It really happened.

Steve Brown:
It really happened. Deal with it. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you’ve suffered too long under a do more, try harder religion, Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captives free. Steve invited Pete Alwinson to teach us this week. Pete is a former pastor, founder of ForgeTruth.com and the author of Like Father Like Son.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. If you’re just joining us, Pete and I are sitting around talking about, this is Easter Week. And on Friday we’re going to talk about the cross. But we thought we’d talk about the resurrection during this time. And Pete and I are just, and you have a seat at our table, just sitting around talking about the amazing evidence for the resurrection of Christ. But there, you were saying when we were off the air, that there’s a danger in this, you want to talk about that a little bit?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, knowing all of these facts about the resurrection is absolutely powerful and they’re great foundations for our faith, but they are not enough. It’s potential that we could become Christian rationalists who depend only on our rational thinking to determine if Christianity is true or not. And that’s a problem. And we have a clear sense in the New Testament that unless the Holy Spirit causes us to understand and grip the truth, we won’t, really. So, as we, and yet, as you said yesterday, the resurrection is a gift to us. And so, we need to think it through. We get to think it through. You’re not throwing your brain out the window to become a Christian, but we still need the Holy Spirit to actually be born again.

Steve Brown:
Now we, because we’re a Bible teaching ministry, we’re looking at I Corinthians 15 and you might want to, we’re not going to read it again, but you might want to check it out as Paul talks about. And he says, if this didn’t happen, you’re to be pitied because it means that Jesus didn’t and you can’t. So, when you’re dead, you’re dead. You provide fertilizer for flowers, deal with that sort of thing. And then what we were saying was, that the evidence is absolutely overwhelming. Like, how do you deal, if you don’t believe in the resurrection, with these disciples and their testimony that they had been with Jesus? You think they got around in a circle and said, let’s make up a lie?

Pete Alwinson:
I know. Right. And these were not sophisticated people as we think of a Harvard educated, sophisticated crowd. They were, what you see is what you get, real people. And it was amazing that they were absolutely convinced to the point where they, their whole lives were changed and they put their lives on the line. So, you can’t make sense of, of Christianity without the resurrection.

Steve Brown:
No, you really can’t. And you’ve got to look at the veracity of their particular testimony. You know, it was real because like you said, they put their lives on the line. I mean question is, would you insist on a lie if you knew that every time you insisted on that lie, you were driving a nail into your coffin? Not me, man. I’m not, I mean, I might insist on it for a while, but eventually, I’m going to say, Oh, I made it up. Let me go. But not one single one of those people who had been with Jesus at any point ever in their entire lives, denied the reality of having been with Jesus after he was dead.

Pete Alwinson:
You’re absolutely right. And for instance, I John. He said, we were eyewitnesses. Everywhere you go in the New Testament, these guys were there. Paul too. Of the 11 sermons of the Book of Acts, evangelistic messages all go back to the resurrection cause they experienced it. Peter, Paul, all of them. Yeah. It’s amazing.

Steve Brown:
So good. Yeah. It really is amazing. And an objective person who takes the time to sit down and examine that, has got to explain those disciples.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
They’re just, you can’t, I don’t think there’s any explanation for it except that they, and you know what they went through, not only facing their own deaths. But the suffering and the persecution and the pain and the loss that they all faced because of the resurrection. I don’t know anything that will motivate you any more than seeing a dead man walking around.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right. And there’s no other religion on record where this idea exists that they’re following a resurrected leader, I mean it’s unique to Christianity, it’s unique and so they didn’t make this up. They didn’t have any previous myths that they were building on. And like you said they were all in and your early church is interesting, Steve, from what my reading of history is, and you can straight me out if I’m wrong, but a lot of times in the early church, these under persecution, Christians actually wanted to go into the arena. They wanted to testify. They wanted to stand up, fight the animals if they had to. And their pastors had to say, come on, dial it back a little bit.

Steve Brown:
That’s exactly true. And that’s pretty, you can’t explain that.

Pete Alwinson:
I know, except that they actually saw him.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And then you’ve got five, Paul says there were 500 witnesses who saw it.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Now, Pete, if you come in here and you tell me you were down at the graveyard and a dead man got out of, you saw him clawing through the dark with that hand, dirt with that hand coming up out the grave. I’d say, Pete, you’ve been smoking something or you’ve been drinking something. Or you’re joshing me, that can’t be true. But if you say no, no, no, I’ve got a guy here that saw it with me. I’d still think you guys are still playing jokes. Even if there were 10 of you, there are 10 bunch of guys that get together and do that, just for the fun of it. But if you, but if there are 500 of you, at minimum, I’m going to go down to the graveyard and check it out.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
At minimum, if there are five. You know, I was a pastor on Cape Cod, and a guy in our church, was the head of the parks department for the little village where we lived. That meant that he mowed the lawn in the cemetery and he came into my office one time laughing and he said, you know, that was before they had vaults. And he said, a guy was putting some flowers on a grave and it gave way and he went down into the grave up to his waist. And he said somebody was driving through the graveyard at that time and saw him up to his waist and thought he was coming out. And he said, I never saw anybody get out of a graveyard any faster. But if 500 people saw him.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s different.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s a whole, and it really, it puts to death this idea that the disciples stole the body and hid it. Why would they do that? That was a claim that the authorities tried to put on the Christians. No, 500 people saw him alive, over a period of time.

Steve Brown:
And listen, they had the resources to find the body. I mean, there would be a simple way to end the Christian faith in the first century before it got started. All you had to do was produce the corpse. I mean, just take this dead corpse and say, You guys, you’re crazy.

Pete Alwinson:
Here it is.

Steve Brown:
Man, there’s something wrong with you. Here’s the corpse. And nobody ever presented a corpse.

Pete Alwinson:
The Jewish authorities didn’t, neither did the Romans.

Steve Brown:
No, and they had all the money and the power in the world to pull that off. And they couldn’t do it. And there’s one reason they couldn’t do it. There was no corpse.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
The corpse had gotten up and walked around.

Pete Alwinson:
And then he ascended to heaven. But in the meantime, before the ascension, I mean, they didn’t have a dead body. And so, that is just a ludicrous claim, that all thinkers point to.

Steve Brown:
That’s really true. And there’s no explanation for the church, frankly. I mean, the church is an amazing, it still is, by the way, even if a lot of people say it isn’t. But in the first century, by the third century, they had won the entire Western world.

Pete Alwinson:
Stunning. Absolutely stunning.

Steve Brown:
There’s nothing to explain that except something as big and as gigantic and as true, a dead man getting out of a grave and walking around.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right. The early church was absolutely convinced at every level that this was true and was not made up. And it was theologically important as well, that to prove that we had been forgiven of our sins.

Steve Brown:
And we’re going to talk about that tomorrow. But I love the story of Thomas when all the disciples, there was a change, they were scared spitless. They were afraid the same thing was going to happen to them.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And then Jesus showed, and the door was locked by the way. Jesus showed and Thomas wasn’t there. And you remember, of course you do. You’ve taught on it a thousand times. But when Thomas finally gets to them, he says to the disciples, you’re crazy. And then the hair on the back of his neck comes up and he turns around and Jesus is standing there and Thomas has said, until I put my fingers into the nail prints, I will not believe. And Jesus said, Thomas, come here, put your fingers into the nail prints in my hand. And that’s when Thomas fell on his knees. And that’s what God in a symbolic way has done for the world. He’s saying, I will not believe, unless you show me something that proves it. And that’s what we’ve been talking about. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve and Pete. This week we are taking a break from our exploration of Proverbs to reflect on the death and resurrection of Jesus. We’ll continue this special Holy Week edition of Key Life tomorrow. Do join us, won’t you? You know, for as much as we talk about grace, it is so easy to forget about its real power. If you could use a reminder about that, there’s a booklet we’d love to send you for free called Radical Freedom: Surprising Faithfulness. It’s a newly reprinted excerpt from Steve’s classic book on radical grace, A Scandalous Freedom. Get your copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that booklet. And to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Again, just ask for your free copy of the booklet called Radical Freedom: Surprising Faithfulness. And finally, if you value the work of KeyLife, would you join us in that work through your financial support? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or now, you can gift safely and securely through text. Just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Just text that to 28950 and then follow the instructions. KeyLife is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both of those organizations assure financial accountability and we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.