Whereas all will admit ‘Christ has died’ there are some who say ‘Christ is risen’, but what is the evidence?
Let’s think of three groups of people.
First of all the Pharisees, those who opposed and argued with Christ in person and who formed part of the ruling Jewish Council which condemned Him to death.
in The Acts of the Apostles we read that some of the Christian believers belonged to the party of the Pharisees (Acts 15:5).
What on earth would have persuaded them to change their allegiance?
Then there were the Sadducees, the other half of the Jewish ruling council.
These were more dedicated opponents who did not believe in life after death and certainly not in any form of resurrection.
Yet we read in the Acts of the Apostles (6:7) that a large number of the priests became Christians, but many of those priests were Sadducees.
What on earth could have persuaded them to believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
Then there were the Corinthians, not far from the city of Athens whose philosophers followed Plato and who had no time for the resurrection of the body; to them it was nonsense.
Paul wrote to those Corinthians and told them that the resurrected Jesus was seen by many people, not only by Peter and the Twelve Apostles but by a gathering of 500 people – and the implication was that they could go up to Jerusalem and talk to those people and verify that Jesus is risen.
I have often wondered if, among those 500, were some Pharisees and Sadducees and that seeing the risen Christ was what changed them.
Michael Penny, Chair of Churches Together in Reading and Berkshire
