The Empty Tomb

Written by Steve Russo

Christianity, from its earliest days, has communicated the belief that more than two thousand years ago an itinerant preacher from Palestine got into trouble with civil authorities and was executed in a humiliating way, only to be raised from the grave three days later. And because Jesus rose from the grave bodily, those who believe in Him will live eternally and also have a new body.

The First Easter Sunday

The uniqueness of the gospel is the resurrection of Christ. Other religions have various holy books, strong moral values, and even concepts about life after death. Every other religion contains a record of the death of their leader. But only Christianity has a God who became a man, died on a cross for all people, and was raised again in power and glory. Only Jesus Christ is alive; all the other religious leaders are dead. The fact of the resurrection is crucial for believers living in the twenty-first century to know and understand.

There is no complete account – with all the details of the resurrection – contained in one single Gospel. Each writer gives us a distinct look with a different emphasis that fits with his particular book. However, by putting the four Gospels together, we can see a composite picture of the resurrection.

Just imagine what it must have been like for the followers of Jesus that first Easter weekend. Feelings of defeat on Friday, disillusionment on Saturday, and then utter amazement on Sunday.

The women brought spices to Jesus’ tomb both as a sign of respect and to embalm His body. In those days a body was usually embalmed at the time of burial, not a few days later. In this situation, Jesus died only a few hours before sundown on Friday, which was when the Sabbath began. By the time Joseph of Arimathea finally received the needed permission from Pilate to take Jesus’ body, there was no time left to do the embalming. As required by law, the women had gone home to observe the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. They gathered up their spices early Sunday morning and returned to the tomb.

When they arrived, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty. Keep in mind that the stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out; He was already gone. It was rolled away to let the women and the others in the tomb.

It must have been a very emotional time for the women. First they discovered that the body of Jesus was missing. Then they were overwhelmed by two angels. Next came the crucial question, “Why are you looking for someone who is alive among the dead?” What a great question! Why did the women, as well as Peter and John, come running to the tomb? Because they didn’t actually believe that Jesus Christ would come back from the dead! The Bible makes it clear that Jesus told His followers repeatedly that He was going to Jerusalem to die and that He would come back to life three days later.

The empty tomb is an obvious proof of the resurrection. If Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, then someone took the body. If His opponents took it, why didn’t they produce it later? It would have been impossible for the disciples to have taken Jesus’ body considering the fact that a group of elite Roman soldiers had been assigned to guard the tomb, which had been locked with an official government seal that could not easily be broken.

The actions of Jesus’ followers shouldn’t surprise us. How many people today spend their time looking for God in dead things and in lifeless ways? They practice religion. They go to church as if it’s a memorial service and read the Bible as if it’s some dusty, ancient artifact. However, this is not what Christianity is all about.

Because Jesus has risen from the grave, we can have a personal relationship with the living God! This is the identical God who is in the business of changing lives through the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the central fact of Christianity. Without it there would be no Christian faith or church today.

But let’s take it one step further. If Jesus of Nazareth actually did rise from the dead – fulfilling one of the boldest statements He ever made – then all of the other doctrinal statements He made hold together, including the ones that involve our own ultimate eternal destiny. The resurrection gives us not only power but also confidence in the reliability of other things that Jesus said and taught.

The Evidence

The evidence that Jesus actually died and rose from the grave confirms His uniqueness and proves that He is the Son of God. No one else in history has ever been able to predict his own resurrection and then fulfill it. The fact of the empty tomb was not the result of some scheme to make His resurrection plausible. Any attempt to refute it is confronted with mounds of evidence, beginning with Christ’s documented appearances.

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared many times to different people. Here is a chronological order of the Lord’s appearances:

Stop for just a moment. Let the evidence you have just read sink in. Jesus only appeared to His followers. For the most part His appearances were infrequent, with only four after Easter and before His ascension. There was nothing frantic or far-fetched in His appearances, and they were all different in nature – in the places they occurred, the length of time involved, the words spoken, and even the mood of the apostles. All of Christ’s appearances were bodily in nature because Jesus wanted the disciples to be sure of this fact (Luke 24:39-40; John 20:27).

It’s absolutely amazing to think that so many people, on different days and in distinct situations, all had encounters with the risen Christ. Yet despite this incredible evidence of Christ’s appearances, skeptics persist in saying these records are false; they try to excuse away the resurrection.

The nature of the resurrected body is an amazing mystery. On the one hand, the resurrected body of Jesus was the body of a man. On the road to Emmaus, the two disciples did not recognize Jesus (Luke 24:15-16) even though He was walking alongside them. Standing outside the tomb, Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus and thought He was the gardener until He called her by name (John 20:14-16). Later, Jesus showed the disciples His hands, feet, and side (John 20:20,27) On one occasion, Jesus even ate a piece of broiled fish – though not out of necessity – in the presence of the disciples (Luke 24:42-43).

On the other hand, the resurrected body of Jesus had supernatural qualities. He rose with an eternal body, never to die again. After His resurrection, Jesus was able to pass through different kinds of matter: the grave linens, the tomb (without the stone being rolled away) and even the walls of the room where the disciples were meeting on Easter Sunday night. Jesus was also able to instantly vanish from their midst (Luke 24:31). And in this same body, Jesus ascended into heaven. Although we are not given all the details as to exactly how Jesus’ body was changed after His resurrection, it was still clearly identifiable as the one put in the tomb.

When considering evidence for the resurrection, we must also look at the transformed apostles. A profound and permanent change came over the apostles during the days following Easter morning. The only possible way to explain this phenomenal change is that the apostles were thoroughly convinced that Jesus had risen from the grave. The cowardice they experienced just before the crucifixion was gone, replaced with a new courage that would endure many years until their martyrdom. Look at the difference in Peter from John 18 to Acts 2. Knowledge of the resurrection made that difference!

They went everywhere and preached Christ and His resurrection. Their reward was persecution, torment, incarceration, and execution. Nothing could have driven them and their successors to the ends of the earth through these kinds of ordeals but the conviction that Christ had indeed been raised from the dead by the Father and was therefore the Son of God. The Holy Spirit honored their convictions about the resurrection and communicated the gospel through them with great power (Acts 4:33). As a result, their faith became contagious, and Jews and Gentiles alike were convinced that Jesus had risen. The preaching of the resurrection turned the world upside down.The early apostles took the fact that they had been commissioned to be “witnesses” very seriously (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8).

Another interesting consequence of the resurrection was the change in the observance of the Lord’s Day. This shift in the day of worship was recorded in the New Testament and has continued through the centuries. The move from Saturday – the seventh day, religiously observed by Jews throughout the world from early times – to Sunday was a big one. Suddenly and uniformly Christians began to worship on Sunday, even though it was an ordinary workday (Acts 20:7). They did this because they wanted to commemorate the resurrection of their Lord, which took place on a Sunday.

The phrase “the first day of the week” is not found in the Bible until the dawn of Easter. It is introduced by New Testament writers and is carried through in the following passages: Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; Acts 20:7; and 1 Corinthians 16:2.

With this kind of overwhelming evidence to support the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it’s hard to conceive that anyone could still be a skeptic.

The most important part of the gospel is the resurrection of Christ. Without this, everything else becomes meaningless, including the death of Christ. Romans 4:25 reminds us that Jesus was “delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” In His death he took on our sins, but in His resurrection He guaranteed us entrance to heaven. ...

The resurrection of Christ means that God gave His approval to the claims and works of Jesus. These claims would have been blasphemous if Jesus were not truly the Son of God. However, the resurrection authenticates Jesus and His teaching. The empty tomb should assure us forever that all the things that Jesus taught were true. As Christians, we know the truth. In the resurrected Christ we have power for living today and hope for all our tomorrows.