WHAT ARE THE PROOFS?

The fact of Christ’s resurrection was proclaimed by his Apostles and disciples from the beginning of their ministry, commencing on the Day of Pentecost, fifty days after the crucifixion. This fact was, as expressed by Paul, that Christ “died,” and was “buried,” and was “raised on the third day;” and by Luke that “he showed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs,” appearing unto the Apostles whom he had chosen[4], for forty days, “and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God;” and by Peter, “whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it:” and “Ye killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.”

The evidence being conclusive that such was the proclamation, how is it to be accounted for? The obvious explanation is, that the Apostles so preached because they so believed, and because such was the fact, and they had sufficient evidence of it: and this has been accepted by the church these eighteen hundred years.

How do infidels account for the preaching of the Resurrection within fifty days after the crucifixion? Some have claimed that his death was not real, and that he recovered from a swoon. This is disproved by the evidence to which we have referred[4], and, although once held by Paulus and others, has by later skeptical writers been “treated with contempt.”[5] “The whole country-side,” says Strauss,[6] “knew that he was dead.” Roman executioners made sure work. Pilate refused his consent to any removal until he had instituted an inquiry, and knew that Jesus was dead; nor is it possible to accept the hypothesis of a return from mere lethargy or trance, without destroying his moral character. This hypothesis may be put aside.

Others have claimed that the Apostles did not believe what they preached. To accept this view we must conclude that, without motive and against every motive, and “amidst sufferings the most grievous to flesh and blood, they persevered in a conspiracy to cheat the world into piety, honesty and benevolence.” Conscience and common sense revolt against such a theory, and it shares the fate of the other. It has, says Professor Milligan,[7] “been abandoned by every inquirer to whom a moment’s attention is due.”

The final refuge of most infidel writers, is the theory of visions. By this they mean that the appearances of our Lord were either optical illusions, or mere hallucinations.

Some, like Dr. Hooykaas[8] in Holland, and Judge Waite[8] in this country, claim that the doctrine preached was not that Christ’s body was raised up, but that his spirit came back from Hades, or the place of departed spirits. We have before[9] shown that such a conception is an entire perversion of the language of Paul, as well as of the Evangelists. And Mr. Hooykaas’ argument that we are never told that Jesus rose “from death,” far less “from the grave,” but always “from the dead,” does not agree with the record; and if it did, the inference would be unwarrantable. When the angel said to the woman, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? he is not here but is risen,” they were not looking for him in Hades! Peter, in the passage from which we have quoted, distinguishes between Hades and the grave, for he says, that David, “foreseeing, spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus did God raise up.”

Now, by what evidence is the theory of visions or optical illusions to be tested? By the whole evidence? By suppressing a part, and changing the rest? Judicial fairness requires that the whole be considered, just as it comes to us, reconciling such parts as may be reconciled, and adopting the more probable view in case of any seeming contradictions, if there are any. Yet those who deny the resurrection adopt a course that could not be tolerated in any judge or jury, or secular historian. They suppress, or supply, as best suits their theory.

Thus some of them assume that there were no appearances at Jerusalem, although the contrary is plain in all the Evangelists. Even Mark, whom Strauss treats as giving the oldest tradition, represents the women as going to the sepulchre. This implies that they were at Jerusalem, if the sepulchre was at Jerusalem. Were they there alone? Mark, in saying that “the disciples left Jesus when he was arrested, and fled,” does not say that they fled from Jerusalem. On the contrary, he, in the same chapter, speaks of Peter as following Jesus afar off, and then denying him. And so in the Fourth Gospel, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is said to have been so near to the cross, that Jesus could say unto him “Behold thy mother!” They would not leave Jerusalem till the end of the Feast. This continued one week, the first day and the last being “an holy convocation.” Although they fled at first, they rallied; and they did not leave Jerusalem till they had conformed to the requirements of the law. Mark also, in giving the direction, “Go tell his disciples and Peter,” “He goeth before you into Galilee,” implies that they had not yet gone into Galilee.

They also assume that the Apostles believed because of Mary Magdalene’s faith. This is pure fiction. Peter and John knew that the tomb was empty, before the appearance to Mary Magdalene. Matthew does not mention her statement that she had seen the Lord, nor John the reception which she had. Mark[10] says that they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, “disbelieved;” and Luke[11] (referring to all the women) says that their words “appeared in their sight as idle talk, and they disbelieved them.” There is not the slightest allusion to Mary Magdalene, or to the company of women, in the Acts of the Apostles, or either of the Epistles. How idle, then, is Renan’s boast,[12] that “the glory of the Resurrection belongs to Mary of Magdala.” Indeed it might appear to us that there should have been some reference to her. The explanation, probably, is twofold: Among the Greeks,[13] women were not competent witnesses; and Paul and the Apostles rested their faith upon appearances to Apostles, either alone or in company with others, they being the constituted witnesses. When one was to be substituted for Judas, Peter[14] said that the choice must be made from those “which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received up from us; of these must one become a witness with us of his resurrection.” And Paul makes no reference to the journey to Emmaus.

They also assume that the Apostles were in a state of mind conducive to misleading fancies. The reverse of this is true. It must, however, be conceded that the idea of a restoration to life of one who had been dead was not strange to them; for three[15] such instances were recorded in their Scriptures, and they had witnessed three miracles of the kind. But these were in respect to persons who, after they were raised up, lived and died as other men; and they were brought to life by some visible agency, as by a prophet in the name of the Lord, or Jesus by his own word. The resurrection which the disciples came to believe was, on the contrary, to a temporary sojourning with them, and then an ascension before their eyes; and it was accomplished by no visible hand.

And although Jesus had predicted his death and resurrection, they could not understand the one, any more than the other, because they could not conceive how that their Messiah could suffer death at the hands of his enemies. The evidence upon this point is most conclusive; and its scope was admirably put by Gilbert West,[16] four generations ago. “This, therefore, being their settled notion of the Messiah, can we wonder their former faith in him should be extinguished, when they saw him suffering, crucified, and dying, and, instead of saving others, not able to save himself? To prepare them for these events he had indeed most circumstantially foretold[17] his own sufferings, death, and resurrection; but the Apostles themselves assure us that they did not understand those predictions till some time after their accomplishment; and they made this confession at a time when they were as sensible of their former dullness, and undoubtedly as much amazed at it as they now pretend to be who object to it against them; so that their veracity upon this point is not to be questioned.... They had conceived great expectations from the persuasion that he was the Christ of God; but these were all vanished; their promised deliverer, their expected king, was dead and buried, and no one left to call him from the grave as he did Lazarus. With his life, they might presume, ended his power of working miracles; and death, perhaps, was an enemy he could not subdue, since it was apparent he could not escape it, and hence their despair.”

And hence we say, when the third day was ushered in there was no one of all his disciples at the sepulchre to welcome him. Those who loved him most, came but to embalm his body. Mary Magdalene beheld not her risen Saviour, but an empty tomb; and her hurried tidings were not that he is risen, but, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him.” When Jesus even speaks to her, she at first supposes him to be the gardener, and says, “If thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” Peter and John beheld no vision, but only “the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but rolled up in a place by itself.” The other women do not see Jesus until after they have found that the sepulchre is empty, and have been told by the angels, “He is risen, even as he said: Come see the place where[18] the Lord lay.” The two disciples, some hours after, had heard, not that he had been seen, but that certain women who were early at the tomb found not his body, and were told by angels that he was alive; and that the absence of the body had been confirmed by those of their company who visited the tomb. And finally, the Apostles, instead of expecting to see him, refused to believe upon the testimony of the women, and were only convinced by the evidence of their own senses.

[1] Taylor on the Gospel Miracles (1881), p. 17.

[2] Id., p. 25.

[3] “We do not say a miracle is impossible; we say there has been no instance, up to this time, of a proved miracle.”—Renan’s Life of Jesus, etc., p. 57.

“What I insist on is, that a miracle cannot be established by human testimony.”—Ingersoll, North American Review for November, 1881, p. 514. The skeptical author of Supernatural Religion in defending himself against the criticism that upon his theory his historical argument is unnecessary, in his preface to the sixth edition, says: “The preliminary affirmation is not that miracles are impossible, but that they are antecedently incredible. The counter allegation is that although miracles may be antecedently incredible, they nevertheless actually took place. It is, therefore, necessary, not only to establish the antecedent incredibility, but to examine the validity of the allegation that certain miracles occurred, and this involves the historical inquiry into the evidence for the Gospels. Indeed many will not acknowledge the case to be complete until other witnesses are questioned. This would leave the question of Christ’s Resurrection to be determined as a matter of evidence; and of course evidence enough to induce a reasonable conviction would be sufficient to overcome the antecedent improbability.” But he dare not trust himself or his readers to an examination of the evidence upon this basis. For when he is pressed with the testimony of the Apostles to the Resurrection, and is compelled to concede their honesty, he says (p. 1050), “The belief that a dead man rose from the dead and appeared to several persons alive is at once disposed of upon abstract grounds.” That is, his pretended examination of the evidence is a sham, and when he cannot meet it, it is at once disposed of “upon abstract grounds!”

[4] See chap. xvii. pp. 101-2, ante, [pp. 101, 102].

[5] Milligan on the Resurrection of Our Lord, p. 76; Strauss, Vol. II., pp. 846-866.

[6] The Old Faith and the New (1875), p. 80.

[7] On the Resurrection, etc., p. 80.

[8] The Bible for Learners, Vol. III., p. 464; Waite’s History, etc., p. 26.

[9] See chap. xv, p. 85, ante, [p. 85].

[10] Mark xvi. 11.

[11] Luke xxiv. 11.

[12] The Apostles, by Ernest Renan (1866), p. 61.

[13] Adams’ Roman Antiquities, p. 284; Condition of Women, by L. Maria Child, Vol. II., p. 3.

[14] Acts i. 15, 21, 22.

[15] 1 Kings xvii.; 2 Kings iv.; 2 Kings xiii. 21; Matthew ix.; Luke vii.; John xi.; Hebrews xi. 35.

[16] Gilbert West on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Boston, 1834 (first published in England in 1747), p. 67.

[17] See chap. xvi, p. 89, ante, [p. 89].

[18] “The cerements were there, but the body was gone. Whither? Had it been stolen and hidden? Who would have been the thieves? Friends or foes? Not friends; for how could their faith be made heroic for their crusade against the world’s unbelief by a theft and a carcase? Not foes; for it was their interest to prevent the disappearance of the body, that there might be ocular demonstration of the falsity of the predicted resurrection. The fact of the actual resurrection of our Lord is a rock-of-ages that never can be moved.”—Commentary on Mark, by James Morrison, D.D. (1882), p. 445.

CHAPTER XIX.
SUFFICIENCY OF THE PROOFS (AFFIRMATIVE EVIDENCE).

Holding, then, the objectors to the historical record, and keeping in mind that the question is narrowed down to the hypothesis of visions on the one hand, or to a true resurrection on the other, what evidence had the Apostles and immediate disciples that they were not deceived?

First and foremost, they had the empty tomb. They knew[1] that the body was neither left on the cross, in violation of the Jewish law, nor thrown to the “dust-heap,” in violation of the Roman law which required a delivery to the friends as soon as claimed, but was placed in the sepulchre, as attested by all the Evangelists, as also by Paul. They knew that they had not taken it away, and that if the Jews had, they would have been but too ready to produce it when, only a few days after, it was boldly proclaimed, that that Jesus whom they had crucified, God had raised from the dead. It was the absence of the body that first arrested the attention of the women, and also of Peter and John, and which, with the orderly arrangement of the grave clothes, induced a conviction of the truth in the mind of John, before Jesus appeared to any, and sent Peter to his home “wondering.” And these same facts (the good faith of the disciples themselves being undoubted), can never be explained, in any rational way, otherwise than by the fact of the Resurrection. There is a great truth in Professor Keim’s expression[2] that: “It is upon an empty tomb that the Christian Church is founded.”

They had further proof, in subsequent appearances to individuals singly, to the collective body of Apostles, and to the multitude of believers, under circumstances that satisfied them, and should convince us, that they were not deceived.

There are several things to be considered, in determining whether they were deceived. First, in respect to time. There were no appearances till after the fact that the tomb was empty was fully understood, nor till some hours after. This lapse of time has been overlooked by most writers; and, from want of attention to it, inconsistencies as to occurrences at the sepulchre, as to the number and appearance of angels, the companies of women, the persons composing them, the messages received and carried, and the appearances to them, of our risen Lord, have been imagined, that are easily explained, upon the very natural hypothesis of several transactions of like character during the six hours or more[3] which elapsed before the journey to Emmaus. At that time no one had seen the Lord; for it cannot be doubted that his appearance would be reported as soon as possible after its occurrence. When Jesus joined the two disciples, their eyes were “holden,” until in a long discourse he had prepared them for a revelation of himself. Peter must have meditated some hours upon the absence of the body, before Jesus showed himself to him. It was not till after this, and after the return of the disciples from Emmaus, that he said to the others, “Peace be unto you.” Then a whole week, before he returns. Then, probably after a longer interval (for they returned to Galilee), he shows himself at the Sea of Tiberias. Then, after some days, to above five hundred brethren, at a place to which they had been directed to go by the angels, and by Jesus both before and after his resurrection. Then to James. And then at Jerusalem to the Apostles, whom he led out over against Bethany; and while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

In all this, we see how they were prepared to exercise a sober and intelligent judgment, so that neither they, nor we, should be in doubt whether what they beheld was their risen Lord, or a phantom of their own imagination.

And will any one tell us, right here, what better proof Jesus could have given his disciples, of his Resurrection? If the evidence was sufficient for them, it may be sufficient for us, unless we are prepared to say that the miracle shall be repeated whenever it is challenged! Was it essential to a reasonable conviction on their part that the Scribes and Pharisees should also be convinced? (Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, were convinced.) It must be admitted that the disciples, of all others, were qualified to judge, if any persons could be qualified. What force could the belief of the Sanhedrim have added to the testimony of their own senses?

Assume, as a hypothesis, the reality of Christ’s resurrection, we again ask, What proof of it should have been given his disciples that was not given? They had the same kind of proof, during forty days, that they had before his crucifixion. He walked with them, talked with them, instructed them, ate before them, and with them (Acts. x. 41), called things to their remembrance, opened to them the Scriptures, and gave them their great commission to disciple all nations; and, to preclude all questioning, said, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.” And to Thomas, eight days after, he said, “Reach hither thy finger and see my hands; and reach thy hand and put it into my side: and be not faithless but believing.”

We do not accept Origen’s[4] view that Jesus after his resurrection and before his ascension “existed in a body intermediate, as it were, between the grossness of that which he had before his suffering and the appearance of a soul uncovered by such a body,” although it now has the support of able writers. The general[5] sentiment of the Church from the beginning has been against it. It is not warranted by the record, and it involves more mysteries and difficulties than it escapes. We fully agree with Judge Waite[6] that, according to the Canonical Gospels, “The very body in which Jesus was crucified, and which was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, is raised from the dead, appears to the disciples, is not only seen but felt, and Jesus himself, in the flesh, as he was before he was crucified, calls for fish to eat to satisfy his disciples that he was not a spirit; that his body was not spiritual, but material and human like theirs;” and also with a very different man (Mr. Barnes), who, with his usual good sense, says: “It was necessary first to establish the proof of his resurrection, and that could be done only by his appearing as he was when he died;” and also with Drs. McClintock and Strong in their invaluable Cyclopedia, that: “According to the Scriptures the disciples were assured by the testimony of their own senses that the body of Christ after his resurrection was the same identical body of human flesh and bones which had been crucified and laid in the sepulchre.” (Vol. VIII., A.D. 1879.) Peter’s testimony (as recorded in Acts x. 41) that Jesus after he was raised up was made manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before of God, even to us “who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead,” seems just as decisive as the Canonical Gospels. And so of John’s testimony (1 John i. 1), “that which we beheld, and our hands handled.”

Our Lord was in the tomb less than thirty-six hours, and his flesh “did not see corruption.” His body, apparently, was as human as that of Lazarus after he was raised. The criticism that it is not said that there was blood seems frivolous, for there could be no living flesh or bones without blood-vessels and blood. Although for the time he forbade Mary Magdalene to touch, or rather to detain him, he permitted the other women to take hold of his feet, and directed the Apostles to handle him. Mary Magdalene saw him as a man, and supposed him to be the gardener, until he called her by name. The two disciples conversed with him as a man; and that they did not know him was only because their eyes were “holden.” His sudden disappearance after the repast, and equally sudden appearance in the midst of the Apostles, at most present no greater difficulties than his transfiguration, his walking upon the sea, his passing through his enemies when they were about to throw him down the cliff (all before his crucifixion), or the opening of the prison doors to two of the Apostles. The doors, even if bolted and barred, may have opened as to Peter, or those present may have been so preoccupied that a perfectly natural but silent withdrawal in the one case, and entrance in the other, were simply unnoticed.

As the man Christ Jesus, he rose from the dead, and angels, as porters, having rolled away the stone, he came forth in visible human form, and with the same body that was crucified. He would have been seen by his disciples, if they had been “watching and waiting” for him, and by the guard, if they had not become “as dead men;” perhaps in order that they might not behold him, for he had said, “Yet a little while and the world beholdeth me no more.” (John xiv. 19.)

As the man Christ Jesus, he showed himself to his disciples forty days; and then, with a body, until then, of flesh and blood, as human as that of Elijah, before he was taken up, ascended into the heavens.

Thus, in his rising from the dead, and in the change at his ascension, he typified both the dead who shall be raised, and the living who shall be “changed.”

And any conception of him as less corporeal from his resurrection to his ascension than before, does not conform to the record, and, by so much as it makes him less corporeal and tangible, it impairs the force of the evidence.

Each one of the Apostles had as much evidence that Jesus was alive after his crucifixion, as he had that Peter or John or Thomas was alive, and evidence of just as high a character. And this proof by facts addressed to their own intelligence and bodily senses of sight, and hearing, and feeling, was continued forty days. There is no conflict in the evidence on this point.

Every lawyer knows that omission is not contradiction. Even when witnesses profess to give the whole, it rarely or never happens that some will not state something which others omit, and not unfrequently a witness is called to testify to a part only, and does not undertake to give the whole.

This is the precise truth in respect to the Evangelists. Not one of them professes to state all that occurred after the crucifixion, or all the instances of our Lord’s appearing to his disciples. Each writes for the particular object he has in view. And there is a great liability to mistake, if one forgets that it is true in narratives in respect to transactions subsequent to the crucifixion, as well as before, that there is often a passing from one event to another with nothing to indicate but that they were immediately connected in point of time, when, in fact, there was a considerable interval between them.[A]

Of the ten specified instances of his appearing, Matthew speaks of two, Mark of three, Luke of three, John of four, and Paul of five, or seven;[7] but neither contradicts the other, nor Luke’s statement in his subsequent “treatise,” that Jesus showed himself alive after his passion “forty days, and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God.”

The instances were sufficiently numerous, the time long enough, and the acts tangible enough, to afford as undoubted proof as that which they had of the existence and bodily presence of each other. Peter might as well have doubted the denial of which he had so bitterly repented, as to have doubted that it was his Master who said unto him the third time, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?” and all of them might as well have doubted that they had ever listened to his teaching, as to have doubted the commission which they received from him.

The evidence that was personal to themselves we cannot have. We know they had it, and were capable of judging concerning it, and we can see that it was of a character that might be justly deemed conclusive.

There is, besides, much that is common to us with them. The judgment was not of one but of many, and not from a single appearance to one of their number, but from many appearances to different persons, at various times, and under circumstances most favorable to a true apprehension, usually in open day; and it would be passing strange if each and all were deceived by their own senses.

These appearances were never repeated after the ascension. None of the disciples under any excitement ever again saw their Lord as the man Christ Jesus walking the earth as before; or saw him coming to the earth, although they all believed that he would speedily return in like manner as they beheld him going into heaven. Stephen saw him not upon the earth, but “standing on the right hand of God.” Paul saw him, and “was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts xxvi. 19). John saw him, in vision, not only as “the Son of Man” in glorious array, but as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” and also as a “Lamb standing as though it had been slain,” in the “midst of the throne” (Revelation i. 12-20, and v. 5-8).

Their subsequent experience is consistent, if they had been dealing with realities. But if all their interviews during those forty days were a delusion, and the ascension a delusion, it is wholly inexplicable that their imagination or senses never played them false afterward. They believed that he would soon return, just as strongly as they believed that he had ascended, and yet they never saw him returning, or as having returned.

If delusions created the faith, how much more should the faith multiply the delusions, and such appearances (as Godet[8] has well put it) “go on increasing as the square of the belief itself.” Yet at the very time when they should have multiplied, if they were not real, they ceased altogether!

We have, as the disciples had, our Lord’s predictions[9] of his death and resurrection (for the two events were generally referred to in the same discourse), and the prophecies concerning him.

The greatest obstacle to their acceptance of his resurrection was their inability to comprehend his death if he were indeed the true Messiah. And hence we find that Jesus in the walk to Emmaus, opens to the disciples the Scriptures concerning himself, and says, “Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory?” We may well suppose that with other prophecies, he interpreted to them what Daniel had said (c. ix. 26) that “after three score and two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself;” and that wonderful chapter in Isaiah (the fifty-third) so descriptive of his passion, that it seems “as if written at the foot of the cross;” and all the sacrifices for fifteen hundred years; and that it was not possible “that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins;” and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so was the Son of Man “lifted up.” And so to the Apostles he explained the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day.” (Luke xxiv. 45, 46). He reminds them what he had said, that all things must needs be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning himself (Luke xxiv. 44). The angels say to the women, “Tell his disciples and Peter he goeth before you into Galilee, and there shall ye see him as he said unto you” (Mark xvi. 7); and also, “Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again” (Luke xxiv. 6, 7). And we find that when the disciples understood the mystery of his death, they joyfully accepted the proofs of his resurrection; and Peter, who had said, “Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall never be unto thee” (Matthew xvi. 23), on the day of Pentecost could explain that Jesus (whom God had “raised up, having loosed the pangs of death”), was delivered up to be crucified and slain “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”; and that David spake of his resurrection. (Acts ii. 22-31.)

Not only do the prophecies point to his resurrection, but as already[9] shown, Jesus himself foretold it as well as the manner and circumstances of his death; and it is more rational to accept it, than to believe that such an One as is portrayed in the Gospels was either false or mistaken. “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” has found none to accept the challenge in eighteen hundred years! On the contrary, as Dr. Taylor has said,[10] “Before the portraiture which the Evangelists have painted, men of every age have stood in rooted admiration.” And as J. S. Mill concedes,[11] “It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical: for none of his disciples or their proselytes were capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to him, or imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels.”

His resurrection was a moral necessity from his own character as delineated in the Gospels, even our enemies themselves being judges. His could not have been “the richest of human lives,” as declared by Hooykaas,[12] nor his utterances “the most beautiful moral teaching that humanity has received,” as avowed by Renan, if his power to lay down his life and “to take it again” were at the best a mere delusion.

His predictions of his death and resurrection, as we have before shown, are so interwoven with the entire narrative, that it is impossible to set them aside and leave anything to which we can assent as true, of all his recorded acts and words; and there is no alternative except to believe that he uttered them, or else to arbitrarily set aside the testimony of the four Evangelists, as well as that of Paul.

That the Christ of the Gospels should rise from the dead, as he said, is in the highest degree probable. Only by his resurrection could he vindicate himself from the charge of blasphemy. Without it, the cross was a gibbet, a monument of folly if not of crime. Without it, the sacrament which he instituted on the eve of his crucifixion, keeps in perpetual remembrance the falsity of his pretensions, his impotency to save himself from his enemies. Without it, the taunt of those who mocked him, “He saved others, himself he cannot save,” was merited. Without it, while one might pity him for his sufferings, we should the more sympathize with the Sanhedrim in protecting the people from a visionary enthusiast, if not a wilful impostor, and inflicting (although by irregular methods) the penalty for blasphemy expressly commanded by the Mosaic Law.

It cannot be too strongly stated that there is no middle ground. If he was what he claimed, his resurrection was already assured. If he was not what he claimed, he could not have been the exalted character eulogized by those who deny his resurrection, and before which the world bows in reverence.

If he was what he claimed, we can see a grand and all-sufficient reason why God (if there be a God) should by miracle give the highest possible authentication to his mission.

He said, “I am the light of the world;” and the world was in darkness. He said that he came forth from God, and he ought to show his credentials. He said he was the Son of God, and that he always did those things that pleased Him; which he could not do, if he set up claims destitute of foundation. He said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth, may have in him eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

The great central truths which he declared in all his teachings, were the fact of sin, the need of a Saviour, and that he is a Saviour.

If sin, as all experience testifies, is universal, always downward, and its end when finished death, the redemption of multitudes[B] of the human race from its power to holiness, and bliss, and endless progress, as “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ,” was an object worthy of divine interposition, and only an atheist should look upon such a miracle of redemption as impossible or improbable.

“’Twas great to speak a world from naught,

’Twas greater to redeem.”

Christ’s resurrection being established, the darkness over the land, the rending of the veil, the coming[13] out of the tombs, the ministry of the angels in the garden before his betrayal, and at the sepulchre, the earthquake, the rolling away of the stone, and the fear that came upon the watchers, were fitting accompaniments of the transactions which they surrounded.

Nor, if some of them are not mentioned by other historians, are they overthrown, for omission is not contradiction, in history any more than in courts. Why should Josephus, who was not born till some years after the crucifixion, and not a Christian, be expected to mention them? And as to Greek and Roman writers, even Renan[14] says that “it is not surprising that they paid little attention to a movement which was going on within a narrow space foreign to them. Christianity was lost to their vision upon the dark background of Judaism.”

And so his being seen by Stephen the first martyr, by John in the Apocalypse, and by Paul on the way to Damascus, are in harmony with the record of his resurrection and ascension, and may be said to confirm them.

Yet it may be questioned if Paul would have been so absolutely certain that Jesus (against whose followers he was breathing out threatening and slaughter) said to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” but for the previous appearances. If he would, he does not rest the case upon the one to himself. He gives the others first, and then adds, “And last of all ... to me also.” While there is a mutual support, the most solid basis for our belief is, in the incontrovertible and tangible appearances which preceded Paul’s conversion; and when John would declare the certainty of their faith, he says, “That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have beheld, and our hands handled.” (1 John i. 1).

And viewing the indubitable proofs of his resurrection, in their relation to the prophecies concerning him, the necessity for his advent, his predictions concerning himself, his character and works and teachings from his incarnation to his ascension, the lives and deaths of his Apostles, the wonderful enlargement of his little church, when the Apostles “with great power gave their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,” and its equally wonderful continuance, extension, moral influence, inspirations and hopes, they rise to the sublimity of moral certainty.

These things cannot rationally be accounted for unless there is a God, and if there is a God, as all courts of justice everywhere assume, and universal conscience declares, to refuse assent to the conclusion to which they necessarily lead,—the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,—cannot be the exercise of right reason.

Least of all should lawyers, accustomed to weigh evidence, refuse to believe upon the testimony of others. As Gibson, the great chief justice of Pennsylvania, said: “Give Christianity a common law trial; submit the evidence pro and con to an impartial jury under the direction of a competent court, and the verdict will assuredly be in its favor.”

We have not the witnesses before us; but it is every day’s practice to prove historical facts by any approved and general history, and such are our Gospels and Epistles; and they are confirmed by sacraments and institutions that continue to our times, and will continue to the end of the world.

Nor does the sufficiency of the proofs depend upon any question of the precise extent of the genuineness of the Gospels, or their exact agreement. Men accustomed to weigh evidence know that it is enough if the substance of the issue is proved, and that a literal agreement is never to be expected in honest witnesses. In all the great facts of the Resurrection, the Gospels and the Epistles concur. This has been found satisfactory to such standard authors in the legal profession as Blackstone and Kent and Story, such masters of the rules of evidence as Starkie and Greenleaf, and such giants as Lord Brougham, John Marshall, Theophilus Parsons, Jeremiah Mason and Daniel Webster, and many others both of the dead and the living, and no historical event rests on a firmer basis.

Some of its logical results will be suggested in the concluding chapter.

[1] See ante, c. 17, [p. 101], and Godet’s Defence, etc., 1881, p. 106.

[2] As quoted by Godet, p. 49.

[3] See ante, c. 17, [p. 101].

[4] Origen against Celsus, Book II., c. 42.

[5] See editor’s note to Lange’s Life of Christ; McClintock and Strong, Vol. VIII., p. 1055; Abbott’s Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, p. 804; Barnes on John xx. 21; Scott on John xx. 19.

An able article by Professor Robinson of the Union Theological Seminary, N. Y., on the Nature of Our Lord’s Resurrection-body will be found in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1845, p. 292. He thus distributes the opinions on the subject: “On this subject three different opinions have prevailed more or less at various times in the church. Some have held that the body of Christ was changed at the resurrection as to its substance, so that it was in its substance a different and spiritual body. Others have regarded the Lord as having had after the resurrection the same body as before, but glorified; or, as the earliest writers express it, changed as to its qualities and attributes. The third and larger class have supposed that the body with which Christ rose from the dead was the same natural body of flesh and blood which had been taken down from the cross and laid in the sepulchre.”

This article we had not read until after writing chapter 19, but our convictions are confirmed by his thorough discussion of the subject. He concludes that the evidence of the reality of our Lord’s human body, from the Resurrection to the Ascension, is even stronger than that for any other forty days, since Jesus was specially careful to assure his disciples of the fact.

[6] History, etc., p. 335.

[A] For example, it is an entire misconception of Luke’s Gospel to conclude from it that the ascension was the same day as the resurrection; and his account in Acts makes this certain, it being conceded that both works were by the same writer.

[7] Paul seems to have grouped appearances. We may paraphrase thus: “And that he was seen of Cephas; then of the twelve on three occasions.”

[8] Defence, etc., p. 105.

[9] See ante, c. 16, [p. 89].

[10] The Gospel Miracles, etc., p. 48.

[11] As quoted by Dr. Taylor, p. 41.

[12] The Bible, etc., p. 51; Renan, p. 135.

[B] See Rev. vii. 9-17.

[13] Those who came out of the tombs “after his resurrection,” it may be presumed, had recently deceased (for they were recognized, as it would seem), and they appeared only to those who, like Simeon and Anna the Prophetess, had been looking “for the consolation of Israel;” and not to those who had rejected him. Their coming was so overshadowed by the principal events to which it was merely an incident, that it is mentioned only by Matthew, and even he gives no information of who they were, or anything of their subsequent history.

[14] The Apostles, by Ernest Renan, p. 227.

CHAPTER XX.
LOGICAL RESULTS.

Of these we mention only the following:

First.—Since the proofs of Christ’s Resurrection are incomparably greater than those of any other miracle, and its consequences are beyond conception more glorious, it is the part of wisdom to force the issue upon it. The decisive battle of the world in respect to the miraculous in Christianity is to be fought right here, and all other engagements are mere skirmishes. It is well it is so. Christ’s Resurrection is our Gibraltar. If we cannot hold this position, we cannot hold any. But we do hold it, and with it the whole field of controversy upon the subject. Let any one who doubts or denies the reality of miracles, meet the overwhelming proofs of this the greatest of all miracles. If he cannot do it, he should yield; and it is no dishonor to be vanquished by the truth. If, after examining these proofs, he still imagines that he can overcome them, he is beyond the reach of argument.

Second.—As it is the central fact of Christianity, the keystone in the arch of the Christian Faith, those who reject it have no right to the Christian name. Strauss is so far to be commended that, when by his myths and sophistries he had brought himself to deny the one, he had the manliness not to appropriate the other. And of those of his fellows who still cling to it for its supposed advantages, he sarcastically says: “Reasons they may have, but reason they have none.” Chadwick, Hooykaas, Miln, Savage and others,[1] who talk of their “Church of the Future,” may well follow his example. If they refuse, there is as little sense as piety in a recognition, or quasi recognition, of them as ministers of the Gospel, when at the best they are only popular lecturers to mere social or literary, if not infidel clubs, that choose to be called Churches or Religious Societies. This no doubt is distasteful to those who are looking for the time when all sects shall fraternize on a common level of skepticism and indifference. But if we have any colors we should stand by them. Fidelity to truth and to the Master requires a separation uncompromising and complete from all who deny Him. It is safe to be as tolerant as Jesus and his Apostles. (See John viii. 21; 2 Corinthians vi. 14, 15; Revelation i. 4, 5; 1 Corinthians xv. 16, 17, 18; 1 John ii. 12, 23; 1 Peter i. 3, 4; 2 Peter ii. 1, 2; Revelation ii. 6; Acts v. 30-33; Acts iv. 11, 12.)

Third.—It authenticates his mission and vindicates his claims to the utmost. By it God affixed the seal of his approval, and evermore declares as by a voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.”

His teachings are no longer opinions to be accepted or rejected as they meet with our approval, but authoritative and final. They are not the speculations of sages and philosophers, either of olden or recent times, to be weighed in the balance of human reason, but everlasting truth to be received and obeyed without doubting or questioning.

Since Christ’s resurrection is assured, Webster well declared,[2] as every man in the exercise of right reason must, “I hold it my duty to believe, not what I can comprehend or account for, but what my Master teaches me.”

By this, of course, it is not intended that we are not to exercise our reason as to the genuineness of the teachings ascribed to him, or their proper meaning, or, in other words, as to textuality, inspiration, translation, and interpretation. In each of these departments there is and will be ample room for the greatest research, and the ripest scholarship. In respect to all these, is doubtless true now, as when spoken by Robinson, that, “The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word.”

But when in a teachable spirit, we know what Jesus taught, it is the end of controversy.

Fourth.—A necessary consequence from his Resurrection must be an undoubted assurance that we have the means of knowing what his teachings were, so far as they are essential to our guidance in this life and preparation for that which is to come. The very idea of a revelation is that it shall be so made known, that it can be understood, trusted in, and obeyed, by those to whom it is given, and for whom it is intended, so far at least, as shall be necessary for the regulation of their own conduct.

Beyond this, we cannot claim, as a logical result of Christ’s Resurrection, and do not now inquire. And we find that through all the years since our Lord’s ascension, while the church has had essential truth, and there has been substantial[3] agreement in different copies and versions, there have always been and still are, unsolved questions of genuineness, translation, interpretation, and inspiration. In respect to the last, Ingersoll’s demand[4] that if the writers of the Gospels were inspired there should be but one account, or, if more than one, there should be no contradiction, is unwarrantable; and his own concession proves it. “As a rule,” he says, “where several persons testify to the same transaction, while agreeing in the main points they will disagree upon many minor things, and such disagreement upon minor matters is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not agreed among themselves upon the story they should tell. These differences in statement are accounted for from the facts that all did not see alike, and that all did not have the same opportunity for seeing, and that all had not equally good memories. But when we claim that the witnesses were inspired, we admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there should be no contradiction in the minutest detail.” This is very poor logic. For although “He who inspired” did know exactly what occurred, there may have been the best of reasons for not inspiring a full record of all that occurred, or an exact record in all respects of what is recorded; and it must be presumed that such an inspiration would be given as would be most conducive to the end in view. And a like answer disposes of his confident assertion, that “one inspired record of all that happened ought to be enough.” He would have Divine wisdom sacrifice everything else for the sake of uniformity and precise accuracy in incidental and immaterial matters. In other words he would tithe “mint and anise and cummin,” at the expense of “weightier matters.” The Gospels were separately written at different times, according to the needs in the first instance of the particular classes for which they were immediately intended, and ultimately for the wants of the whole world. Each by itself was as complete and accurate as it was best it should be; and the whole taken together are as full and exact, as it is best they should be. And looking beyond the particular classes to whom they were first given, to all generations and peoples, it was of supreme importance that they should be believed; and in order to this, that they should be so written as not to carry suspicion of collusion or fabrication upon their face. Mr. Ingersoll knows that the testimony of four witnesses agreeing in the main points, while differing in minor matters, is more satisfactory than the testimony of one. If there were nothing to be counted but numbers, the evidence would be four times as strong. It is more than four times as strong. For, as Mr. Starkie says,[5] and every lawyer knows, “The credibility of testimony frequently depends upon the exercise of reason, on the effect of coincidences in testimony, which, if collusion be excluded, cannot be accounted for but upon the supposition that the testimony of concurring witnesses is true; so much so that their individual character for veracity is frequently but of secondary importance.” But to have this effect it is indispensable that collusion be excluded. And it is of vastly greater consequence that we be certain that we have (as it is conceded we have) independent accounts of the crucifixion than it is, for instance, that the inscriptions over the cross as given by the four Evangelists should precisely agree, or that either should have been the exact words that were written. In fact, while they all agree that the accusation was “The King of the Jews” (which is all that is material), no two of them agree with each other. But as Professor Greenleaf says, no greater certainty is called for. “The same[6] verbal exactness is not necessary in historians whose aim is religious instruction, as in recorders of public inscriptions.”

If but one account, there would be the absence of that personality and variety, which we now have, and more especially the want of that conclusive proof which comes from independent witnesses.

If the Gospels had been written as Mr. Ingersoll says they should have been if inspired, the objections against them, if not insurmountable, would have been tenfold stronger. And why should not Divine wisdom so inspire as to secure the best possible results? And although two of the writers were Apostles, and to the Apostles was the Holy Spirit given to teach them “all things,” and bring to their remembrance “all things” which Jesus had said unto them (John xiv. 26), this does not necessarily imply an exact transmission of all the words spoken. Regard should be had to the substance of things in this, as in other matters, and not to mere verbal accuracy, except in those rare cases in which it is important to know the precise language used.

It may safely be affirmed that there is no discrepancy in relation to any essential fact, or important doctrine or duty. And it is just this degree of certainty and accuracy, that we should expect from our Lord’s true Messiahship as proved by his Resurrection.

Fifth.—By it, we know that he had power to impart to his Apostles to whom he entrusted the establishment of his church, and to Paul whom he especially selected as an Apostle to the Gentiles, inspiration and the gift of miracles. As the Father sent him into the world, even so he sent them into the world (John xviii. 18); and what things soever they should bind, or loose, on earth, should be bound or loosed in heaven (Luke xxi. 14-16). Miracles were attestations of their Apostleship, “God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers and by gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will.” (Hebrews ii. 4.)

With the writings of John the volume of inspiration was complete. If any miracles were wrought after his time (which is questioned by many[7]), there are none sufficiently authenticated to be of any evidential value to us.

But there is in every true Church, and will be to the end of time, what is of greater importance than the working of miracles, the convicting and transforming power of the Holy Ghost; and any community, by whatever name it may be called, that has not this attestation is not a true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise of the Comforter who shall “convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment;” and “Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” are as immutable as the throne of God.

If the Gospel had been only a “civilization,” as Mr. Chadwick terms it, it had never been known outside of Judea. It is because it is the “wisdom of God, and the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,” that it has gained its marvellous victories, overturning Pagan Rome, and in these later days transforming even Madagascar, the Sandwich Islands, and the cannibals[8] of the Fiji Islands into Christian communities.

Sixth.—In our conception of Jesus as our Saviour, we should not separate his death from his resurrection and ascension. If he died for our sins, he rose again for our justification. He is now exalted as a Prince and a Saviour at the right hand of the Father, to give repentance and the remission of sins. United to him by faith, and changed into his image, our resurrection is assured by his, and because he lives we shall live also. As oft as we “eat this bread and drink this cup,” we do show forth his death till he come. “Henceforth,” (said[9] the great Apostle) “there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day, and not only to me, but also to all them that leave loved his appearing.” “And[10] the Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and he that heareth let him say, Come; and he that is athirst let him come; he that will, let him take the water of Life freely.”

[1] It is one of the marvels of sin and shows the effrontery of Satan, that Hooykaas, who is about as rank an infidel as Strauss himself, should be pastor at Rotterdam, a Doctor of Divinity, and entitle his book, which laboriously excludes everything miraculous or supernatural in relation to Jesus, “The Bible for Learners.” Mr. Chadwick, while admitting that he is not a Christian in the original sense of the word, argues against Strauss (with whom he agrees in sentiment) the right to apply the term to himself, but meaning by it only “a stream of tendency,” “freedom, progress and civilization.” “It may be,” he says, “that some of you conceive that my definition of Christianity does worse than include those who are at pains to prove themselves not Christians. It includes the dangerous classes of society; it includes the men of vice and crime. There is no doubt of it.” (See Free Religious Index for March 17, 1881, March 24, 1881, and March 31, 1881.) Mr. Miln recently preached a sermon upon “The Church of the Future,” from which he said all speculative beliefs as a condition of membership will be excluded, even the belief in a personal Deity. (See Index for February 23, 1882.) He does not believe in prayer other than communion with himself. (See New York Observer of February 23, 1882.) If Mr. Savage has not yet gone as far, he stops but little short of it.

[2] So expressed in a creed drawn up by him in 1807. (See Congregationalist of February 15, 1882.) A copy of this creed was read at the centennial anniversary of his birth (January 18, 1882) by the Congregational Church of Salisbury, New Hampshire. He joined this church on profession of faith September 13, 1807, and never removed his connection. (See New Hampshire Journal of January 28, 1882.)

[3] See chap. xiii. [p. 67], ante.

[4] In the North American Review for August, 1881, p. 118.

[5] Starkie on Evidence, Vol. II., Sec. 10, and note upon Hume.

[6] Greenleaf’s Testimony of the Evangelists, p. 478.

[7] History of God’s Church, by Enoch Pond, D.D., p. 606. And as to Judge Waite’s “many cases of resurrection from the dead, handed down in the ancient mythologies” and by heathen writers, it will be soon enough to notice them whenever there shall be a serious attempt to run a parallel between the evidence in support of them, and that which proves the resurrection of our Lord. And so of the whole swarm of lying wonders, whether found in heathen writers, the Apocryphal Gospels, or exhibited by modern conjurors or spiritualists,—senseless, frivolous, for no worthy object, and, beyond the mystery accompanying them, supported by no reasonable proof. Our Saviour told his disciples “beforehand” that “there
shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew xxiv. 24.) Paul told Timothy that “the Spirit saith expressly that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisies of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron.” (1 Timothy iv. 1, 2.) This will be strange to any modern Sadducee who believes there is “neither angel nor Spirit,” but the Christian will do well to give heed.

[8] Within the last thirty years, through the labors of English Wesleyan missionaries, there has been an entire moral renovation of cannibals, once revelling and rioting in every excess of atrocity and bestial shame. Now there are nine thousand churches and thousands of communicants, fourteen thousand schools and nearly fifty thousand scholars: and out of a population of about one hundred and twenty thousand, over one hundred thousand are reckoned as regular attendants at the churches. Cannibalism has been voluntarily abandoned, save by a single tribe, in eighty inhabited islands: idolatry has been abjured, and all traces of it swept away. And to-day a gentle and refined English woman, as Miss Gordon-Cumming in her book, At Home in Fiji, testifies, can travel these islands alone, mingling with the people, rambling through their villages, sleeping in their huts and eating at their tables, with none to molest her or make her afraid. (See Rev. Edward Abbott, in Congregationalist of February 15, 1882.)

[9] 2 Timothy iv. 8.

[10] Revelation xxii. 17.

INDEX A.
ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO SUBJECTS AND ANCIENT AUTHORS AND WRITINGS.

INDEX B.
ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO MODERN AUTHORS, EVENTS, AND WRITINGS.

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“The book would form an admirable text-book for Bible-classes or college classes, and will give solid comfort and strength to all readers who have any desire to be able to give a reason for believing.”—Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill in the Bibliotheca Sacra.

Wright. Studies in Science and Religion. By Prof. G. Frederick Wright, author of “The Logic of Christian Evidences.” 16mo. $1.50

“The chapter on inductive reasoning, with which the book opens, is as full, explanatory, and convincing as any one could wish, despite the fact it occupies only twenty-six pages.... The grand point contended for and carried is that ‘Christianity, in its appeal to historical evidence, allies itself with modern science rather than with the glittering generalities of transcendentalism,’ and that in its beginnings science has no advantage over religion in solidity of basis.”—The Leader.

“The article on Prehistoric Man, now appears for the first time. It is illustrated by a number of maps and cuts which enhance the interest of the story. The southern limit of the ice of the Glacial Epoch in North America is traced, and the connection of human implements therewith is shown.”—Oberlin Review.