The Validity of the Vacant Tomb

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Isn’t it frustrating when you lose something, when something disappears and then you have to, you know, chase down the evidence and you have to investigate? And it may not be frustrating for my wife. She likes to investigate things.

I don’t have time. Last night, Benjamin dropped a teeny tiny allergy pill right as they were getting ready for bed and couldn’t find where it went. So I’m down there on my hands and knees.

I had been digging post holes yesterday and tilling and I said, oh, great, I was really looking for an excuse to, you know, have to lay down in the floor and get up again. That feels wonderful. But I’m down there looking for it, shining flashlights, swept the whole bathroom.

We can’t figure out where it went. You know, we’re having to look at every plausible explanation. Where could it be?

No, it can’t be there because of this. No, Charlie hasn’t been in there. Still don’t know where the pill is and don’t want one of the other three to pick it up and chew on it.

So that’s frustrating. But let me tell you about one of the most frustrating disappearances I’ve ever dealt with. Several years ago on Easter, ironically enough, since we’re talking about Easter things this morning, several years ago on Easter, came home to our house in Seminole and found that our turtles had disappeared.

I used to keep turtles, and I had three turtles named Otis, Gus, and Delilah. And we called her Delilah because she bit me, so I named her after that not nice lady in the Bible. Later on, found out they were all girls, But Otis and Gus didn’t seem to mind their names, so we just left it.

Anyway, so we’d keep these turtles in an aquarium in the house. But when the weather would start to warm up, you know, we’d let them go on a field trip because it was getting nice outside. And so I had this big Rubbermaid tub that we would put water in and some of their gravel, and we’d set it out on the back patio, kind of under the cover so birds didn’t dive and get them, but where they could get some sun.

And we went to something for Easter. I can’t remember. I feel like we went somewhere to eat.

Came back a while later, and the turtles are all gone. And I’m trying to figure out what happened here. Okay, did a raccoon get in there?

No, we would see blood in the water. Did birds get them? I don’t see how the birds could have even seen them from where they were.

We’re trying to figure out every possible explanation and follow the evidence to explain the disappearance of these turtles. The one thing I knew is that unlike other pets and children, turtles don’t climb out of their enclosures and run away. So just from the very beginning, I said, that’s not a possibility.

So we’re examining everything. You know, is it possible somebody sneaked in here and stole them? I think the gates were locked.

So it seemed really implausible that somebody climbed over the fence and stole turtles and put them in their pocket. We’re just trying to run down every bit of evidence. And it was a couple days later we found Delilah.

Never did find the other two, but we found Delilah under the shed, covered in dirt. She was my least favorite. She would be the one that would turn up.

Found Delilah under the shed, covered in dirt, and we started putting two and two together because it had rained. And I got to thinking, wait a minute. When we got home, that tub was full of water.

I mean, it was up to the top. So those turtles, we finally figured out what must have happened as we followed the evidence to try to explain this disappearance. What seemed so unlikely to begin with is apparently what happened.

Nobody came in and stole the turtles. It rained, and that was sticking out just enough under the awning that it filled up with water. The turtles swam to the top and thought, huh, what’s over there?

Jumped out. Am I that bad of a pet owner that they jumped to risk their deaths? I mean, they dropped about six feet.

Maybe not six feet, three or four feet. I’m bad with spatial reasoning, yeah. They dropped about three or four feet to the ground and crawled out.

That was the one explanation that I said, no, that’s not possible. They didn’t climb out and run away. But when I found her in the backyard, I realized nobody stole her.

Not to think about the water levels. The one explanation I said, no, that can’t possibly be it, was exactly what had to have happened based on the evidence. This morning, I want to talk to you about another disappearance that based on the evidence, I think the most reasonable explanation is the one that people automatically reject out of hand.

But if we follow the evidence, that’s exactly what it points to. Last week, I began talking to you about evidence for the resurrection, and we started with the fact that Jesus died. Because if Jesus didn’t die on the cross, then he couldn’t have risen again, right?

If he’s dead, if he’s never dead, there’s no coming back to life. He’s just still alive. Last week, I talked about some of the evidence for how we can know for a fact that Jesus died on the cross as the scriptures record.

Today, I want to talk about the second part of this, which is the idea that Jesus was buried, and then the tomb was empty three days later. Over these four weeks, I’m going to walk you through four things that if they are true, then the resurrection is the explanation for it. The first, we talked about last week that Jesus existed, his existence and his death are a historical fact.

They’re historically verifiable. Today, it’s the fact that Jesus was buried and the tomb was found empty three days later. Next week, we’ll talk about how numerous eyewitnesses went on record as having seen him alive after he was supposed to have been dead and buried.

And then we’ll talk about on Easter Sunday changes that took place that can only, extraordinary changes that came about after his death and burial that can only be explained through an extraordinary explanation. Today I want to talk to you about the fact that the tomb was empty, was found empty three days after it was occupied. There was a disappearance that somebody had to explain.

And this morning we’re going to look back at John chapter 19 where we were last week. John chapter 19, we’re going to start in verse 38. When you get there, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you can do that without too much difficulty.

If you don’t have a Bible with you, it’ll be on the screen in front of you. John chapter 19, starting in verse 38, we’re going to go into the beginning of John chapter 20 as well. It says, After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission.

So he came and took the body of Jesus, and Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews’ preparation day for the tomb was nearby. Now the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.

Peter therefore went out and the other disciple and they were going to the tomb. So they ran together and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. Now, just as an aside here, I told you last week that when the gospel of John refers to another disciple unnamed, usually who is he talking about? John.

He’s talking about himself. You notice that? That he says, the other disciple outran Peter.

If you think this is not eyewitness testimony, realize it had to have been written by John because he had to get that subtle jab in there that, hey, I outran the old man to get to the tomb. And Peter, he outran Peter and came to the tomb first. Verse 5. And he, stooping down, looking in, and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. And he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in place by itself. Then the other disciple who came to the tomb first went in also, and he saw and believed.

For as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their own homes. and you may be seated.

I’m convinced this is an eyewitness account. We’ve talked a little bit about that last week, how there’s evidence within the text that these are eyewitness accounts. But it points to the fact that Jesus’ tomb was occupied and then it was vacant three days later.

If it was occupied and vacant three days later, there has to be some explanation. If there was at one point a body there and then there was no body there, you have to come up with some reason to explain that. It may be a natural explanation.

Somebody stole the body. It may be a natural explanation. They misplaced it.

It may be any number of natural explanations. And there’s the explanation that the scripture gives that Jesus came back from the dead. But the way the scripture outlines this story, and again, I know some people are skeptical and say, well, you know, the Bible’s just a religious book.

There are plenty of people who have studied this and say it reads like eyewitness accounts. The criminologist and atheist turned Christian, J. Werner Wallace, has written a book called Cold Case Christianity that I’ve been enjoying, where he talks about how you would expect eyewitness testimonies to the same events, how you would expect them to be laid out.

And when he looks at the four gospels, it’s exactly, even down to the things that don’t immediately fit together, the pieces that are missing from one account, but included in another. He said, these things fit together exactly like would expect four eyewitness statements to do. There’s plenty of reason to believe that this is an eyewitness account.

And the way they lay this out is that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who were followers of Jesus, but kind of kept it hush-hush because of their position, because of their wealth. At least Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin, probably not there when they voted unanimously to condemn Jesus to die. But these two men came secretly to Pontius Pilate just as sundown was coming on crucifixion day, they came to Pontius Pilate and they asked for the body so that they could give Jesus a proper burial. And that’s recorded here in verses 38 through 42.

It’s also recorded in Matthew chapter 27, Mark chapter 15, and Luke chapter 23. So they took him and they got him buried, or at least put in the tomb. They didn’t have time for all the burial preparations, but they at least did the bare minimum to get him in the tomb with some spices before sundown, before the Sabbath began.

We also know that there was a group of women who watched the burial. There was a group of women who followed what was going on, saw where he was buried. They witnessed everything that Joseph and Nicodemus were doing, and these women are recorded in Matthew 27, 61, Mark 15, 47, and Luke 23, 55. I know I’m throwing a lot of verses at you.

If you want a copy of my notes. Later, I’ll give them to you. They saw where he was buried.

They watched this whole thing unfold. We know that within hours, the Jews and Romans inspected and secured the tomb. It tells us that in Matthew chapter 27, verses 62 through 66.

They came to Pilate and said, you know, there’s been a story going around that in three days he’ll rise again. We want to make sure his disciples don’t go in there and steal the body. So why don’t we put a guard out there?

And Pilate said, fine, you know, you have your guards, take them and make it as secure as you possibly can. Now, you might look at that and say, well, then there was plenty of time to steal the body anyway, because it says it was the next day. Keep in mind that the way they reckoned time back then, a day started at sundown.

When it says one thing happened one day and one thing happened the next day, we may be talking as early as sun up on the next morning, okay? Not a lot of time to develop a conspiracy to go out and, without them knowing where Jesus was going to be buried ahead of time, to work up a plan. They’re not the A-team, okay?

This is not burn notice where they can come up with this stuff on the fly. The disciples did not have time to work up a plan and go out there and steal the body before the guard was posted. And in any case, when Pilate said, go out there and make it as secure as you can, if they are concerned about a conspiracy to steal the body, why would we assume they wouldn’t look inside to make sure the body was still there.

But within just a few hours, we need to understand that, within just a few hours, they had sealed that place up and put a Roman guard, which is recorded in Matthew chapter 27. And then on the third day, the tomb was found empty. That’s recorded here in verses 1 through 10 that we just read.

It’s recorded in Matthew 28, Mark 16, and Luke 24. So those are the basic tent poles of the story. Joseph and Nicodemus buried Jesus.

There were witnesses who saw where he was buried. Very soon after, the tomb was secured, and then three days later, the tomb was empty despite being secured. And there’s reason to believe that this is not just a fairy tale story, but that the tomb was really empty.

It really was empty three days later, the way they say. First of all, is the eyewitness testimony involved. We have the testimony of John who saw the tomb empty, records it here.

We have the testimony of Matthew who wrote a gospel and apparently saw the tomb empty at some point. Mark, who we believe to have been the one who was so scared that when Jesus was arrested, he ran off without part of his clothes. I guess the soldiers grabbed hold of his cloak, and he just split right out of that thing and ran off in his underclothes from the sound of it.

Mark was around and also knew Peter. And then we have Luke, who went to all these unnamed eyewitnesses. The names are lost to us, but he went to all these eyewitnesses and collected their stories and wrote it down.

And within the text, we have six named eyewitnesses who in that time, Brother Rick was talking about it in his class today, was talking about how soon the Gospels were written after the events. And there is internal evidence within the text. Folks, the New Testament was not made up hundreds of years later.

There is evidence within the text that points to some of the scriptures being written down as soon as two years after the resurrection and no later than 35 years after the resurrection. And so they have these eyewitnesses, these named eyewitnesses, who said, on record, we saw the tomb empty. There was Mary Magdalene, there was Mary the mother of James, there was Salome, there was Joanna, there was Peter, and there was John, and those are just the ones that we know named in the story.

Because it says there were all these others. There were eyewitness testimonies who said, we saw the tomb empty. And keep in mind, as I told you last week, some of those women who saw the empty tomb were the same ones who saw him crucified and then followed Joseph and Nicodemus out to the tomb and saw where the tomb was located.

Some of these women were faithful eyewitnesses in a way that the men weren’t because they ran off scared, that they saw everything. And I’ve made the point many times over the years, there’s no point to have made that up because in their day, you didn’t go to women for testimony. I know in our day and age that sounds horrible.

I’m not saying that’s a good system. I’m just saying that’s where it was 2,000 years ago. You wanted to say somebody saw something, you didn’t attribute it to the women, unless that’s what really happened.

It was the women who saw him crucified, who saw his body taken down, who saw it put in the tomb, saw the tomb empty later. We’ve got these eyewitness accounts of at least six people who are named on the record and said, we saw the tomb empty. There was no body in there.

We have an official confirmation of the story. Do you know the authorities in that day confirmed that the tomb was empty? If you go to Matthew chapter 28, there’s a story there where three days later when the tomb is discovered empty, the soldiers went to the Jewish authorities and said, hey, we’re kind of worried about this because here’s what happened.

And the Jewish authorities, they never disputed the emptiness of the tomb. As a matter of fact, nobody at that time ever disputed the emptiness of the tomb. Instead, they tried to explain it away.

They never tried to explain, no, the tomb’s not really empty. They just tried to explain why. And their explanation was, it’s empty because the disciples must have come and stolen it, stolen the body.

They even bribed the Roman soldiers. They said, if anybody comes to you, just tell them the disciples, a band of fishermen, by the way, came and whooped up on a group of Roman soldiers, stole the body. Well, you just laid there and let it happen.

And if Pilate hears about it, we’ll cover you. But notice what they Admit in there. Notice what the authorities admit.

They admitted the tomb was empty. By covering it up, instead of saying, no, no, it’s all a mistake, they admitted that tomb was empty because they had to come up with a story to explain why. But we have confirmation from even Jesus’ enemies that the tomb was empty.

And we’ll talk about why their explanation doesn’t hold water. But we have confirmation from Jesus’ enemies that day that the tomb was empty. And then there’s what we see from the rest of the story.

And this is something that just finally jumped out at me this week after all these years. I’ve heard skeptics say, you know, nobody actually claims in the Bible to have seen Jesus rise from the dead. You know, you’ve got a circumstantial case.

Nobody actually claims to have seen it. And that’s true. John doesn’t claim to have seen Jesus walk out of that grave.

Peter doesn’t claim it. Nobody claims to have actually seen it. Then I was rereading Matthew this week and realized, no, somebody does claim to have seen it.

In Matthew 28, it talks about how the Roman soldiers were there outside the tomb when the earth began to shake, and the stone was rolled away, and Jesus walked out of that tomb, and they were so frightened that they fell down like dead men. There was the cover-up story that the officials had, that the authorities had, and then there was what they really knew. There was what the government really knew and wasn’t telling people.

Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but we’ll hear people talk about stuff like this with 9-11 or Roswell, there’s the official story and there’s what they supposedly really know. In this case, we have record of what they really knew. There were people who claimed to be eyewitnesses.

And I thought, well, why? Why would Matthew be the only one that records this? Because Matthew’s the only one that records Jesus actually physically walking out of the grave.

Everybody else just talks about the story that implies it. Matthew says, here’s what happened. Why would Matthew know that and not anybody else?

And it occurred to me this week, sitting in my office, Matthew was a tax collector. Matthew worked for the Roman government. If anybody was going to be pulled aside and say, hey, man, I know what they’re telling you.

Can I tell you what my guys are telling me behind the scenes really happened? If any of the disciples were going to hear that, it was going to be Matthew. So the fact that Matthew’s the only one who records what the Roman soldiers saw, I find compelling because of Matthew’s connections to the Romans.

If anybody was going to be privy to that information. It was going to be Matthew. So there’s reason to believe that the tomb really was empty, but there’s also the fact that the alternative explanations all fall short.

None of them really explain why the tomb was empty. The disciples’ explanation makes sense if you allow for it. The alternative explanations do not make sense.

And we could spend all day talking about alternative explanations. I’ve told some of you I’m writing a book on this subject. I’m not trying to sell this book by telling you that, but I’ve been cataloging objections, and so far I’ve come up with over 40 objections that skeptics make to the resurrection.

I don’t have time to cover all of that with you this morning. I want to give you three of the most common objections to the empty tomb story and why I don’t think they hold any water. First of all, some people will say they found an empty tomb because Jesus was never buried.

Of course, if he was never buried, the tomb’s going be empty, right? I have a grave north of Shawnee and it’s empty. You know why?

Because here I am, right? It’s that simple. Some people will say that the tomb was empty because Jesus was never buried.

But it’s interesting, nobody claimed this at the time. They acknowledged the authorities and the soldiers, they acknowledged that the body had been buried. They acknowledged that the tomb was empty.

It seems that his burial place was public knowledge. The authorities knew exactly where he was. Everybody knew exactly where he was.

The women knew, the authorities knew, word had gotten around. It was not a secret. We have this idea that Jesus was buried in secret.

No, it was apparently the worst kept secret in Jerusalem because the Christians knew, the Romans knew, the Jews knew. Everybody knew where he was buried. And if that tomb was never occupied, somebody in the ancient world would have said so.

But they never did. They just acknowledged that the tomb was occupied and it was empty, and they tried to explain why. Some people today, that’s a modern claim, by the way.

Well, it was empty because he was never buried. And some people today will say it’s impossible that he was buried because a crucified criminal was considered the lowest of the low, and they would never have been given a proper burial. But in 1968, there was an excavation of a cemetery in Jerusalem called Givat HaMivtar, where they found the calcaneus bone, I think I’m pronouncing that right. The calcaneus bone, the heel bone of a crucified man named Yehohanan ben Hakkul with the Roman spike still through his heel.

It might have been rare that a crucified criminal was buried, but it did happen. So the idea that the tomb was empty because Jesus was never buried because he couldn’t have been buried, archaeology blew that out of the water, what, 50 years ago? Then there’s the second alternative explanation, that they found an empty tomb because they went to the wrong location.

Again, the location of the tomb was the worst kept secret in Jerusalem. It’s hard to believe that they went to the wrong location. They just found any empty tomb and said, oh, he must be alive based on the eyewitness accounts.

Remember, at least two of the women who discovered the tomb, at least two of the women who went there and saw the tomb empty that day, were part of the group of women who watched him be buried. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James. Both of those women are called by name at both events.

If they had gone. . .

Okay, think about it, men. Have you ever gone to the wrong place that your wife has not let you know? Right?

You should have turned right here. No, no, that’s not the way we want to go. And now we have Siri who will tell us, okay?

If they had gone to the wrong tomb, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James knew that that was not the right tomb. And by the way, they themselves were the first ones who saw the tomb empty and went back and told everybody. It’s hard to believe that they just went to the wrong tomb because the tomb was so well known.

His followers knew where it was going to be. The women knew where it was going to be. The authorities knew where it was.

And if they had gone to the wrong tomb and said, there’s nobody there, see, look, wouldn’t the authorities have very quickly taken them by the hand or yanked them by the ear over to the correct tomb and said, no, no, there’s the body, see? But they didn’t do that. Instead, the authorities acknowledged the tomb was empty The right tomb was empty and had to try to explain it away.

This brings me to my favorite explanation, the oldest explanation, and one that gets the most traction a lot of times still, that they found an empty tomb because the body was stolen. And if we’re going to accuse that a crime happened here, we’ve got to ask, by whom? If the body was stolen, by whom?

It wasn’t stolen by the women, because Mark chapter 16 tells us that they arrived on that Sunday morning to prepare his body. They spent a lot of money on spices to prepare his body, and they went out there with all that that they wouldn’t have spent, by the way, if they knew they weren’t going to need it. But they went out there with all these expensive spices that they had purchased to prepare his body, and they were worried, they were talking amongst themselves about who’s going to roll the stone away because they knew they couldn’t.

You will not convince me that that group of women went out there with all that expense, went out there that they were able to move the stone away, that they were able to overpower a group of Roman guards. and steal the body. It wasn’t the disciples, because when the story of the empty tomb first got out, they were among the most skeptical. The scriptures record that they didn’t believe it.

They thought it was nonsense, one of the gospel writers records. Peter and John ran out there because they weren’t just taking the women’s word for it, they had to see it for themselves. The disciples were the most skeptical. And not to mention, if they had fabricated the story, If they had perpetrated a hoax, if they had stolen the body and come up with this story that he had walked out of the tomb, this story involved too many conspirators over too long a period of time and with too many incentives for them to break for somebody not to have talked.

And I go back to this J. Werner Wallace book that I’m in right now, Cold Case Christianity. He talks about the nature of criminal conspiracies.

And he talks about how hard it is to hold a conspiracy together with too many people over too long a period of time. Somebody is going to have incentive to talk. If anybody had incentive to talk and say, hey, we made up the whole thing, it’s somebody trying to save their own skins.

And of the 11 remaining disciples, because Judas was dead by this point, of the 11 remaining disciples, all of them were martyred in horrific ways except for John who lived out his life in exile constantly hunted down by the Romans. They could have at any time saved themselves that agony by admitting that they made it all up. And nobody did.

Think of how quick people are to turn on each other about lesser punishments. For decades, none of the ones who saw what they said they saw were willing to say anything about it being a hoax. They died.

They suffered incredibly and died rather than admit that any part of it was fabricated. Knowing what I know about people, knowing what my children have taught me about conspiracy and lying, I don’t believe for a second that these 11 men were involved in stealing a body and everybody kept it quiet for years. It defies logic.

We know that the Jewish leaders weren’t involved in moving the body because they were worried about the body disappearing and they took steps to prevent it. We know the Romans wouldn’t have been involved in moving the body because the last thing the Romans wanted was to light a match in the powder keg of Jerusalem. They just wanted everybody to be calm.

Everybody just chill out, have a Snickers. The last thing they wanted is for the Jews and the followers of Jesus to be in an uproar because then they were going to have to deal with it. Instead, they covered up the story.

The authorities covered up the story. Tried to keep it hush-hush, but they never denied it. They tried to say the body was stolen without any real evidence.

But again, we have to go back to who. . .

If we’re going to say the body was stolen, by whom? Because they said the disciples, and after years of studying, and I think the disciples are the least likely suspects to have stolen the body. I think based on what circumstantial evidence we do have, and the failure of the alternative theories to hold any water, we have to look seriously at these eyewitness accounts, and their evidence points to Jesus’ tomb being empty three days after his death and his burial. We know this is not a later legend, because there are things recorded in Scripture.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians about how Jesus was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. That is an early Christian creed that predates Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and can be dated to within two years of the crucifixion and resurrection.

Within two years, it was already well established and famous as the foundation of Christianity that Jesus was buried and that the tomb was empty three days later without time for it to become a legend. And attempts to deny it or explain it away as a hoax or a mistake or something else, they fall short and ultimately I think they require greater leaps of faith than the story that we’re told in Scripture. But sometimes we will just exclude things from possibility beforehand b