John R. W. Stott says: "Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection..."
Dr. Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard attorney, says of the disciples: "It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact.
"The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unflinching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted..."
Paul Little asks: "Are these men,who helped transform the moral structure of society, consummate liars or deluded madmen? These alternatives are harder to believe than the fact of the Resurrection, and there is no shred of evidence to support them."
Look at the changed life of James, the brother of Jesus. Before the resurrection he despised all that his brother stood for. He thought Christ's claims were blatant pretention and served only to ruin the family name. After the resurrection, though, James is found with the other disciples preaching the gospel of their LORD. His epistle describes well the new relationship that he had with Christ. He describes himself as "a bond-servant of GOD and of the LORD Jesus Christ..." (James 1:1). The only explanation for this change in his life is that which Paul gives: "Then He [Jesus] appeared to James..." (I Corinthians 15:7).
George Matheson says that "the scepticism of Thomas comes out in the belief that the death of Jesus would be the death of His kingdom. 'Let us go, that we may die with Him.' The man who uttered these words had, at the time when he uttered them, no hope of Christ's resurrection. No man would propose to die with another if he expected to see him again in a few hours. Thomas, at that moment, had given up all intellectual belief. He saw no chance for Jesus. He did not believe in His physical power. He had made up his mind that the forces of the outer world would be too strong for Him, would crush Him."
However, Jesus made Himself known to Thomas also. The result was recorded in John's Gospel where Thomas exclaimed: "My LORD and my GOD!" (John 20:28). Thomas made an about-face after seeing his LORD risen from the grave and went on to die a martyr's death.
The following description of the change that occurred in the lives of the apostles after the resurrection is an interesting poetic portrayal:
"On the day of the crucifixion they were filled with sadness; on the first day of the week with gladness. At the crucifixion they were hopeless; on the first day of the week their hearts glowed with certainty and hope. When the message of the resurrection first came they were incredulous and hard to be convinced, but once they became assured they never doubted again. What could account for the astonishing change in these men in so short a time? The mere removal of the body from the grave could never have transformed their spirits, and characters. Three days are not enough for a legend to spring up which would so affect them. Time is needed for a process of legendary growth. It is a psychological fact that demands a full explanation.
"Think of the character of the witnesses, men and women who gave the world the highest ethical teaching it has ever known, and who even on the testimony of their enemies lived it out in their lives. Think of the psychological absurdity of picturing a little band of defeated cowards cowering in an upper room one day and a few days later transformed into a company that no persecution could silence - and then attempting to attribute this dramatic change to nothing more convincing than a miserable fabrication they were trying to foist upon the world. That simply wouldn't make sense."
THE TRANSFORMATION OF 1,900 YEARS OF HISTORY
Just as Jesus Christ transformed the lives of His disciples, so men throughout the past 1,900 years have also had the same experience. For further evidence concerning the witness of transformed lives, see the chapter titled "The Uniqueness fo Christian Experience."
THE VERDICT
The established psychological fact of changed lives, then, is a credible reason for believing in the resurrection. It is subjective evidence bearing witness to the objective fact that Jesus Christ arose on the third day. For only a risen Christ could have such transforming power in a person's life.
Established Sociological Facts
AN INSTITUTION: THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
A basic foundation of the establishing of the Church was the preaching of Christ's resurrection:
Acts 1:21,22 - "It is therefore necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the LORD Jesus went in and out among us - beginning with the baptism of John, until the day that He was taken up from us - one of these should become a witness with us of His resurrection."
Acts 2:23,24 - "This Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of GOD, you nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. And GOD raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power."
Acts 2:31,32 - "He looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. This Jesus GOD raised up again, to which we are all witnesses."
Acts 3:14,15 - "But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom GOD raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses."
Acts 3:26 - "For you first, GOD raised up His Servant, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways."
Acts 4:10 - "Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom GOD raised from the dead - by this name this man stands here before you in good health."
Acts 5:30 - "The GOD of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross."
Acts 10:39-41 - "And we are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And they also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. GOD raised Him up on the third day, and granted that He should become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by GOD, that is, to us, who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead."
Acts 13:29-39 - "And when they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But GOD raised Him from the dead; and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people. And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that GOD has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'Thou art My Son; today I have begotten Thee.' And as for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no more to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: 'I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.' Therefore He also says in another Psalm, 'Thou wilt not allow Thy Holy One to undergo decay.' For David, after he had served the purpose of GOD in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers, and underwent decay; but He whom GOD raised did not undergo decay. Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.
Acts 17:30,31 - "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, GOD is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
Acts 26:22,23 - "And so, having obtained help from GOD, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He should be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles."
The Church is a fact of history
The explanation for the existence of the Church is its faith in the resurrection. Throughout its early years, this institution suffered much persecution from the Jews and Romans. Individuals suffered torture and death for their LORD only because they knew that He had arisen from the grave.
Wilbur Smith says that even the rationalist, Dr. Guignebert, is forced to the following admission: "There would have been no Christianity if the belief in the resurrection had not been founded and systematized...The whole of the soteriology and the essential teaching of Christianity rests on the belief of the Resurrection, and on the first page of any account of Christian dogma must be written as a motto, Paul's declaration: 'And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.' From the strictly historical point of view, the importance of the belief in the resurrection is scarcely less...By means of that belief, faith in Jesus and in His mission became the fundamental element of a new religion which , after separating from, became the opponent of Judaism, and set out to conquer the world."
Paul Little points out that the Church which was founded around 32 A.D. did not just happen, but had a definite cause. It was said of the Christians at Antioch in the early days of the Church that they turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). The cause of this influence was the resurrection.
H. D. A. Major, principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford, (cited by Smith) says: "Had the crucifixion of Jesus ended His disciples' experience of Him, it is hard to see how the Christian church could have come into existence. That church was founded on faith in the Messiahship of Jesus. A crucified messiah was no messiah at all. He was one rejected by Judaism and accursed of GOD. It was the Resurrection of Jesus, as St. Paul declares in Romans 1:4, which proclaimed him to be the Son of GOD with power."
Kenneth S. Latourette, cited by Straton, says: "It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted His followers out of the despair into which His death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had risen from the dead and that they had seen Him and talked with Him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus Himself would probably have been all but forgotten."
THE PHENOMENON OF THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY
The Jews' original day of rest and worship was Saturday because it was said that GOD had finished His creation and rested on the seventh day. It was written into their holy laws. The Sabbath is one of the supporting columns of Judaism. One of the most reverent things in the life of a Jew was the keeping of the Sabbath. The Christians met for worship on the first day of the Jewish week in acknowledgment of the resurrection of Jesus. These Christians actually succeeded in changing this age-old and theologically-backed day of rest and worship to Sunday. Yet remember, THEY WERE JEWS THEMSELVES! Keeping in mind what they thought would happen if they were wrong, we must recognize that this was probably one of the biggest decisions any religious body of men have ever made!! How are we to explain the change from Saturday to sunday worship without the resurrection?
J. N. D. Anderson observes that the majority of the first Christians were of Jewish background and had been fanatically attached to their Sabbath. It took, therefore, something extremely significant to change this habit; it took the resurrection to do it!
THE PHENOMENON OF CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS
Communion - Acts 2:46; John 6; Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:23,24.
The LORD's Supper is a remembrance of His death, but we read in Acts 2:46 that it was a time of joy. Now, if there was not a resurrection, how could there be joy? The memory of the meal which led directly to the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus, their LORD, would have been an unbearable pain. What changed the anguish of the Last Supper into a communion of joy the world over?
Michael Green comments: "They met Him in this sacrament. He was not dead and gone, but risen and alive. And they would celebrate this death of His, in the consciousness of His risen presence, until His longed for return at the end of history (I Corinthians 11:26). We possess a short eucharistic prayer from the earliest Christian community, from the original Aramaic-speaking church (I Corinthians 16:22 and Didache, 10). Here it is. Maranatha! It means, 'Our LORD, come!' How that could have been the attitude of the early Christians as they met to celebrate the LORD's Supper among themselves is quite inexplicable, unless He did indeed rise from the dead on the third day."
Baptism - Colossians 2:12; Romans 6:1-6
The Christians had an initiation ceremony - baptism. This is where they dared to differ again with Judaism. The Jews continued in circumcision and the Christians followed their LORD's command about baptism. A man had to repent of his sins, believe in the risen LORD and be baptized. Now, what did baptism symbolize? There is little doubt about this! Paul explains that a man in baptism is united to Christ in His death and resurrection. When he enters the water he is dying to his old sin nature, and he rises out of the water to share a new resurrected life of Christ. There is nothing in Christianity older than the sacraments, and yet they are directly linked to the death and resurrection of Christ. How is one to account for the meaning of Christian baptism if the resurrection never took place?
THE HISTORICAL PHENOMENON OF THE CHURCH
The institution of the Church, then, is an historical phenomenon, explained only by Jesus' resurrection. Those sacraments which Christianity observes serve also as a continual evidence of the Church's origin.
L. L. Morris comments of the first believers who witnessed Christ's resurrection: "They were Jews, and Jews have a tenacity in clinging to their religious customs. Yet these men observed the LORD's day, a weekly memorial of the resurrection, instead of the Sabbath. On that LORD's day they celebrated the holy communion, which was not a commemoration of a dead Christ, but a thankful remembrance of the blessing conveyed by a living and triumphant LORD. Their other sacrament, baptism, was a reminder that believers were buried with Christ and raised with Him (Colossians 2:12). The resurrection gave significance to all that they did."
INADEQUATE THEORIES CONCOCTED TO EXPLAIN AWAY THE RESURRECTION
("Futility of futilities! All is futility." Ecclesiastes 1:2b)
The following is a compilation of the most popular theoretical explanations that have been put forth to explain away the resurrection of Christ. Each theory will be considered in turn with the corresponding refutation. It becomes apparent with research that every objection to the resurrection has a reasonable alternative for belief.
J. N. D. Anderson, the British attorney, is quite aware of the importance of good evidence in judging a case's veracity. Concerning the testimony which history gives to the resurrection, he writes: "A point which needs stressing is that the evidence must be considered as a whole. It is comparatively easy to find an alternative explanation for one or another of the different strands which make up this testimony. But such explanations are valueless unless they fit the other strands in the testimony as well. A number of different theories, each of which might conceivably be applicable to part of the evidence but which do not themselves cohere into an intelligible pattern, can provide no alternative to the one interpretation which fits the whole."
Such will be the approach taken in considering the following theories.
The Swoooooon Theory
THE VIEW - CHRIST NEVER ACTUALLY DIED ON THE CROSS, BUT ONLY SWOONED
When He was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, He was still alive. After several hours, He was revived by the cool air of the tomb, arose and departed.
Professor J. N. D. Anderson says of this theory that it was "...first put forward by a man named Venturini a couple of centuries or so ago. It has been resuscitated in recent years in a slightly different form by a heterodox group of Muslims called the Ahmadiya, who used to have their main headquarters at a place called Qadian and who have their English headquarters in a part of London called Putney.
"Their explanation runs like this: Christ was indeed nailed to the cross. He suffered terribly from shock, loss of blood, and pain, and He swooned away; but He didn't actually die. Medical knowledge was not very great at that time, and the apostles thought He was dead. We are told, are we not, that Pilate was surprised that He was dead already. The explanation assertedly is that He was taken down from the cross in a state of swoon by those who wrongly believed Him to be dead, and laid in the sepulcher. And the cool restfulness of the sepulcher so far revived Him that He was eventually able to issue forth from the grave. His ignorant disciples couldn't believe that this was a mere resuscitation. They insisted it was a resurrection from the dead."
Professor Kevan says of the swoon theory that also responsible for Christ's resuscitation was the "...reviving effects of the spices with which He had been embalmed..."
THE REFUTATION -
Anderson comes to the conclusion: "...This theory does not stand up to investigation..."
W. J. Sparrow-Simpson says that it is "...now quite obsolete..."
I am confident that the following points will show why these men came to such conclusions.
Christ did die on the cross, according to the judgment of the soldiers, Joseph and Nicodemus.
Paul Little says in reference to the swoon theory: "It is significant that not a suggestion of this kind has come down from antiquity among all the violent attacks which have been made on Christianity. All of the earliest records are emphatic about Jesus' death."
Professor T. J. Thorburn mentions the following as what Christ suffered at the hands of Pilate: "...the Agony in the Garden, the arrest at midnight, the brutal treatment in the hall of the High Priest's palace and at the praetorium of Pilate, the exhausting journeys backwards and forwards between Pilate and Herod, the terrible Roman scourging, the journey to Calvary, during which He fell exhausted by the strain upon His powers, the agonizing torture of the Crucifixion, and the thirst and feverishness which followed."
Thorburn observes: "It would be difficult to imagine even the most powerful of men, after enduring all these, not succumbing to death. Moreover, it is recorded that the victims of crucifixion seldom recovered, even under the most favourable circumstances."
He concludes: "We cannot state the insuperable objections to this theory better than in...[these] words...'Then,' says Keim, 'there is the most impossible thing of all; the poor, weak Jesus, with difficulty holding Himself erect, in hiding, disguised, and finally dying - this Jesus an object of faith, of exalted emotion, of the triumph of His adherents, a risen conqueror, and son of GOD! Here, in fact, the theory begins to grow paltry, absurd, worthy only of rejection.' "
Professor F. Godet, cited by Kevan, says: "Jesus, before His crucifixion, had already suffered much, both in body and soul. He had passed through the anticipation of His death in Gethsemane. He had undergone the frightful pain of a Roman scourging, which left deep scars on the back of the sufferer, and which is almost equivalent to capital punishment. Then they had pierced His hands and feet with nails. The small amount of strength which He might still have had left had been worn away by the six hours of frightful suffering which He had already passed through. Consumed with thirst and completely exhausted, He had at last breathed out His soul in that last cry recorded by the evangelists. Again, a Roman soldier had pierced His heart with a spear. With no food or drink, with no one to dress His wounds or alleviate His suffering in any way, He had passed a whole day and two nights in the cave in which He was laid. And yet, on the morning of the third day behold Him reappearing, active and radiant!"
J. N. D. Anderson remarks of the hypothesis that Jesus did not die: "Well...it's very ingenious. But it won't stand up to investigation. To begin with, steps were taken - it seems - to make quite sure that Jesus was dead; that surely is the meaning of the spear-thrust in His side. But suppose for argument's sake that He was not quite dead. Do you really believe that lying for hour after hour with no medical attention in a rock-hewn tomb in Palestine at Easter, when it's quite cold at night, would so far have revived Him, instead of proving the inevitable end to His flickering life, that He would have been able to loose Himself from yards of graveclothes weighted with pounds of spices, roll away a stone that three women felt incapable of tackling, and walk miles on wounded feet?"
As John R. W. Stott asks, are we to believe "that after the rigours and pains of trial, mockery, flogging and crucifixion He could survive thirty-six hours in a stone sepulchre with neither warmth nor food nor medical care? That He could then rally sufficiently to perform the superhuman feat of shifting the boulder which secured the mouth of the tomb, and this without disturbing the Roman guard? That then, weak and sickly and hungry, He could appear to the disciples in such a way as to give them the impression that He had vanquished death? That He could go on to claim that He had died and risen, could send them into all the world and promise to be with them unto the end of time? That He could live somewhere in hiding for forty days, making occasional surprise appearances, and then finally disappear without any explanation? Such credulity is more incredible than Thomas' unbelief."
Of modern rationalists who deny the resurrection of Christ, E. Le Camus writes:
They say: 'If He is risen, He was not dead, or if He died, He is not risen.'
"Two facts, one as certain as the other, throw light on this dilemma. The first is that on Friday evening Jesus was dead; and the second, that He appeared full of life on Sunday and on the days that followed.
"That He was dead on Friday evening no one has doubted; neither in the Sanhedrin, nor in the Praetorium, nor on Calvary. Pilate alone was astonished that He had so soon given up the ghost, but his astonishment only called forth new testimony corroborating the assertion of those who asked for His body.
"Therefore, friends and enemies, looking on the Crucified, saw clearly that He was no more. To prove it the better, the centurion pierced Him with his lance, and the corpse made no motion. From the wound came forth a mixture of water and of blood, which revealed a rapid decomposition of the vital elements. Bleeding, they say, is fatal in syncope. Here it has not killed Him Who is already dead. For the circumstances in which it occurred prove that Jesus had ceased to live some moments before. And it does not occur to the most intelligent of His enemies, such as the chief priests, to cast a doubt on the reality of His death. All that they fear is fraud on the part of the disciples, who may remove the body, but not on the part of Jesus Whom they have seen expire. He was taken down from the cross, and just as He had shown no sign of life at the stroke of the soldier's spear, so now He lies still and cold in the loving arms that lift Him up, take Him away, embalm, enshroud, and lay Him in the tomb, after covering Him with proofs of their desolation and their love. Can we imagine a more complete swoon than this or one more suitable timed? Let us add that this would indeed be a most fortuitous ending of a life already, in itself, so prodigious in its sanctity and so fecund in its influence. This were an impossible coincidence! It were more miraculous even than the Resurrection itself!"
Jesus' disciples did not perceive Him as having merely revived from a swoon.
The skeptic, David Friedrich Strauss - himself certainly no believer in the resurrection - gave the deathblow to any thought that Jesus revived from a swoon. Here are his words: "It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulcher, 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 to 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."
William Milligan, in describing Jesus' appearances to His disciples, says they were "...not those of a sick chamber, but of health and strength and busy preparation for a great work to be immediately engaged in." He continues: "Despondency has given place to hope, despair to triumph, prostration of all energy to sustained and vigorous exertion."
He continues: "When the first fears of the disciples were dispelled, it was one of joy, of boldness, and of enthusiasm; we see none of those feelings of pity, of sympathy with suffering, of desire to render help, that must have been called forth by the appearance of a person who had swooned away through weariness and agony, who had continued in unconsciousness from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, and who has now only in the first moments of recovery."
Professor E. H. Day says: "In the narratives of the various appearances of the risen Christ there is no hint of any such physical weakness as would have been inevitable if Christ had revived from apparent death. The disciples in fact saw in their risen Master not One recovering against all expectation from acute sufferings, but One Who was the LORD of life and the Conqueror of death, and Who was no longer fettered as they had known Him to be in the days of His ministry, by physical limitations."
Those who propose the swoon theory also have to say that Jesus, once He had revived, was able to perform a miracle of wiggling out of the graveclothes which were wound tightly about all the curves of His body and leave without disarranging these at all.
Merrill C. Tenney explains the graveclothes: "In preparing a body for burial according to Jewish custom, it was usually washed and straightened, and then bandaged tightly from the armpits to the ankles in strips of linen about a foot wide. Aromatic spices, often of a gummy consistency, were placed between the wrappings or folds. They served partially as a preservative and partially as a cement to glue the cloth wrappings into a solid covering...John's term 'bound' (Gr. edesan), is in perfect accord with the language of Luke 23:53, where the writer says that the body was rolled...in linen...
"On the morning of the first day of the week the body of Jesus had vanished, but the graveclothes were still there...
"The wrappings were in position where the head had been, separated from the others by the distance from armpits to neck. The shape of the body was still apparent in them, but the flesh and bone had disappeared...How was the corpse extricated from the wrappings, since they would not slip over the curves of the body when tightly wound around it?"
"Those who hold this theory," says James Rosscup, "have to say that Christ, in a weakened condition, was able to roll back the stone at the entrance of the tomb - a feat which historians say would take several men - step out of the sepulchre without awaking any one of the soldiers (if we assume for argument's sake that they were asleep, and we know they were certainly not!), step over the soldiers and escape."
Professor E. H. Day comments on this point: "The physical improbabilities of the supposition are indeed overwhelming. Even if we were to reject the account of the guarding of the sepulchre (in obedience to the dictates of a criticism which finds in it an inconvenient incident) there remains the difficulty of supposing that One but just recovered from a swoon could have rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, 'for it was very great.' "
It is absurd to suppose that Jesus could have fought off the Roman guard even if He had managed to roll away the stone. Such men as would have kept the watch should scarcely have had difficulty in dealing with "a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre," as Strauss described Jesus. Also, the punishment for falling asleep while on watch was death, so the guard would have been wide awake.
If Jesus had merely revived from a swoon, the long walk "...to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:13), would have been impossible.
Professor Day says, " A long walk, followed by the appearance to the disciples at Jerusalem is inconceivable in the case of one recovered from a swoon caused by wounds and exhaustion."
Professor E. F. Kevan makes the following comments on this point:
"On His feet, which had been pierced through and through only two days back, He walks without difficulty the two leagues between Emmaus and Jerusalem. He is so active, that during the repast He disappears suddenly out of sight of His fellow-travelers, and when they return to the capital to announce the good news to the apostles, they find Him there again! He has overtaken them. With the same quickness which characterizes all His movements, He presents Himself suddenly in the room in which the disciples are assembled....Are these the actions of a man who had just been taken down half-dead from the cross, and who has been laid in a grave in a condition of complete exhaustion? No."
If Jesus had merely revived from a deathlike swoon, He would have explained His condition to the disciples. Remaining silent, He would have been a liar and deceiver, allowing His followers to spread a resurrection proclamation that was really a resurrection fairy tale.
E. Le Camus writes: "Let us say, moreover, that if Jesus had only swooned, He could not, without injury to His character, allow anyone to believe that He had been dead. Instead of presenting Himself as one risen again, He should have said simply preserved by chance. In fact, here as everywhere else in the Gospel, we encounter this unsurmountable dilemma: either Jesus was the Just One, the Man of GOD, or among men He is the greatest of criminals. If He presented Himself as one from the dead, whereas He was not such, He is guilty of falsehood, and must be denied even the most common honesty."
Paul Little comments that such a theory requires us to believe that "Christ Himself was involved in flagrant lies. His disciples believed and preached that He was dead but became alive again. Jesus did nothing to dispel this belief, but rather encouraged it."
John Knox, the New Testament scholar, quoted by Straton, says, "It was not the fact that a man had risen from the dead but that a particular man had done so which launched the Christian movement...The character of Jesus was its deeper cause."
Jesus would have had no part in perpetrating the lie that He had risen from the grave if He had not. Such an allegation is unreservedly impugned as one examines His spotless character.
If Christ did not die at this time, then when did He die, and under what circumstances?
Professor E. H. Day says: "...If the swoon-theory be accepted, it is necessary to eliminate from the Gospels and the Acts the whole of the Ascension narrative, and to account for the sudden cessation of Christ's appearances by the supposition that He withdrew Himself from them completely, to live and die in absolute seclusion, leaving them with a whole series of false impressions concerning His Own Person, and their mission from Him to the world."
William Milligan says that if Christ merely swooned on the cross and later revived, "He must have retired to some solitary retreat unknown even to the most attached of His disciples. While His Church was rising around Him, shaking the old world to its foundations, and introducing everywhere amidst many difficulties a new order of things - while it was torn by controversies, surrounded by temptations, exposed to trials, placed in short in the very circumstances that made it most dependent on His aid - He was absent from it, and spending the remainder of His days, whether few or many, in what we can describe by no other term than ignoble solitude. And then at last He must have died - no one can say either where, or when, or how! There is not a ray of light to penetrate the darkness; and these early Christians, so fertile, we are told, in legends, have not a single legend to give us help."
CONCLUSION
With George Hanson, one can honestly say of the swoon theory: "It is hard to believe that this was the favourite explanation of eighteenth-century rationalism." The evidence speaks so much to the contrary of such a hypothesis that it is now obsolete.
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