Bible Stories

The New Testament nowhere describes how Jesus was raised to life from the grave. The risen Jesus appeared to a number of people at different times — on one occasion to 500 people at once — but not to everybody. Not even the guards at the tomb saw him risen. What terrified them was seeing angels at the empty tomb.

The Gospel accounts show signs of the disciples’ complete surprise at what happened. They describe different parts of an inexplicable course of events. And so they vary from one another — over such things as the names and number of the women who came to the tomb, the number of angels they met. These variations make the resurrection more believable, not less. If Jesus‘ resurrection were a concocted story, the Gospel writers would have been most anxious to provide us with identical versions.

Modern psychological studies on courtroom witnesses show that eyewitnesses often give different versions of what they saw, particularly if it was completely outside their normal experience. The accounts of the resurrection are all in agreement about the principal features. All tell us that the tomb was empty and that Jesus physically appeared to the disciples.

So why did Jesus not appear to the masses? Would that not have convinced more people and won them over to the new faith?

If we look at Jesus‘ strategy during his ministry we meet this same phenomenon. He often told people not to speak about the miracles they had seen him perform. It seems that Jesus wanted to prevent people misunderstanding who he was and what he was doing. He wanted them to follow him for the right reasons. So he gave the apostles special teaching on who he was and what he had come to do. In the same way, the apostles were charged with the task of witnessing both to the truth and to the significance of Jesus‘ resurrection.

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