find physical proof that satisfies someone with a negative frame of mind. There
will always be a natural way to explain it away. But looking from an affirmative
perspective, we can see that there is a whole host of evidence confirming that
the Lord really did rise from the dead.
(By the way, although some internet commenters argue that Jesus was
purely mythological, the vast majority of professional Biblical scholars, even
agnostics and atheists, assert that Jesus actually existed, so I’m assuming that
to be true in presenting the further evidence for His resurrection.)
There are hundreds of eyewitness accounts at the time of people
independently seeing the risen Lord. There is the empty tomb. There is the
assertion from Christians throughout the centuries that they have had a
meaningful relationship with Him, and that they have experienced His Spirit
in them2.
All of those things can be explained away, but they can also confirm the
truth once we have experienced it ourselves in the reality of coming to know the
Lord in our hearts and our minds. And we come to know Him by speaking
to Him, listening to Him, obeying Him, acting from Him to love others, and
loving Him.
Once we have done this we turn to the worldly evidence, which only
serves to confirm and expand what we already know to be true.
The Rev. Coleman S. Glenn became the assistant pastor of
the New Church Westville in Durban, South Africa, on July 1,
where he lives with his wife Anne Grace (Hurd) and their infant
son, Samuel. Prior to that he had served as pastor to the Dawson
Creek New Church in British Columbia, Canada. He maintains
a blog at www.patheos.com/blogs/goodandtruth. Contact:
[email protected]
Footnotes
1. The Doctrine of the New Church does state that those who have been ignorant of the Lord Jesus
Christ and yet have lived lives of charity in accordance with whatever religion they have will be
saved; but this is because they joyfully accept the Lord when they hear about Him. Those who
already know about Him and reject Him cannot enter heaven because He is what makes heaven to
be heaven; rejecting Him is rejecting heaven.
2. If you’re interested in looking into this further there are several books that take a positive view
of the historical evidence for the Lord’s resurrection, e.g. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New
Historiographical Approach by Michael R. Licona .
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