1. The resurrection of Jesus is the keystone of Christian faith, the central stay on which the structure rests. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." What a glorious hope for all mankind would lie in such a fact as that one, a fellow-man, had been killed because of his supernatural claims; had lain for a time in the grave, and on the third day, as predicted by himself, had risen from the dead! So marvellous an instance of nature-controlling power might well be held to establish, in the most conclusive manner, the validity of the claims of the person resuscitated; it would show that God was with him in an especial manner, that his words were true, that his promises would not fail.
2. What, then, are the evidences of this so glorious an event?
(a.) The four gospels agree in narrating that, while Jesus hung lifeless on the cross, a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, himself a disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and obtained permission to take charge of the body; that he laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out of a rock; that certain women saw where the body was laid, and that a great stone was rolled to the door of the tomb.
(b.) Matthew alone avers that, with Pilate's consent, the chief priests and Pharisees had the stone sealed, and a watch (of Roman soldiers) set.
(c.) Thus the tomb remained from the evening of the day of the crucifixion over the next day, the Jewish sabbath.
(d.) But early on the morning of the following day, the first day of the week, Jesus arose from the dead. Of this event—so entirely the reverse of all human experience, but of the last importance to each mortal man if it happened—the witnesses, of whose personal character among their neighbours for veracity and general trustworthiness nothing is known, thus present themselves:—
Matthew and John, eye-witnesses of the risen Jesus:
Mark, companion of Peter, an eye-witness:
Luke, companion of Paul, who had intercourse with eyewitnesses, and who himself professes to narrate the testimony of eye-witnesses (Luke i. 2):
And what they aver is analysed and compared in the following paragraphs:—