Historical Evidence of Jesus' Resurrection: Martyrdom

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel Podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

This is the eighth episode in the series where we are exploring the historical

evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

Today's evidence will discuss the historical deaths of three of Jesus' apostles.

These deaths are important because the apostles were in a unique position to

know if Jesus truly rose from the dead, if they taught his resurrection and

carried this message to their martyrdoms,

what does that say historically about Jesus' resurrection?

Thanks for joining us today.

So as we continue on looking at the historical evidences of the resurrection

of Jesus, we have two more times to gather together.

And tonight our focus is going to be on what the eyewitnesses went through because

of their proclamation that Jesus rose from the dead.

And the main emphasis here is on whether or not they would go through the things

that they went through if they knew that they were spreading a lie.

And as we go through the evidences that we have of what they went through,

it becomes very, very clear that they did not go through this knowing that they

were spreading a falsehood about the resurrection of Jesus and what they saw.

Which leaves us at the end with two

options Either they're telling the truth And that

they did have concrete examples

And eyewitness testimony of Jesus rising from the dead Or they really believed

they did even though they didn't And that's really what we will come to We can

see through the evidence that we have today That these eyewitnesses did not in fact.

And so we're going to begin with something that Paul wrote about his endurance

and what he went through in trying to spread the gospel to so many people around

the Mediterranean basin in the first century.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he's defending his right as a proclaimer of the

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

gospel, especially to the Corinthian church.

And so he's comparing himself to other people who are coming in and trying to

get in the notion that they are the people that the Corinthians should be listening

to as authorities in Christ.

And in his defense about being an authority over the church in Corinth,

this is what Paul writes.

Verses 2 Corinthians 11 verses 23 to 27. Are they servants of Christ?

2 Corinthians 11:23–27

I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more.

I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without

number, and faced death again and again.

Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me 39 lashes.

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.

I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers.

I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles.

I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas.

And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.

I have worked hard and long enduring many sleepless nights.

I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food.

I have shivered in the cold without enough clothing to keep me warm.

And so Paul has gone through all of these things.

Being stoned, being beaten with a rod, being left for dead. He was shipwrecked.

He took 39 lashes multiple times.

All of these things. He consistently faced shivering in the cold because he

didn't have the proper clothing.

He was out there exposed to the elements all the time, and he was going through this trying time.

It was really difficult for him, and we have to ask ourselves if he would continue

to go through this if he knew it was a lie.

Because remember, Paul had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road

to Damascus. He was somebody who came face to face with Jesus.

Now, was he mistaken?

What did he really have this experience or was he completely making mistakes?

From this list of what he has faced, I don't think we can conclude that he was lying at all.

And Lee Strobel, as he wrote The Case for Christ, he wrote these words.

While most people can only have faith that their beliefs were.

The disciples were in a position to know without a doubt whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead.

They claimed that they saw him, talked with him, and ate with him.

If they weren't absolutely certain, they wouldn't have allowed themselves to

be tortured to death for proclaiming that the resurrection had happened.

So as Paul wrote those words in 2 Corinthians 11, he had faced many trials and

persecutions, but we will see later on that there was another one that he had to endure,

and that was execution at the hands of the Romans.

And so, according to Lee Strobel, it doesn't make sense unless they were completely

convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead,

that they would subject themselves to what they went through.

Then we have J.P. Moreland, a professor of philosophy and ethics,

who said these words, and this is a lengthy quote.

When Jesus was crucified, his followers were discouraged and depressed.

They no longer had confidence that Jesus had been sent by God because they believed

anyone crucified was accursed by God.

They also had been taught that God would not let his Messiah suffer death.

So they dispersed.

The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks.

Then after a short period of time, we see them abandoning their occupations.

Regathering and committing themselves to spreading a very specific message that

Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God, who died on a cross, returned to life,

and was seen alive by them.

And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this without

any payoff from a human point of view.

It was not as though there were a mansion awaiting them on the Mediterranean.

They faced a life of hardship.

They often went without food, slept exposed to the elements,

were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned, and finally, most of them were executed in torturous ways.

For what? For good intentions?

No, because they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had seen

Jesus alive from the dead.

What you can't explain is how this particular group of men came up with this

particular belief without having had an experience of the resurrected Christ.

There's no other adequate explanation.

And so when we process through all that they endured, all that they went through,

all that was coming upon them from Satan and this world, as they were going

through all of these trials,

the one thing that remained constant was their confession that Jesus was alive

and to endure all of this for the people who would have known.

This was the group of people, Matthew, and then you had John who wrote gospels and circulated,

You had people who would have seen him as they were coming together in the upper room.

They would have experienced this.

These are the people who would know for sure. And if they knew for sure that

they saw the resurrected Jesus.

Enduring all of this pain and suffering is the only way that that makes sense

because you would not subject yourself to this if you knew it was a lie.

And so we're going to take a look the rest of the time together at the evidence

that we have, historically speaking, about what these men went through as followers of Jesus.

And we're going to start with the biblical evidence, and

we're going to start with the transformation from being hiding after Jesus's

death and to being boldly put in front of so many people who were able to persecute them,

who were able to harm them and see this transformation as it unfolds biblically.

And then what the Bible says about two particular individuals who had this faith in Jesus.

So the biblical evidence we're going to present starts in Mark 14, verse 15.

Mark 14:15

This is in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is arrested.

And Mark records here, So Judas came with a group of soldiers,

and they came and they arrested Jesus.

They experienced Peter cutting off Malchus's ear and Jesus putting it back on

and then willingly giving him over to the Roman authorities.

And what did they do? Were they there? Were they willing to go with him?

No, they deserted him. They fled. They ran away from him.

When Jesus rose from the dead, we have two points of interest in John that says

that they are still confused. They are still bewildered.

They're still hiding in themselves from other people.

And John 20, 19, John records that Sunday evening, that's Easter Sunday,

the resurrection day, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because

they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.

So we have them being behind locked doors because of their fear of what the

religious leaders are going to do.

And then the rest of that verse says, suddenly Jesus was standing there among

them. Peace be with you, he said.

And so as they are fretting, as they have already heard the news that the tomb

is empty, they've heard reports from the women.

Peter and John went and ran and looked at it to see if the reports were true.

And then we had started coming these stories from the other disciples that Jesus

was in fact alive and had appeared to them,

but they were still behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.

Just a few verses later, we have the same thing happening, but this time a week later.

In John 20, 26, we read, eight days later, the disciples were together again,

and this time Thomas was with them.

The doors were locked, but suddenly as before, Jesus was standing among them.

Peace be with you, he said.

And again, they've had a week to digest this. They've had.

They've had encounters with Jesus. In that John 20, 19, right after that,

it says that Jesus appears to them and talks with them. He eats a broiled fish.

They have this encounter, but they're still fearful enough to lock the doors

because they are still afraid at that moment.

And so this This is what they encounter in this time.

We have the fear of being arrested. And so they leave and desert Jesus.

We have the fear of the religious leaders and being behind locked doors.

And this is the legacy that the disciples are leaving at this moment.

They are fearful. They are scared and they don't know what to do with this information.

And a drastic thing happens between when Jesus appears to them and after the

Holy Spirit comes upon them, Jesus has ascended into heaven.

We have a dramatic change in the disciples.

And that's what we see in Acts chapter 5, verses 40 to 41.

Acts 5:40–41

This is after a couple of people have been healed publicly in Jesus's names through the disciples.

And so this is what Peter and John are in front of the religious leaders.

And Gamaliel has spoken and said, hey, if we just let this transpire,

we're going to see whether or not it's from God or not. If it's from God, it's going to continue.

And if we persecute it or not, it's going to continue.

But if it's not from God, no matter what we do, it's going to fail because human

effort is not going to keep this momentum going.

And so that's where we pick it up in Acts 5, verses 40 to 41.

Acts 5:40–41

The others, the others in the council accepted Gamaliel's advice.

They called in the apostles and had them flogged.

Then they ordered them never again to speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go.

The apostles left the high council, rejoicing that God had counted them worthy

to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.

And so at this moment, once Jesus has ascended into heaven, once they've really

wrestled with the issue of a dead man coming back to life, they have started to get encouragement.

They have to get a fearlessness about them where it doesn't matter if you beat

us because we know the truth and that truth is that Jesus is alive.

And so this is a remarkable change from hiding behind locked doors,

from deserting Jesus to being joyful for the beating that they have received.

Because of the name of Jesus. And so this then leans us into two different accounts

in the book of Acts of followers of Jesus giving their life for the name of Jesus.

The first guy that we encounter is a guy by the name of Stephen.

Now, one of the things I want to note about this is that Stephen is not an apostle. He's not a disciple.

He is actually a Greek-speaking Jew who came to faith because of the disciples'

testimony. He is just a follower of Jesus.

He's not really someone who has encountered the risen Jesus.

But this is what the testimony of the disciples and the evidence that Stephen

saw upon the disciples that spurred him on to this.

So in Acts 7, starting in verse 55, we read, But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit,

gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God.

And he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God's right hand.

And he told them, Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing

in the place of honor at God's right hand.

Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting.

They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

He fell to his knees shouting, Lord, don't charge them with this sin.

And with that, he died. And so what happens here is Stephen was in front of the religious leaders.

He gave this really long speech about how the Israelites were stubborn,

hard-hearted, and what God had done in their lives in previous times.

They didn't believe in that moment.

And so he comes upon them and he says to them, I see Jesus standing at God's right hand.

And this, like he had a vision of heaven, he saw Jesus there,

he saw the resurrected Son of Man standing by the Father, and this they could not take anymore.

They dragged him out and they began to stone him.

And so they, he truly believed that Jesus was alive.

And they, he knew based on the apostles' teachings that this wasn't it.

And so he was not fearful. He was saying what needed to be said.

He was giving this testimony to them.

And so I found a description of what stoning looked like in the 100s from a Jewish source,

but it's probably very similar to what Stephen went through about 70 to 100

years before this encounter.

So this is from the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, and it says this,

Stoning was the biblical penalty for blasphemy and some other crimes,

but Rome prohibited executions without the governor's permission.

Both Jewish and Gentile texts from antiquity, however, reveal that mobs often stone people to death.

If the mob here followed anything like the ideal procedure in some second century Jewish traditions.

Stephen would be thrown from a height, and those above him would hurl large

stones so it would require both hands over their heads, aiming for his chest,

though precision was unlikely.

This witness, the witness, the one who brought the charges against him would

be the one who would strike first.

And so this is what Stephen endured in this moment. More than likely,

this is what Stephen endured.

And it would have been easy for him not to say what he said about seeing Jesus

sitting at the right hand of God. It would have been easy for him to not even say any of that.

And if he was fearful in this moment, he could have not said anything.

But he was continually saying that Jesus was alive. He was continually believing

in Jesus as the Messiah and that he had risen from the dead and that he endured.

That's how he endured this.

And so again, this is not a disciple of Jesus who saw him as a resurrected person,

but it is someone who saw the evidence in the first century and believed the disciples, apostles'

testimony of the resurrection of Jesus.

But there is in the Bible about a story of one of the disciples of Jesus who

would have been in that locked room,

who would have had encounters with the resurrected Jesus, who was also killed

for his belief in this resurrection.

And this is from Acts 12, verses 1 and 2.

Acts 12:1

It says, About that time, King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church.

He had the apostle James, John's brother, killed with a sword.

So James here is one of the sons of Zebedee, the sons of thunder that Jesus named them that.

He was in the inner circle of Jesus.

And what happens is that King Herod Agrippa sees that he is.

Spreading the word of Jesus's resurrection.

And he becomes concerned about what that's doing to his rule and reign.

And he started to persecute some believers and also had James executed with a sword.

According to the archeological study Bible, being put to death with a sword

implies being beheaded like John the Baptist was beheaded.

And so that's what James endured.

And again, this is the first, the only example that we have in the Bible itself

of a follower of Jesus going to his death because of his belief.

Now, remember, these verses say that Herod began to persecute believers in the

church. It was because they were following after Jesus.

It was because they had this belief in the resurrection that they were persecuted

and ultimately for James while he was beheaded.

And so that's the evidence from the Bible that we have.

The historical evidences are that the disciples had a drastic change from the

time that they saw Jesus being arrested to the time that after Jesus rose and

ascended into heaven and the Holy Spirit came,

that they were bold and were thanking God for their persecution,

for their suffering for the name of Jesus.

And then it leads us to the first apostle who was executed for his faith.

This is James, the son of Zebedee, John's brother.

But we also have historical evidence outside of the Bible.

And these historical evidences prove more and more that the disciples of Jesus

endured a lot because of their belief in Jesus.

So the first one we're going to talk about is James, and we touched on him last week.

James is the half-brother of Jesus. More than likely, he is the son of Mary

and Joseph, while Jesus is the son of Mary and the Holy Spirit.

And so he is a half-brother. They have the same mom, but not the same dad.

And he became a leader of the Jerusalem church in Acts 15. It's known as the Jerusalem council.

This is where they said the Gentile population does not have to become a Jewish

follower of God before they become a Christian, before they can follow Jesus.

They just handed some rules down about what they should do.

And so it was at that council that James was the leader. And James,

who we saw last week, was against Jesus during Jesus's earthly life.

But when he came to faith in, when Jesus resurrected, he had appeared to James

and he became this follower of Jesus.

So his Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, wrote in 92 to 94 what is called the Antiquities.

And there were 20 different books of these antiquities that he wrote.

And in his last one, this is what he wrote to give us evidence that James was

actually executed for his faith in Jesus.

So he wrote, and this is in book 20,

verse 200, I believe it is, because high priest Anonis was of this persuasion,

he considered he had a fitting opportunity since Festus had died and Albinus was still on his way.

He assembled the Sanhedrin of judges and bringing before them the brother of

Jesus, who was called Christ,

whose name was James, and certain others, he made an accusation against them

as breakers of the law and delivered them over to be stoned.

And so when Anonis, the high priest, had this interlude in between the governor

Festus, who was mentioned in the book of Acts during Paul's imprisonment.

And the one who takes his place, Albinus, while there was no Roman governor

in that area at that time, he called together the Sanhedrin,

brought before them James, and had him and certain others executed.

And so we definitely know, based on this non-biblical text, that James,

the half-brother of Jesus, was executed for his faith in Christ.

And this is proof that, again, what the Bible was saying and reiterating was

true, that they endured so much because of their belief in the resurrection of Jesus.

We then have evidence of Peter, the disciple and the apostle of Jesus.

And this comes from another first century document.

That's one written about 96 AD from a guy by the name of Clement of Rome.

And in his fifth chapter, in his letter to the Corinthians, Clement of Rome writes these words.

But do not dwell upon ancient examples. Let us come to the most recent spiritual

heroes. Let us talk the noble examples furnished in our own generation.

Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars of the church

have been persecuted and put to death.

Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles.

Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors,

and when he had at length suffered martyrdom,

departed to the place of glory due to him.

So Clement of Rome is saying the people in our generation, this is who we're talking about.

These are people that we knew. These are people that taught us.

These are people where we saw the fruits of the Spirit in them.

Just like Peter, who endured multiple labors, suffered martyrdom.

He was executed for his faith in Jesus.

And again, this goes back to the point, would all of these people,

would James, would Peter, would Stephen.

Would all of the disciples, all of the persecution that was coming their way,

would they endure all of these things for a lie?

It's not just one or two who gave their life.

It is a great multitude of them who more than likely died a martyr's death.

The next one that Clement of Rome is going to mention is Paul.

But just going back to Peter momentarily, in the Archaeological Study Bible,

it also says that Peter, according to strong tradition,

died about AD 64 to 68 under Emperor Nero.

And this, again, strong tradition means that it's really early eyewitness accounts.

So Clement of Rome being in the same generation as Peter is the one who knows

that this happened. It is a strong tradition. It is good historical evidence for us.

Moving on to Paul, we have Clement then saying, after he talked about Paul,

again, this is in chapter 5 of his epistle to the Corinthian church,

he says this, Owing to envy,

Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance after being seven times thrown

into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned.

After preaching both in the East and West, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith,

having taught righteousness to the whole world and come to the extreme limit

of the West and suffered martyrdom under the prefects.

Thus was he removed from the world and went into the holy place,

having provided himself a striking example of patience.

So again, it clearly says here that Paul endured the suffering of martyrdom.

He not only went through being shipwrecked, beaten with a rod,

stoned and left for dead, and all those other things he had mentioned,

but he also gave his life.

And remember, he saw the resurrected Jesus. And this is what.

Encouraged him to follow through with this, knowing that this,

because Jesus was resurrected, that this world is not the end.

He had the endurance. He had the strength.

He had the faith because he had that encounter with Jesus to trust that God

had something else in store for him.

So in the book, The Cradle, The Cross, and The Crown, Andreas Kostenberger writes this about Paul.

According to church tradition, Paul was arrested again and subjected to a harsher imprisonment.

He was condemned by the emperor Nero and beheaded with the sword at the third

milestone on the Ostian Way at a place called Aquasalve,

and lies buried on the site covered by the Basilica of St.

Paul outside the walls. His execution probably occurred in 66 or 67, and that's AD.

And so again, the tradition that we have going all the way back to the first

century, going back to the generation that Paul and Peter were a part of.

Attests to their faith, their belief, their trust in their experiences that

Jesus did actually resurrect from the dead and that he was still alive.

And that led them to be willing to give up their lives for him.

So those are the strongest pieces of evidence that we have for the followers

of Jesus who would have seen him and also gave their lives for him.

And again, we have to ask ourselves, would they give up their lives if they knew it was a lie?

Would they willingly do that? And it leads to an important distinction about

how to handle situations where

people today or even in the past would give up their lives for a cause.

So J.P. Moreland addresses this with specifically Muslims who are willing to give up their life.

So this is what he says in regards to that.

Muslims might be willing to die for their belief that Allah revealed himself to Muhammad,

but this revelation was not done in a publicly observable way,

so they could be wrong about it.

They may sincerely think it's true, but they can't know for a fact because they

didn't witness it themselves.

However, the apostles were willing to die for something they had seen with their

own eyes and touched with their own hands.

They were in a unique position not to just believe Jesus rose from the dead, but to know for sure.

And when you've got 11 credible people with no ulterior motives,

with nothing to gain and a lot to lose, who all agree they observe something with their own eyes.

Now you've got some difficulty explaining.

Away. So the revelation of Allah to Muhammad, as I understand it,

happened in a cave when it was just Muhammad in there.

And so other people could sincerely believe that that is true,

that it is something that they would take to their graves, that they would die

for, but they couldn't possibly know that because it was just a singular person's experience.

But when we get to the disciples, it was attested to by multiple people.

1 Corinthians 15 tells us more than 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus at one time.

And it was someone they could touch with their own hands, that they could see with their own eyes.

They had an incredible position of being able to see the risen Jesus.

To hear him, to see him eat food.

They had this unbelievable moment in history that spurred them on because they

would have known for sure if it was a lie, if they were making it up.

And so this is the historical evidence that we have to look upon,

to see, to believe their testimony.

We don't have to believe the testimony of just one person. We believe all of

their testimonies that they saw the resurrected Jesus.

So Sean McDowell, who is the author of a book called The Fate of the Apostles, he said this.

Now, my premise never has been that the death of the apostles or their willingness

to die proves that Christianity is true or the resurrection happened.

My argument is that their willingness to suffer and die helps show they're not liars.

They're not inventing a story to put themselves in harm's way.

They really believed this.

And that's what we take from this, historically speaking.

We take from this that they truly thought they had experienced the resurrected Jesus.

There are some theories that say they could have experienced this in some sort

of mass hallucination or something like that,

but that is exceedingly rare, and it only happens under the influence of some

sort of substance, a mass hallucination like that.

And so it is not likely that that has happened.

But the evidence points clearly to show that they are not liars,

they're not inventing the story, and they really believed that they saw Jesus alive.

And to me, that encourages us today.

As I've been mentioning all throughout this series, we're building a house.

We are putting up a framework from which we can take a step of faith in.

It's not a leap of faith to believe that Jesus rose from the dead based upon the evidence we have.

It is simply another step of faith that God is asking us.

And so, this is a very strong evidence for me about the reliability of the resurrection

of Jesus and how it was an actual event in human history.

Thank you again for joining us in our discussion on what the deaths of James,

Peter, and Paul show us about the historical reliability of the resurrection.

Since the disciples would have known if Jesus really rose from the dead,

their actions and teachings after being threatened show us that they believed

Jesus was alive after his death.

In the next episode, we will conclude our study in the historical evidence of Jesus'

resurrection by looking at how the actions of the early church,

such as changing dietary laws and changing Sabbath day worship,

among others, show evidence of Jesus'

resurrection. Have a great week.