He Is Risen - Infallible Proofs

As the first light approaches on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and possibly Salome make their way to the tomb. They have come to anoint the body of the Lord Jesus with spices. The earthquake has already come and gone; the stone is rolled away.

The tomb is empty. Angels within announce the most important fact in human history: He is not here, for He is risen, as He said. The women depart with fear and great joy, commissioned to tell the disciples. At this stage the group is together and the Lord Jesus has not yet appeared to anyone.

Mary Magdalene separates from the group of women and runs to find Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, John. Her report reflects what she understood at that moment: "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him" (John 20:2). She does not yet know He is risen.

Peter and John race to the tomb. John arrives first, stoops down, and sees the linen wrappings lying there. He waits. Peter enters and inspects carefully - the linen wrappings lying in place, the napkin that had been around the Lord's head folded and lying apart by itself. Then John enters and sees, and believes. Peter departs amazed. Neither yet fully understands the Scripture that He must rise from the dead.

Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb after alerting Peter and John. She stands outside weeping. Stooping to look in, she sees two angels in white sitting where the body of the Lord had lain - one at the head, one at the feet. They ask why she weeps. She answers: "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."

She turns and sees the Lord Jesus standing - but does not know it is He. He asks why she weeps, and who she is seeking. Supposing Him to be the gardener, she asks where He has laid the body. Then He speaks her name: "Mary." In an instant she knows Him. "Rabboni!" - Teacher. She reaches for Him. He commissions her: "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God."

Mark 16:9 explicitly states He "appeared first to Mary Magdalene." She becomes the first herald of the resurrection.

As the other women depart from the tomb to carry the angel's message to the disciples, the Lord Jesus meets them. His greeting is immediate and gracious: "All hail" - chairete, rejoice. They come to Him and take hold of His feet and worship Him. The contact with His physical feet underscores the bodily reality of the resurrection.

He repeats the angelic commission with His own authority: "Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me." The Galilean appointment is established - it will be fulfilled in Appearances 9 and 10.

No narrative details of this appearance are preserved in the Gospels - no words spoken, no location given, no description of the encounter. Yet its occurrence is one of the most firmly attested facts of the resurrection record. When the two Emmaus disciples return to Jerusalem and find the Eleven gathered, they are met with the declaration: "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon" (Luke 24:34).

The appearance to Peter had therefore already occurred before the Emmaus disciples arrived. Paul confirms it in the creedal summary of 1 Corinthians 15:5, listing "Cephas" first among the male witnesses - the leading apostle receiving the first personal appearance among the men. The encounter, though private, was the talk of the gathered disciples when the Emmaus two returned that evening.

The silence of Scripture about what passed between the Lord and Peter in this meeting is itself eloquent. The restoration of Peter - who had denied Him three times - was apparently so personal, so sacred, that the Spirit of God withheld the details entirely.

Two disciples - one named Cleopas, one unnamed - journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, about seven miles. Their conversation is heavy with grief and dashed hope. As they walk, Jesus Himself draws near and goes with them - but their eyes are holden so that they do not recognise Him.

He draws out their grief, then rebukes their slowness of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Then, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounds the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. Their hearts burn within them as He speaks, though they do not yet know who He is.

At Emmaus, they constrain Him to remain with them. At supper, He takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives to them - and their eyes are opened and they know Him. He vanishes. Immediately they return the seven miles to Jerusalem to tell the Eleven, who report that the Lord has already appeared to Simon.

That same evening, the disciples are gathered behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. The Emmaus disciples have just arrived with their report. Then Jesus stands in their midst - entering through shut doors - and speaks: "Peace be unto you." They are terrified, supposing they see a spirit.

He addresses their fear directly: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." He shows them His hands and His side. He eats a piece of broiled fish before them. Then He breathes on them and says, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." He commissions them: "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." Thomas is not present and does not believe the report.

Thomas had been absent from the upper room appearance. When the other ten told him, "We have seen the Lord," his response was categorical: "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Eight days later they are again gathered in a room with the doors shut. The Lord Jesus stands among them again. He turns directly to Thomas and offers exactly what Thomas had demanded: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing."

Whether Thomas actually touched Him the text does not say. What it records is his confession - the highest Christological declaration in the Gospels: "My Lord and my God." The Lord's response reaches across every subsequent generation: "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

Seven disciples have gone fishing through the night and caught nothing. At dawn, the Lord stands on the shore but is not recognised. He calls to them: "Cast the net on the right side of the ship." They cast, and the net fills with 153 great fish - yet the net is not broken. John perceives it first: "It is the Lord." Peter throws on his coat, leaps into the sea, and makes for shore.

The Lord has a fire of coals prepared with fish and bread already cooking. He feeds them breakfast. Then He turns to Simon Peter - the man who had denied Him three times around a fire of coals (John 18:18) - and asks him three times: "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" Three affirmations answer the three denials. "Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep." Peter is restored and recommissioned.

The eleven disciples travel to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them (Matt. 28:16). When they see Him they worship - but some doubt. The risen Lord speaks the most sweeping commission in the Scriptures:

"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

The universal scope of authority grounds the universal scope of the commission. Mark's parallel account adds signs that will follow: casting out devils, new tongues, protection from serpents and poison, healing the sick.

Paul's creedal summary in 1 Corinthians 15 records an appearance to above five hundred brethren at one time - the single largest gathering of resurrection witnesses in any account. Paul adds a pointed evidentiary note: "of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep." At the time of writing, the majority of those five hundred were still alive and could be questioned.

No narrative account of this appearance exists in the Gospels. The Galilean setting - where the Lord had directed His disciples (Matt. 28:10; Mark 16:7) and where the great commission appearance took place - is the most natural location for such a gathering of brethren.

Paul records in the creedal summary that the risen Lord was seen of James (1 Cor. 15:7) - most naturally James the Lord's brother, who became a leading elder of the Jerusalem church (Gal. 1:19; 2:9; Acts 15:13). Like the appearance to Peter, no narrative details are preserved: no words spoken, no location given, no description of the encounter.

What makes this appearance remarkable is the backdrop. During the Lord's earthly ministry, "neither did his brethren believe in him" (John 7:5). James was among those who thought Jesus had taken leave of His senses (Mark 3:21). Yet by Acts 1:14, James and the Lord's brethren are among those gathered in prayer in the upper room before Pentecost. Something transformed him - and the resurrection appearance to James is the only adequate explanation.

Acts 1:3 provides the overarching summary: the risen Lord "shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." This summary covers the entirety of the post-resurrection period, but the final appearances before the ascension involve specific instructions gathered in Jerusalem.

Luke 24:44-49 records the Lord opening their understanding that all the Scriptures - the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms - had been fulfilled in Him, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. He commands them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father.

Acts 1:4-8 records Him specifically charging them: "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

Forty days after His resurrection, the Lord leads His disciples out as far as Bethany on the Mount of Olives. He lifts up His hands and blesses them. And while He blesses them, He is parted from them - taken up, and a cloud receives Him out of their sight. They stand gazing into heaven. Two men in white apparel appear beside them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

The disciples return to Jerusalem with great joy and are continually in the temple praising and blessing God. The same hands that were pierced with nails had just lifted in blessing over His own. The same body that had died and risen had now ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high - ever living to make intercession (Heb. 7:25).

Mark's compressed summary seals it: "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God."