READ: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-20

In 1 Corinthians 15:17, Paul writes that if Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is worthless because we are still in our sins. Jesus’s victory over the grave is what secures forgiveness for our sins and guarantees that we will have eternal life with Him. So how can we be certain that Jesus rose from the dead? Here is some of the best evidence for the resurrection:

Jesus’s followers died for Him. After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, His followers continued to proclaim His resurrection, even in the face of immense persecution and suffering. Church tradition tells us that most of these followers were even killed for what they were proclaiming. Would you suffer and give your life for a lie? How likely do you think it is that multiple people would all suffer and die for the same lie?

Hard-to-convince people were convinced. According to biblical records, people like James (the half-brother of Jesus) and Saul of Tarsus were hard-core skeptics, and in Saul’s case, persecutors of the church. Only the resurrection explains their sudden change of heart, which led them to become leaders of the church.

If the resurrection was a lie, the disciples did a terrible job. Several details in the resurrection story would be different if the disciples were trying to invent a believable story. For example, they would not have included shameful information about themselves—like abandoning and denying Jesus at His trial. They would not have shared that women found the tomb empty first—because women in the first century were not considered credible witnesses. They would have removed the part about Jesus’s suffering as He awaited His betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane—to make Him more appealing to a culture that valued strength.

The Christian faith hinges on the resurrection. Thankfully, we have every reason to be confident in the reliability of the eyewitness accounts of the resurrection that we have recorded in Scripture today. • Jonathon Fuller

• Why is it important that Jesus actually rose from the dead, and that eye-witness accounts of His resurrection are recorded in the Bible?

• What questions do you have about the resurrection? Who are trusted Christians in your life who could help you look into these?

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. 1 Corinthians 15:20 (NLT)