Reasons to believe, John 20:19-31, April 12th, 2026

Father, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts conform to Your will and purpose.  Amen.

Reasons to Believe:

• Synagogue in Nazareth
• 53 Names from OT
• Pool of Siloam – blind man
• 353 prophecies fulfilled
• Actual fragments of the Gospel of Mark – 1st c. AD! (Smithsonian)
• Fragments of the Gospel of John – 1st c. or early 2nd c. AD! (Ryland)
• Bone box of Caiaphas and possibly of James
• Tablet with Pontius Pilate’s name on it
• Dead Sea Scrolls

1. He Lived
2. He Died
3. The Roman Army
4. The Empty Tomb
5. The Criterion of Embarrassment

He Lived:

Compared to Alexander the Great      Died in 330 B.C. – 1st biography?  350 years later          

Early, Eyewitness accounts

Mark +40, Matthew +50, Luke +55, John +65; Paul: 1 Cor. 15:3-?   From 2-3 years after the crucifixion.

Josephus –Paraphrased: “about this time there was a wise man called Jesus and his conduct was good and he was know to be virtuous; many people among the Jews and the other nations (Gentiles) became his disciples.  Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die, but those who had become his disciples did not abandon their discipleship, they reported that 3 days later he arose from the tomb alive.  Accordingly, he could have possibly been the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have reported wonders and the tribe called the Christians, so named after him, have not disappear up to the present day.

Pliny the Younger (Governor of Asia Minor): “What do I do about these Christians? They are in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day …they sing hymns to Christ, as if he were a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit  any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, etc….

Babylonian Talmud (70-200) – On the eve of the Passover Yeshu ha Notzri was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, an arrest warrant went out, “He is to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.”  Paul Maier: Jerusalem: crucified; anywhere else: stoned.

He Died

• No accounts suggest he didn’t
  • But, extensive writings on Jesus not dying
  • “Swooned”
  • Muslim Scholars
• Journal of the American Medical Association (March 1986)
  • In the setting of the scourging and crucifixion, with associated hypovolemia, hypoxemia, and perhaps an altered coagulable state, friable non-infective thrombotic vegetations could have formed on the aortic or mitral valve.
  • Interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge
• Phlegon’s Olympiades:
  • “In the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad (April 33 A.D.), there was a great eclipse of the Sun, greater than had ever been known before, for at the 6th hour the day was changed into night and the stars were seen in the heavens. An earthquake occurred in Bithynia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nicæa.” 
    
    

Mosaic of Extra-Biblical Non-Christian sources about Christ & His followers: Jesus was born and lived in Palestine. He was born, supposedly, to a virgin and had an earthly father who was a carpenter. He was a teacher who taught that through repentance and belief, all followers would become brothers and sisters. He led the Jews away from their beliefs. He was a wise man who claimed to be God and the Messiah. He had unusual magical powers and performed miraculous deeds. He healed the lame. He accurately predicted the future. He was persecuted by the Jews for what He said, betrayed by Judah Iskarioto. He was beaten with rods, forced to drink vinegar and wear a crown of thorns. He was crucified on the eve of the Passover and this crucifixion occurred under the direction of Pontius Pilate, during the time of Tiberius. On the day of His crucifixion, the sky grew dark and there was an earthquake. Afterward, He was buried in a tomb and the tomb was later found to be empty. He appeared to His disciples resurrected from the grave and showed them His wounds. These disciples then told others Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven. Jesus’ disciples and followers upheld a high moral code. One of them was named Matthai. The disciples were also persecuted for their faith but were martyred without changing their claims. They met regularly to worship Jesus, even after His death.

The Roman Army

• Expecting Barabbas
  • Matthew 27:16 – “notorious prisoner”
  • Mark 15:7 & Luke 23:19 – “took part in a riot”
  • John – ‘bandit’; Josephus’ word for “revolutionary”
  • What the Jews expected in a Messiah

• After crucifixion:
  • Chief Priests go to Pilate
  • Matthew 27: 63-66: “You have a watch” Kustodia
  • Acts 12:4: Peter has a “kustodia” 4 (16)

• Roman guards
  • To whom do they go? – Chief Priests – “sorcery took him” Matt. “guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men”
  • Chief Priests – “we can’t have that; say you fell asleep”
  • Romans guards – “Sleeping = stoning”
  • High Priests by the 1st century was a political appointment, so had political pull: “we’ll put in a good word with Pilate”

The Empty Tomb

• Easiest way for the authorities to disprove the Resurrection – produce a body!
• Seen of all the Apostles and of even up to 500
• James, brother of Jesus, a skeptic; Paul more than a skeptic
• William Lane Craig: The earliest Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body (Matt. 28.15) shows that the body was in fact missing from the tomb. The earliest Jewish response to the disciples’ proclamation, “He is risen from the dead!” was not to point to his occupied tomb and to laugh them off as fanatics, but to claim that they had taken away Jesus’ body. Thus, we have evidence of the empty tomb from the very opponents of the early Christians.
• Hallucination – visual, auditory, kinesthetic
• Christianity started at Jerusalem.

The Criterion of Embarrassment

• One first- century rabbi, Eliezer: “Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman …Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her lasciviousness. “
• “Praised be God that he has not created me a gentile; praised be God that he has not created me a woman; praised be God that he has not created me an ignorant man.”   (Paul controverted in his letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.“)
• Rabbinic saying said: ‘Four qualities are evident in women:  They are greedy at their food, eager to gossip, lazy, and jealous.’
• Revealed plainly, for the first time, that he was Messiah: woman at the well
• Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Christ = Marketing disaster!
  • First to discover the empty tomb: soldiers
• Gospel of John: For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
• Cowardice, aimlessness, dispersion, confusion, and muddle, characterized Christ’s disciples

Final word

It is not careful and compelling rationalization, deep secular analysis, or clever Bible exegesis that brings people to Christ.  It is necessary, but not sufficient.

It takes a very tiny step to meet Christ – it takes a very tiny step to meet Evil.  Anyone who has lived in the deepest sin knows that Hell on Earth is just “that close”;

Thank God, He is just that far away, too.  Not a bungee jump or tight-rope walk, – you don’t earn it by your own courage – but by answering the knock at the door of your heart.

Let us end in prayer:

Father, we thank You for the insights into Your Word and the blessing that that brings.

We pray for those who know You: that today may have been a blessing and that we may go out and witness to Your praise and glory.

We pray for those who be-lieve You but haven’t ‘re-ceived’ You: that this lesson’s fellowship may awaken embers from ash.

And finally, we pray for those who have yet to find You, that a mustard seed of faith will support them in answering: a knock, that they may have just noticed; a knock more insistent; a knock of abundant blessing and joy.

Merciful Father, accept our prayer in the name of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.