The Greatest

Victory & Future

Eternal Life & Resurrection

Some people think that after this life,

or perhaps after several lives, human
souls will be ‘absorbed’ into God. But
when they try to explain what they
mean, they seem to be thinking of our
being absorbed into God as one
material thing is absorbed into
another. They say it is like a drop of
water slipping into the sea. But of
course that is the end of the drop.

If that is what happens to us, then

being absorbed is the same as ceasing
to exist. It is only the Christians who
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have any idea of how human souls can
be taken to live with God and yet
remain themselves—in fact, be very
much more themselves than they
were before.

Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead.

Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But,
according Christianity, Christ is alive.

If Jesus did rise from the dead then he

alone would have the answers to what
life is about and what is facing us after
we die.

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 Chapter 1
Our Hope is true
Eternal Life is real
Heaven is spending eternity with God.
In fact, this is why God created
mankind in the first place. God is Love
(1 John 4:8), and God is Life (John
14:6), and God created mankind so
that He could share His Love and Life
with mankind. God was not lonely
because He is self-sufficient, but He
created us to have an eternal Love
Relationship with Him. God desires
that each of us enter into this
personal relationship; but He doesn't
force us to. Since true love is only
possible when we are free to choose,
He allows us to decide whether we

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 want to establish this relationship
with Him.

God created mankind with a body,

soul, and spirit (1 Thess 5:23). Our
body is the physical form and our soul
is our inward attitudes (a mind to
know Him, emotions to love Him, and
a will to choose Him). The human
spirit is that part of man that enables
him to relate to and know God. It was
created to be dependent upon and
united with God's Spirit, and was the
means through which he enjoyed
perfect fellowship with God.

After the fall, this image was

distorted; the human nature was
wounded, weakened and damaged by
sin. Corruption, a predisposition and
a tendency to sin invaded the human
nature. It is written that Adam begot
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 a son in his own likeness, after his
image (Gen 5:3).

In other words, Adam begot a son in

his own ‘distorted’ image.

God has given dominion of the world

to Adam and due to Adam’s sin “death
entered the world” (Rom 5:12).

This corrupt and sinful human nature

that we received is sentenced to
death by God (Gen 3: 19) for “the
wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).
Thus death reined over all humanity
as St. Paul said, “Through one man sin
entered the world, and death through
sin, and thus death spread to all men,
because all sinned” (Rom 5:12).

Before Christ’s redemption that was

fulfilled on the cross, all the spirits of
the dead, whether righteous or
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 wicked, saints or sinners, were
captured by Satan and pushed into
Hades. “Sheol” in Hebrew, or “Hades”
in Greek, meaning “hellfire,”
expresses the place where the spirits
of the departed were gathered.

But when Christ died on the cross on

our behalf, He committed His human
spirit, which is uniting with His
divinity, into the hands of His Father,
since Satan was not able to capture it,
but rather He descended into Hades
immediately and released the spirits
of those righteous men, which were
captured by Satan, that had died in
the hope of the coming of the Messiah
the Savior, transferring them to the
Paradise.

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 The Resurrection of our Lord
renewed the once lost Hope in
eternal life.

Fear from death dissipated as death is

no more the end of life but the
beginning of a better one. That is why
the martyrs hurried with love and joy
to shed their blood for the sake of the
Lord in order to obtain a better
resurrection.

The physical death, or the second

death, is not an end to our existence;
rather, it is an end to certain stage… It
is the end of a painful stage in man’s
life in a world of toil and affliction. It is
also a beginning of an eternal life full
of joy for the faithful believers who
struggled for their salvation. The Lord
Christ, glory be to Him, tasted death
willingly, trampled it, and changed it
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to life. Therefore, Christianity looks to
death as victory and conquest. St.
Paul, after he spoke about death and
the resurrection of the body, says,
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”
(1Cor15:57). We believe that Christ
“has abolished death and brought life
and immortality to light through the
gospel” (2Tim1:10). Before Christ,
death was a thorn, but He destroyed
it, but even plucked it out of the
human heart “O Death, where is your
sting? O Hades, where is your
victory?” (1Cor15:55). Therefore,
death is not an end to our existence,
but it is the entrance to a more
perfect and a sublime life than that on
earth “For we know that if our earthly
house, this tent, is destroyed, we have

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 a building from God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the
heavens” (2Cor5:1).

The first page of the infinite chapter of

eternal life begins with the Glorious
Event of the Holy Resurrection of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He arrived into the
world at night, the darkness where
humanity dwelt, but arose at the
break of dawn to deliver us to the
light of the resurrection in Him. A new
dawn on the first day of a new week,
His empty tomb affirmed the angel's
proclamation, "Do not be afraid, for I
know that you seek Jesus who was
crucified. He is not here; for He is risen,
as He said. Come, see the place where
the Lord lay" (Matthew 28:5-6).
Heavenly participation at His holy
birth and heavenly participation at His

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 holy resurrection heralded
reconciliation between heaven and
earth, resonating with the greatest
heavenly joy—salvation of humanity.
Indeed, Christ is risen and has
conquered.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then his

claims are vindicated and our Christian
hope is sure; if Jesus did not rise, our
faith is futile and we fall back into
despair. (Read 1 Corinthians 15)

The belief in Jesus’ resurrection is the

foundation for Christianity.

So in the coming chapters, we are

going to go through evidences of
these two facts:

Jesus died on the cross

Jesus rose from the dead

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 Chapter 2
Proofs of the “Crucifixion of
Jesus”
Before we discuss resurrection, we
need to agree first about the most
important event in history (Crucifixion
of Jesus), simply because Crucifixion
comes before Resurrection.

The evidence for Christ's death is

greater than for that of almost any
event in the ancient world.

Jesus is a real person and was

crucified by the order of the Roman
Prefect Pontius Pilate…This is
universal assent according to the
History (not only the Bible) and both
documented this in the same century
of the event (the 1st century).

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Only the Qur’an denies it 6 centuries
later after the event. With all due
respect to Islam, the Quran was
written 6 centuries after Christ and I
prefer my historical sources to be
closer to the event.

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 A. Evidence from history
There are some facts everyone
knows:
1. All historians and scholars in the
theology schools (even the non-
believers) admit that Jesus was
crucified.
2. Qur’an is the only book that refuses
this fact (that Jesus was crucified)
600 years later after the event
itself. This raises a question to
Muslims because:
 How their holy book does
oppose history and fact proved
by official documentations as
well as witnesses?
 How does Qur’an refer to the
Bible as a true and correct Holy
book that Muslims should refer

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 to and opposes the most
important part in it?
 Is it logic that God changes a fact
after 600 years of its
occurrence? And to announce
something that is not true?

There are many non-Christian sources

that are used to study and establish
the historicity of Jesus including
Jewish historians such as Josephus,
and Roman sources such as Tacitus.
These sources are independent of
each other (e.g. Jewish sources do not
draw upon Roman sources) and when
compared to what is documented in
the Gospels and Pauline Epistles in the
Bible, we find it a lot of common facts
about the existence of Jesus and his
crucifixion.

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- An important source of evidence
about Jesus and early
Christianity can be found in the
letters of Pliny the Younger to
Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the
Roman governor of Bithynia in
Asia Minor. In one of his letters,
dated around A.D. 112, he asks
Trajan's advice about the
appropriate way to conduct legal
proceedings against those
accused of being Christians. Pliny
says that he needed to consult
the emperor about this issue
because a great multitude of
every age, class, and sex stood
accused of Christianity.

At one point in his letter, Pliny

relates some of the information

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 he has learned about these
Christians:

"They were in the habit of

meeting on a certain fixed day
before it was light, when they
sang in alternate verses a hymn
to Christ, as to a God, and bound
themselves by a solemn oath, not
to any wicked deeds, but never to
commit any fraud, theft or
adultery, never to falsify their
word, nor deny a trust when they
should be called upon to deliver it
up; after which it was their
custom to separate, and then
reassemble to partake of food –
but food of an ordinary and
innocent kind".

This passage provides us with a

number of interesting insights
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 into the beliefs and practices of
early Christians. First, we see
that Christians regularly met on
a certain fixed day for worship.
Second, their worship was
directed to Christ,
demonstrating that they firmly
believed in His divinity.

- Lucian of Samosata referred to

Jesus as a crucified sophist
(philosopher).

- The writings of the 1st century

Romano-Jewish historian Flavius
Josephus include references to
Jesus and the origins of
Christianity. Josephus'
Antiquities of the Jews, written
around 93–94 CE, includes two
references to Jesus in Books 18

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 and 20, used by scholars to
support the existence of Jesus,
and his crucifixion.

The Testimonium Flavianum

(meaning the testimony of
Flavius Josephus) is a passage
found in Book 18, Chapter 3, of
the Antiquities which describes
the condemnation and
crucifixion of Jesus at the hands
of the Roman authorities. The
Testimonium is probably the
most discussed passage in
Josephus.

In another passage, Josephus

attests to the existence of Jesus
as a historical person and that
some of his contemporaries
considered him the Messiah.

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- The Roman historian and
senator Tacitus referred to
Christ, his execution by Pontius
Pilate and the existence of early
Christians in Rome in his final
work, Annals (c. AD 116), book
15, chapter 44.

The relevant passage reads:

"called Christians by the
populace. Christus, from whom
the name had its origin, suffered
the extreme penalty during the
reign of Tiberius at the hands of
one of our procurators, Pontius
Pilatus."

Scholars generally consider

Tacitus's reference to the
execution of Jesus by Pontius

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Pilate to be both authentic, and
of historical value as an
independent Roman source
about early Christianity that is
in unison with other historical
records.

Tacitus was a patriotic Roman

senator and as a senator Tacitus
was also likely to have had
access to official Roman
documents of the time and did
not need other sources.

His writings shows no sympathy

towards Christians and the tone
of his passages towards
Christians is far too negative to
have been authored by a
Christian scribe i.e. "of all Roman
writers, Tacitus gives us the most

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 precise information about
Christ".

The consistency in the references by

Tacitus, Josephus, the letters to
Emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger
and other documents reaffirm the
validity of all these accounts.

Indeed, even the Jewish Talmud says,

"on the eve of Passover they hanged
Yeshu (of Nazareth).... Let everyone
knowing aught in his defense come
and plead for him. But they found
naught in his defense and hanged him
on the eve of Passover."

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 B. Evidence from the Bible as a
credible source
(Discussed in the 1st booklet of this
series)

1. First of all, the Old Testament

predicted that Christ would die (Isa.
53:5-10; Ps. 22:16; Dan. 9:26; Zech.
12:10). And Jesus fulfilled the Old
Testament prophecies about the
Messiah (Matt. 4:14; 5:17-18; 8:17;
John 4:25-26; 5:39). The Bible says
repeatedly that Christ died on the
cross (Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor. 15:3; 1
Thess. 4:14)

2. Second, Jesus announced many

times during his ministry that he
was going to die (John 2:19-21;
10:10-11; Matt. 12:40; Mark 8:31).

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 Typical is Matthew 17:22-23 that
says, "The Son of Man is about to
be betrayed into the hands of men
and they will kill Him, and the third
day He will be raised."

3. Third, all the predictions of his

resurrection, both in the Old
Testament (Ps. 16:10; Isa. 26:19;
Dan. 12:2), and in the New
Testament (John 2:19-21; Matt.
12:40; 17:22-23) are based on the
fact that he would die.

Only a dead body can he

resurrected.

4. Fourth, the crucifixion of Jesus was

in early afternoon. To be witnessed
by everyone so that no one could
ever deny it. Even historians

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documented it; not only the
disciples of Jesus.
Jesus hung there for
approximately six hours. Then, at
3:00 in the afternoon – that is, at
exactly the same time the
Passover lamb was being
sacrificed as a sin offering (a
little symbolism there, you
think?) – Jesus cried out, “It is
finished” (in Aramaic), and died.
Suddenly the sky went dark and
an earthquake shook the land.
Pilate wanted verification that
Jesus was dead before allowing
his crucified body to be buried.
So a Roman guard thrust a spear
into Jesus’ side. The mixture of
blood and water that flowed out
was a clear indication that Jesus

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was dead. “The dead do not
bleed, ordinarily, but the right
auricle of the human heart holds
liquid blood after death, and the
outer sac hold a serum called
hydropericardium. His death was
certified by the guards .
The Roman soldiers charged
under the penalty of death to
faithfully execute their duty
were sufficient witnesses to the
death of Christ. They were
professional executioners and
were accustomed to putting
people to death. Furthermore,
there were other people
present, including the crowd
(Matt. 27:39) called "a great
multitude" (Luke 23:27), and the
Jewish leaders (Matt. 27:41),

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 who because of their hatred of
him had every motivation to
assure that Jesus was put to
death there. Even if none of
Jesus' followers were there—and
several were—the many other
witnesses of the crucifixion
would have been more than
enough to establish the fact of
his death.

To summarize:
This unbroken testimony from the Old
Testament to the early church fathers,
including believers and unbelievers,
Jews and Gentiles, is overwhelming
evidence that Jesus really suffered and
died on the cross. But if it is an
established fact that Jesus died, then

26
 it is also a fact that he rose from the
dead, since the evidence is equally
strong that he rose from the dead.
Thus, this would miraculously confirm
his unique claim to be the Son of God.
Let us take a look at the evidences of
His Resurrection.

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 Chapter 3
Proofs of the “Resurrection of
Jesus”
The death of Jesus on the cross for us
is true.

And by the death of our Lord Jesus

Christ on the cross, death was
defeated and it lost its grip and power
over humanity.

Let’s now discuss "The Resurrection

of Jesus" through 3 perspectives:

 History
 Logic
 Bible (As a credible source –
discussed in the 1st booklet of
this series)

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 Where History is interpreted with
Logic and crowned by the Bible
references.

Why? Because the historians cannot

tell us whether God is the cause of
some event; they can at best tell us
that certain people regarded an event
as miraculous. For example: It is a
historical fact that some of Jesus’
followers came to believe that he had
been raised from the dead soon after
his execution and the tomb was
empty.

History cannot explain further, that’s

why having a complete picture by
applying logic and other credible
sources (like the Bible) along with
history gives us valid and rigid proof of
resurrection.

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 There are three Facts proved by
most historians and scholars
(even the non-believers):
1. Jesus is a real person and was
crucified by the order of the Roman
Prefect Pontius Pilate.. This is
universal assent according to the
History (not only the Bible) and
both documented this in the same
century of the event (the 1st
century) as discussed in Chapter 1.

2. The disciples and apostles

(followers of Jesus) must have seen
something. All historians and
scholars admit this even the non-
Christians)

3. The tomb was found empty by

group of women three days after
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 Jesus death on cross then by all
people living in Jerusalem.

The "Structure of the Historical

Argument":
Before we look at the reasons some
critical scholars have offered for
placing the resurrection in historical
quarantine, it will be helpful to say
something about the structure of a
historical argument for Jesus’
resurrection. Any historical argument
for Jesus’ resurrection will have two
steps, even if these are not clearly
delineated: (1) to establish the facts
which will serve as historical evidence
and (2) to involve an investigation of
the historicity of events such as the
discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb.

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 Applying the "Structure of the
Historical Argument" on the facts
mentioned above:
The “Empty Tomb”:
1. If the story of Jesus’ entombment is
accurate, then the location of Jesus’
tomb was known in Jerusalem to
both Jew and Christian alike. But in
that case, the tomb must have
been empty when the disciples
began to preach that Jesus was
risen. Why? First, the disciples
could not have believed in Jesus’
resurrection if his corpse still lay in
the tomb. It would have been
wholly un-Jewish, not to say
foolish, to believe that a man was
raised from the dead when his

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 body was still in the grave. No one
in the city would ever believe it.

2. The account of Jesus’ burial in a

tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. This
is a very early source which is
probably based on eyewitness
testimony.
As a member of the Jewish
Sanhedrin that condemned
Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is
unlikely to be a Christian
invention. Joseph is described as
a rich man, a member of the
Jewish Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin
was a sort of Jewish high court
made up of seventy of the
leading men of Judaism, which
presided in Jerusalem. Thus,
according to the late New

33
 Testament scholar Raymond
Brown, Jesus’ burial by Joseph is
“very probable,” since it is
“almost inexplicable” why
Christians would make up a story
about a Jewish Sanhedrist who
took the body of Jesus to the
tomb he owns.

3. The Jewish claim that the disciples

stole the body presupposes that
the body was missing.
This is historical evidence of the
highest quality, since it comes
not from the Christians but from
the very enemies of the early
Christian faith.
The theft of the body from the
tomb by the disciples would
have been impossible. The story

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 of the guard at the tomb is
plausible, since the Jews had the
ability and motivation to guard
the tomb. But in this case, the
disciples could not have stolen
the body on account of the
armed guard. The allegation that
the guards had fallen asleep is
ridiculous, because in that case
they could not have known that
it was the disciples who had
taken the corpse. Besides, no
one could have broken into the
tomb without waking the guard.

4. The discovery of the “Holy Shroud”.

From above, we can tell that:

History confirms the fact of the

“Empty Tomb”.

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 The witnessing of apostles:
All historians and scholars admit that
“The disciples and apostles (followers
of Jesus) must have seen something”.

The belief in Jesus’ resurrection is the

foundation for Christianity.

The disciples were Jews who having

no conception of a Messiah who,
instead of triumphing over Israel’s
enemies, would be shamefully
executed by them as a criminal.
Messiah was supposed to be a
triumphant figure. But the belief in
the resurrection of Jesus reversed the
catastrophe of the crucifixion because
Jesus rose from death and he was
seen to be Messiah after all. It was on
the basis of belief in his resurrection

36
that the disciples could believe that
Jesus was the Messiah.

If those disciples stole the body,

corpse, then it would be utterly daft
to fabricate a story of women’s
finding the tomb to be empty. Such a
story would not be the sort of tale
Jewish men would invent. And would
not face such great torture and
torment by Jewish and Romans at
that time for something they know
they made it up.

It is documented in history that all

apostles and disciples are martyred
except John.

- If they were liars, at least one of

them would confess when
threatened by death. But
actually all of them were

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 martyred because they insist
that this is the truth. No one
would die for a lie and if one did,
the other will not. But to find 70
apostles and more than 500
followers dying for it is really a
credible point.

- Therefore, the disciples and

apostles could not be deceivers
and are believed to have seen
something that motivated them
to risk their lives.

- There are writings, outside of

the Bible, that have been
handed down to us by people
who lived during the second,
third and fourth centuries of this
era, claiming that many of the

38
 Apostles were crucified,
beheaded and otherwise
martyred for their beliefs.

- It is clear from the Bible and

from non-Biblical sources that
many early Christians were
persecuted and martyred for
their beliefs.

Some examples include the

Bible's New Testament book of
Acts, which records the
martyrdom of the Apostle James
the son of Zebedee, and of
Stephen, a believer who was
killed while evangelizing.

Another example comes from

Josephus, a first century Jewish
historian, who wrote about
another person named James,
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 an early Christian church leader,
who was executed because of
his beliefs. Josephus wrote in his
book called Antiquities of the
Jews, book 20 (or book XX),
chapter 9:

"Festus was now dead, and

Albinus was but upon the road;
so he assembled the sanhedrim
of judges, and brought before
them the brother of Jesus(1), who
was called Christ, whose name
was James, and some others, [or,
some of his companions]; and
when he had formed an
accusation against them as
breakers of the law, he delivered
them to be stoned ..."

Would men in such circumstances

pretend to have seen what they never
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 saw; assert facts which they had no
knowledge of, go about lying to teach
virtue; and, though they have seen
him crucified, yet persist in carrying
on; and so persist, as to bring upon
themselves, for nothing, and with full
knowledge of the consequence,
enmity and hatred, danger and death?

Moreover, the dramatic change in the

disciples shows that they were
absolutely convinced Jesus had risen
from the dead. They went from the
depths of despair and doubt to a
joyful certainty of such height that
they preached the resurrection openly
and boldly and suffered bravely for it.

How then could a dozen men, poor,

coarse, and apprehensive, turn the
world upside down and overcame the
powers of the world?
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 Let’s have a look at the appearances
of Jesus and find why his followers
changed and changed the world.

The appearances of Jesus

The resurrection appearances cannot
be dismissed as mere subjective
visions on the part of the disciples, but
were objective visionary events.

1. Appearing to his disciples

We have independent stories of
His appearance to the "TWLEVE"
in Luke 24:36–42 and John
20:19–20. Undoubtedly, the
most notable feature of these
appearance stories is the
physical demonstrations of
Jesus’ showing his wounds and
eating before the disciples.

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 The purpose of the physical
demonstrations is to show two
things: first, that Jesus was
raised physically; and second,
that he was the same Jesus who
had been crucified.

2. Appearing to the "Five

Hundred"
"Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, and
that He was buried, and that He
rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures, and
that He was seen by Cephas,
then by the twelve. After that He
was seen by over five hundred
brethren at once, of whom the
greater part remain to the
present, but some have fallen

43
asleep. After that He was seen by
James, then by all the apostles.
Then last of all He was seen by
me also, as by one born out of
due time." (1 Corinthians 15: 3-8)

Paul’s challenge in 1 Corinthians

15 concerning living witnesses to
an appearance of Jesus before
five hundred brethren makes it
certain that people were alive at
that time who believed they had
seen the risen Christ. How is that
to be explained?

This might make one rather

skeptical about this appearance,
but Paul himself apparently had
personal contact with these
people, since he knew that some

44
had died. This is seen in Paul’s
parenthetical comment, “most
of whom remain until now, but
some have fallen asleep.” Why
does Paul add this remark? The
great New Testament scholar of
Cambridge University, C. H.
Dodd, replies, “There can hardly
be any purpose in mentioning
the fact that the most of the 500
are still alive, unless Paul is
saying, in effect, ‘The witnesses
are there to be questioned."
Notice: Paul could never have
said this if the event had not
occurred. He could not have
challenged people to ask the
witnesses if the event had never
taken place and there were no
witnesses. But evidently there

45
were witnesses to this event,
and Paul knew that some of
them had died in the meantime.
Therefore, the event must have
taken place.

As one puts together the various

appearances in the Gospels, it
seems that they occurred first in
Jerusalem, then in Galilee, and
then in Jerusalem again. The
appearance to the five hundred
would have to be out of doors,
perhaps on a hillside outside a
Galilean village. In Galilee
thousands had gathered to hear
Jesus teach during his ministry.
Since the Gospels focus their
attention on the appearances in
Jerusalem, we do not have any

46
 story of this appearance to the
five hundred because it probably
occurred in Galilee.

3. Appearance to James
This appearance is one of the
most amazing of all:
He appeared to James, Jesus’
brother (cousin)(1). What makes
this amazing is that apparently
neither James nor any of Jesus’
brothers (cousins)(1) believed in
Jesus during his lifetime (Mark
3:21, 31–35; John 7:1–10). They
didn’t believe he was the
Messiah, or a prophet, or even
anybody special. By the criterion
of embarrassment, this is
doubtless a historical facet of
Jesus’ life and ministry. But after

47
the resurrection, Jesus’ brothers
(cousins)(1) show up in the
Christian fellowship in the upper
room in Jerusalem (Acts 1:14).
There is no further mention of
them until Acts 12:17. This is the
story of Peter’s deliverance from
prison by the angel. What are
Peter’s first words? “Report this
to James.” In Galatians 1:19 Paul
tells of his two-week visit to
Jerusalem about three years
after his Damascus Road
experience. He says that besides
Peter, he saw none of the other
apostles except James the Lord’s
brother (cousin)(1). Paul at least
implies that James was now
being reckoned as an apostle.
When Paul visited Jerusalem

48
again fourteen years later, he
says there were three “pillars” of
the church in Jerusalem: Peter,
John, and James (Gal. 2:9).
Finally, in Acts 21:18 James is the
sole head of the Jerusalem
church and of the council of
elders. We hear no more about
James in the New Testament;
but from Josephus, the Jewish
historian, we learn that James
was stoned to death illegally by
the Sanhedrin sometime after
A.D. 60 for his faith in Christ
(Josephus, Antiquities of the
Jews 20.200).

Now, how is this to be

explained? On the one hand, it
seems certain that some did not

49
believe in Jesus as the Messiah
during his lifetime. On the other
hand, it is equally certain that
they became ardent Christians,
active in the church. Jesus’
crucifixion would only confirm in
James’s mind that Jesus’
Messianic pretensions were
delusory, just as he had thought.
Can there be any doubt that the
reason for this remarkable
transformation is to be found in
the fact that “then he appeared
to James”? Even the skeptical
New Testament critic Hans Grass
admits that the conversion of
James is one of the surest proofs
of the appearance of Jesus
Christ.

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 (1)
In Aramaic and Hebrew,
which were inclined to use
circumlocutions to point out
blood relationships, calling
some people "brothers of
Jesus" would not have always
implied the same biological
mother. Scholars and
theologians, who assert this
view, point out that Jesus was
called "the son of Mary"
rather than "a son of Mary" in
his hometown. Thus, the
brothers of Jesus were his
cousins.

4. The appearance to Saul which

changed His life
This event actually occurred is
established beyond doubt by

51
Paul’s references to it in his own
letters.
This event changed Saul’s whole
life. He was a rabbi, a Pharisee, a
respected Jewish leader. He
hated the Christian heresy and
was doing everything in his
power to stamp it out. He was
even responsible for the
execution of Christian believers.
Then suddenly he gave up
everything. He left his position
as a respected Jewish leader and
became a Christian missionary:
he entered a life of poverty,
labor, and suffering. He was
whipped, beaten, stoned and
left for dead, shipwrecked three
times, in constant danger,
deprivation, and anxiety. Finally,

52
 he made the ultimate sacrifice
and was martyred for his faith at
Rome. And it was all because on
that day outside Damascus, he
saw “Jesus our Lord” (l Cor. 9:1).

5. Other appearances:
The appearance to Peter is
independently attested by Paul
and Luke (1 Cor. 15:5; Luke
24:34) and is universally
acknowledged by critics. The
appearance to the Twelve is
independently attested by Paul,
Luke, and John (1 Cor. 15:5; Luke
24:36–43; John 20:19–20) and is
again not in dispute, even if
many critics are skeptical of the
physical demonstrations that

53
attend this appearance and they
only think it is only spiritual.
Lüdemann says: “It may be taken
as historically certain that Peter
and the disciples had
experiences after Jesus’ death in
which Jesus appeared to them as
the risen Christ'.

54
 Can it be "Group hallucination"?
1. It illogic and even not scientific in
psychology to have "Group
Hallucination".
“Hallucinations are individual
occurrences. By their very
nature, only one person can see
a given hallucination at a time.
They certainly aren’t something
which can be seen by a group of
people.”

2. Why did witnesses conclude that it

was Jesus risen from the dead?—
Why not simply a vision of the dead
man coming on the clouds of glory
and the like . . .?

3. Jesus appeared not just one time,

but many times; not at just one

55
 locale and circumstance but at a
variety of places and
circumstances; not to just one
individual, but to different persons;
not just to individuals, but to
various groups; not just to believers
but to unbelievers and even
enemies.

4. Paul (or Saul) had no psychological

reason to have such
hallucination.He did not even
struggle with a pinch of guilt.

In contrast Paul, a very happy and

successful Jew, one who can say
“As to righteousness under the Law
*I was+ blameless” (Phil. 3.6). That is
what he says in one of his letters.
He was a star student in Gamaliel’s
Seminary. . . . Nowhere in Paul’s

56
 writings is there any indication . . .
that psychologically Paul had some
problem of conscience towards
what he did with Christians before
he believed.

From above, we can tell that:

Even if skeptics and non-Christian

scholars don't admit that these
appearances were bodily appearances
and physical in nature, they still all
agree that post-mortem appearances
of Jesus occurred in some way.

57
 To summarize why our belief - in the
resurrection of Jesus - is rigid and
strong, first, we saw that numerous
lines of historical evidence prove that
the tomb of Jesus was found empty by
a group of his women followers.
Second, we saw that several lines of
historical evidence established that on
numerous occasions and in different
places Jesus appeared physically and
bodily alive from the dead to various
witnesses.

Example of skeptics who could not by

any means disprove the fact of
resurrection:

Frank Morison was a journalist during

the late 1800s. He was a naturalist

58
 who wanted to disprove the
resurrection.

With myth, hallucination, and a flawed

autopsy ruled out, with
incontrovertible evidence for an
empty tomb, with a substantial body
of eyewitnesses to his reappearance,
and with the inexplicable
transformation and impact upon the
world of those who claimed to have
seen him, Morison became convinced
that his preconceived bias against
Jesus Christ’s resurrection had been
wrong. He began writing a different
book – entitled Who Moved the
Stone? - to detail his new conclusions.
Morison simply followed the trail of
evidence, clue by clue, until the truth
of the case seemed clear to him. His

59
surprise was that the evidence led to a
belief in the resurrection.

In his first chapter, “The Book That

Refused to Be Written,” this former
skeptic explained how the evidence
convinced him that Jesus’ resurrection
was an actual historical event. “It was
as though a man set out to cross a
forest by a familiar and well-beaten
track and came out suddenly where
he did not expect to come out.”

Morison is not alone. Countless other

skeptics have examined the evidence
for Jesus’ resurrection, and accepted it
as the most astounding fact in all of
human history. C. S. Lewis, who once
had even doubted Jesus’ existence,
was also persuaded by the evidence
for Jesus’ resurrection. He writes,
“Something perfectly new in the
60
history of the Universe had happened.
Christ had defeated death. The door
which had always been locked had for
the very first time been forced open.”

The Resurrection of our Lord granted

us the heavenly wisdom foretold in
Solomon's prophecy: Wisdom (the
Logos) built her house (the church)
and carved her seven pillars (the holy
mysteries) and slaughtered her
offerings (Jesus Christ) and mixed her
wine in her cup (the precious blood)
and prepared her table (the Holy altar)
and sent forth saying "whoever lacks
wisdom let him come to me" and I say
to the short of understanding "come
eat from my food and drink from my
wine" (the Holy Communion).

61
 Conclusion
Not only did Jesus change our
calendar and affected the days of the
week but He granted us a new life.
Have you ever asked “Why Saturdays
were treated in a special way then
changed to be Sundays?”
Jews used to dedicate Saturdays to
remember how God saved His people
from salvation in Egypt.
"Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy, as the Lord your God
commanded you. Six days you shall
labor and do all your work, 14 but the
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord
your God. In it you shall do no work:
you, nor your son, nor your daughter,
nor your male servant, nor your
female servant, nor your ox, nor your
donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor
your stranger who is within your
gates, that your male servant and your
female servant may rest as well as
62
you. And remember that you were a
slave in the land of Egypt, and the
Lord your God brought you out from
there by a mighty hand and by an
outstretched arm; therefore the Lord
your God commanded you to keep
the Sabbath day." (Deuteronomy 5:
12-15)

But after many people witnessed

Jesus' Resurrection or believed its
witnesses, they dedicated Sundays to
remember how God saved all people
from devil and eternal death.
"Now on the first day of the week,
when the disciples came together to
break bread" (Acts 20: 7)

The disciples have seen Jesus die for

his teachings, if Jesus did not rise from
the dead, then they would be crazy to
still follow him and walk the same way
and most of them died for their belief.

63
 The disciples did not gain money
during Jesus' life or after his death so
that they would insist to follow His
path.
If they would insist to follow His path
for gaining popularity and money, that
is extremely the opposite of their life
after believing in the resurrection. If
they were rich , Judas wouldn't have
betrayed Jesus for 30 silver.
So the only reason why they would
sacrifice their lives and belief in an
event that would turn all the Jews
against them is that this event really
happened, which is the resurrection.

The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus

Christ has granted enlightenment to
the believers. For, the door to the
Paradise of Joy was opened forth
before them, the wall separating God
from humanity was broken down, and
the Cherub guarding the Tree of Life

64
with a fire sword was removed and we
were given to partake of the Holy
body and blood of our Lord through
the Mystery of the Eucharist.

65