The Truth of Christianity / Being an Examination of the More Important Arguments For and Against Believing in That Religion

by W. H. Turton

And first as to their motives, had they any interest in asserting that Christ rose from the dead unless they really believed it? Clearly they had not, for they were so few or so faint-hearted that they could not prevent their Master being crucified. What chance was there then of persuading the world that He had risen from the dead, and why should they have embarked on such a hopeless scheme? Nothing indeed but the most firm conviction of their Lord's Resurrection, and therefore of supernatural assistance, would ever have induced men to have ventured on it. If they believed the Resurrection to be true, then, and only then, would they have had any motive whatever for preaching it.

Next as to their conduct, did this show that they really believed what they preached? And here also the evidence is overwhelming. When their Master was crucified His followers were naturally filled with gloom and despair; but in a few days this was changed to intense joy and confidence. They preached the Resurrection in the very place where He was crucified, and boldly went forth to convert the world in His name. It is clear that before such a marvellous change could take place they must at least have thought they had, what St. Luke asserts they actually did have, many proofs of the Resurrection.[313] To them, at all events, the evidence must have seemed conclusive, or Christianity would have perished on Calvary.

[313] Acts 1. 3.

Lastly as to their sufferings. This is the most important point, since voluntary suffering in any form, but especially in its extreme form of martyrdom, seems conclusive as to a man's veracity. Persons do not suffer for what they believe to be false; they must have believed it to be true, though this does not of course prove that it actually was true. And here is the answer to the common objection, that since all religions have had their martyrs, this kind of evidence proves nothing. On the contrary, it does prove something, though it does not prove everything. It does not prove that what the man died for was true, but it does prove that he believed it to be true. It is therefore a conclusive test as to his veracity.

What evidence have we, then, that the first witnesses suffered for the truth of what they preached? And once more the evidence is complete and overwhelming, both from the Acts and St. Paul's Epistles. We need only refer to these latter, as their genuineness is undisputed. St. Paul then, in one place, gives a list of the actual sufferings he had undergone; he alludes to them in numerous other places, and often as if they were the common experience of all Christians at the time; and in one passage he expressly includes the other Apostles with himself in the long list of sufferings he describes. While he elsewhere declares that at a still earlier time, before his conversion, he himself persecuted the Christians beyond measure.[314]

[314] 2 Cor. 11. 24-27; Rom. 8. 35; 1 Cor. 4. 9-13; Gal. 1. 13.

There can thus be no doubt as to the continual sufferings of the first witnesses, and, as just said, it is a decisive proof of their veracity. We conclude therefore that when they asserted that Christ rose from the dead, they were asserting what they honestly believed whether rightly or wrongly, to be true. And as this belief was due, simply to the witnesses believing that they saw Christ alive after His death; we must further conclude that they honestly believed in the appearances of Christ as recorded by themselves, and their friends, in the New Testament. In other words, these accounts are not intentionally false.

So much for the veracity of the witnesses. It is not, as a rule, denied by modern opponents of the Resurrection; but in early times, when men ought to have known best, it was evidently thought to be the only alternative. St. Paul declares emphatically that unless Christ had risen, he and the other Apostles were false witnesses, in plain words liars.[315] That was the only choice. They were either saying what they knew to be true, or what they knew to be false. And the idea of there being some mistake about it, due to visions, or swoons, or anything else, never seems to have occurred to anyone.

[315] 1 Cor. 15. 15.