kept
for salvation. They believed in monotheism (or nontrinitarianism) and that there was only a
political Messiah, not a dying and rising one. How could such a group of devoted Jews, who had
been so culturally and religiously indoctrinated, risk their own spiritual well-being to follow a
carpenter from Nazareth? By such an act they would have known very well that they would be
risking the damnation of their own souls. Does it make sense that they would risk eternal torment
for a few years of prestige as leaders of a new religion?
The picture the disciples presented of such a Jesus was not in line with the current
expectations of what the Messiah would be like since the Jewish people were hoping for a
theocratic ruler who would deliver Israel from Gentile oppression. How were they going to
convince these Jews that such a Messiah (a suffering Servant) was the true Messiah?
The presence of hostile witnesses would have made such a stupendous fabrication
unlikely and dangerous.
If the empty tomb and resurrection were a fabrication, why did not at least one of the
disciples part company from the rest and start his own version of Christianity? Or, why did not at
least one of them own up to their fabrication? Why would all these disciples be so unified if their
motives were fraudulent since it is the tendency of human nature to want to promote itself?
People who lie for personal gain do not stay together very long, especially when hardship makes
the benefits minimal.
The evidence for the resurrection of Christ is established by the fact that the Lord's
graveclothes were found undisturbed—only the napkin that had been around His head had been
removed and laid to one side (Jn 20:3-6). Surely, this could not have been the case had the
disciples come and stolen the body.