Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - REPLAY ｜ The Best Argument Against Jesus’ Resurrection — and How to Respond ｜ Guest： Dr. Sean McDowell

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00:00:56.740 Equal Housing Lender, NMLS number 819382. What is the best argument against the resurrection?

00:01:05.280 And how do we as Christians respond to it? Today, I'm talking to Dr. Sean McDowell. He is an

00:01:11.960 associate professor in the Christian apologetics program at Talbot School of Theology at Biola

00:01:17.240 University. We've had him on before. He is an incredible apologist. He is the co-author of

00:01:22.840 over 20 books, just a wealth of knowledge. Today, we will be talking about the evidence for the

00:01:28.040 existence of Jesus and for the crucifixion, for the resurrection, what all of this means

00:01:33.460 theologically, what does it mean for us, and he will also be answering some basic theological

00:01:39.380 apologetics questions at the end of this episode. You're going to love this. Very informative. It'll

00:01:45.600 make you think and want to dig into your Bible right away. I hope that what is told to you here

00:01:52.340 and what is taught to you here from Sean McDowell truly does edify you.

00:02:06.020 Sean, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

00:02:09.060 I really appreciate it.

00:02:11.020 Oh, you bet.

00:02:11.800 Good to be back.

00:02:12.620 Yes.

00:02:13.080 Okay, we've got a lot to talk about.

00:02:14.860 I thought we would focus on Jesus's death and resurrection.

00:02:19.100 There will be a lot of things we could talk about surrounding that.

00:02:21.860 But, I mean, maybe you could say that this is not a new question or new doubts that people have, but I still see people asking questions about the validity of the resurrection and if it's necessary to really believe this.

00:02:38.220 Recently, you've seen a lot of prominent figures say that they believe in Jesus or they believe in cultural Christianity like Richard Dawkins or they believe in the example of Christ, but it's the resurrection they could just never believe.

00:02:51.100 So I'll just start with that and see what you think about it.

00:02:55.360 This is somewhat new in our cultural moment to have people like Dawkins and Jonathan Rauch and other atheists and non-believers talk about the importance of Christianity.

00:03:06.560 But the idea of separating the teachings of Jesus and the value of Christianity from the resurrection and the truth is not a new idea.

00:03:16.480 This is classical liberal theology, and it's the difference between the historic Christian 0.95

00:03:21.540 faith and liberal theology, which essentially teaches a different gospel.

00:03:27.240 I think the main reason why is you go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and Paul says,

00:03:32.280 I pass on to you, Christians in Corinth, what was first passed on to me, what was earlier

00:03:36.500 passed on to me, what is of most importance?

00:03:38.840 Jesus died, was buried according to scriptures, rose on the third day, paid for our sins,

00:03:44.220 and appeared to the 500, to Paul, to Peter, James, etc.

00:03:49.500 And then he says in verses 14 and 17,

00:03:51.920 if Jesus is not risen, our faith is worthless, it's in vain.

00:03:56.400 We are misrepresenting God and we're still in our sins.

00:04:01.160 So Paul ties the value of the teachings of Christ

00:04:05.960 to whether or not he's historically risen from the grave.

00:04:10.540 And we see the same thing in the life of Jesus

00:04:12.680 When he's asked, give us a sign in John chapter 2, what does he say?

00:04:17.580 Of course, in other settings, he says the sign of Jonah.

00:04:20.220 But in John 2, he says, I will destroy this temple, raise it up on the third day. 0.83

00:04:26.580 His sign that his identity rests upon is the historical resurrection.

00:04:33.440 So I'm glad from a cultural perspective that people are not railing against Christianity

00:04:38.480 like they used to in the past, and they see the value of it culturally speaking.

00:04:43.360 But let us not think we can have a Christianity apart from the life, death, and burial of 1.00

00:04:49.160 Jesus.

00:04:50.420 Jesus would have had none of that.

00:04:52.980 Yeah.

00:04:53.300 You know, I'm still surprised when I see people say, Jesus wasn't real.

00:04:58.040 Jesus was made up. 0.98

00:04:58.820 I just got a comment on Acts the other day when I said something about Jesus, and the

00:05:02.740 response was, but Jesus wasn't real.

00:05:04.540 I thought that we basically all agreed that Jesus at least was a real person.

00:05:08.480 even if someone denied his divinity, denied the resurrection, I thought that everyone understood

00:05:14.640 that there was pretty ample evidence that this person named Jesus really existed. So what would

00:05:20.760 you say if someone earnestly wanted to know what is evidence that Jesus was even real? What would

00:05:26.380 you say? Well, the first thing I would say is I'm an academic. Yes, I'm an apologist. So I'm not

00:05:32.600 supposed to overstate things, but the idea that Jesus didn't exist is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. 0.99

00:05:39.880 I mean, even Bart Ehrman, one of the leading atheists of our day, wrote a whole book about 0.95

00:05:44.640 the idea that Jesus didn't exist. I think he said this idea doesn't emerge until like the 17th

00:05:49.600 century, and he calls it a myth. And the reason is we just have too many sources, whether it's

00:05:55.080 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, independent books, historical accounts. We have Acts. We have the

00:06:01.080 writings of Paul. We have the writings of Peter. We have the rest of the New Testament. We have

00:06:05.640 early church fathers who assume that Jesus existed, those who received the baton, so to speak, from

00:06:12.580 the gospel writers themselves. And then we have Josephus in the 90s, like, you know, three decades

00:06:19.280 after the deaths of Peter and Paul, talking about the existence and death of Jesus, by the way.

00:06:25.080 We have a Roman writer, early 2nd century, and even the critics of Christianity, when you get

00:06:31.520 into the 2nd century and the 3rd, like Celsus and others, they never challenged the existence of

00:06:36.540 Jesus. They say he was illegitimate. There's contradictions in the Bible. They raise other

00:06:41.240 objections. So the idea that Jesus didn't exist is just silly and it's ridiculous. 0.99

00:06:46.600 What about those that say, okay, yeah, Jesus existed, but there were a lot of revolutionaries 0.91

00:06:51.600 in that time who, you know, who challenged the authority of Rome, or maybe even said that they

00:06:57.920 were the Messiah. And Jesus, he just happened to gain traction. It's kind of all a coincidence. And

00:07:04.160 he died. And that was the end of it. And he's really not special, because other people were

00:07:10.300 just like him. What do we say to that? What I would say is, wow, that's an interesting hypothesis.

00:07:16.920 What evidence do you have that that hypothesis is actually true?

00:07:21.040 I mean, when people say things like that, they're going to have to defend it.

00:07:25.480 And then I'm going to say, all right, let's imagine you're right.

00:07:28.440 Why do we have so many people who believe that Jesus was the Son of God, believe that

00:07:35.020 he did miracles, and believe that he rose on the third day?

00:07:38.700 I mean, the vast majority of scholars, this comes from Gary Habermas's research.

00:07:42.600 He's published recently in his book, On the Resurrection, Volume 1.

00:07:45.660 He says the vast majority of scholars, like 90% plus, believe that the disciples at least report that they had experiences of the risen Jesus that they believed were real.

00:07:58.180 Like they're reporting what they think are real experiences.

00:08:01.800 So if Jesus didn't say and do these things, how do we account for the disciples' beliefs?

00:08:07.020 But then how do we get James, the brother of Jesus?

00:08:09.500 And according to Mark 3 and John 7, the brothers of Jesus were not believers in him during his lifetime.

00:08:15.660 And then James is martyred in AD 62, the head of the church in Jerusalem.

00:08:20.560 How do you get Paul to believe this?

00:08:22.960 And the vast majority of scholars believe that Paul had an experience that he believed was of the risen Jesus.

00:08:31.080 So if we only had one account, then maybe we could explain this away.

00:08:35.640 But we have so many different accounts that line up on the big details.

00:08:39.980 And you have the disciples and the apostles and James willing to suffer and die for the belief that they'd seen there is in Jesus.

00:08:47.760 It's not enough to just say, well, maybe he was like some other Messiah and passed away.

00:08:52.440 And the largest religion in the world just took off from that.

00:08:55.680 You're going to need a better explanation.

00:08:58.400 And what about the crucifixion?

00:09:00.960 I mean, obviously, people know if they agree that Jesus lived, they know that he died.

00:09:06.720 But the entire crucifixion thing, him dying on a cross, the mob choosing him to be crucified over Barabbas, Pontius Pilate, the two criminals on either side of them, is that not just all kind of a myth that Christians have put together to, you know, kind of finish their narrative that he was this sacrificial lamb?

00:09:29.860 So, the claim that Jesus wasn't crucified is about up there as being as really contra what we know historically speaking, and I would argue ridiculous, with the claim that Jesus didn't exist.

00:09:44.000 The evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus is virtually overwhelming.

00:09:50.700 Now, why?

00:09:52.120 Well, for one, again, we have multiple early sources.

00:09:56.680 We have 1 Corinthians chapter 15, which arguably that creed embedded within Corinthians could be dated within three to five years of the death of Jesus.

00:10:05.880 We have the other New Testament books.

00:10:08.000 We have the Gospels.

00:10:08.800 We have Acts.

00:10:09.960 Again, we have the early church fathers who the apostles, some of them knew, and they're writing at the end of the first century into the second century, affirming the crucifixion of Jesus.

00:10:21.100 Again, we also have Josephus, a Jew, and Tacitus, a Roman, early second century.

00:10:26.240 Josephus in the 90s, who not only affirmed that Jesus lived, but affirmed that he was crucified.

00:10:32.340 Now, the other piece that I would add to this is it's also not the kind of thing that early

00:10:38.380 Christians would invent if they're trying to build a movement. So crucifixion was the most shameful, 0.85

00:10:46.280 dishonorable, humiliating, painful death imaginable. Deuteronomy says if you're hung on a tree,

00:10:54.420 you're cursed. You were shamed publicly, brought shame on your faith, brought shame on your

00:11:00.380 country. It was the ultimate worst death imaginable. So if the apostles are inventing a faith and

00:11:09.100 they're trying to get people to follow it, a crucifixion is the least likely death that they

00:11:15.600 would give rather than dishonorable. They would invent an honorable death, at least far more

00:11:20.960 likely so you add that theological point to the historical point i think the only people that

00:11:26.400 really deny the crucifixion of jesus would be mythicists which are a handful you can count

00:11:31.440 them on one maybe two hands who deny that jesus existed and muslims which in surah 4 and of course 0.91

00:11:38.160 the quran's not written until roughly seven centuries or so after the time of jesus surah 4

00:11:44.560 denies the crucifixion not argue unless somebody's already committed to that being the word of god or

00:11:50.720 historical, and I don't think there's good independent reason to take it as being so,

00:11:56.020 you would never reject the crucifixion of Jesus. It's just too firmly established.

00:12:01.900 What would you say if you were to play devil's advocate, which I know you do. I like to do too.

00:12:07.260 I like to understand the other side's argument and respond to that. So what would you say is

00:12:11.120 the best argument against the resurrection of Jesus, if there is a logical argument out there,

00:12:18.760 and how would you respond to it?

00:12:20.980 Yeah, that's an interesting question, Allie.

00:12:22.560 I would say if you go back to like the 18th and 19th centuries,

00:12:27.720 early into the 20th century,

00:12:29.260 it was kind of the heyday of these naturalistic hypotheses.

00:12:32.900 So people would say Jesus was just a legend,

00:12:35.520 or he went to the wrong tomb,

00:12:37.660 or he didn't really die on the cross,

00:12:39.760 or there were hallucinations.

00:12:41.740 And I think there's significant historical problems with all of those.

00:12:46.000 Like if you take hallucinations,

00:12:47.500 you say okay maybe the apostles had hallucinations but you still have to account for James and Paul

00:12:52.380 and that doesn't explain the empty tomb like going to the wrong tomb isn't going to get you

00:12:57.980 appearances which is what convinces the apostles that is true not just an empty tomb but in the

00:13:05.180 21st century really the main objection is more methodological than it actually is against the

00:13:12.600 facts tied to the person of Jesus. So for me, I'd probably just say, you know, we're dealing with an

00:13:18.480 event 2,000 years ago. You know, we have fake news today. How much confidence can we have in a miracle

00:13:26.000 claim from 2,000 years ago? And especially because it's such an extraordinary claim, it's often said

00:13:33.000 we're going to need extraordinary evidence. I think if I was going to challenge it, I would probably

00:13:38.060 take that route. But I think we can put the standard too low, and sometimes Christians 1.00

00:13:43.420 can just be gullible and believe anything that supports our faith. We can also put the standard

00:13:48.220 too high, whereas I think extraordinary claims require sufficient evidence. Extraordinary claims

00:13:55.640 require adequate evidence. There's a lot of extraordinary things that have happened in the past

00:14:01.240 and extraordinary things that happen today.

00:14:05.220 So I think if we use the means of good historical analysis

00:14:09.400 and we don't rule out the supernatural from the beginning

00:14:14.360 and we follow the evidence where it leads,

00:14:18.680 I think we have good, solid evidence to conclude

00:14:21.420 that Jesus has risen from the grave.

00:14:24.320 Hmm.

00:14:24.980 Okay, what about those who say,

00:14:26.700 now we're moving into the Christian camp,

00:14:29.580 or maybe I've seen skeptics say this too, that, okay, even just aside from the resurrection,

00:14:35.560 whether you accept it or not, Easter isn't about the resurrection. Easter is this pagan celebration 0.85

00:14:42.920 of Ishtar, the fertility goddess, and Christians should just be celebrating Passover. Jesus was a 1.00

00:14:50.100 Jew who celebrated Passover. And so why are we even taking part in this pagan ritual? Some might 0.87

00:14:57.940 use that to discount Christianity altogether. Some Christians might do it, just maybe they're 0.97

00:15:03.000 well-meaning. But what would you say to that? I would say one thing. I would say, look,

00:15:09.080 if somebody is a Christian, and they think that there's pagan roots to Christmas, or there's

00:15:14.620 pagan roots to Easter, and your conscience doesn't make you feel comfortable celebrating it in that

00:15:21.460 way, then don't call it Easter. You know, don't do the kind of wrappings that we don't find in

00:15:28.140 the Bible like a Christmas tree. I'd say that's totally fine. But for me, Christianity does not 0.99

00:15:35.040 have pagan roots. It has Jewish roots. We go back. I mean, I've been reading the Gospel of John

00:15:40.960 every day for a while. I've just been finding time to read all of it. And this is true for

00:15:46.540 all the gospels. Christianity has Jewish roots. Jesus points towards Old Testament prophecy

00:15:54.660 about him being the Messiah, about him being one with God, understood as the God of the Old

00:16:01.220 Testament, about fulfilling prophecies in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and Zechariah 9. So I think when

00:16:08.580 we look at the birth of Jesus, we look at the death of Jesus, we look at the Christian movement,

00:16:12.960 it was really the early 1900s that people would say it had pagan roots and they looked for these

00:16:20.020 parallels in like other pagan kind of mystery religions of the time and then try to say look

00:16:27.580 christianity borrowed from these but what we've found is that actually the similarities are

00:16:33.640 completely exaggerated and second any of the similarities that really map on come after

00:16:40.000 Christianity. So if anything, these pagan mystery religions borrowed more from Christianity than

00:16:45.820 Christianity did from the pagan mystery religions. Personally, I don't have a problem having a 0.99

00:16:51.480 Christmas tree and wrappings, even if that's not laid out in the scriptures, because I teach my

00:16:56.180 kids exactly what Christmas is and why. I don't have a problem with some of the cultural calling

00:17:02.500 it Easter, but I just always remind my kids, here's what we're practicing. Here's why. Here's

00:17:08.980 what the gospels teach, and here's just stuff we find within our culture. But ultimately,

00:17:13.720 I'll leave that up to the conscience of your viewers. What about, I've seen this argument

00:17:19.540 frequently over the past couple of years, that really Christians should be celebrating all 1.00

00:17:24.860 Jewish holidays, and that whether they believe in celebrating Christmas, Easter, or not, but that we

00:17:32.160 should really be following the Jewish calendar, following the example of Jesus. Do you think 0.98

00:17:37.340 Christians are bound by that? I wouldn't say that we're bound by that, to follow all of the

00:17:44.760 Jewish rituals, because clearly those are types and foreshadows pointing towards the person of

00:17:51.720 Jesus. So I think we can make one of two mistakes, Allie. I think one mistake would be to say

00:17:57.020 to miss what Christ did on the cross and how he freed us from the law and has given us a new

00:18:05.020 covenant. The other mistake, and I think the church is probably more guilty of this than still

00:18:10.820 practicing the rituals, is to completely divorce ourselves from our Jewish roots. And this has 1.00

00:18:19.040 damage in a lot of ways. Number one, I think it alienates a lot of Jews feeling like if I become

00:18:23.800 a Christian, then I have to completely seize who I think my identity is as a Jew. I think it also

00:18:32.000 guts us as Christians from the rich history of the Old Testament that helps kind of formulate

00:18:38.060 and decide who we are. So we have some liberty. Our salvation and relationship with God is not

00:18:45.460 defined by them. But so many of these rituals were given to the nation of Israel to make them

00:18:51.680 holy and set apart as reminders of who God was and who God is. And I think when we bring those

00:19:01.360 and practice many of those today.

00:19:02.740 And we could talk about the particulars

00:19:04.220 like Passover is a big one that comes up.

00:19:06.820 But I think when we practice these,

00:19:09.080 knowing how they're fulfilled in Christ,

00:19:11.680 they actually help us better understand who Christ is

00:19:14.740 because he fulfills the Old Testament,

00:19:17.220 but also realize we're not bound by this.

00:19:20.200 We're actually set free in terms of who Christ is.

00:19:23.720 Yeah, I agree.

00:19:24.540 Having a knowledge of them,

00:19:26.320 especially as something like Passover

00:19:28.320 and knowing that we actually have,

00:19:30.500 as you said, the fulfillment of these things, that we are not celebrating these holidays in

00:19:35.660 anticipation for the Messiah to one day come as the Jews are, but that we are celebrating them 1.00

00:19:42.820 as realizing that Jesus is the culmination. He is the fulfillment of all of those things. So

00:19:47.660 I think that at the very least, as you said, knowing our Jewish roots and knowing

00:19:52.020 the Jewish holidays and what's behind them and what is being celebrated and honored could add

00:19:57.320 like a lot of fullness and richness to our faith, specifically about Easter, kind of going back to

00:20:02.920 some questions that people sent in about why Jesus did certain things, said certain things

00:20:09.080 leading up to the crucifixion, even what he said on the cross. So when Jesus is in the garden and

00:20:15.840 he is praying and he is in pain, I mean, that's just a poignant passage. That's a different side

00:20:23.840 of Jesus than we have seen before? So vulnerable, so human-like when he's praying that the Father

00:20:30.240 would let this cup of suffering pass from him. Can you kind of like break down that passage?

00:20:37.040 Why do we read that? Why do we need to know that? And what exactly does this mean?

00:20:41.900 This is a great question. And the first thing I would say is this, you're asking this passage

00:20:47.340 because it raises troubling questions like why is Jesus asking this cup to be taken away from me

00:20:53.980 when we know that he knows it's coming and he's supposed to fulfill it so one thing this tells us

00:21:01.520 is these words were not invented these this historically goes back to Jesus because the

00:21:07.600 early church would not have invented these like difficult passages put them in the mouth of Jesus

00:21:13.780 for people like us later to be like, I'm not sure I totally get it.

00:21:18.260 So this gets us back to the historical Jesus, which tells us he suffered.

00:21:21.840 And I think that's also another piece of circumstantial evidence for his crucifixion.

00:21:27.740 What we have in Jesus consistently is a few things.

00:21:30.820 Number one, he has submitted himself fully to the Father.

00:21:35.420 I mean, just read the Gospel of John, even though the story you're sharing is not in the Gospel of John.

00:21:39.940 He over and over again is saying, I do what the Father requires.

00:21:44.880 My authority comes from above.

00:21:47.260 So we see the sense that Jesus is one with God in essence.

00:21:51.840 And John again makes it clear that he was God and was with God.

00:21:56.640 So he's one in purpose with the Father and he's one in essence with the Father.

00:22:01.760 But because he takes on human flesh and is like us in every way,

00:22:07.400 Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 4 points towards, he suffers and he gets tired and he gets hungry

00:22:14.940 and he's tempted. So somehow in this person of Jesus, we have this mystery where he's God and

00:22:21.280 he knows everything, but he also is like pleading out to the father to take this cup away from him.

00:22:28.420 So I think in some ways, this passage is just revealing the level of suffering that Jesus

00:22:34.500 went through. Now, a lot of people don't really realize this, but it's almost like Jesus met his

00:22:41.220 resolve in the garden. It's where he's wrestling with God. He realizes what's at stake. And then

00:22:47.620 once he prays this prayer to God related to the cup, his father, it's like he has this confidence,

00:22:54.820 so to speak, that takes him all the way through the crucifixion until the end. So I think we just

00:23:01.280 see this human side of Jesus, that in one sense, his mind knows he needs to do it. He needs to be

00:23:09.000 obedient to the Father, and he will. But everything inside of him is like, why do I have to go through

00:23:15.620 this, God? And he's just expressing this feeling and desire of his heart. So in some sense, we see

00:23:21.640 the human side of Jesus suffering. We can relate to it. But we also, if we read the larger passages

00:23:26.940 around it, see the clear divinity of Jesus, and both are at play.

00:23:32.240 I'm guessing this is a similar principle at play when Jesus is actually on the cross and

00:23:38.520 he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

00:23:42.480 I mean, for the same reasons that you're articulating, it can be very hard to understand

00:23:46.320 that.

00:23:46.820 Okay, Jesus is fully God.

00:23:48.760 Is there a real separation going on there?

00:23:51.980 How do we reconcile that with our knowledge of the Trinity?

00:23:55.160 So what is happening in this moment?

00:23:58.380 Such a good question.

00:23:59.920 And again, as the point before, these words are historical.

00:24:03.820 The early church did not invent these words, put them on the lips of Jesus as the last

00:24:09.700 words that he speaks in Mark, and then raise all these difficult theological questions.

00:24:15.440 So from a purely historical standpoint, we have about as much confidence as you could

00:24:19.960 have that Jesus spoke these words.

00:24:22.320 Now, this is in Mark 15, 34, but then if you just go to 15, 39, you have this Roman centurion

00:24:31.860 who's watching this five verses later, and what does he say?

00:24:36.420 He says, truly, this man is the Son of God.

00:24:41.500 So within five verses, you have Jesus crying out, saying, Father, why have you abandoned

00:24:47.740 me?

00:24:48.380 And this soldier's watching this.

00:24:50.760 And then within a few verses, even the soldier sees, I think this is the climax of the book of Mark, even the soldier sees that there's something supernatural and arguably divine about him at the same time.

00:25:03.100 The question is, how do we hold these two in tension?

00:25:06.760 Now, that verse, Father, Father, God, God, why have you forsaken me?

00:25:11.160 That's from a psalm David wrote in Psalm 22.1.

00:25:15.060 And if you read that psalm, a few things stand out about it.

00:25:18.420 number one david's like god why have you abandoned me and it's this harrowing sense that david who's

00:25:24.440 one of the chosen like you know precursors to the messiah chosen king is saying to god why have you

00:25:31.980 abandoned me but you also have in that passage there's another there's a few other messianic

00:25:37.160 references about how they cast his garment as lots also in psalm 22 is the sense of uh where

00:25:45.480 they pierce my hands, which is a foreshadowing of the crucifixion. So I think Jesus cited this in

00:25:53.540 part because he's saying on the cross, basically when it's finished, I am fulfilling the Old

00:26:00.960 Testament and what it said about me. David suffered. I suffer even more because I'm greater

00:26:07.260 than David. So not only is this a messianic psalm, it also makes clear that David was going to feel

00:26:15.960 this sense of abandonment, but not actually be abandoned. He said, I felt like God abandoned me

00:26:21.920 and left me alone, but God has and will triumph. We've seen that in the past. So in some ways,

00:26:28.460 Jesus is doing the same thing. He's saying as David felt abandoned and God was still with him

00:26:35.200 and working towards the good, this is how I feel abandoned, and God is going to work it for good.

00:26:42.580 But with that said, it's really important that we don't downplay just the human pain and agony

00:26:49.100 that Jesus was going through. We typically think about the physical pain on the cross

00:26:55.100 as being the worst, and that was unimaginable. But I think the worst part is the greatest

00:27:01.140 injustice that the only person who's ever lived who didn't sin, I mean, Jesus says to the religious 1.00

00:27:08.100 leaders in John, he's like, who of you can convict me of sin? The only sinless person who's ever

00:27:14.340 lived taking on the sin of the world, that way Jesus is also crying out, expressing that distress

00:27:23.680 and that pain before the father. Why do you think the crowd chose Jesus to be crucified

00:27:30.780 over Barabbas. I'm curious what you believe that says about the particular people at that time

00:27:37.720 and what that might tell us about human sinful nature in general.

00:27:42.560 That's really hard to know for sure, because at least when you read John, you get the impression

00:27:47.460 that Pilate is trying to get an excuse to get out of this. He sees that Jesus is, he's like,

00:27:53.780 I find no guilt in this man. I've had him whipped. He's trying to do everything to please the crowd, 0.77

00:27:59.760 and they're not pleased. Now, how big the crowd was, exactly how many of them wanted Jesus

00:28:06.540 crucified, that's hard to say. I mean, again, in John, you have the sense of some of the religious

00:28:13.060 leaders at that time believed in Jesus and followed him, but some did not. It starts as

00:28:20.280 early as John 5 when Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, claiming the

00:28:27.820 authority of God, that they start planning to kill him. So I think it probably was certain

00:28:34.600 religious leaders of that time with power who felt threatened by Jesus. And Jesus makes it clear that

00:28:42.520 they did not know the father. They thought they did, but they did not know the father. If they

00:28:47.400 knew the father, they would listen to him because the father and Moses and the scriptures and the

00:28:52.320 miracles all point towards that. So I think they were spiritually blind. They felt threatened by

00:28:59.060 the power of Jesus and thought that this would be the end of Jesus, which of course is the greatest

00:29:05.240 irony in human history. About as ironic as when Pilate says to Jesus, he says something to the

00:29:12.440 effect of, you won't talk to me? Don't you and I have power to crucify you or not? And Jesus is

00:29:17.140 like, you have no authority over me. This crowd and Pilate thought this was going to be the end

00:29:23.480 of it. But ironically, it was just the beginning. Yeah. Gosh, when you said blindness, it reminded

00:29:30.360 me of what I was reading this morning in John 9, when Jesus healed the blind man and the Pharisees,

00:29:38.200 they are very confused about this. Sometimes you don't know if the Pharisees are really confused

00:29:42.820 or if they're trying to trap Jesus, I guess usually it's the latter, but they're talking

00:29:48.240 to this blind man, trying to figure out, okay, who healed you? What do you think about him? Do

00:29:53.540 you think that this man is a sinner? He healed you on the Sabbath. And it's just, it's clear,

00:29:58.680 they are spiritually hardened and they can't see Jesus for who he is and what he's doing. They

00:30:06.520 can't even say unapologetically, wow, this is a great thing that this man has been healed.

00:30:12.580 They're more concerned with what Jesus is really up to.

00:30:15.980 And it seems like that theme is carried through even to the moment that we're talking about

00:30:20.640 as they are delivering him over to be crucified.

00:30:24.040 And it's easy to look at that and say, how could they do that?

00:30:26.820 He never did anything wrong.

00:30:28.600 I mean, truly a sheep led to the slaughter.

00:30:30.800 But it says a lot about the hardness of our hearts.

00:30:33.820 I think we can all see parts of ourselves in those who are deriding Jesus,

00:30:38.620 who are mocking Jesus, who betrayed Jesus, that we think we know better and not really

00:30:46.060 understanding the spirit of God's commands, even if we do know the letter of the law.

00:30:52.240 And so it's very humbling to see Jesus's interactions with the holiest and most knowledgeable

00:30:58.300 people at the time. He really does flip over the wisdom of the world and makes it look foolish. 0.96

00:31:05.360 And it's just a good check for us that, okay, like, are we following the wisdom of God?

00:31:11.440 Are we relying on our own smarts, our own knowledge, our own power?

00:31:17.260 You know, what's amazing about that story is, again, I've just been reading through John, so it's so fresh in my mind, is there's so many people who know what Jesus did and know who he is, but they're afraid to speak up.

00:31:31.880 So this blind man in John 9 you're talking about 0.98

00:31:34.460 was blind from the moment that he was born.

00:31:37.440 He had never seen.

00:31:40.260 And they come to him and ask him,

00:31:41.780 he's like, this man, Jesus healed us.

00:31:43.480 Well, they don't want to accept that.

00:31:45.220 So they go to his parents and his parents,

00:31:48.680 and they ask his parents, the Pharisees do,

00:31:51.300 is this your son?

00:31:52.460 Is he healed by Jesus?

00:31:54.120 And it says kind of in parentheses,

00:31:55.840 which means it's the author of John giving his commentary,

00:31:58.680 that believing in following Jesus, you'd be kicked out of the synagogue.

00:32:03.260 So out of fear, their parents, rather than saying,

00:32:07.160 I mean, their son who had never seen, he was 38 years old, I think, if I remember,

00:32:12.000 or maybe that was the invalid in John 5, but his whole life he had not seen.

00:32:19.080 You think his parents would be so thrilled, they'd say,

00:32:21.760 my son was blind and now he sees.

00:32:24.800 But out of fear to the religious leaders, they just say,

00:32:28.120 well go ask him he can talk and i look at that i'm like wow am i speaking up on what's true

00:32:34.260 even if it costs me something so you're right we have to do a check on spiritual blindness

00:32:40.040 but i think we have to ask ourselves do who do i fear do i fear god or do i fear men and we see

00:32:47.980 this example of jesus he says you have no power over me i've already defeated death i've already

00:32:55.660 conquered this world. Are we going to live in that confidence? Man, that convicts me every day,

00:33:02.980 Allie, because I want to be more and more bold to speak the truth like that blind man who's like, 0.67

00:33:08.700 all I know is I was blind, but now I see. You know, it's funny that you talk about his parents

00:33:15.280 because that was the first time that stuck out to me today. I was actually listening to it in the

00:33:20.720 car. And when I heard that part, I was like, they literally just threw their kid under the bus.

00:33:25.660 They were like, we don't want to say who did it.

00:33:27.980 We don't want to say who healed him.

00:33:29.580 We'll let our son, who has been disabled his whole life, we'll let him take the fall for it. 1.00

00:33:34.500 If he wants to say it was Jesus, then he can do that. 0.88

00:33:38.300 We're not going to.

00:33:40.000 And I love what you said about being convicted about our own boldness.

00:33:43.800 I would love to think that I would never throw my own children under the bus, that I would

00:33:47.220 never be so scared of someone that I'd be afraid to stand up for what is true for the

00:33:51.720 sake of my kids.

00:33:52.700 But whatever it is, it's so easy for us to be intimidated by the opinions of others or what they can do to us that we won't say what is true.

00:34:03.040 So that's a really good point.

00:34:05.420 Okay, theologically, explain to us the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection.

00:34:14.320 Obviously, we know that this is Christianity 101.

00:34:17.760 This is what it rests on, but a lot of people listening might not know.

00:34:21.560 So we've gone through how we know it actually happened, how we know it's true, but I want

00:34:27.720 to hear you articulate why it matters.

00:34:31.760 You know, the irony in this question, Allie, is that we call it Good Friday.

00:34:37.360 I mean, how many people just stop and say, why do we call a day good for which our founder

00:34:44.600 that we put faith in was mocked and spitted on and stripped naked and humiliated and crucified

00:34:53.080 publicly and shamed. We don't celebrate the day that JFK or Abraham Lincoln or anybody else that

00:35:01.740 we revere was put to death. Well, the difference with Jesus is there was something good about his

00:35:09.860 death. And the question is, what was it? Well, Jesus understands himself and so do the gospels

00:35:17.000 as fulfilling the old Testament. So if you go back to John chapter one, verse 29, and then it says

00:35:23.140 it again in the thirties, when John the Baptist sees Jesus coming, what does he say? He says,

00:35:29.000 behold the lamb of God, meaning he's referring back to the Passover, which we talked about

00:35:35.860 earlier, where a spotless lamb was killed before the 10th plague, where the Israelites are in 0.98

00:35:42.760 Egypt, and that its blood was put in the doorstep. And then the angel of God would pass over those 0.98

00:35:50.780 houses and spare the life of the oldest son. So Jesus sees himself, John the Baptist sees himself

00:36:02.640 in this Old Testament motif that life is spared and saved through death of a lamb.

00:36:11.500 Now, in the Old Testament, these animals were kind of substitutes, their life.

00:36:16.020 I mean, it says in Leviticus chapter 17 that it's like, you know, through the bloodshed

00:36:21.120 that we have atonement with God.

00:36:23.700 Now, we're not explaining why, but somehow through death, we're able to be in right relationship

00:36:31.340 with God.

00:36:32.640 Now, animals did that in the Old Testament.

00:36:35.780 Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. 0.57

00:36:38.080 And the reason we don't have to keep sacrificing is because Jesus is truly human.

00:36:43.360 He represents us, but he's also truly God.

00:36:47.140 He's never sinned.

00:36:48.200 So his sacrifice, you might say, is infinite to cover any sin that we do, acts as our substitute for us.

00:36:58.080 So it's Good Friday because Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, Jesus died for our sins.

00:37:07.540 So in sum, Jesus covers first the wrath of God, who because God is just needs a payment for sin.

00:37:16.740 But he also covers our duty to God in his death on the cross.

00:37:22.420 Now, the reason the resurrection is important is because it's God stamped saying death doesn't have the last word.

00:37:30.100 Yes, it's finished. Sin has been paid for. We have been forgiven.

00:37:36.040 Jesus conquers the grave, and it's like it ratifies that death with God's divine approval

00:37:42.780 and tells us that this is real, supernaturally speaking, our sins are forgiven.

00:37:48.620 And the last thing, Allie, that I would say is this is what separates Christianity from every other faith system. 0.93

00:37:54.720 We can't earn God's approval by doing some kind of work.

00:38:00.360 Jesus paid our debt on the cross.

00:38:04.200 We contribute nothing to our own forgiveness and standing before God except a humble acceptance of what Christ has done.

00:38:14.720 And I think when we realize the debt that he paid, all that can do is humble us before God and then live differently because we have actually been forgiving and can stand in relationship with God.

00:38:28.960 Amen. Yes, I remember. I don't remember who originally said this. Maybe you know, but I think I heard it in high school and it just clicked. So much of what you're saying is encapsulated in this picture that there are so many religions that can tell you how to get to God. And some people will stop there.

00:38:46.720 You know, Buddhism can tell you how to get to God. Islam, Judaism, all of these religions can tell you the steps that you have to take, the rules that you have to follow to find that divine, fulfilling life.

00:39:00.440 But the difference in those religions and Christianity is that Christianity actually doesn't give that message at all.

00:39:08.180 Christianity is not saying, here's what you can do to get to God. Here's how you climb the mountain to get to God.

00:39:14.000 it's actually saying you can't. You can't do that. You can't climb up the mountain. You cannot

00:39:18.580 get to God. You are completely powerless to do that. So God had to come down the mountain to

00:39:24.780 rescue you. And I love what you said, that we contribute nothing to our forgiveness.

00:39:30.040 That is the distinctive, I think, between Christianity and all the other faiths.

00:39:35.080 It's not about rules to follow so that you will gain salvation. Yes, there are commands that we

00:39:40.480 abide by because we have been saved and love God, but we cannot clean ourselves up for God.

00:39:46.040 That is a freeing, kind of liberating good news that no other religion has. It's just 0.99

00:39:53.940 too much of a generalization and not true to say all these different religions are basically the

00:39:58.880 same. They're not. Christianity is the one that is distinct because our gospel is different than 0.99

00:40:04.520 all the others. Amen. You remind me of a story probably 15 or 20 years ago, I was speaking to

00:40:10.220 an atheist group at Berkeley. And I was making the case that Christianity is unique for four

00:40:15.400 reasons. And one of them is God's grace, that salvation is a free gift. And these were students,

00:40:22.240 so I kind of thought free would like land with them, you know, students paying for their education,

00:40:27.080 you don't have a lot of money. And the student afterwards, I'll never forget, he goes, he

00:40:31.180 actually said it's a way, he goes, Sean, your arguments are so bad. If I didn't know any

00:40:35.380 differently, I'd think you were stoned on crack. He actually said it like that to me. I'm like, okay,

00:40:40.220 He goes, in Buddhism, there's a certain kind of gift and grace

00:40:44.820 that is given to people on their journey.

00:40:48.540 And he goes, so you find grace in other faiths.

00:40:51.920 And interestingly, I was in a doctoral class on Buddhism at that time.

00:40:57.180 And so I knew it.

00:40:58.220 I said, you're right.

00:40:59.540 Within Buddhism, certain forms of Buddhism,

00:41:02.420 there are gods that give some grace for somebody on their journey.

00:41:06.800 but it's different in saying you have to do certain actions and earn your way to salvation

00:41:12.700 and you get little pockets of grace along the way and the entire thing is a free gift that's

00:41:20.820 different and that's unique to christianity and that's why you know paul says he talks about grace

00:41:26.340 is a free gift this is not from yourselves it is a gift from god so no one can boast

00:41:35.940 All I can tell you, Allie, is the older I get, the more I'm aware of just how profoundly

00:41:41.200 I fall short of this, how much I need God, and I'm just thankful for His grace.

00:41:49.380 You know, I think there is something biblical.

00:41:51.740 It might have been a little bit crass, but him saying that your theological arguments

00:41:56.620 sound like you're high on crack or stoned on crack.

00:41:59.920 You know, I mean, 1 Corinthians 1 makes really clear that like the wisdom of God sounds like foolishness to the wise of the world and that he turns that on his head.

00:42:11.040 And that is routinely what Jesus did, as we were talking about earlier, with some of the smartest, most knowledgeable religious leaders.

00:42:17.460 They thought that he sounded like he was crazy.

00:42:20.840 I would love to know where that student is today and if there was a seed that was planted there.

00:42:25.960 Okay, I would love to talk about just maybe kind of rapid fire with the little time that we have left. Just some basic theological questions. And we got some really good questions in from my listeners, or really maybe apologetics, I guess they go hand in hand. But they reminded me of some questions, actually, that my five, almost six-year-old has been asking me.

00:42:47.660 And as you know, at this age, kids can become really good theologians and they ask questions

00:42:53.520 that you're like, that's a really good question.

00:42:55.840 There are grownups that are still asking and debating things like this.

00:42:59.040 So we were reading, for example, which we've done many, many times, but we were reading

00:43:03.420 in her kid's Bible, the, you know, the story of the Garden of Eden of creation and the

00:43:09.100 fall.

00:43:09.560 And she understands that like sin and sadness and sickness came from all of that.

00:43:13.900 And she's really sad about that.

00:43:15.540 Like, she's genuinely really, really sad about that and wishes it did not happen.

00:43:20.420 And she asked me, why did God make the serpent?

00:43:24.620 Why did God put him there?

00:43:26.360 And I'm like, yeah, that's something that people have been debating for a long time.

00:43:30.060 And I don't know that I have the clear-cut answer on that exactly, but what would you

00:43:36.900 say to that really good question?

00:43:39.720 Well, first off, I'd say to your five or six-year-old, as I say to my kids, I go, what a great

00:43:44.640 question.

00:43:45.140 I love that you're using your mind. Keep the questions coming. Second, I would say,

00:43:52.360 what do you think? I mean, seriously, I ask kids questions all the time. I want to teach

00:43:57.560 them how to think. I want to teach them how to relate and discuss these topics rather than just

00:44:02.820 giving them an answer. Third, I would say, you know, the Bible doesn't directly tell us. This

00:44:09.220 serpent just shows up. We don't know where the serpent comes from. Maybe later in Ezekiel 28,

00:44:15.140 and Isaiah 14, we possibly get an explanation, but we really don't know. Can we trust God when

00:44:21.840 we don't know? But here's what we do know. Somehow God was able to use this serpent that seemed to

00:44:29.100 have free will and choose to rebel from God, just like we have free will and we rebel from God,

00:44:36.980 just as God can still use our lives, even though we don't always choose good, and some is

00:44:43.020 consistently choose bad, I think God can still use the serpent in and to bring his ultimate good.

00:44:51.140 To a five-year-old, that's probably where I would leave it and put it.

00:44:55.140 Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that's really good. We have some other questions from our listeners.

00:45:03.180 One question, I'm struggling with assurance of salvation. How can I know for sure that I'm saved?

00:45:09.440 well the first thing i would say is tell me what you mean by sure i think we can have assurance or

00:45:17.000 confidence in salvation but that doesn't require certainty doubt is not the opposite of belief

00:45:24.880 which is why jude says have mercy on those who doubt so i see a lot of people deconstruct i know

00:45:32.980 this is a topic you've talked about ali and sometimes people think if i don't have 100

00:45:36.560 percent certainty, then I don't have belief. I want to say belief is 51 percent in favor of

00:45:43.080 something. But then how do I grow? And the bottom line in Romans 10, 9 is talk about if you confess

00:45:49.680 with your lips and with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. So do you believe

00:45:58.580 that Jesus is God? Do you believe he's the one that the Father sent? Do you believe that he's

00:46:05.680 forgiven you for your sins, if you believe that, you're saved. Now, somebody who says this,

00:46:12.680 oftentimes in my experience, Allie, there's sometimes just deeper hurt and questions that

00:46:17.660 are going on underneath the surface. So I would encourage this person, I'd say, look, it's natural

00:46:22.920 to have questions. It's natural to have doubts. I would sit down with a pastor and try to get to

00:46:28.540 the root of where some of those doubts come from. Are they emotional? Are they spiritual? Are they

00:46:34.480 moral. And then when we can kind of address those, there's a proverb that says the purposes

00:46:39.300 in a man's heart are deep and a person of wisdom draws it out. Oftentimes doubt of salvation comes

00:46:46.520 from questions we have. And if it's intellectual, study apologetics. If it's moral, repent. If it's

00:46:52.440 relational, maybe you've got to heal that relationship. That's how we grow in our confidence

00:46:58.700 in the Lord. If someone is just starting out and just exploring Christianity,

00:47:06.600 what should they do first? Where should they start in the Bible? How do they find a local

00:47:12.300 church? I know that those are kind of big separate questions, but where would you tell someone to

00:47:16.460 start? I would definitely get plugged in a church right away, and I would look for an evangelical 0.81

00:47:22.460 church. Obviously, that's the tradition you and I are a part of that's going to teach that the

00:47:27.120 bible is true and preach you know the scriptures from the stage so go to a church get involved in

00:47:35.180 a small group as quickly as you can that's how we grow and that's how you learn and that's how

00:47:40.540 there's accountability in terms of the scriptures i i mean i just sent out a tweet earlier today and

00:47:46.760 i asked people i said if there's just if you were stranded on an island and you had one old testament

00:47:51.380 book and one new testament book what would you pick and i said i'd take genesis and i'd take

00:47:56.980 john so i'd encourage this person to read genesis and then read the gospel of john start there and

00:48:04.560 for a new believer if i could throw one more in there if i had a copy i'd give it to you i'd

00:48:08.140 really encourage you to read the book more than a carpenter my dad wrote this as a skeptic trying

00:48:12.880 to disprove christianity came to the faith and it lays out who jesus is and the most simple case

00:48:18.400 that jesus is god the bible is true he rose to the grave we just updated it it's so important

00:48:24.240 to start one's journey in a church, in a small group, in the scriptures, but also with the

00:48:29.260 confidence that this is really true. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you so much.

00:48:34.640 And Sean, if people want to read you, follow you, support you, how can they best do that?

00:48:41.400 Like you, I'm on YouTube. I really love this platform. I love having long form conversations.

00:48:46.240 So all the stuff we talked about today, evidence for the resurrection, death of Jesus,

00:48:50.460 intelligent design moral and social issues many of the ones that you cover i talk about in youtube

00:48:55.800 my website sean mcdowell.org links to instagram i think that's where you told me last time you

00:49:00.780 first saw some of my stuff i do a lot of short videos just apologetics that's there

00:49:04.700 i've got a blog we have a separate audio podcast out of biola that i co-host and if anybody really

00:49:12.480 loves this stuff ali i'd say come study with me at talbot we have a master's program in

00:49:17.440 apologetics. It's totally online. We would love to equip you to just become an apologist in your

00:49:23.880 church to serve the body of Christ. Dr. Sean McDowell, thank you so much for taking the time

00:49:29.180 and happy Easter. Thanks, Allie. Happy Resurrection Day and happy Easter. I like it.

00:49:47.440 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 28, 2026

REPLAY ｜ The Best Argument Against Jesus’ Resurrection — and How to Respond ｜ Guest： Dr. Sean McDowell

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