BONUS ｜ The Facts Confirm Jesus’ Resurrection. Here’s the Reason People Still Deny It ｜ Wes Huff
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Summary
In this episode of Apologetics Canada's new podcast, "Diary of a CEO," host Wes Mitchell talks with author of "The Gospel of Mark" about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Wes and I talk about the evidence of the bodily resurrection and what it means for us to know that Jesus is risen.
Transcript
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Wes, thanks so much for joining us again. Okay, you've been all over the place. I follow you
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on Instagram, on Acts. It seems like you've been traveling the world. I saw you on Diary of a CEO
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where you got to share the gospel. So I just want to hear a little bit from you. I'm sure the
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Yeah, I've been very privileged to be able to get around and people in venues where the gospel and the reliability and truthfulness of the Christian faith might not otherwise be communicated.
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So I'm just very humbled and appreciative of continually being asked to do things.
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It might seem like I'm doing a lot. I'm actually trying to mitigate my schedule as much as possible, and I'm saying no to a whole lot of things.
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But I actually just got back yesterday from a trip in Washington, D.C.
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I was leading a group through a VIP tour of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of the Bible.
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And then my colleague, Andy Steiger with Apologetics Canada, we did a couple of talks there.
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We were able to run around Washington, D.C. and introduce my Canadian children to some American history, which is always fun.
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So did your kids get to play at that little play area at the Museum of the Bible?
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Also, yes, social media really does kind of seem to like amplify and multiply all the
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People say all the time, oh, my gosh, you're traveling constantly.
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So I'm just very grateful for your apologetics and your boldness in sharing the gospel.
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I want to get into the resurrection because this is coming out right before or right on
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What do you think is the best evidence of the bodily resurrection of Jesus?
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I'm really fan of looking at somewhat of a two-step approach that the gospels go back
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to the eyewitnesses and through that content and the context lies, lies are ruled out, right? So
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if it goes back to early eyewitness testimony, then the accusation of embellishment and this
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adding of something like the resurrection after the fact, I think really doesn't stand up to
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scrutiny. It seems that the gospel authors get the details right, the small details, things like
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geography and name correlation and even plant life in some instances. And so if they get the
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small details right, I don't think it's that big of a leap to say that they get the big details
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right. And then ultimately, I think that what we're dealing with, if we are dealing with eyewitness
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testimony, which I think is very well attested to, is that we have these testimonies of these
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early disciples of Jesus. And either the disciples were deceivers, they were deceived, or they were
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telling the truth. And I think when you start to stack up the evidence of what's going on,
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I don't think they were deceivers. I don't think they were deceived. And I do think that everything
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points to their life radically changing in a powerful way because they encountered their
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rabbi getting murdered and then rising from the dead. Yeah. What do you make of this accusation
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that the gospel of Mark, it's the oldest account of Jesus's life. And I've heard Muslims and people
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just skeptical of the resurrection say that Mark didn't originally include Jesus's resurrection.
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Therefore, it must have been something added later.
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Yeah, so there is what's called a textual variant issue with the longer ending of Mark.
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If you go to the very end of your Gospel of Mark, you'll see that if you're reading a
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modern translation like an ESV or an NIV or an NLT, that there will be a citation note
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saying something to the effect of that the earliest manuscripts and the most reliable
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manuscripts do not include that last sort of section in chapter 16. I think that is actually
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true. However, I don't think that means that the resurrection isn't there. It's obviously there.
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Before that instance, you have the women showing up to the tomb and they encounter an angel who
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says, why are you looking for the living amongst the dead? Jesus is not here. He is risen. And so
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I think there's some questions, there's some sort of ancient noise about the different versions of
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the longer ending of Mark that we have. However, at chapter 16, verse eight, it ends and says that
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the women were scared and tell no one. And I personally think that's where Mark meant to
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leave it off. In that, well, they obviously told someone because Mark is writing it down.
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But also I think Mark is being purposeful and he's saying, what are you going to do with it?
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This is too good not to tell somebody, don't be like those women, go out and preach the gospel.
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Is there anything in the account of Jesus's crucifixion or the resurrection that you think
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people miss that as you're reading these accounts stand out to you, either as something that adds
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veracity to the stories or just as something theologically significant? That's a really
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good question. I think, you know, what I always find interesting about the crucifixion account
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is that the gospel authors are very purposeful to make sure that the audience understands that
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Jesus was truly dead and that that matters. And that when Jesus prophesies and the people want
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things like miracles, and he says, you're just going to get the miracle of Jonah, the sign of
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Jonah, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. So the son of man
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will be in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And it's really interesting that
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if you go back to the story of Jonah, in the book of Jonah, in the old Testament, Jonah's prayer
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from the belly of the great fish was, he says, I cry out from the depths of Sheol.
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There's actually a string of interpretation within ancient Judaism that Jonah was actually
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dead in the fish and that when he was spat up, he was resurrected.
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Now it could mean, you know, he's in the depths of despair.
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He might as well be there because he's in the bottom of the ocean in the belly of a
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but I think you know it's interesting to look at that that the ancient Jews probably would have
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understood Jesus I mean if they'd understood him correctly which they continually don't do
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but if they'd understood him correctly saying you know I'm going to be dead I'm going to be really
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dead and then something radical is going to happen just as Jonah is then put onto the shore to
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preach the good news to people who are undeserving of it I'm going to be the better Jonah I'm going
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to come and I'm going to do it. And I'm not going to, you know, be running from God. I'm going to
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be fulfilling what God has actually planned. But you know, on top of that, Ali, I think it's really
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interesting after that, that in all four gospels, in Matthew 26, in Luke 15, in John 19, and in Mark
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15, you have this instance of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit is just a few weeks after Jesus's
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crucifixion. It comes on them. And then you have the martyrdom of Stephen, which is a warning shot
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for the disciples. Now they know it's costly. One of their own has died for this proclamation.
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And then what do they do? They go back to Jerusalem. They go back to Jerusalem and they
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proclaim the good news of the kingdom. Now, Jerusalem, that's like ground zero, right? That's
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where this whole thing happened. It's so interesting to me that they go back to the place
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where Jesus was crucified, where there would have been eyewitnesses who would have seen
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his body dead hanging on a cross. And yet that's where they go to proclaim this news,
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knowing that friends of theirs have lost their lives for this message, knowing that people would
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have been able to say, we know where the tomb is, right? That Joseph of Arimathea guy, apparently
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he's buried in his family tomb. There's so much at stake here. And yet the disciples know that
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there's too much not at stake to not preach this message. If they were lying, if they were deceiving
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people go out into the broader, you know, countryside, go to the places where people
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would not have been able to say, Hey, wait a minute, Jesus, I saw Jesus die.
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And so I think just the, the concreteness of Jesus truly died.
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This historical character, this Jewish itinerary rabbi, he was dead.
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The Romans knew exactly how to do that very, very well.
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And then he appears to his disciples alive again.
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And I think there needs to be given an account for the disciples' actions afterwards.
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They saw something, and it completely radically changed their world.
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And the reason why it's important for us to emphasize that Jesus really died, some people
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may not know that that's a claim that skeptics will make, that Jesus didn't really die,
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that he came close to death on the cross and that I guess maybe he was in a coma or he was just
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chilling in the grave for three days and then he felt better and he decided, I don't know,
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to move the stone away or something and then walk out of the grave to try to deny this kind of
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miracle of the resurrection. But I remember you talking about this on Joe Rogan, that if there's
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one thing that the Romans were really good at, it was crucifixion and making sure that people
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suffer and die, right? Yeah, it's true. There are skeptics, it's sometimes called the swoon
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theory, that argue that Jesus survived the cross and then somehow recovered in the tomb. I've heard
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Muslims articulate it by saying he recovered in the cool of the tomb, as if, you know, it's such
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a restorative place in a crypt. I think the skeptics who say that are not the skeptics who
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are actually evaluating the evidence academically, or even I think honestly, it's a radical minority
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position that Jesus survived crucifixion because all of the evidence, you basically have to
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throw out all of the historical and all of the medical evidence about what we know happens
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Every Roman guard, centurion, soldier who was responsible for Jesus's death would have
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been on the hook if he did not die and their lives would have been forfeit and so this is not
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something that roman soldiers you know just do glibly uh the romans crucified hundreds if not
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thousands of people they were very very good at they didn't invent the process of crucifixion
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but they certainly then made it what it was they kind of brought it into its um fullness in in as
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a torture mechanism and device, but it was, it's foolish at best to posit that Jesus did not die
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goodranchers.com code Allie. You make such an interesting point that those who are denying
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the historicity of the resurrection are doing so not because of the evidence, but in spite of the
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evidence, which to me really goes back to a lack of desire to submit to Christ's authority. Because
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if Jesus really did do all of these miracles, if it really was a virgin birth, if he really did
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rise from the dead, then he's more than just a moral teacher making suggestions for the patterns
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of your life or giving you good principles that you can take or leave.
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Like, if he really did all of these things, if he really defeated death, then what he
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says stands, and there is a consequence for not submitting to that.
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And really, I mean, the history of the world is people grappling with that and not wanting
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to let go of our sin in light of Jesus's authority.
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We see even skeptics within the New Testament themselves coming to terms with the evidence.
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Thomas, at the end of John's gospel, John 20, 25 says, unless I see in his hands the
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marks of the nails and place my fingers into the marks of those nails and place my hands
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In John chapter seven, it says that not even Jesus's own brothers believed him.
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And then we have Paul writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1.13, though formerly I was a blasphemer of Christ, Paul says, a persecutor, an insolent, an opponent.
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He says, but I've received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in my unbelief.
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It's interesting that word we translate as unbelief is actually the same word that we would translate as not trusting, not putting faith in.
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And so we see even in the New Testament itself, examples of skepticism and doubt of what's going on.
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I think sometimes people look at this and they say, oh, that's, you know, 2000 years ago.
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This is what C.S. Lewis calls chronological snobbery.
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You know, that we would believe, Ali, something like the virgin birth.
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Well, you know what Mary's objection to the angel was?
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I fail the minimum requirements for having a baby.
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Sure, they had more of a supernatural understanding of things, but just because it was a few thousand
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And I think the same goes with the resurrection.
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Thomas knew that dead people don't rise from the dead, and that's why it's so amazing.
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This is just a question that popped into my mind of Jesus maintaining his wounds, because
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even if he had resurrected bodily, he could have healed himself. He could have had this
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perfect woundless body. But of course, as you just said, with the account of Thomas,
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he still did have the nail holes in his hands. Why do you think that is?
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Yeah, that's a really interesting observation, isn't it? That Jesus had at least some degree of
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the physical marks of the crucifixion. I think what's probably going on there is that,
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You know, in John's letters, he says that God is love.
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And if love is the greatest ethic, then the greatest example of the greatest ethic is
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And there's something very profound about the son of God who stepped off his throne
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in eternity and lived a simple life in humanity and going to the cross voluntarily as the
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second person of the Trinity, taking on our depravity.
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then in eternity as the eternal god man in glory having the physical representations of that
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particular event i think it's it's meant to be a reminder to us that for all eternity jesus is
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going to bear the marks of the glorification of the godhead how god is truly glorified the cross
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wasn't a contingency plan it was a mistake god didn't create people and go oops they rebelled
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what am I going to do? No, in both Peter's letters and in Revelation, it says that before the
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foundations of the world were lain, the lamb was slain. This was the plan all from the beginning,
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that the God who is the example of love is going to then exemplify that in the greatest possible
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ethic, which is self-sacrifice. And Jesus does that willingly. Amen. What do you think the
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significance is of the resurrection of the bodies of believers. I mean, we read that this is
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necessary for us to believe. It's necessary for us to believe in the resurrection of Jesus,
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or else our faith is just foolishness. It's not anchored on much. But we also have to believe
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that we are going to be resurrected one day. And I think that's a passage that confuses a lot of
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Christians. It's not preached about or talked about a lot, because a lot of people are confused
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about it. But obviously, this concept of bodily resurrection is really important within Christianity.
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It's a sign that when Jesus says, you know, I'm making all things new in the book of Revelation,
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that that's a promise, that we understand that the world was not created to be the way
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We see that very first pages of the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible.
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And he continually says, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good.
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And then for the thick people in the original audience at the very end, it says, and it
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It's a reminder that this world, it's marred by sin, but it was meant for so much more.
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We're going to see how God makes all things new.
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And Ali, you and I, we're not spirits that have a body.
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And there's something about that, about the way that we live our life here, about the
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way that we treat our health, about the way that we treat those around us, that I think
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we need to not forget that the hope, the goal is not just to float away and be some sort
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We are meant to, like our resurrected Savior, have a physical body, a glorified body, which
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means something that exemplifies the beauty of the creation in the way that God originally
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Just to end this conversation, can you talk a little bit about heaven and also the new
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For those who might not know, maybe they're exploring Christianity.
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I mean, that is the hope of victory that we have that is claimed through Jesus's death
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So I think it's good for people to have a picture of what that hope actually looks like.
00:19:02.960
Yeah, I think we often have this understanding that our end goal is to get to heaven, that
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we die and we leave this mortal coil and that's it and we we're trying to escape um that's actually
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an ancient pagan idea the the ancient platonic philosophers and the gnostics believed that the
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physical was bad and the spiritual was good and that our spirits are really trapped in these meat
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prisons and the goal is to get away from this all and that's why when you look at paul's preaching
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on Mars Hill. They're tracking with him in the Areopagus, at that place, that meeting place for
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philosophers to speak in public. They're tracking with him pretty well until he drops the word
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resurrection. And then they start saying he's crazy, he's drunk. Because that is their
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understanding, right? That you are meant to be a spiritual, ethereal being, and that you are
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limited by this physical body. And I think we swallow something that's false when we think of
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heaven as the final goal. What we read about and what, you know, you see within the Old Testament
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in the hope of the resurrection is that all of the created order is going to be aligned and made new
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and restored, and that's going to be beautiful. The same beauty that we marvel at when we see
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a sunrise, when we see the mountains, when we see the ocean, when we just look at creation and it
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just sings to us of God's glory, that's going to be restored to what it was meant to be. We're going
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to be in awe once again at mountains, at stars, at oceans, at valleys, at, you know, forests,
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at deserts. These things are going to continue to bring us into awe in eternity because God is
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going to resurrect us in a body that is, I think, although I don't know exactly, probably
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analogous to something that we have here on earth, but much, much better, much, much
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It's going to be amazing layover, but it's not going to be the end goal.
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We can still hope in heaven for the restoring of all things, for when, as you read in Revelation,
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heaven and earth come together and we dwell with God and he is the presence that gives us that hope
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and that restorative newness I'm really looking forward to it and I have to continue to remind
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myself because it's so easy to forget this is a promise it's not an if it's not a maybe Ali you
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and I are going to stand in the new heavens and the new earth and we are going to glorify our God
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and a risen Savior in a way that I don't think we can ever fully understand, but I'm looking
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forward to it. And something like Easter, as Paul says, that's the first fruit. It's just this little
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taste. It's like a taste test for a meal that we can't even imagine how good it's going to be.
00:22:06.160
Amen. Amen. I think it'll feel something like, although, you know, we really can't fully
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even comprehend what it'll feel like to step to the other side of eternity and heaven and
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the uniting of heaven and earth. But a weak, maybe earthly analogy is when you've been traveling as
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you have for the past couple of days. And just imagine the most stressful travel days that
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you've ever had. And you don't even realize it, but you're holding tension in every part of your
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body. Your immune system is shutting down. You're worn down. You're aggravated. And then you finally
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get home. You get to sleep in your own bed that night. All the tension is released. You feel
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restored. And I just imagine that is a small taste of what it'll be like in heaven. We don't
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even realize the weight and the burden of sin, our own sin, and the sin of the world that we
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are carrying through this life. And to feel just the relief of the freedom from sin and the effects
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of sin forever, I think we can't even imagine the joy that we will experience in that moment.
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And as you said, it's not just an escape from the bad things of this world. It's about glorifying
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God forever, and that's where we find our joy. But it is a gift also, that we will get relief
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from the sin that has been binding us for so long. And you're right. We see that in the resurrection,
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that death couldn't hold him, that sin can't hold us, and that we get to defeat death with
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Jesus in eternity by going to heaven and spending forever with him.
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That analogy hit a little bit too close to home after traveling for a number of hours with four
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kids and getting home last night, but you're exactly right. That's exactly what it's gonna be
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like. I know exactly how you feel. Well, Wes, thank you so much. You are a blessing to the
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body of Christ, and I am so incredibly grateful for just how God has equipped you and how you
00:23:54.460
are using those gifts to serve the body. So thank you so much. Always a pleasure to be on and chat.
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