HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE EMPTY TOMB?

Text: Matthew 27:57-28:15

I. THE GOSPELS EMPHASIZE THAT THE TOMB OF JESUS WAS EMPTY BECAUSE JESUS ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD

A. The tomb where Jesus was buried was empty after the Sabbath (Matthew 28:5-6; John 20:5-7).

B. The Gospels emphasize that the tomb of Jesus was empty because Jesus rose again from the dead.

1. Jesus taught that He would die, be buried and rise again on the third day (Matthew 12:40; 16:21; 20:17-19).

2. “For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial” (Matthew 26:13).

3. “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days” (John 2:19-22)

4. “I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again” (John 10:18).

5. “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).

6. The Jews asked for a guard for Jesus’ tomb because Jesus taught that after three days He would rise again (Matthew 27:63-64).

One of the cardinal doctrines of Scripture Jehovah’s False Witnesses deny besides the Trinity and the deity of Jesus is His physical resurrection.

“Therefore the bodies in which Jesus manifested himself to his disciples after his return to life were not the body in which he was nailed to the tree. They were merely materialized for the occasion, resembling on one or two occasions the body in which he died” (TKIAH, 259).

C. The resurrection of Jesus was part of Old Testament prophecy, types and shadows.

1. “Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay” (Psalm 16:10 with Acts 2:25-28)

2. The feast of first fruits (Leviticus 23:9-14; cf. Romans 8:23; 1 Cor.15:20-23).

II. HOW DO UNBELIEVERS EXPLAIN THE CHRISTIAN CLAIM THAT THE TOMB OF JESUS IS EMPTY?

A. Some say it is possible that the disciples of Jesus made up some kind of lie about the resurrection of Jesus. There are several problems with this view:

1. Jews in the first century were very concerned about the truthfulness of testimony.

a. Jesus taught, “let your yes be yes and your no be no.” (Matthew 5:37)

b. Jesus taught that on the Day of Judgment we will give an account for every careless word we have spoken (Matthew 12:36).

2. “The Christian faith did not come to exist in some distant city, far from eyewitnesses who knew of Jesus’ death and burial. No, it came into being in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified, under the very eyes of its enemies” (Dr. William Lane Craig).

3. Not even the President of the United States was able to cover up the break-in at Watergate.

With the Presidency of the United States at stake, a small band of hand-picked loyalists, numbering no more than 10, could not contain the lie. Yet we are asked to believe that a small group of men and women conspired to lie about the resurrection. They couldn’t have done it, says Colson. Someone would have talked. (Charles W. Colson)

4. If the story of the empty tomb were some kind of lie then we would never expect that women would be the first people to see and testify to the empty tomb (Matthew 28:7).

Luke 24:10-11 (NASB95)
10 Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.
11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.

5. The co-conspirators are portrayed in a very bad light!

a. The disciples run away (Matthew 26:47-56).

b. Peter denies Jesus three times (Matthew 26:69-75).

B. About ten years ago, a limestone ossuary (bone box) was found in the warehouse of the Israel Antiquities. Engraved on the box was the Hebrew, “Jesus, son of Joseph.”

C. Another explanation for the empty tomb is that the women went to the wrong tomb. Problems with this view:

1. The women who went and found the tomb empty were also present at the tomb when the body of Jesus was buried (Matthew 27:60-61).

2. If the women and disciples went to the wrong tomb then the enemies of Christianity certainly would have gone to the right tomb and displayed the body of Jesus!

D. The Jews of Jesus’ day said the body was stolen (Matthew 28:11-15). Problems with this view:

1. See objections to the conspiracy theory above.

2. If the body had been stolen, the linen wrappings would have been left on (John 20:3-8; cf. John 11:44).

3. How could the soldiers know what happened to the body of Jesus if they were sleeping? (Matthew 28:13)

4. The testimony of the guards is interesting because it actually gives credibility to the Christian account for the empty tomb.

a. Both Christians and Jews in the 1^st century agreed that the guards were somehow incapacitated.

b. It is common in the Scriptures when a person is in the presence of God or supernatural beings that they become as if they are dead (Daniel 10:4-9).

E. Others say the tomb of Jesus was empty because He swooned on the cross. He was not resurrected but resuscitated.

Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear, thrust between his right rib, probably perforated not only the right lung but also the pericardium and heart and thereby ensured his death. Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge. [William D. Edwards, MD; Wesley J. Gabel, MDiv; Floyd E. Hosmer, MS, AMI; “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ”; Journal of the American Medical Association 21 March 1986; Volume 255, 1463]

F. Others say that Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and probably thrown in a dump or shallow grave where it was eaten by animals.

CONCLUSION: The best credible historical explanation for the empty tomb is that Jesus rose again from the dead just as He said He would.

Historical investigation, I propose, brings us to the point where we must say that the tomb previously housing a thoroughly dead Jesus was empty, and that his followers saw and met someone they were convinced was this same Jesus, bodily alive though in a new, transformed fashion. The empty tomb on the one hand and the convincing appearances of Jesus on the other are the two conclusions the historian must draw…as far as I am concerned, the historian may and must say that all other explanations for why Christianity arose, and why it took the shape it did, are far less convincing as historical explanations than the one the early Christians themselves offer: that Jesus really did rise from the dead on Easter morning, leaving an empty tomb behind him.

N.T. Wright, “Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins”

The two things we must be regarded as historically secure when we talk about the first Easter are the emptiness of the tomb and the meetings with the risen Jesus (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God p.686).

QUESTIONS FOR SABBATH DISCUSSION & MEDITATION

Pray that God would enable you and give you the desire to be conformed to His Word as read and preached today.

How important is the empty tomb to Christianity?

Can you think of any Old Testament prophecies about the resurrection of Jesus?

What are some of the explanations unbelievers have given for the empty tomb? Can you think of any not mentioned in the sermon?

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

Dr. Gary R. Gromacki, “The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ” (Part I) Journal of Ministry and Theology 6:1 (Spring 02)

__________________, “The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part II)” Journal of Ministry and Theology 6:2 (Fall 02)

Stewart, Robert B. The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan And N.T. Wright in Dialogue, 2006

N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003