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Transcript

EP056 The Living Cornerstone · The Immutable Word

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It is a psychological impossibility for men to willingly die for something they know to be a lie.
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It's one thing to lie about something. It's another thing to die over that lie.
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If they'd stolen the body, then they would have known the resurrection was a hoax.
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And if money, sex, or power were their motives, they failed miserably because
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they all died horrible martyrs' deaths.
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So that's one of the greatest empirical evidences of the resurrection is the
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fact that they were completely, totally, and utterly transformed.
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So that means they saw something. Something changed their perspective.
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And it's another same thing with like there's even James, the brother of Christ.
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How do you take a family member who knew Jesus Christ as his brother,
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who ended up becoming a believer, if the resurrection isn't true?
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That sometimes your greatest skeptics are going to be people in your family.
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Then you also have Paul, who literally persecuted and hailed women and men to
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prison over their faith in Christ.
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And he became a believer and ultimately was beheaded over his faith.
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You can't explain that. That's the problem, is you cannot humanly explain the
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change and the transformation of these people's lives.
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So, that's one of the greatest empirical evidences, is a changed life.
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Welcome to The Immutable Word. We are back for a new episode.
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We've been talking about the Baptist distinctives. We've gone through a couple
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of those already. So, we're just going to break from that series.
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Is just do a quick departure.
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We were talking in our last episode about doing maybe a special on the resurrection and the timing.
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And you and I were just talking about it for a good hour.
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Trying to figure out the timing, because you have the Gentile time that we're
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so used to, that I'm so used to, and then you have the Jewish time,
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which is completely backwards.
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And trying to understand the timing between when Christ died to when he rose
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is not a huge point of contention, but it sounds like most even Bible believers
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leave that it's not Wednesday,
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it's Thursday when he, well, he died on Wednesday.
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See, I'm already getting, I'm already confused, about it he died on wednesday
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evening he was put in the grave but the full three days and the full three nights
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start start thursday anyways i won't go into it now because i know that's what
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exactly what we're going to go into and the question is when did he rise you know what day was that,
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and so that's something that we're gonna gonna break down but you you and i
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were talking about it and i was just trying to wrap my mind around the whole
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timing and it's like i need to see this in the spreadsheet, and of course,
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he already had it in the spreadsheet.
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So, yeah, I think the, you know, we're going to talk today more really about
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the importance that the bedrock of our Christian faith is the resurrection.
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So, it's more topically based than to dive into the days and the hours, you know.
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But the point is, is that as Bible believers, the biggest confusion is the fact
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that there was two Sabbaths that week. so a lot of the reasons why evangelicals, Catholics, and.
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You know, others think that Christ was crucified on Friday, and that's why you get Good Friday.
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That's why you hear it everywhere. Good Friday, Good Friday,
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Good Friday, is that Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday.
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And the reason why is they said he had to be crucified before the Sabbath.
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Saturday. But they confuse the weekly regular Sabbath, Saturday,
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with the high day, which is the first day of Unleavened Bread after the Passover.
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That's a Sabbath. Okay? So, that's the confusion.
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So yes, there's people that believe, as far as Bible believers,
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there's a little bit of debate between was it Wednesday or was it Thursday?
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My biggest reason or the main contention I have is that Matthew 12,
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40 says it's three days and three nights.
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Now, the leeway some people with Thursday is that it's a Jewish idiom day could
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mean any time within a 24-hour period.
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It doesn't have to be strictly 24 hour period and they feel like if you do if he was.
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If he rose again early Sunday morning, that's actually the second half of the
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first day of the week because it doesn't start till Saturday evening.
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So the window of resurrection is anywhere between Saturday evening,
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after Saturday evening, 6.01 to 6 a.m.
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The next day, which would be Sunday, but that's all one day.
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So anyway, you know, without going into it, we just talked about this for over
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an hour, hour and a half, but the point is, is that the bottom line is that
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Friday was not the crucifixion. It's impossible.
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For me, my biggest contention with Wednesday into Thursday is that there had
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to be a day in between the crucifixion and the burial,
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or that Christ was in the tomb, is that the women had to buy spices.
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They couldn't have bought spices.
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If it was a Thursday crucifixion, they couldn't have bought spices Friday,
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because all day Friday morning into evening, Friday 6 p.m., is going to be the
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high Sabbath still, right?
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And then Friday evening into Saturday is going to be their Sabbath, their weekly Sabbath.
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So when could the women have bought the spices?
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If you're not supposed to, you cannot buy or sell, there's no markets open.
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They can't work on a Sabbath day.
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And if you have a Friday Sabbath, or you
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have basically a thursday sabbath and you have a friday sabbath when
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could they have bought the spices see the problem yeah there's no window right
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so there's no window and and not only that it
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technically makes a half a day period if
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you start thursday with the crucifixion by the evening because it said by the
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ninth hour which is about 3 p.m so that would have been 3 p.m thursday then
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the problem is is you now you're technically two and a half days not three days
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you have three days and two and a half nights basically so you don't have a full 72 hours.
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So, that's the reason why I go with Wednesday crucifixion, because it's the
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only, you know, it's the only mathematical formula that fits the Matthew 1240
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formula, which is three days, three nights in the heart of the earth, like Jonas.
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So, I take it literally. Some people take the idiomatic direction and say,
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well, you know, a day could mean any time.
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But the Bible, there's very specific passages that tell us day and night,
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you know. And it's very interesting.
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Yeah, it can be very confusing. It is confusing, but it's also very specific.
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So, when the Bible talks, when it describes its day, which I know you're probably,
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you might go through some of this, but when it describes its day,
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it describes 12 hours in a day, 12 hours in an evening, that's a full 24 hours.
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Three days and three evenings when it talks about Jesus. If you have to work,
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if you work strictly off of a 24-hour literal period of time,
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it's going to be a big challenge to argue for a Thursday crucifixion.
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It's going to be really difficult to do that.
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If you loosely interpret the 24 hours and it's not a strict 24 hours.
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You know, then, yeah, you could probably argue for a Thursday.
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But my thing is, if you can argue
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for a Thursday and the Jewish day is subjective, then why not Friday?
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I mean, you see what I'm saying? The problem is, is once you kind of lose that
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objectivity and you make it subjective to idiomatic language or cultural language,
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then you can almost interpret it any way you want.
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So it goes back to the rule of thumb is like we take it literally.
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Well, we're literalists. So if it says it, it's very specific in terms of the timing.
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So we just stick with that. We should always just lean towards that. Right.
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So, I'm not going to break fellowship over it, but the point is,
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if I'm going to believe a Wednesday crucifixion, I need to have good reasons for it, right?
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And so, I think it's a matter of deduction when you start looking at what the
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scriptures say, and you come to the conclusion that, okay, a Wednesday is the
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only one that mathematically fits correctly.
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It sounds like the whole crux of that, too, when it comes to the evidence is
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what you mentioned earlier, which is when the women had to go out to the market,
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the markets were open to buy spices.
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And that has to fit in between somewhere.
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Right. Mark 16.1 is when they went out and they bought the spices.
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Well, how'd they do that if it was in Luke 23.56 as well?
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How did they do that if it was a Sabbath day?
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They can't. No markets would have been open for them to buy spices.
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Yeah, no, the key thing is the high day Sabbath too, which is the Passover,
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which they're celebrating that week.
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So, when we say he's crucified before Passover, we're saying before Thursday,
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which will be Wednesday evening.
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The beginning of Thursday is Wednesday, 6 p.m.
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I was going to ask if you could quickly explain what the Jewish day looks like.
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Yeah, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. is the evening. 6 a.m.
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To 6 p.m. is the day of the morning as they call it so the evening in the morning
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or the first day That's what it says in genesis.
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So they go by a lunar calendar So the jewish day technically starts at 6 p.m.
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So right now for us, it's 7 54 on a tuesday night We're technically into almost
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the second hour of wednesday evening Yeah, which would it starts with the evening.
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Yeah, not the morning like but when I say wednesday it's the entire evening and the morning, right?
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So we're two or three hours into Wednesday, basically, even though it's Tuesday evening.
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Yeah, but we start with Wednesday evening. In the morning. In the morning.
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See, this is why it's so confusing. It takes a while for your brain to come up around it.
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Yeah, I had to create a spreadsheet, and I literally—I mean,
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there's a book that I would recommend by Jeff Williams called Three Days and
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Three Nights, Solving the Crucifixion Paradox.
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And Brother Jeff Williams, he's
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a missionary, Baptist missionary in New Zealand. And it's a great book.
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It's not a big, exhaustive book, but what he does is he looks at every scenario.
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He runs through the typical objections. He goes through the timelines.
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He defines the days according to how the scripture defines those days.
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And so I think he makes a really good, strong case And provides a lot of good
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biblical evidence for the crucifixion And showing that the timeline is not contradictory
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That's one of the main objections,
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And I mean, I've seen Christians walk away from the faith Because they think
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that there's too many contradictions in the Gospels So.
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You know, I know that people, our brethren, that argue for a Thursday Won't
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say there's contradictions either, right?
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They wouldn't say that And I believe that they don't believe there are contradictions
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But from my point of view, I'm just saying that mathematically,
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when you stick to the definitions in Scripture, Wednesday makes the most sense, I guess, for me.
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So unless, you know, I heard a good argument for Thursday and they can get,
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you know, 72 hours, then maybe I would think about it. But I haven't.
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I guess that's my point. I would say this, that I could see how it's easily
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confused when it comes to the math,
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the Sabbaths that are occurring, and what we might define or how somebody could
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see what do we mean by the day.
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So between the Jewish days and the Gentile days, and you just mix it all in
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a pot, I could see where it can get really convoluted.
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Yeah. I mean, the main takeaway for believers is it wasn't Friday.
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I mean, at the end of the day, it wasn't Friday. No matter whatever the reasoning
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or the challenge with Thursday, Wednesday, the bottom line is there's no absolute
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way it could have been Friday.
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So people that, you know, talk about Good Friday this, Good Friday that have
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not carefully read the Bible.
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And the biggest reason they say Good Friday is because they don't know that
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there's two Sabbaths that week.
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A high day, a high Sabbath, which is the first day of Unleavened Bread that
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immediately follows this Passover.
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Passover was always, always, always on the 14th of the first month,
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which was called the Beb.
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That was the religious month. So the 14th of that month,
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then you would have seven unleavened days
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or seven days of unleavened bread where they would eat unleavened bread
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that's called the feast of unleavened bread well the whole thing was a feast
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of unleavened bread which included the passover but passover was followed by
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seven specific days where you ate unleavened bread and the beginning of that
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seven days was a passover and the end of it was a passover.
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I mean, I'm sorry, Sabbath. Hello. The beginning of the first day of Unleavened
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Bread after the Passover was a Sabbath.
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The end of the seven days of Unleavened Bread was a Sabbath.
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So, he had two Sabbaths in the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
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And so, which would be a week later, right? Seven days later.
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But the point is, is this, is that, and this is where there's some confusion
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too about the Easter in Acts 12.4, because some people argue that that is just
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the Christian Passover after the resurrection.
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Okay? But the problem is, is the Bible says, then were the days of unleavened
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bread, and they try to argue that Ezekiel 45,
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the whole thing is the unleavened Passover, or the feast of unleavened days
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is the whole thing, which includes Passover.
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However, they don't see the distinctions in some of the Leviticus and Deuteronomy
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passages that say that it starts the 15th day, which is the day after Passover.
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The 15th day is the first day of seven days.
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And those days are specifically called the days of unleavened bread.
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So, if you read Acts 12.4, and it says, then were the days of unleavened bread,
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that means Passover is already passed. There is no more Passover.
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So, anyway, there's some interesting discussion around that.
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You know, especially an argument for the word Easter. There's a lot of debate
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around it. Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
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One thing that helps us to understand not only how the Jewish days work,
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but understanding the holidays and the Sabbaths and the feasts and the days.
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Yeah, when we say holidays, it means holy days. Holy days.
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Holy day for them are going to be their feasts.
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Feast of unleavened bread, the feast of first fruits, the feast of tabernacles, right?
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They had seven different feasts that they would follow in their Jewish year.
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So Passover was obviously the most important because that's when they were,
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you know, came out of Egypt.
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And that's the memorial. And of course, the Bible says, according in Corinthians,
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Paul says, Christ is our Passover for the Gentile believer.
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So, a lot of typology there and pictures, you know, of Christ.
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But anyway, there's, I mean, all that is deeper dive. What I wanted to do today
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was actually talk about why the resurrection was important to the Christian faith.
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So, you know, we can get marred and we can get mired, I guess. Yeah, there it is.
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We can get mired in all the details. I mean, honestly, it's a big quagmire.
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Just like me. We can spend 18 episodes just talking about the timeline.
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We can talk about the feast of Passover, and that's an entire study in and of
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itself. It's fascinating.
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I think it helps just to understand a little bit of that. I was struggling.
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That's why we talked about it before we even started recording for like an hour,
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just trying to wrap my head around just the timing by itself.
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But yeah, to get back on track, I know the main purpose here is to— Yeah,
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the technical details of the resurrection are, I mean, again,
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it's a very deep dive type of study, right?
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There's a lot of technical details, you know.
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But what I wanted to do, at least for this episode, is more from an apologetic
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standpoint, why does the resurrection matter compared to every other religion out there?
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So regardless of the timeline, regardless of the calendar week and the time
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frame of the Passover and all that other stuff, the bottom line is,
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why does the resurrection even matter to us?
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So that's really, to me, today we'll talk about that. And, you know,
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if we need to do a deeper dive into the Passion Week, I'm just telling you that...
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I think listening to it is much harder than if we had some kind of a visual
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aid to walk through because it's, it's just difficult to walk through. When we start our video.
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Unless we open up the Bible and we spend the next two or three hours going literally
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verse by verse, day by day, breaking out the definitions and so forth.
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That's what it's the little chart I put. And I just did it for Wednesday.
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I just did it just for Wednesday. The spreadsheet I did, it took me six months to put that together.
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Okay. And that was literally going through all those passages and trying to
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figure out where to put it on the timeline.
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All right. Well, we'll definitely shelve that for now because we know how deep
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we can go. But yeah, let's shift to this. I think this is a good study.
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And it really is the cornerstone or the bedrock for Christianity.
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It's another distinct—I know we've been talking about Baptist distinctives.
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I think this helps as a—would you say this helps as a differentiator,
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as a Christian? Well, I mean, as a Christian, I mean, because,
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you know, Catholics, they believe in the resurrection.
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Orthodox believe in the resurrection. Presbyterians, Protestants,
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they all believe in the resurrection.
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So, but the point is, is that the resurrection is literally the bedrock of our faith.
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Like you could take everything in the Bible, everything.
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And if you were to remove the resurrection, it would be absolutely meaningless.
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You can literally toss the entire bible
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in the trash can if there's no resurrection that's what
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we're trying to say we're basically saying our entire faith the
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entire cornerstone and foundation of our faith as christians why we're not mormons
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why we're not muslims why we're not buddhists why we're not hindus is is the
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resurrection that is the differentiating factor is the resurrection That's why
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we're not Muslims. That's why we're not Jews.
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We are Christians, Bible-believing Christians, and it all hinges on the resurrection.
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Paul's entire ministry, every
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single epistle, is basically rooted and grounded in the resurrection.
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So, it is the pinnacle of our faith. So, when you don't understand...
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Well, number one, the importance of the resurrection, it's going to be really difficult to defend it.
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If you don't understand how the resurrection plays a part in the gospel, it's the definition.
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It's literally part of the definition of the gospel Paul gives us, 1 Corinthians 15.
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Then, you know, it's going to be really hard to argue for your faith.
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So one of the things I think as Christians, we've talked about this over and
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over again, but I think it's worth trying to reestablishing is this.
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You know, we have an obligation of the truth, right? I mean,
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that's at the end of the day, you know, we've said it over again. I love the phrase.
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I'm going to keep using it, but we're supposed to be faithful stewards of the
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truth, right? 1 Corinthians 4.2, 2 Corinthians 4.1 and 2.
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We are supposed to be faithful ministers and stewards of the truth,
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which, you know, emphasizes our duty to what? Defend and uphold the faith.
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1 Thessalonians 5.21, how many times have we quoted that, right? Prove all things.
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2 Peter 3.15, give an answer. to be ready to give an answer to all men for the,
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you know, reason of the hope that's within us, you know, meekness.
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Jude 3, we're supposed to contend for the faith. So, the bottom line is that
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we have an obligation to defend and uphold the faith, not our opinion,
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not our preferences, but the faith.
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So, understanding the cornerstone of our faith is crucial, right?
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The bodily, bodily, not the spiritual resurrection, but the physical bodily
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resurrection of Jesus Christ is crucial.
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You know, our belief in our faith system, it's not a blind leap in the dark.
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It's a step into the light.
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You know what I mean? We're not following a blind faith. We're following a faith
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that's rooted entirely on the historical, physical resurrection of Christ.
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One way, you know, and again, without that literal triumph with Jesus Christ
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rising from the dead, our faith is completely, totally, utterly meaningless.
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It doesn't mean anything.
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And so that's why, you know, somebody once said, I think a great outline is
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that Christ's death proves that he was 100% human.
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His resurrection proves that he was 100% God.
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And so that argument that people go, oh, he was either human or God,
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that, you know, we call it the hypostatic union, is that he was 100% man and 100% God.
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I don't explain, I can't explain it. Don't ask me to explain it.
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All I know is that's what the Bible reveals.
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So the cornerstone of christianity i don't know if people thought
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about this alan but if you think about this way right either jesus christ you
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know if if there was no crucifixion okay let's just say if there was no crucifixion
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and jesus christ just died on the cross then either he was you know it was the
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heroic end of a misguided martyr yeah,
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or it was the pathetic demise of a deranged madman, or it was the rightful execution of a fraud.
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If he didn't rise from the dead, that's what, you know, Christ's death would mean.
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So, the, you know, the resurrection is what transformed the crucifixion,
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right, from some tragic, horrible Roman tragedy, right, into this triumphant
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atonement of sacrifice that Christ made for the sins of the world.
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And it's like God saying amen to his substitutionary blood atonement,
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what he did when he shed his blood on the cross, when he died, he was buried.
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It basically proved that Jesus Christ, all his prophecies were valid. It validated Christ.
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It validated our faith, so forth and so on.
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So, if you think about it this way, Christianity is different in the fact that.
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If you were to go in, you know, in archaeology and discover the bones,
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and you can, you can go, So, I mean, Muhammad's bones are there in Riyadh or in Saudi Arabia.
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If you were to pick up his bones, you know what you can do? You could still be a good Muslim, right?
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If you found, if you discovered the bones of Buddha, you could still seek enlightenment.
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It wouldn't affect your faith whatsoever.
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If you discovered the ashes of the Hindu deity, Hinduism would go on unabated.
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There'd be no problem with it. But if you were to find one bone of Jesus Christ,
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our entire faith would be completely destroyed.
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That's the difference between Christianity and every other religion.
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The resurrection distinguishes our faith from every faith in the world.
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Okay? And, you know, we talked about this before, but in 1 Corinthians 15,
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you know, Paul is talking and defending about what the gospel is.
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He says, you know, what the gospel is, is the death, burial,
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and resurrection of Christ.
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So, he creates, you know, he writes this logical argument in 1 Corinthians 15
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that defends this cornerstone.
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So, apparently, there was those in the Corinthian church that either denied
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or questioned or doubted, you know, the resurrection.
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And he uses a logical construct that we call it the reductio ad absurdum,
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which means reducing an argument to absurdity.
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He actually argues from the reverse. He says, what if the skeptics are right?
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What if there is no resurrection of the dead? And so, he demonstrates six specific
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things in this argument.
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Number one, if Christ is not risen, right, then if dead men don't rise,
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then Jesus Christ, who partake of the flesh, is still in the grave.
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So, number one. So, if he doesn't, if he never rose from the dead,
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obviously, he's still in the grave.
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Number two, our preaching is in vain. If he's in the grave, then everything
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we preach, there is no gospel.
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All of the apostolic preaching, the preservation of scripture,
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all of it means absolutely nothing.
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So he even says our preaching is vain. And he says, if our preaching is vain,
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then guess what? Our faith is in vain.
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Every believer, you know, that is trying to serve God today is believing a lie.
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They're basing their entire faith on something that's untrue.
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And our faith, the Bible says in Romans 10, 17, so then by faith cometh by hearing
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and hearing by the word of God. That means the word of God is false.
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And then, of course, if our faith is vain, then our witness is false.
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That means, you know, the testimony, the historical testimony of Christ rising
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from the dead is a lie. It's a fraud.
24:44
The apostles were imposters and liars. And then, of course, if all that's true,
24:49
then guess what? We're dead in our sins.
24:51
Because it was our sin that Christ nailed to the cross. It said that he became
24:55
sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, 2 Corinthians 5.21.
25:01
So, we're still in our sins if Christ didn't rise from the dead.
25:04
And of course, if Christ never rose from the dead, then those Christians who
25:11
have died in the past are dead forever.
25:14
They're eternally lost. They will never rise again. There is no future hope.
25:19
So Paul reduces that skeptic argument about Christ not rising,
25:23
and he basically reduces it to utter despair.
25:27
But then he comes to the conclusion in verse 20 of 1 Corinthians 15,
25:32
but now is christ risen from the
25:35
dead because the resurrection is an empirical fact
25:38
it proves that truth is stronger than
25:41
lies good you know good is stronger than evil and love is stronger than hate
25:44
because that is essentially the victory that christ had over death and in the
25:50
grave the reason why you know in john 11 you know you have lazarus who died
25:56
right and remember mary and Martha, they're distraught and upset over it.
26:01
And he's, and you know, they, they're, they, it's almost like they lose hope.
26:04
And he says, don't worry, I'm the resurrection and the life.
26:07
So, the reason why there's hope of those that have passed is because of the resurrection.
26:12
So, you know, our mom and dad passed on many, many years ago.
26:17
We would absolutely have no hope of ever seeing them again if Christ is not risen from the dead.
26:22
So, the bottom line is this, is that the resurrection is the cornerstone and
26:27
the pinnacle of our faith.
26:28
And if Christ is not risen, all the implications, the horrible implications
26:34
would be true. So, you and I have just wasted our entire year doing this podcast,
26:40
trying to defend the faith.
26:41
That's how important the resurrection is. One of the things,
26:44
you know, again, you know, we talked about it already.
26:47
I'm not going to try to belabor the point, but Good Friday is impossible.
26:50
The Bible says Christ is our Passover. So, a Friday evening burial and a Sunday
26:55
morning resurrection would only yield 36 hours maximum.
26:58
So, mathematically, it's impossible that he was crucified. You can't squeeze
27:03
three days and three nights out of a Friday crucifixion.
27:05
You have to be able to satisfy that 72 hours.
27:10
So that's why Wednesday crucifixion makes the most sense. That's where you can
27:14
fulfill Matthew 12, 40, where Jesus Christ said, For as Jonah was three days
27:18
and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days
27:21
and three nights in the heart of the earth.
27:23
So he says three days and three nights, three days and three nights,
27:26
three days and three nights.
27:27
I believe three days and three nights means exactly that, three days and three nights.
27:32
And by the way, that was the only sign that Jesus Christ said would be spoken
27:37
of against the Son of Man, is the crucifixion.
27:40
And when Paul was at odds and he was surrounded by Sadducees and Pharisees,
27:45
he raises his hand, he goes, of the hope of the resurrection am I called into question.
27:50
His entire ministry hinged on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
27:55
So it's imperative. People understand that, right?
27:58
And Good Friday, you cannot get that 36-hour day.
28:01
So if I already give a rough timeline, Wednesday is the 14th of Nisan,
28:06
which is the Passover. Okay?
28:10
Christ, our Passover lamb, he's crucified by the third hour,
28:13
9 a.m., right? Wednesday morning, which is the second half of Wednesday,
28:18
because the beginning of Wednesday actually started Tuesday evening.
28:21
So 9 a.m., he's crucified.
28:24
And he dies at the ninth hour, which is 3 p.m., the ninth hour of the day.
28:30
So if the first hour of the day starts at 6 a.m., 3 p.m. is the ninth hour from 6 a.m.
28:37
So because Sabbath was rapidly approaching, sundown, Meaning 6 p.m.
28:42
Was Thursday. That's the beginning of that Sabbath day.
28:45
He had to be buried before the Sabbath day. So it was ending Wednesday,
28:50
3 p.m., just so people know that there's only three hours left in that day at 3 p.m.
28:57
So, the high day Sabbath, which is the 15th of Nisan, which is the second,
29:01
the day after the 14th, so Passover is the 14th, the 15th of Nisan is the high
29:07
day, which is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
29:11
It's a special high day Sabbath of rest. So, if you go back and read Exodus
29:15
12, verses 15 through 16, and John 19 through 31, you notice that no work could be done.
29:21
That's why the markets were closed, the women couldn't buy spices,
29:25
because you basically went into the Thursday. By 6 p.m.
29:29
Wednesday night, that's Thursday, the evening, that's the beginning of Thursday.
29:34
So by that time, all the markets are closed. They can't buy spices.
29:38
And that would continue all the way until the next day.
29:44
So for Thursday till 6 p.m. Thursday evening.
29:49
Friday evening would be the beginning where the markets opened.
29:52
So, the normal workday, basically, you would have from Friday evening until
29:58
Friday, the next day, 6 p.m.
30:00
So, they would have basically those 24 hours.
30:03
You know, if markets open, you know, Thursday night into Friday,
30:07
it's more than likely going to be Friday morning, 6 a.m.
30:10
Till 6 p.m. The second half, the second 12 hours. Yeah, because the Bible says,
30:14
aren't there 12 days in a workday, right?
30:18
That's what Christ says. Are there 12 days in a day? And he was talking about
30:21
that with regard to working. So they had 12 hours to work.
30:24
So 6 a.m. Friday morning until 6 p.m. Friday evening, the markets were open.
30:30
The women can go and buy spices.
30:32
If you have a Thursday crucifixion, that would be impossible.
30:37
So not only that, he had to be crucified before Sabbath. Friday wasn't the Sabbath.
30:42
So Friday, the workday, the markets open. And then Saturday,
30:46
that's the weekly Sabbath.
30:48
That's the regular Seventh-day Sabbath. The women had to buy the spices and
30:52
prepare him for the dead and all this other stuff before that time frame.
30:56
So that's the internal biblical proof, right?
31:00
The women, Mark 16, 1, they said when the Sabbath was passed.
31:04
Well, that's obviously not Saturday because he rose again from the dead already.
31:08
So when the Sabbath was passed, well, what Sabbath are they talking about? It's got to be Thursday.
31:13
The high Sabbath. Yep. And then of course, yet Luke 23, 56 says,
31:19
prepared the spices and ointments and they rested the Sabbath day.
31:24
Well, how does it when they buy the spices when the Sabbath has passed and then
31:29
they rest the Sabbath day?
31:31
Unless you have a break in between, that's Friday. That's the only way it works.
31:36
How can you buy spices after the Sabbath yet prepare them and rest on the Sabbath?
31:40
The answer unlocks perfectly if you use the
31:43
chronology that thursday was a high sabbath to pass
31:47
and then friday morning they went to open the markets to buy the spices and
31:51
then they rested the regular saturday sabbath i mean it was a good friday to
31:55
do that to buy the spices it was a very good friday yeah there you go so so
32:00
only on a wednesday crucifixion you have a sabbath plus workday plus sabbath
32:03
scenario that's the only way it works you can't do it with thursday.
32:07
So that, you know, the Bible's obviously vindicated a Good Friday tradition is demolished.
32:12
And Saturday evening at sunset, exactly 72 hours had passed and Christ rose from the dead.
32:16
So here's some of the objections to the resurrection. And this is where,
32:20
as Christians, we ought to learn how to defend our faith.
32:23
So there's three theories we'll talk about. So number one is called the swoon theory.
32:27
And this is where they argue that Jesus merely fainted on the cross.
32:32
So he didn't really die, but, you know, from weakness.
32:35
But then later on, he revived in a cool, damp tomb.
32:38
And obviously medically and logically this is preposterous because
32:41
prior to the crucifixion jesus was scourged with an inch of his life i mean
32:46
basically when you know you're talking about pieces of broken glass and metal
32:50
and shards were on the end of that whip and it shred him to pieces i mean there
32:55
was there was you know you could probably see parts of his inside,
32:59
and a man that would bleed out like that would have no strength to try to rise
33:04
himself you know raised himself from the dead.
33:06
So, prior to the crucifixion, he was scourged within an inch of his life.
33:09
His side was pierced with a Roman spear to confirm death. And the Bible says
33:13
that both water and blood came out.
33:16
And I can't remember the medical term for it, but that basically says he died
33:21
of asphyxiation and something similar to a heart attack.
33:25
So, he was already dead, the fact that water and blood came out.
33:30
His side was pierced, right? So, So then Nicodemus, after that,
33:34
he wrapped the body with 100 pounds of embalming spices.
33:37
So myrrh, aloes, and these were all poisonous.
33:41
They would have suffocated a weakened man after his weakened state.
33:44
So it's highly irrational to suggest that a half-dead, severely mutilated man
33:51
could unwrap his own mummy-like grave clothes, push away a massive stone from the inside,
33:56
overpower a squad of heavily armed Roman guards, then present himself to the
34:00
disciples as a glorious conqueror of death.
34:02
So the swoon theory just falls apart. Medically, it's impossible.
34:07
Then there's the theft theory. So, this was the very first lie,
34:11
if you think about it, propagated against the resurrection.
34:13
That was the Jewish Sanhedrin. They bribed those guards and said,
34:17
look, basically, we're going to give you money, but whenever you're questioned,
34:21
you tell everybody that his disciples came by night and stole them away while we slept.
34:26
So, that's what you tell them. So, the logical absurdity of this claim is self-evident.
34:30
So, how could sleeping guards, well, how would they even know who stole the
34:34
body if they were asleep?
34:36
Right? You just, you knew it was the disciples. How would you know it was the disciples?
34:42
Furthermore, the disciples were cowards. They all fled at Christ's arrest, right? In the garden.
34:50
So, Peter even cowered before young men, and he even denied Christ three times.
34:55
So, they lacked the courage and the martial prowess to overcome a trained Roman
34:59
watch. How would that have happened?
35:01
It's ridiculous. It doesn't stand in the line of reasoning.
35:05
So the theft theory falls apart. Then you have the hallucination theory, okay?
35:10
Well, let me put it this way. On the theft theory, if there was a hasty grave robbery,
35:16
why would the thieves take the time to meticulously unwrap the body and leave
35:20
the linen grave clothes perfectly in place, folded with the head napkin wrapped
35:26
together in a place by itself? John 20, verses 6 and 7.
35:30
I mean, it doesn't make sense, right? That's not the behavior of men trying
35:34
to steal a body at night from a Roman guard, you know, watch of guards.
35:38
Then, of course, the hallucination theory is that the disciples just experienced
35:41
a grief-induced hallucination of the risen Christ.
35:45
However, here's the problem. Psychological hallucinations are highly individualized
35:50
internal events like a dream.
35:52
There's no historical or psychological precedence for large groups of people
35:58
having the exact same sustained detailed multi-sensory hallucination.
36:04
It's one thing if you hallucinated something. It's another thing if both of
36:08
us hallucinate the same thing.
36:10
But the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, 6, that he appeared to over 500 people.
36:15
And Paul said that the majority of those were still alive to his day when he was writing that.
36:22
This is almost 30 years later, to corroborate the claim that Paul was writing in his epistle.
36:28
So it's a historical record of evidence, is what it is. It's a historical eyewitness testimony.
36:35
And historical eyewitness testimony works a certain way.
36:38
So the disciples weren't expecting the resurrection, okay? This is another problem.
36:43
They were steeped in grief.
36:45
They struggled with doubt and unbelief and skepticism.
36:50
Thomas outright refused to believe that Christ arose from the dead until he
36:54
physically touched his wounds, right?
36:57
Hallucinations simply cannot be touched. You can't touch a hallucination.
37:00
And finally, a hallucination doesn't explain the missing corpse.
37:05
The authorities needed only to walk down the street to the tomb,
37:08
produce the rotting body of Christ, and totally shatter the beginning of the
37:11
church, but they didn't.
37:14
That would have been the best way to squash Christianity at its birth is produce the body of Christ.
37:20
So, the hallucination theory doesn't work. So, at the end of the day,
37:24
you know, these theories, again, they're attempts to try to discredit the crucifixion. Why?
37:29
Because it is the root and the foundation of our Christian faith that is so utterly important.
37:34
You know? So, I don't know if you've ever heard or thought about those theories
37:38
before. Have you ever dealt with them?
37:40
I've heard about the grave robber where somebody just stole the body and that was it.
37:46
And that's how people that are skeptics would try to explain it.
37:50
And the swoon theory, that's just utterly ridiculous just hearing about that,
37:56
that when they crucified, when the Romans were just vicious,
38:00
they made sure you were dead.
38:02
I mean, that's why they stabbed Christ in the side to ensure that he was already dead. Right.
38:09
And, you know, the other ones, the hallucination theory, I don't know, just think about that.
38:14
That's just insane to think about. Doesn't make sense, yeah.
38:16
No, it doesn't make any sense. You have to really, it's a stretch, any of these arguments.
38:23
And they have to fight for these because they cannot accept a crucified and resurrected Christ.
38:30
Because if you have a resurrected Christ, man, the implications for the lost
38:35
believer, or the lost person, not lost believer, but the lost person,
38:39
is that they're going to stand before God and be judged for their sins.
38:42
Comes down to accountability.
38:45
Yep. So ultimately, and then of course, ultimately, the most important evidence
38:49
is the resurrection's reality in the apostles' radical transformation.
38:55
So we just said that they were cowards.
38:57
They all fled at the night of their rest. Peter denied Christ,
39:00
right? They were scared to death.
39:03
They didn't anticipate. I mean, even though Christ told them he would be beaten,
39:08
crucified, and buried and raised again the third day, but they didn't believe
39:11
that. Because as far as they were concerned, he was supposed to be the conquering
39:15
messiah who was going to destroy all their enemies.
39:18
So, after the crucifixion, they scattered everything.
39:22
So there's no way that those men would have been recognizable as far as,
39:30
you know, whenever you look at the beginning of Acts,
39:32
when you see these men now openly preaching Jesus Christ and setting themselves
39:37
up for persecution and martyrdom, right?
39:40
Somebody once said, it's impossible.
39:42
Men may die for a lie that they think is true.
39:48
But it is a psychological impossibility
39:51
for men to willingly die for something they know to be a lie.
39:56
It's one thing to lie about something. It's another thing to die over that lie.
40:02
If they'd stolen the body, then they would have known the resurrection was a hoax.
40:07
And if money sets or power were their motives they
40:10
failed miserably because they all died horrible
40:13
martyrs deaths so that's one of the greatest empirical
40:16
evidences of their faith is is
40:19
of the resurrection is the fact that they were completely totally and utterly
40:23
transformed so that means they saw something something changed their perspective
40:28
and it's another same thing with like there's even james the brother of christ
40:32
how do you take a family member who knew Jesus Christ as his brother,
40:37
who ended up becoming a believer if the resurrection isn't true.
40:41
Sometimes your greatest skeptics are going to be people in your family.
40:47
And then you also have Paul who literally persecuted and hailed women and men
40:54
to prison over their faith in Christ,
40:57
and he became a believer and ultimately was beheaded over his faith.
41:03
You can't explain that that's the problem is you cannot humanly explain the
41:09
change and the transformation in these people's lives so that's one of the greatest
41:13
empirical evidences is to change life.
41:16
If you really think about that, when it comes to the skeptics that are out there,
41:22
let's say that the claim is that the disciples were a bunch of deceivers and
41:25
hoaxers and they were out.
41:28
They had some motivation, just like you said, money or power or anything else.
41:32
But really, what really got me thinking about it is that statement you said
41:40
was, would anybody be willing to die for a lie that they know is a lie?
41:46
I don't think anybody would. If you knew it was a lie, would you actually lay
41:49
down your life for it? Yeah.
41:51
It's a more articulate way to put it. But that's the question.
41:55
If you knew it was a lie, you know it's a hoax, would you lay your life down for it? Right.
42:02
I mean, it's a powerful, you know, it's a powerful reasoning thing.
42:04
You can't just say that, oh, they just made it up.
42:08
Yeah. No, it's a good piece of evidence and something that a lot of people don't
42:13
really take into consideration when they're questioning it.
42:18
Brother Keener brought this illustration up, and I thought it was a great illustration
42:22
for kind of reinforcing the fact that it changed life is a very powerful testimony of evidence. So Dr.
42:30
Harry Ironside, he was a preacher in the early 1900s.
42:34
And I guess he was challenged by an agnostic or an atheist.
42:40
And he tells a story where he was kind of challenged for like,
42:45
prove Christianity is true.
42:47
And he said, you know, I guess the guy that was challenging him said,
42:51
I want you to prove the resurrection. I want you to prove the Bible is true.
42:54
The Bible doesn't have any contradictions and so forth and so on.
42:57
And he had actually, he recountered the challenge and he basically said,
43:04
look, okay, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this.
43:06
He was challenged by the debate and he agreed on the condition that the challenger,
43:11
and this is what he said, you bring two people whose lives were morally transformed by agnosticism.
43:18
And when you can produce two people, he goes, then I'll produce a hundred people
43:24
whose lives have been transformed by the gospel.
43:27
And the agnostic withdrew his challenge.
43:31
Think about that. How many people do you know of that will come to you and say,
43:35
when I rejected religion, I became agnostic, my life was ultimately fulfilled,
43:40
and it became better morally than it ever was before?
43:45
You're going to have a really hard time finding that.
43:49
So it was at a Salvation Street meeting in San Francisco when he did that.
43:53
So I thought that was interesting.
43:54
You know, he says, I tell you what, you bring me two people whose lives were changed morally.
44:00
Their entire life was morally transformed for the better by turning to agnosticism.
44:05
He goes, and I'll bring you a hundred people whose lives have been changed by the gospel.
44:09
It's impossible. There's no hope in that way of life and being agnostic.
44:14
There's nothing to look forward to. So how can you do that?
44:17
There's no way you can do it. That's it. All they got is right here, right now.
44:21
What's that? I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was just saying, all they got is right
44:24
here, right now, the present time. That's it. That's the only hope they have. No real hope.
44:30
So, obviously, we don't worship a dead martyr. We worship a living Savior.
44:35
He's provided infallible proofs, both flesh and bone, because remember,
44:38
he went to the disciples. He said, you think I'm a ghost?
44:41
He goes, give me that fish. I'll eat it, you know.
44:45
And he ate it in front of him. He goes, go ahead and touch my hands.
44:47
And he tells Thomas, right?
44:49
So, you can't touch something that's spiritually resurrected,
44:52
you know, but you could touch something that's physically resurrected,
44:55
and that's exactly what Jesus Christ proved whenever he came to them.
44:59
So, both the chronological, the historical, the logical evidences all defend an empty tomb.
45:05
And again, the greatest evidence being the changed life of a believer.
45:09
So here's what's interesting about it. There's a couple quotes I thought was really interesting.
45:14
Thomas Arnold, he's a former chair of modern history at Oxford,
45:19
said this, I know of no one fact in the history of mankind.
45:24
Which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort to the understanding
45:29
of a fair inquirer than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died
45:35
and rose again from the dead.
45:37
So, he said there's no other fact of history that's greater than the resurrection of Christ.
45:43
And then Gary Habermas, he's a historian and philosopher, he said this,
45:47
if Jesus was raised from the dead, then he is Lord and Christianity is true.
45:52
If he were not, then Christianity is false and the resurrection is the central
45:57
point of our faith, basically.
45:59
So, the Bible says in Luke 24, 5, and as they were afraid,
46:03
they bowed their faces to the earth and they said unto them the angels said
46:06
why seek ye the living among the dead jesus christ
46:09
is a living savior our faith is based off
46:12
of the resurrection and the resurrection is
46:15
based off of infallible inerrant immutable truths and so and the lord you know
46:23
there's tons of internal evidence of it but reasoning through it it just it's
46:27
just the central fact and i think every Christian needs to understand the importance
46:31
of the resurrection and be able to defend it, be prepared to defend it.
46:35
So, the more you understand about the resurrection, and I always make it an
46:38
exercise every, you know, every year, right, during Easter and resurrection.
46:44
You know, we call it Resurrection Sunday, right, where we focus on the resurrection.
46:48
The Christian ought to focus on the resurrection of Christ every week of their
46:51
life, but I think it's a good...
46:55
Exercise to stop and make sure, do I understand the importance of the resurrection?
47:01
Can I logically and apologetically defend the resurrection?
47:05
Can I walk through the biblical events surrounding the resurrection?
47:09
And I think every Christian should strive to be able to articulate it in a way
47:15
that will convince the lost person or the skeptic or maybe the person on the
47:19
fence that Christianity is true.
47:22
Yeah, solid, powerful.
47:25
And people can find this in Substack in terms of some of the,
47:29
I would say show notes, but this is a, you wrote a post about it as well.
47:35
And something that we can link into the description for folks to reference.
47:42
And I would just say, if it's something to whet your appetite, do it.
47:45
But I would also, I'll send you the link to the book, Alan, we could put it
47:50
in the show notes, but I would also highly recommend Brother Williams' book,
47:55
Three Days, Three Nights. Oh, yeah. Okay.
47:57
And what's the first and last name? If anybody's looking at it.
48:01
Williams, Williams. So, Jeff. Yeah, Jeff Williams. Jeff Williams.
48:05
Okay. Yeah. Jeff Williams, Three Days, Three Nights.
48:09
Yeah, you're making me type and talk at the same time.
48:12
Just trying to throw you off, man.
48:15
So, I never read the book. I might. I'll check it out myself. I'm sure it's on Amazon.
48:20
Yep. You can get on Kindle. You can get it on, uh, yeah, regular, uh, paperback. Cool.
48:26
Yeah. Well, we'll be sure to put the, the link to that. And then also the link
48:31
to the, the sub stack that you wrote your, your post around this.
48:36
It's got some graphics in it too.
48:39
Yeah, I mean, we can always, you know, there's a lot of stuff to cover,
48:43
but yeah, that's good, yep.
48:45
Cool. Well, I think that was a good thing to cover. Just Easter just passed
48:51
this last Sunday a couple days ago.
48:53
So if anybody has any questions, I know we were a little technical in the very
48:57
beginning because that was just my curious mind.
49:00
And we were on the verge of arguing before the podcast about how the timing
49:06
was working because I just, I was slow to understand.
49:09
Like with a lot of things. But if there's questions around that,
49:12
I mean, we can even do a feature podcast covering the timing around it and get
49:16
a little bit more technical because it is fascinating. It's very, very interesting.
49:20
And I think there's a lot of value of knowing the details around this.
49:26
This would strengthen your argument if people have questions or are questioning
49:30
when the resurrection happened or if you're talking to a Catholic,
49:33
you can answer confidently if you know the timing.
49:38
So any questions just shoot it over to us you know where to find us mutableword.gmail.com,
49:43
and Robert's TikTok account you know just shoot him a chat or something,
49:49
and check out the Substack I know you've been writing a lot of or you're starting
49:53
to do a lot of posts now on Substack yeah I'm trying to get some stuff in there
49:57
I'm kind of playing around with it you know because eventually we wanted to do a blog for our site,
50:04
Substack kind of offers a nice little neat platform.
50:07
It's just tied to my name right now. I'm hoping to try to somehow get it tied
50:12
to Immutable Word. That was the plan, at least.
50:16
Yeah, Immutize it. Yep.
50:19
Nice. Yeah, so this is working out now until we get a website up at some point in time.
50:25
So check it out. We'll put the link down in the description.
50:29
Anyways, I think we'll wrap it up there unless you've got anything else to add, any last rounds.
50:34
No, I'm good, man. Awesome. All right. Well, we'll see everybody next week.
50:39
We will probably return to the series that we've been running,
50:43
which is the Baptist Distinctives. If you haven't listened to those two episodes,
50:47
listen to the last two, went through the intro.
50:49
The introduction and Bible as a final authority. Yep. Starting with the Bible.
50:54
Then autonomy of the church will be the next one we do. This is the A in the
50:58
acrostic, right? Which is just the acronym. Cool.
51:01
All right. Something to look forward to. We'll see everybody next week.