Why We Can Trust the Resurrection

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0:00:00 – (Mike Kruger): What’s forgotten in a lot of discussions about the resurrection is that Jesus actually predicted it. He didn’t just simply die and rise again. He said he would die and rise again. And so he said that he would die and rise again for sinners and for sins, and that he would be paying the penalty for us and that he would rise to life again. And so to say, well, I’m all about Jesus, but I’m not about the core prediction he made, and I’m not about his core claims would be very inconsistent.

0:00:32 – (Courtney Doctor): Welcome to the Deep Dish, a podcast from the Gospel Coalition where we love having deep conversations about deep truths. And I’m Courtney Docter. I’m here with my friend and co host Melissa Krueger and a very special guest that I am going to ask Melissa to introduce us to.

0:00:47 – (Melissa Kruger): Yes, I’m very excited about this episode. I’m going to introduce him first by his fancy title, which I had to type out because I can’t remember it. His fancy title is Dr. Michael J. Kruger serves as the Samuel C. Patterson Chancellor’s professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary. That’s his fancy title. The title that I’m glad he has is he’s my husband and he is my three kids dad.

0:01:17 – (Melissa Kruger): And I think those are the best titles he has, and I’m really glad he has them. So. But we are not bringing him on here to talk about being a husband or a dad, but we are bringing him on here to talk about the resurrection. We’re gonna release this episod episode a few weeks before Easter, and we really hope that this episode can be one of those helpful times, because we believe the resurrection’s so important.

0:01:45 – (Melissa Kruger): I mean, it’s the center of Christianity. And so we wanted to get on this call with Mike and have a time to really ask some questions about the resurrection, because its validity is really the heart of everything we believe. And so we’re hoping that that fancy title can give us some help as we go through these questions today.

0:02:09 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah. Well, I want to start us off with just a really basic question. Mike, we know that you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. So that’s what we’re talking about, the bodily resurrection of Jesus. So can you just start off by explaining what that even means?

0:02:24 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, happy to. And before I do, let me just say that my titles are very far too long and complicated, but I like the ones of dad and husband the best. And let me also say that I don’t know that I’ve ever been on a show where Melissa has interviewed me and Courtney. I don’t think I’ve been interviewed by you either, but Melissa and I have been on podcasts as the ones being interviewed, but now I get to be interviewed by her. So this is kind of a fun first time to be on the show, so that’s great.

0:02:51 – (Courtney Doctor): You never know what she’ll ask.

0:02:52 – (Mike Kruger): I know that’s a little scary, actually, to come on the show with your own wife and fun. She could surprise you.

0:02:58 – (Melissa Kruger): I forgot to say, we met about 35 years ago. And honestly, this. What you’re getting ready to hear is a lot of our entire relationship, which

0:03:07 – (Mike Kruger): is me saying, I hope that’s not true. You have a boring relationship.

0:03:12 – (Melissa Kruger): We kind of do. I mean, but, you know, it’s sweet.

0:03:17 – (Mike Kruger): It’s sweetly boring.

0:03:19 – (Courtney Doctor): Y’ all talk about too heavy matter, too intellectual.

0:03:22 – (Melissa Kruger): We’re a little bookish. We’re a little bookish.

0:03:24 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah. Well, we found each other in this world both bookish, so, no. But I’m excited to be on for this topic because obviously there’s nothing more important in the Christian space than the belief in the resurrection. And as Courtney indicated, it is a bodily resurrection. This is really core to the Christian worldview. There’s lots of ideas that people have in other religious spaces, and a lot of people have it in our culture today that, of course, when you die, your spirit endures and lives on. And maybe when Christians believe that Jesus lives on, that he lives on in spirit, or he lives on in their hearts and is still around as a great example for them for how they should be and so on, just like your parent or your friend or child dies and you feel like they’re still with you in spirit and so on. But that’s not the way Christian theology operated in the ancient world. It had a very physical dimension to it that the ancient world didn’t have.

0:04:15 – (Mike Kruger): And one of the things we often forget as Christians is that the ultimate hope is a future resurrected body for all of us, where we will have bodies that are somewhat like our current bodies, but they’ll be raised in an imperishable way. So they’re eternal bodies. They’re bodies that cannot be destroyed or die ever again. And when Jesus was raised from the dead, he did not merely return to his original earthly body, but he got his resurrected body. And so he’s physical. Yes, but in a new way that we won’t experience someday until we’re raised from the dead in new resurrected bodies. So the claim here is not merely that a man died and came back to life.

0:04:52 – (Mike Kruger): You can find stories of that in hospitals. Someone died, and we thought they were dead, and maybe they even clinically died and they came back to life. Oh, my gosh. Wow. And maybe those are confusing instances, but what’s different about Jesus? He didn’t just come back in his original body. He came back in a new body, a body that he’ll be with forever. And it’s an example of the kind of body we’ll get someday.

0:05:10 – (Courtney Doctor): Mike, that’s so helpful and so encouraging, right, to set our hope on this, this bodily resurrection because of Christ, that that will be ours someday, too. But, you know, we’re talking about why this even matters in the life of a Christian. So what difference does it make if someone claims to be a Christian but doubts the resurrection, the bodily, historical resurrection of Christ? What difference does that make? Is that can somebody be that person?

0:05:36 – (Mike Kruger): Well, not really, if the term Christian has any sort of substance to it. And we throw the term Christian around very loosely in our modern world, and most people can say they’re Christians and they don’t really understand the historical rootedness of the phrase and what it means. But to be a Christian means to be a follower of Christ and to be a believer in Christ. And if you’re a follower of Christ and a believer in Christ and you believe what Christ taught and what Christ said and what Christ is about, it’d be strange to say I’m a follower of Christ. But I think he was wrong most of the time or something like this.

0:06:05 – (Mike Kruger): If you believe that, really you’re just a follower of you, not really a follower of Christ. So if you’re a follower of Christ, you think that what he said really matters. And what’s forgotten in a lot of discussions about the resurrection is that Jesus actually predicted it. He didn’t just simply die and rise again. He said he would die and rise again. And so he said that he would die and rise again for sinners and for sins, and that he would be paying the penalty for us and that he would rise to life again.

0:06:31 – (Mike Kruger): And so to say, well, I’m all about Jesus, but I’m not about the core prediction he made, and I’m not about his core claims would be very inconsistent. So this is why the resurrection is central to what it means to be Christian. Christianity is marked as distinctive by the belief in the resurrection. And there’s no other religious leader that even has something similar in terms of the nature of the Christian claim. And here’s one other thing. I’ll add that we were talking about a moment ago is that most Christians don’t even realize how significant it is for their own hope. Because our eternal hope is not merely spiritual.

0:07:03 – (Mike Kruger): We tend to think in the modern church that when I die, I go to heaven and that’s the end of it. Well, if you’re a Christian and you die, you do go to heaven spiritually. But that’s not the end either, because eventually Christ is going to come back and he’ll bring our bodies to life again and new resurrected bodies and our eternal existence will be physical. So there’s a real different vibe there. And so this is the central Christian belief. And if you deny the resurrection, you really deny Jesus. If you deny Jesus, it’s hard to claim the name Christian.

0:07:30 – (Melissa Kruger): I think that it’s interesting, isn’t it? Every year at this time around Easter, on some TV show, it could be now a Netflix special or whatever, inevitably there’s going to be a program that is going to be on why the bodily of resurrection of Jesus did not happen. Every year, this happens at Easter. And often you and I have been watching these. We’ll be sitting on the couch and we’re watching them, and they’ll be spouting out facts, and you’re like, that’s not true.

0:08:00 – (Melissa Kruger): That’s not what he said. No, that’s not what happened. Yeah, that’s not true. You know, you always have these facts that contradict what they’re saying so assuredly on these TV shows. So if someone is, you know, stumbles across one of these on some abc, NBC, whatever show they’re watching, what encouragement can you give them about one of these documentaries that seems so sure in what it’s saying, how it was impossible, the timing of the Gospels was off, or, you know, something could have happened. And they’re. They’re giving these claims.

0:08:35 – (Melissa Kruger): What encouragement would you give them as they’re watching something like that?

0:08:40 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, I mean, there’s so much to say in response to that. It does seem to happen every single Easter. And now on social media, you have an explosion of things on Easter that are critiquing it. You could watch a Discovery Channel show or documentary on the History Channel, and in years gone by, there’d be newspaper and magazine articles all challenging the Easter event. So my response to that is multifaceted. One is the fact that skeptics are so eager to challenge the Easter event shows you how central it is to Christianity.

0:09:06 – (Mike Kruger): I mean, if you’re going to challenge Christianity, what event are you going to pick? Well, this is the one. And so that actually tells you how significant it is. And it answers a little bit of the prior question, which is, you can’t have Christianity without the resurrection. And skeptics know this. So if they can debunk the resurrection, they’ve effectively debunked Jesus and debunked Christianity. So the first thing I would say is realize you’re on sacred ground here. And what I mean by that is you’re dealing with the core claim of Christ. And so that’s the first thing to recognize.

0:09:34 – (Mike Kruger): Second thing to recognize when you hear these documentaries is just to remember that objections to the resurrection aren’t merely historical. Lots of times these documentaries give the impression that their objections are merely historical, and it’s all about the evidence. But I think we all know that beliefs aren’t that simple and they’re not formed that way. And what I often tell people is that we want to talk about the resurrection. You got to back up a minute and talk first of all about what you find as something that could be a plausible thing to happen in the world.

0:10:02 – (Mike Kruger): If you have a worldview that says there’s no God, if you have a worldview that says there’s no miraculous or no supernatural, and I give you evidence for the resurrection, even if it’s good evidence, you’re not going to accept that evidence. You’re not going to find that evidence persuasive, because you already have an idea in your head that that’s impossible, that can’t take place. And when you watch these shows on the Discovery Channel or wherever, you have to realize that there’s a lot of philosophical things in play, not just historical. And a lot of people just can’t get themselves to believe a man died and rose again regardless of the historical evidence.

0:10:31 – (Mike Kruger): So it’s not always about the evidence. It’s actually about where you start from and what your set of beliefs are that you bring to the discussion from the beginning.

0:10:40 – (Courtney Doctor): Well, Mike, let me ask you about the evidence. Like, if you had an index card and you were just going to write out some of the best evidence, the best arguments, what would just bullet point a few of them for us?

0:10:52 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, Actually, the argument for the resurrection is remarkably simple, but I think, also remarkably convincing. And so I usually go through a number of bullet points with people. I say, here’s the facts as we see them. Jesus really lived. We know he’s an historical figure. There’s universal agreement about it. We know a good bit about his life. Even skeptical scholars agree. We know he died. There’s no doubt that he was killed on the cross, that he was crucified. Even secular scholars agree.

0:11:20 – (Mike Kruger): So we know he was put to death and really did die. So it wasn’t a fake death, it wasn’t an accident. You know, didn’t think he was alive when he was, or think he was dead when he was really alive. We know he actually was put to death. Thirdly, we have all kinds of historical evidence suggests that where he was buried was well known. It was public information. How do we know this? Well, we know that the Roman government had a vested interest in making sure that there was going to be no fraud involved. No one’s going to pretend Jesus rose from the dead. So there had to be a tomb that they could guard, that they could protect to keep anything from happening to the body.

0:11:52 – (Mike Kruger): There was a sense in which the women knew where to go to the tomb. They clearly had an idea where the body was. So all the threads of historical evidence we have suggest that the tomb was a known location, that it wasn’t a mystery where his. Where he was buried. And that would add a fourth data point, is that three days later there’s testimony that the tomb was empty, that there was no body in the tomb, that the body was no longer there, and that people went to the tomb and found it to be without Jesus. And then I would add a fifth piece of evidence. We have people who claim that they saw him alive. Paul actually claims that over 500 people saw him alive at one point.

0:12:27 – (Mike Kruger): And then I would get to the last claim, which I think is one of the most significant, which is that the early Christian movement, which had every reason to end at Jesus death, did not end, but kept going and expanded and grew, all under the conviction that Jesus had risen. Now, you look at the conglomeration of all those little data points that gave you five or six of them. The question at that point is, what’s the best historical explanation of this data?

0:12:50 – (Mike Kruger): Now the skeptics are going to say, well, you know, I’ll never allow a miracle. So therefore my best explanation is some other sort of scenario. But if you don’t rule out the supernatural, if you don’t rule out God’s intervention, you actually can see how those data points all come together to make a pretty convincing case.

0:13:06 – (Melissa Kruger): So when I think about the resurrection story and the Easter story, one of the things that you kind of hinted at in this was eyewitnesses. And one thing that’s always pretty compelling to me is you see these disciples who beforehand, you know, when Jesus is just taken to be crucified they’re scattering. It says they all, you know, he was left alone. And then. Yet we see post resurrection, a very different group of disciples. I mean, a lot of them in early church history would go on to be martyred for the faith. So these, these very same people who scattered pre crucifixion now seem actually emboldened post crucifixion.

0:13:55 – (Melissa Kruger): How does that story kind of add to our understanding of the resurrection and the power of what happened at Easter?

0:14:06 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, so one of the things people don’t necessarily think about when we’re talking about the resurrection is they think, well, do I believe Jesus rose from the dead? That’s not really the right question to ask at first. The better question to ask historically is what can explain how early Christians came to believe Jesus rose from the dead? Because we know for an historical fact, they came to believe it, and they came to believe it vigorously. And they even believed it so much that many of them were martyred on the foundation of that belief. And the Christian movement didn’t die. It kept going. So how do I explain that?

0:14:35 – (Mike Kruger): That’s the real question. And what we find is a remarkable scenario here, which is people tend to think that, that when Jesus died, the disciples were like, well, I know he died, but we’ll make the best of this. We’ll keep the movement going, we’ll try to salvage what he taught us, and we’ll just start this Christian religion without him. No, that’s not the evidence we have. The evidence we have is that when he died, that was it.

0:14:58 – (Mike Kruger): In their minds, it’s over, it’s done, we lost, we failed, he wasn’t the Messiah. Because for the Messiah to die in early Jewish expectations was to prove he’s not the Messiah is to prove that he was defeated by the Romans instead of defeating the Romans. So the idea that every disciple in these first few days was willing to see Jesus behind every tree and under every rock and they just were going to have an hallucination and be willing to see him come back. No, they had completely given up.

0:15:23 – (Mike Kruger): And it’s that transition between total despondency, total defeat, total giving up to suddenly courage and boldness and outward facingness in a movement that didn’t die is a stunning historical fact. And it’s an historical fact that deserves an explanation. And as Christians would argue, I don’t know of any explanation that comes close to explaining that unless Jesus actually was seen alive physically by his followers.

0:15:50 – (Courtney Doctor): So what appearances did Jesus make after his resurrection? And why should we believe that they really saw him. Because, I mean, to your point, their lives were totally changed. How many actually were martyred for their faith? I mean, you just don’t. You’re not willing to die for something that you don’t, you know, have so, so much confidence in. And so these appearances, these eyewitness accounts of the resurrection are so crucial not just in the lives of the followers then, but in the lives of the followers today.

0:16:24 – (Courtney Doctor): So what appearances did Jesus make after the resurrection?

0:16:27 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, this is where our evidence actually is really good. So in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul has a very famous section where he talks about the resurrection and the resurrection appearances in particular. And in that passage, he talks about how the tomb was empty, he rose. He was buried and rose. And he talks about also, in addition to the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances. And he mentions, of course, that he appeared to the disciples, which he did.

0:16:50 – (Mike Kruger): He appeared to James, which he did. He appeared to Paul himself on the road to Damascus at a slightly later point. He appeared to over 500 people at one particular time. And we also know from the Gospel accounts that he actually appeared to the women, and he also appeared to disciples on the road to Emmaus. So the resurrection appearances are broad and dispersed and in different locations, different regions, different people, different scenarios.

0:17:14 – (Mike Kruger): And this is one of the things that makes it compelling. So, you know, it’s not like one person says, I saw Jesus rise from the dead, and you got to trust me, and all things funnel through me as if everything hinges on that one individual’s testimony. No, we have multiple testimonies from diverse locations and diverse individuals. And here’s the other thing that’s interesting, is that when Paul passes along that summary of the resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15, scholars have noted that it looks like sort of a packaged summary. So much so that it looks like Paul is actually passing along earlier tradition.

0:17:45 – (Mike Kruger): In fact, in the statement of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul actually says he’s passing along earlier tradition. What I received, I’m passing to you, that Christ died according to or for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that three days later, he was risen from the dead and so on. And so almost all scholars recognize that he’s getting earlier material. So this material takes us all the way back into the 40s of the first century.

0:18:07 – (Mike Kruger): So we know that from a very early time, there was a belief in the Resurrection. A very early time, Christians believed Jesus had risen from the dead and had many testimonies circulating that supported that belief.

0:18:17 – (Courtney Doctor): I love that. Well, and in that whole 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says, I mean, if the resurrection didn’t happen.

0:18:23 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, that’s what he goes on to say. Right.

0:18:24 – (Courtney Doctor): What’s the point? Point? I mean, our entire faith hinges on. Because the reality. We talk so much about the crucifixion, but the reality is many, many, many people were crucified. It’s actually, it’s the. It’s the. Obviously the incarnation, the sinless life. I mean, all of it is salvific. Right. It requires all of it. And. But it hinges on the death and resurrection. But I think we can even hone in a little bit more and say, I mean, if what’s. What Paul says in First Corinthians 15, if the resurrection didn’t happen, then all of this is futile. Your faith is in vain. Our preaching is in vain.

0:18:56 – (Mike Kruger): No, let me pause on that for a second. This is really critical because a dead Savior is not a savior. Okay? A dead Savior only is actually a sign that he wasn’t the Savior. And one of the things people don’t realize is that there had been other would be messiahs before Jesus and after Jesus had gained a following and people became. Began to be convinced that this person was the Messiah. And when that person was put to death by the Roman government, the movement ended.

0:19:25 – (Mike Kruger): And they ended every time because people knew that a dead Messiah who stays dead is not the Messiah. And you move on. You don’t salvage it. You don’t try to make it the best you can make it. It’s just over. And so what’s interesting about the early Christian movement is they had a dead Messiah that then they claimed was alive again. And that’s the only way you could actually have a movement. You can’t have a movement any other way unless there’s a living Savior. So somewhere the Christians came to believe that he was alive and really alive. Not in their hearts, not in their minds, not just in spirit in heaven, but he was really alive. And that demands an historical explanation. And this is where we keep coming back to the same thing again.

0:20:04 – (Mike Kruger): The Christians were not anticipating or thinking it was going to happen, or they had given up and were just in hiding. And something had to really flip the script.

0:20:12 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah. And those three days in between, I mean, the hopelessness they had, you know, they had lost everything. Like you said, they thought they had been defeated. And then. But even how God goes out of his way to say, I am going to have so many eyewitnesses to this. I mean, it’s such a mercy. We’re not Asked to believe something that happened. You know, there are religions of revelation that things happen in secret, they happen in hiding.

0:20:36 – (Courtney Doctor): And God throughout the the story did things very publicly, did things specifically with eyewitnesses and praise God for the eyewitnesses to the resurrection. It is what we base our faith on. Well, we’re going to take a break for an ad to hear a word from our sponsors and we are going to come back and land the plane on just the importance of the resurrection. Mike, thanks for being with us. We’ll be back in a minute.

0:21:07 – (Melissa Kruger): Thanks so much for listening. I’m so excited about this conversation about the resurrection. Thanks, Mike. I was about to call you hun for being here, but I thought that might be fun.

0:21:15 – (Mike Kruger): You can’t call me hun on a podcast. Is that allowed? Hun?

0:21:18 – (Melissa Kruger): Is that weird?

0:21:19 – (Courtney Doctor): Sure you can.

0:21:20 – (Melissa Kruger): This is so fun for me. Two of my favorite people on the podcast together. So it’s really fun to get to have this conversation. One thing I know that we’ve talked about a lot. I can remember sitting actually in family devotion time talking about this. And at some level is how the New Testament and the gospels in particular name so many names. They’re very specific. These stories are not like, yeah, there was a guy who carried Jesus’s cross. I mean, it’s pretty specific. It says it was Simon.

0:21:53 – (Melissa Kruger): It says it was Cyrene, you know, and then it tells us about his kids. Rufus was Rufus, Alexander and Rufus. Yeah, yeah. So like, it’s like, hey, you can actually go find these people. You know, I mean, there’s a sense that eyewitnesses weren’t. Yeah, a bunch of people saw his death. I mean, the New Testament really names a lot of names along. Along the way. But what if someone comes who’s listening or thinking about the resurrection and they say, yeah, but all of this comes from the New Testament gospel accounts. I don’t believe in those. I don’t know if I can trust those.

0:22:26 – (Melissa Kruger): Why should I listen to those books and why should I believe them? The evidence you’re giving seems to be coming from the source you believe in. But I don’t believe in that source. So what would you say to someone who comes with those questions?

0:22:41 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, I mean, there’s so many things to say. First of all, I would say it’s not the only source. So we’ve already talked about Paul, who represents a much earlier source in the Gospels. We think the letter to the first Corinthians was probably somewhere in the mid-50s. Okay. And then Paul himself cites an earlier source, namely the tradition he inherited, that goes back into the 40s. And then we have the gospels as sources on top of that.

0:23:02 – (Mike Kruger): But they’re independent, too. There’s four different sources there. And then within the Gospels, there are sources, and they’re often named individuals. And as you noted a minute ago, sometimes our gospels mention names in such a specific way that you’re wondering, why would you bother to mention the name in such a specific way unless you wanted your reader to know that they could theoretically follow up with these people and that these people probably were the source material for the eyewitness accounts they’re getting.

0:23:26 – (Mike Kruger): The Gospel of Mark is a great example of this because it does it a ton. Even though the Gospel of Mark is our earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark actually is one gospel includes some of these most unique names that show that Mark probably has these people as their source. So you look at all that together, you have multiple angles, multiple traditions, multiple pieces of evidence all coming together in confluence and saying the same thing.

0:23:49 – (Mike Kruger): Now, a person at that point could go, sorry, I still don’t believe. And they’re free to say that, but I’m like, well, how do you form beliefs about other things in life? How do you form beliefs about any event in ancient history? Well, multiple testimonies. How do you form beliefs in a court of law? Well, probably multiple testimonies. And you have multiple testimonies all headed in the same place and agreeing, and some that you can trace back very, very early.

0:24:09 – (Mike Kruger): You at least arrive at a plausible scenario, which is that there’s good historical evidence to think that Jesus actually rose from the dead. People can hold out on that and say no. Regardless of how good the evidence is, I still refuse to believe people can say that. But now I would simply point out that your refusal to believe isn’t actually about the evidence anymore. It’s about some earlier assumption you have about what keeps you from believing. Some something you can’t get past because there is plausible evidence there. I mean, the other thing we could talk about is the historicity of the gospels, right? Where we think they come from and how reliable they are.

0:24:41 – (Mike Kruger): I’ll just point out one thing here that people don’t often notice about the gospels, particularly when it pertains to the resurrection, is how restrained and matter of fact its reporting is. People never think about this, but I’ll just give you an illustration of this. If you were making up a story of Jesus and your crescendo moment was the resurrection, okay, would you not have written a story that placed an eyewitness right there at the tomb to watch Jesus come out, that he could exit the tomb and that someone could go. I saw Jesus rise from the dead myself.

0:25:13 – (Mike Kruger): You would expect that. But what we have in the Gospels actually is that no one in the gospels actually sees Jesus walk out of the tomb. The women show up early that morning, the stones already rolled back. Jesus is already gone. So what you actually have is a remarkable restraint there. No one actually sees a live vision of Jesus walking out of the tomb. They see him later. Yes, but they don’t see him actually coming out of the tomb and rising from the dead.

0:25:34 – (Mike Kruger): That’s remarkable for a gospel. It’s almost like they’re telling you what actually happened rather than an idealistic story about what they wish had happened. Now, what highlights this in particular is later apocryphal gospels actually fill in the gaps here. A later apocryphal gospel, known as the Gospel of Peter, actually gives us a live videotape, so to speak, of Jesus coming out of the tomb. There’s people there waiting, watching.

0:25:55 – (Melissa Kruger): Can I interrupt you?

0:25:56 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah.

0:25:57 – (Melissa Kruger): What’s an apocryphal gospel?

0:25:58 – (Mike Kruger): An apocryphal gospel is a gospel that’s not in our Bibles, that was written later and pretends to be authentic, but really isn’t. And this one’s called the Gospel of Peter, not written by Peter, but pretending to be written by Peter. And it gives you an account of the resurrection where there’s live witnesses watching Jesus come out. It’s clearly embellished. It’s clearly filling in the gaps left by our canonical gospels and actually shows you how restrained our canonical gospels testimonies were.

0:26:24 – (Mike Kruger): So someone’s saying these are just fanciful stories. They’re not written like fanciful stories. They’re written like historical accounts of what really happened and what really happened. And all the evidence seems to substantiate those historical accounts.

0:26:36 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, I always think too, like, the disciples always look bad in these stories. I mean, the reality is they’re all fleeing. Like, if. If these guys are getting together to write this story, they’re really doing a disservice to themselves. They’re not painted well through the whole Gospels generally. They’re like, bumbling along like Jesus is having to tell Peter, get behind me, Satan, when he’s telling him he’s going to die. And then you’ve got, you know, all of them are fleeing. The rooster crows three times. It’s not a pretty scene. And then the people who come are women who can’t even testify in a court of law, I think. Is that the earliest.

0:27:14 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, the earliest testimony seen from women is very fascinating. Yeah.

0:27:17 – (Melissa Kruger): So if you’re trying to prove your point, you’re not going to have women at the tomb either. Yeah, I mean, so it’s like the whole.

0:27:24 – (Mike Kruger): No, that’s exactly right.

0:27:26 – (Melissa Kruger): Doesn’t really, unless it’s true, doesn’t really do service to prove their point.

0:27:32 – (Mike Kruger): Right. You could ask a person, look, if you’re concocting a story of a resurrection, is this the way you would have done it? You would not have had women there, you would not have had no one there to see Jesus rise out of the dead himself. It comes across as a story with a real true ring of authenticity to it because of the lack of those embellished parts of the narrative. And I think that speaks to its historical trustworthiness.

0:27:55 – (Courtney Doctor): I want to ask a follow up question. When we’re talking so much about the eyewitness accounts, what does Thomas’s physical interaction with Jesus add to the testimony? Because it’s not just I saw you with my eyes, it’s I actually touched the scars, the wounds. Like what does that add to the evidence?

0:28:14 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, well, Thomas is a classic case of doubting, of course, which is why he came, came to be known as doubting Thomas. Historically, I think we should give Thomas a bit of a break. And the reason is because the New Testament talks about doubt a lot and is very compassionate to those who doubt. And the book of Jude says, have mercy on those who doubt. And I would point to the fact that Jesus is actually quite gentle with Thomas.

0:28:37 – (Mike Kruger): He doesn’t chide him, he doesn’t wag his finger at him. Yes. Jesus says, well look, blessed are those who can believe without seeing. Okay, fair enough. I mean, that’s an amazing thing. But he doesn’t withhold the evidence for Thomas. He says, you think I’m a ghost? You think I’m a spirit? Come up and touch me. Put your hand in my side. And you’ll notice there’s a trend here. Jesus does a number of things to reassure his disciples that he’s really alive.

0:29:00 – (Mike Kruger): The Thomas thing shows that he can touch the wound. It’s physical, he’s real, he’s not a ghost. He often, you’ll notice in the resurrection accounts, eats meals with his disciples and is taking in food, which of course you’re not going to do if you’re a ghost. You’re a real person. And so these types of physical encounters reassure us that first of all, it’s A physical resurrection. But it also shows us that they’re not imagining this.

0:29:24 – (Mike Kruger): This isn’t a hallucination. They’re not just seeing a spirit, that Jesus is actually physically there. And the other thing about the wound in the side that’s fascinating is it tells us that it’s the same Jesus. Okay, yes, he’s healed. He’s alive and has a resurrected body. It’s not a different Jesus. You can see the continuity between his old life and his new life. And Thomas then believes, and what the text tells us is that he bows down, he worships Jesus, and he calls him my Lord and my God.

0:29:51 – (Mike Kruger): And I think that is really the theological point of Easter right there, which is that the resurrection, if true, leads to worship and to acknowledgement that Jesus is who he claims that he is, not just a good moral teacher and not just a prophet, but he is the Lord. And Thomas bows down and worships him. And notice Jesus doesn’t reject the worship. He doesn’t say, oh, I’m just a guy, don’t worship me.

0:30:13 – (Mike Kruger): No, he receives the worship and acknowledges that’s exactly the proper response to the resurrection is to bow down and worship.

0:30:21 – (Melissa Kruger): You said something. I do want to just say that I think is really important, and that was in our resurrected bodies, we will be able to eat food. And I just want to celebrate that.

0:30:31 – (Mike Kruger): Exactly.

0:30:34 – (Melissa Kruger): They’ll be deep discouraged.

0:30:35 – (Mike Kruger): The name of the podcast.

0:30:36 – (Melissa Kruger): Yeah, so.

0:30:38 – (Mike Kruger): Well, no, the eating of food. I mean, joking aside, we’re all excited to know that in the new heavens, in the new earth, there will be food and we’ll be eating it. But we also know that the Bible describes that sort of consummation, that eschatological reality of the final stage of life as a feast. Right. The great wedding feast of the Lamb. The idea that we’re all together and we’re celebrating. So there’s food, there’s wine.

0:31:02 – (Mike Kruger): There’s a celebratory dimension of it that the Bible repeatedly affirms. So it’s not just going to be food. It’s going to be a feast, and it’s going to be the best feast. And who will be there? Jesus, with his own resurrected body, participating in the feast with us.

0:31:15 – (Courtney Doctor): You know, Mike, we have beliefs about a lot of different things, right? I mean, we just have a lot of different beliefs. Like, we might believe that one day scientists are going to discover life on other planets. And that’s not. Whether you believe that or not. Like, that’s probably not going to have a huge impact on how you live the Just mundane moments of your day. Like that is a belief you can hold or not hold. And really your life is no different, you know, because of your belief about that. And there’s a thousand things are like that.

0:31:46 – (Courtney Doctor): But this, what we’re talking about today, the belief in the resurrection, that Jesus bodily rose from the dead on a day in history, that actually has tremendous impact on just how we live our lives and the moments of our days. So can you. No pun intended. Can you flesh that out a little bit for us?

0:32:08 – (Mike Kruger): That’s a good pun, actually, because it is.

0:32:10 – (Courtney Doctor): Thanks.

0:32:11 – (Mike Kruger): An enfleshed phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, I would say not only do beliefs of other groups or other religions maybe don’t change your life that much. I would also add that not every Christian doctrine is as central as other Christian doctrines. And this particular belief is central to everything. I don’t even know how you could overstate the centrality of the resurrection. And let me just lay out some of the things that have implications from it.

0:32:35 – (Mike Kruger): One and the most core implication is if Jesus rose from the dead, then that vindicates Jesus identity. He claimed to be the Son of God. He claimed to be the Lord in flesh. And you might doubt it. Someone might go, well, I’m not sure I really believe Jesus is the Son of God. I don’t think he’s really God in the flesh. I don’t think he’s really all that he says he is. I don’t think he’s the Messiah, he’s just a good moral teacher.

0:32:56 – (Mike Kruger): But Jesus predicted his own death and predicted his own resurrection. So if he rose from the dead, then that vindicates his identity. So the number one thing the resurrection does is it tells us who Jesus is and it proves that he’s who he says he is. So there’s no monumental question bigger than who is Jesus? And the resurrection answers it. Okay, here’s the second thing the resurrection does is it actually shows us that the sacrifice on the cross was received, if you will, by God.

0:33:22 – (Mike Kruger): It was seen as acceptable that Jesus resurrection in one sense shows that his death was sufficient to pay for our sins, that it wasn’t a rejected sacrifice, that he’s alive and alive forevermore. What does that mean? That means Jesus has conquered death and he’s conquered sin. And if he’s conquered sin, then there’s hope for salvation, there’s hope for forgiveness, and there’s hope to conquer death. And look, talk about a practical implication of life. Every one of us in life, our whole life is if we admit it, is spent somehow Trying to avoid death at some level, whether it’s health, whether it’s safety, whether it’s aging, death, death, Death is always in the back of our mind. Now there’s a solution. You actually have a solution to the problem of death. And then the third thing, the resurrection does, and I think is so amazing in terms of its impact on our lives. It gives us our hope for the future someday.

0:34:11 – (Mike Kruger): Where are we going to be and how’s our life going to be forever? Are we just going to die and become ash? And that’s our existence is going to end? If we live on, what is that living on going to look like? And we know it because we’ll have a resurrected body that will live forever. And so the person who reckons with the resurrection has to ask, what’s my future? Where am I going to end up? And the answer 100% depends on whether you find yourself embracing Christ’s resurrection by faith. Because if you embrace Christ’s resurrection by faith, then you will be promised one of your own someday.

0:34:41 – (Melissa Kruger): I always think of how First Corinthians 15 ends. He goes through all the glories of the resurrections and then he ends with that. Therefore, therefore my brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor in the Lord is on. And I think what an encouragement. The resurrection is true. So the life we’re living matters because it would all be vanity.

0:35:12 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, you have a purpose in your life that really is valid. It’s not just a self declared purpose. You’re not just making up your own meaning. It’s a meaning that’s real and genuine outside yourself, that you’re following and you’re right. And it makes your work not in vain. If your work is for Jesus.

0:35:27 – (Melissa Kruger): Yeah, that’s right. And so you genuinely, you wake up in the morning and you’re like, oh, this is part of a bigger story. So I get to participate in a bigger story that’s happening and it’s one that doesn’t end. Whereas, you know, for the non Christian, there’s not that hope. You know, for the Christian, we look at all the things that come into our lives and we can say it’s all pointing to a resurrection hope that that one day these things will be redeemed.

0:35:55 – (Melissa Kruger): And I think that’s what’s, you know, separates the Christian and why we can be people of hope even when the world’s falling apart. We live differently in light of the resurrection.

0:36:05 – (Courtney Doctor): Okay, Mike, I have another follow up Question that I’ve been curious about for a long time. So the gospel accounts record this, you know, really amazing detail, that the clothes that Jesus had been wearing, his grave clothes, were folded. I need to look it up to get the exact wording, but they’re folded. Is that significant? That just seems like such a specific detail. So why is it included? Does it mean anything?

0:36:31 – (Melissa Kruger): I mean, Jesus was a neat freak.

0:36:33 – (Courtney Doctor): Is that what we’re saying?

0:36:34 – (Melissa Kruger): Like, you really care that things were.

0:36:36 – (Mike Kruger): No, this is a very significant data point. It’s interesting. John is the one who tells us this data point. And it really is something that would have resonated to people in the ancient world, because in the ancient world, it was. Grave robbers are very common in the ancient world. This was a standard thing that would happen because sometimes in the ancient world, you would bury a body or you would bury things in the tomb, and grave robbers would come and take it. And the linen claws that Jesus was buried in would have been very valuable.

0:37:00 – (Mike Kruger): Those would have been claws that someone would have wanted to steal. So the idea of someone breaking in a tomb and robbing the tomb would have been normal, but if they did, they would have left the body and taken the clothes. But when the disciples showed up, what they find is the body’s gone, but the clothes are there. So it’s a completely reverse scenario. And what’s interesting about it is that that’s what’s so stunning about what you see, is that, you know, that is completely abnormal.

0:37:25 – (Mike Kruger): If the body was gone but not the clothes, you’re like, well, that’s not what a grave robber would do. So what happened to the body? And why were the clothes still here? It actually tells us in John’s Gospel that when Peter came into the tomb, he saw the clothes and believed. And so what you have is a very clear moment where he’s like, wait a second. That’s not normal. Now, in terms of the clothes themselves, there’s actually two pieces to it. There’s the clothes that were wrapped around his main body, and then it seems like there’s some sort of headpiece, some sort of separate piece that’s folded off to the side.

0:37:54 – (Mike Kruger): It’s hard to tell from the wording of John, but it seems like the. The clothes may even be laying a little bit like where the body would have been. And so there’s a little bit of a question about whether the clothes were there, but the body’s not in them anymore, and whether that’s part of the. The shock that. That. That would have been seen by Peter and John in that account. But regardless, it just highlights the phenomenon here, is that there’s tons of evidence in all these different intersecting places that suggest that this is not explainable by simply saying grave robbers took Jesus or something like that. Or they took the body or stole the body because the clothes were left behind.

0:38:29 – (Mike Kruger): And if the disciples had stolen the body to fake it, they would have taken the clothes too. So the fact that the clothes are there and the body’s gone, I think is great evidence for the resurrection.

0:38:37 – (Courtney Doctor): Fascinating.

0:38:38 – (Melissa Kruger): Well, I want to close with this question. If someone’s listening today, maybe they’re doubting the truths of Christianity, they’re doubting the resurrection. Maybe they’re not yet a Christian. What encouragement would you give them? What would you hope to say to them as they think about the resurrection and they think about the life and death and resurrection of Jesus?

0:39:00 – (Mike Kruger): Yeah, I think everybody listening to this program, regardless of whether they’re a Christian or not, is on a similar quest in life. And what I mean by that, all of us want meaning. We want purpose, we want hope, and we search so many places for it, and we think we’re going to get in all kinds of locations. They want to know their life counts for something. They want to know their security after they die. They don’t know how to face the problem of death and suffering, and they don’t know where they’re going to end up in eternity.

0:39:28 – (Mike Kruger): And what I would tell the listener, particularly if they’re a doubter, is that Jesus Christ gives you the answer to each of those things, and he only gives you the answer to each of those things because he’s alive, because he rose from the dead. And so if you’re stumbling around the world trying to find those things, I would say rest assured that Jesus can provide them. And when you doubt the resurrection, you can say, but there’s so much evidence that he’s alive. Not just simply the historical evidence we’ve talked about, but the abiding nature of the early Christian movement, and honestly, the existing Christian movement even today, that after these thousands of years, still pressing on, shows you that there’s a power there that really is genuine.

0:40:09 – (Mike Kruger): So if someone then embraces that, embraces the resurrection of Jesus, they can find those things, meaning, purpose, eternal security, because those are exactly the same things that Jesus came to bring. So if someone doubts, don’t give up the search, keep looking. And I think they’ll find that the resurrection is going to prove to be true in the end.

0:40:28 – (Courtney Doctor): Oh, praise God. Well, I would encourage I think we’ll probably weave this into one of our discussion questions that we provide for you. But I would just encourage anybody listening to spend some time in 1 Corinthians 15 and think about it, read it in light of this conversation. Maybe make notes on the places that you saw, like Mike was talking about, where there is historical evidence to the resurrection. Maybe make notes on where you see the implications and the necessity of the resurrection for where we place our hope and all that Christ has done for us, the centrality of it to our salvation.

0:41:09 – (Courtney Doctor): So I would encourage you to spend some time in First Corinthians 15, but before we end. You know, Melissa, you said that was the last question, but it’s not, because

0:41:18 – (Melissa Kruger): I make it the last question.

0:41:19 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, no, I see.

0:41:20 – (Mike Kruger): I see what’s coming here. I see what’s coming.

0:41:23 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah, yeah. So, Mike, I’m just gonna, you know, we’re just all sitting around a coffee table right now, you know, maybe at your kitchen table. And I’m just gonna kind of lean over and ask Mike a little question. Melissa, don’t pay any attention right now, okay? But, Mike, we want to know something. We want to know something about Melissa that our listeners don’t know and might surprise them. So, Melissa, you just.

0:41:46 – (Melissa Kruger): It better be a wonderful cup of coffee right now.

0:41:50 – (Mike Kruger): She is wonderful. And so many things.

0:41:52 – (Courtney Doctor): She is wonderful.

0:41:53 – (Mike Kruger): We all have our little quirks and funny things in life. I’m glad the question’s not reversed because we. Another hour on the podcast, Melissa, to go through all mine. One of the funny little quirks she has is the way she does something with her tea every morning. So she’ll spend all this time meticulously making her tea and get it just right. Even has a timer, and it’s just perfectly there. And she’ll take the first sip, she’ll set it down, and then she’ll disappear to do something for 30 minutes up, check and email. Then she’ll come back and her tea’s cold, so she sticks it in the microwave, hits reheat leaves and forgets it’s in there and then comes back and it’s cold again. And this is a cycle all day long of her reheating her tea and then forgetting it’s in the microwave and then coming back and it’s cold and reheating her tea, and it’s in the microwave cold.

0:42:38 – (Mike Kruger): And I can’t tell you how many times I go into the kitchen, open the microwave, and there’s her tea sitting right there in the microwave. And sometimes I’ll take it and go bring it to her and, like, drink this tea, which you so diligently made. Now, to be fair, she’s so busy and so amazingly multitasking that the one thing she never gets to do is enjoy her tea, which she loves. So every once in a while, we’ll be at home and she’ll have a slower day.

0:43:02 – (Mike Kruger): Those are pretty rare. And she’ll be able to enjoy her tea. I’m like, see, this is the moment that you’ve been shooting for that you can’t seem to get to in other

0:43:09 – (Courtney Doctor): points of your life that you’re aiming for.

0:43:11 – (Mike Kruger): I know. It’s such simple pleasures.

0:43:13 – (Courtney Doctor): Yeah. Yeah. Well, you just gave me a great gift idea, too, so I am grateful. I am grateful for that. Well, Mike, we have been so looking forward to this conversation, and we hope that everybody listening, we hope that this has been not just encouraging, but really helpful. And we, you know, we would ask you to consider sharing it with others as you’re entering into the Easter season. Share this conversation with others and use it as a springboard for conversation about your beliefs and inviting others to really understand the truth and the beauty of the resurrection. So thank you for joining us for this episode of the Deep Dish.