Photo by Jacob Meyer on Unsplash
These are the words of the Apostle Paul:
12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.
— 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 (NASB)
Paul believed that the resurrection of Christ was at the heart of the Christian message. Without it, he says, all is in vain. Unfortunately, in our time, there are too many pastors that neglect this most important event in their teaching and preaching; we hope not to be numbered among them.
People Saw Jesus After His Death
As supporting evidence for the resurrection, the bible lists many people that saw Jesus after His death. The focus of this post is not to validate those claims, but if you would like to dive a little deeper, I would recommend The Case For Easter by Lee Strobel. In this book he discusses in good detail why the claims of witnesses are valid and true.
Today, I want to focus on just a small segment of those witnesses. In fact, these few people perhaps knew Jesus more intimately than anyone else, other than His mother.
Jesus Brothers Did Not Believe, Then They Did
In the book of John we read this short verse. If you are not paying attention, you read right through it without giving it a second thought.
5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him.
– John 7:5 (NASB)
The people that knew Jesus best, did not believe in Him as the Messiah. Think about that for a moment.
But then, something changed. Later in the book of acts we read:
13 When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
– Acts 1:13-14 (NASB)
What changed? What would cause these people that knew Him best to move from unbelieving to believing?
The RESURRECTION happened.
We know for sure, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus appeared to His brother James. It says that Jesus also appeared to more than 500 at one time. It is probable that Jesus’ brothers, at some point, were numbered among those that He appeared to.
Regardless of whether He appeared to all of them, or just James, Jesus being seen alive on the other side of His death was enough to cause His brothers to have a change of heart. Either they all saw Him and believed or James saw Him and was so powerfully changed that he convinced the others.
There is something powerful about a man dying and coming back to life. This single event solidified for Jesus’ brothers and many others, that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
