Proof That Jesus Paid The Price For Your Sins

If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 1 Corinthians 15:14

Growing up in a family of skeptics, when it came to Christianity’s greatest claim, the resurrection of Jesus, I had serious doubts. I was skeptical about stories claiming that a dead man had come back to life.

I was skeptical about claims that the tomb was actually empty on the first Easter morning. I was skeptical that accounts were credible of people who claimed to have encountered a Christ who was risen from the dead. I was impressed by the sincerity of Christians who believed he rose from the dead, but I was convinced they were sincerely misguided.

The following detail replaced my skepticism with confident faith.

A Brief History

In AD 66, the Jews, outraged that the Roman governor Florus had been stealing from the temple in Jerusalem, rebelled against the Roman Empire. Led by guerilla captains such as Simon bar Giora, whom some thought could be the Messiah, they defeated the Roman garrison in Jerusalem. When the Roman governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, sent in reinforcements, they were defeated as well. Tens of thousands joined the rebel army. It seemed God would finally deliver Israel from the Roman occupation.

Four years later, however, Jerusalem lay in ruins following a several-month siege. The temple was destroyed. As many as one million Jews died or were carried off into slavery during the Great Revolt against Rome. The revolution was crushed. Simon bar Giora and other rebels were taken to Rome, where they were paraded in front of crowds and then put to death.

Now suppose, says New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, that a few followers of Simon, hiding from the Roman army, went around saying that Simon really was the Messiah. Then suppose that, despite all the evidence, they claimed that Simon, and not the Roman emperor, was lord of the whole world. Anyone who heard them would think they had lost their minds. Wright observes, “The verdict of madness, of a kind of criminal lunacy which turns reality upside down and inside out, seems inevitable.”[1]

Yet that is exactly what the followers of Jesus did. After Jesus was crucified, his followers began preaching that he was the Messiah—which is the same meaning as Christ from the Greek—the Lord of the world, and the Son of God. But instead of calling them mad, thousands of people believed the disciples.

Why? Because the disciples claimed that Jesus had risen from the dead. They testified that they had been to Jesus’ tomb and saw it was empty. Jesus had appeared to them, walked with them, and even eaten with them. Then he had sent them out to tell the whole world that he was the Son of God.

Wright argued in The Resurrection of the Son of God that without this claim that Jesus rose from the dead, there is no Christianity. Either the disciples were telling the truth, or they were mad. For nearly 2,000 years, the testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ has forced people to choose one of these two alternatives.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have held the position that there is plenty of evidence to convince rational, unbiased people that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead.

Eyewitness Testimonies

One early Christian statement about the resurrection is found in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth in which he repeats an early creed (a “statement of faith”) of the church:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)

In his book The Case for Christ, news journalist Lee Strobel interviewed New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg, who pointed out that Paul was converted and met Ananias and some other disciples in Damascus within about two years of the resurrection. And, he met with Peter and the other apostles in Jerusalem within about five years of the resurrection. Paul heard testimony from eyewitnesses who summarized their faith using this statement—Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected. That means, modern scholars who argue that the resurrection was a myth invented decades after Jesus’ death are ignoring this crucial piece of evidence.[2]

• Paul himself wrote to the church in Corinth that the resurrection of Jesus did not happen in secret (1 Corinthians 15).
• Jesus was seen by large numbers of people in different locations, at different times, and in different circumstances over a 40-day period.
• Most of the people who saw Jesus were still alive when Paul was writing, so his testimony could be verified.

The Accuracy of the New Testament

A New Testament scholar at the University of Manchester, F.F. Bruce, wrote, “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”[3]

As an example, although the earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written more than four hundred years after his death, historians still regard them to be generally trustworthy. The earliest accounts of Jesus’ life, by comparison, were likely written within thirty years of his death. “Historically speaking, especially compared with Alexander the Great,” Blomberg states, “that’s like a news flash.”[4]

Apologist and author Josh McDowell spent years trying to disprove the New Testament, but finally accepted it as historically accurate—in part because so many ancient copies of it exist. “If one discards the Bible as being unreliable,” he wrote, “then one must discard almost all literature of antiquity.”[5]

The Alternative Theories Don’t Hold Up

For nearly 2,000 years, skeptics have come up with ways to explain away the resurrection and the empty tomb. But under close examination, not one of these alternatives holds up.

Alternative 1: Jesus Did Not Really Die

This alternative speculates that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross. Instead, shock from the loss of blood during the crucifixion and from the beating Jesus endured earlier sent him into a coma. When Jesus was placed in the tomb, the coolness of the stone and the aroma of the burial spices revived him. When he came out of the grave, the disciples assumed he had been resurrected.

When examined closely, this theory falls apart. First, the Romans crucified thousands of people. As the film The Passion of the Christ illustrates, Roman soldiers were brutal, efficient, and merciless when it came to crucifixion. They would not be fooled by a coma caused by loss of blood. They had a vested interest in making sure Jesus was dead.

The account of Jesus’ death in the Gospel of John included this detail: a Roman soldier thrust a spear into Jesus’ side, and a gush of water and blood came out (John 19:34). Modern medicine explains this detail: the spear pierced the pericardium, the covering of the heart. When a person dies, the pericardium fills with a clear fluid. The spear went through the pericardium and into the heart, causing a flow of water and blood.

Alternative 2: The Stolen Body Theory

This alternative argues that the disciples, or someone else, stole the body.

But who had the means and the motive to steal the body? Not the Romans or the Jewish authorities—they wanted Jesus dead. Had they taken the body, they could have produced it and then snuffed out the Christian church in its infancy. Even the disciples seemed to be unlikely suspects. They would have been little match for the Roman guards at the tomb. Also, they had little to gain by lying about the missing body. Put yourself in their shoes: “OK, we’re going to steal the body. And then we’re going to lie and claim the body was resurrected. Then, we’re going to have the unspeakable privilege of living as penniless evangelists, wandering around for the rest of our lives being beaten, thrown in jail, and put to death.” (Anyone want to sign up?)

According to tradition, all the disciples except John were put to death, many by crucifixion, for testifying that Jesus had risen from the grave. People will die for their faith if they believe that its claims are true. But people will not die for their faith if they know that its claims are false.

Alternative 3: The Wrong Tomb Theory

Another popular theory contends that the women, distraught and overcome by grief, missed their way in the darkness of the early morning and went to the wrong tomb. In their distress, they imagined Christ had risen, since the tomb was empty.

This theory, however, fails before the same fact that eliminates the previous one. If the women went to the wrong tomb, why didn’t the Jewish religious leaders go to the right tomb and produce the body? Furthermore, it is inconceivable that all of Jesus’ followers would succumb to the same mistake. And certainly, the owner of the tomb, Joseph of Arimathea, would have solved the problem. In addition, it must be remembered that this was a private burial ground, not a public cemetery. There was no other tomb nearby that would have allowed them to make this mistake.

Alternative 4: The Hallucination Theory

This theory argues that the disciples wanted to see Jesus so badly that they imagined he rose from the grave. In essence, they had a hallucination in which they saw Jesus.

This theory, however, also fails under scrutiny. For one, hallucinations are not group events. A psychologist has noted that 500 different people having the same hallucination at the exact same time would be a greater miracle than the resurrection itself.

My prayer for you as a pastor or leader is that many former skeptics will become believers through God’s power in your Easter service this year.

This is an excerpt from Ray Johnston’s book This Changes Everything.

Ray Johnston is the founding pastor of Bayside Church in Granite Bay, California, (www.BaysideOnline.com) which has grown into several campuses. To help develop pastors and young leaders, and to help plant churches, Ps Ray founded Thriving Churches International which hosts always-sold-out conferences for pastors and church leaders (www.ThriveConference.org). The next is May 1-2, 2025.

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[1] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 558-59.
[2] Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 43-44.
[3] F .F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 10.
[4] Strobel, The Case for Christ, 40-42.
[5] Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 68.