When the apostle Paul stood atop Mars Hill in Athens, Greece to present the truth of the One True God to pagan philosophers, he used several rhetorical methods. Acts 17 reports the content of Paul’s presentation on that occasion. Modern apologists (those who argue for God’s existence) could identify elements of the cosmological and moral arguments for the existence of God in that presentation.
Paul closed out his speech with an allusion to Jesus’ resurrection. The allusion is no accident. In fact, one could argue that all Paul had to say was leading up to his statement, “of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). While the Athenians had trouble accepting the resurrection, the reality of the resurrection has become one of the most cited proofs for the existence of the God of the Bible.
Apologist Josh McDowell cites numerous facts surrounding the resurrection that support its historicity. If the resurrection is true, then it verifies Jesus’ claims. If Jesus’ claims are true, then God exists. Here are just two of the facts McDowell cites:
An empty tomb. The disciples of Christ did not go off to Athens or Rome to preach that Christ was raised from the dead. Rather, they went right back to the city of Jerusalem, where, if what they were teaching was false, the falsity would be evident. The empty tomb was “too notorious to be denied.” The resurrection “could have not been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact for all concerned.”
The large stone moved. “On that Sunday morning the first thing that impressed the people who approached the tomb was the unusual position of the one-and-a-half to two-ton stone that had been lodged in front of the doorway. All the Gospel writers mention it. Those who observed the stone after the resurrection describe its position as having been rolled up a slope away not just from the entrance of the tomb, but from the entire massive sepulcher. It was in such a position that it looked as if it had been picked up and carried away. If the disciples had wanted to come in, tiptoe around the sleeping guards, and then roll the stone over and steal Jesus’ body, how could they have done that without the guards’ awareness?”
This is but a sampling of the proofs surrounding the resurrection. These and many more make the resurrection impossible to ignore and a great reason to believe God exists.
Clay Leonard
