Christianity stands or falls on one stupendous issue: did Jesus rise from the dead? The biblical record is crystal clear in saying that he did and many Evangelicals Now readers will be familiar with the evidence. However, there are four easily missed facts that give the resurrection story a further ring of truth.
The first is that there is no description of the actual event. This might seem to be a weak link, but is exactly the opposite. Had the apostles invented the resurrection, it is difficult to imagine them missing the opportunity of including an eyewitness account of it and decorating it with extravagant descriptions. Instead, they say nothing about it. Their silence is significant.
Grave clothes
Secondly, when Peter went into the tomb on the Sunday morning, ‘He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself’ (John 20.6-7). Moments later, John confirmed Peter’s findings. At first glance, describing how the grave-clothes were lying seems irrelevant, but this is not so. The word ‘lying’ (used twice of the linen cloths) translates a word commonly used of something done in a very orderly way, while the phrase about the face cloth being ‘folded up’ means something like ‘twirled about itself’. The grave-clothes looked like the empty chrysalis of a caterpillar’s cocoon. This would not have been the case if the swoon theory is true and Jesus had recovered from a near-death experience and wrestled out of grave-clothes smothered in substances which would have stuck firmly to the body. Nor can we imagine him stopping to tidy them up as if he were leaving his bedroom for a day’s work. Would grave robbers (Romans, Jews or disciples) increase the risk of being caught by taking time to tidy everything up before they rushed out?
