Speaker 1
Today on Focal Point, we'll join Pastor Mike Favarez as he answers a listener's question about Jesus' whereabouts in between the crucifixion and resurrection. It's a question many of us might not have considered deeply, but it has big implications.
Welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host, Dave Droue. If you're a regular listener, you know that each week we have a standing appointment with Pastor Mike Favarez called Ask Pastor Mike. It's a time to pose tough questions and get clear answers.
If you'd like to send a question of your own, you're welcome to do so by visiting focalpointradio.org. Right now, let's join Focal Point's executive director, Jay Wirtin, and Pastor Mike inside his personal study. Jay?
Speaker 2
Well, thank you, Dave. Pastor Mike, we have a very interesting question from a listener today. This listener asks, where was Jesus for the three days between his death and resurrection?
Speaker 3
Well, the Bible is pretty clear on this.
Speaker 4
Unfortunately, some of the historic statements of the church have confused this and perhaps even a passage or two in the New Testament. But clearly the Bible says that Jesus committed his spirit to the Father right on the cross: "I commit my spirit to you." There is also that statement to the thief on the cross: "Today you'll be with me in paradise."
We know he goes to be with the Father. We know he goes to the place of blessing and the place of comfort. I mean, he was going from this world. His spirit was going back to the Father. That's exactly what the prayer of John 17 was all about. I've ended this ministry, earthly ministry. I'm going to go to the cross. I'm going to return to the Father. I'm going to restore the glory I had before.
I mean, everything in the Bible would lead us to clearly conclude that Christ, when he died on the cross, his body, of course, went into a grave, but his spirit, his conscious immaterial part, went to be back with God at the right hand of the Father. And the thief on the cross, his spirit went in the presence of Christ in paradise.
Speaker 2
Maybe there's some confusion because from 1 Peter 3 where it says Jesus was proclaiming to the spirits in prison, what's going on in that passage?
Speaker 4
Right. Well, the word "proclaiming" there. I mean, there's a couple of things that can go wrong in this text. One, we can think that people who die have a second chance because they're preached to by Christ. And while that word is preached, "caruso," the Greek word "caruso," which is translated as "preach" or "proclaim," it's a proclamation of victory. It's a lot like Colossians 2, where it says that he made this triumphant disarming of the rulers in authority and shamed them by his death on the cross.
This was a proclamation of victory. It was a statement of finality. All the forces of evil were pitted against Christ. He wins by the cross and the atonement. He's not defeated. And this was a statement of him going and making that clear to evil spirits that he is victorious. So, yeah. Was there a conscious statement or proclamation of his victory to those in hell, if you will? Well, sure, that's true, but he didn't go suffer in hell for three days for us, as some of the false teachers have posited and even as some of the creeds may have given, you know, a hint to.
That's not what Jesus did. He went to be with the Father because the suffering in this earthly body that Christ had was the thing that earned our redemption. By his stripes, we were healed (Isaiah 53). He was, through the suffering, in human torment on the cross, paying the penalty of sin. Not after that; he was done. "It is finished," he said on the cross. So the suffering was over.
Back to the Father, proclamation at some point upon his death to say he was victorious, and he didn't go suffer in some place that we would know of as the lake of fire or hell or the abyss or anything like that.
Speaker 2
Well, I know it's easy to get caught up in these kinds of questions, but bottom line, does it change anything in how we understand Jesus, death and resurrection?
Speaker 4
Well, I think all these passages are given to give us some new aspect of appreciating what took place there. And I think if you take 1 Peter 3 and combine it with Colossians 2, you can see that the point of these passages is to give us assurance that Christ's death was not a defeat; it was a victory.
That's what's being stated in those texts: that every spirit that hates Christ was defeated by the cross. They weren't victorious over Christ through this horrific death that he died on a cross. So in that sense, to understand this text rightly and what happened to Christ when he died, it is important. It's important for us because it gives us that sense of what the Bible wants us to grasp, and that is that the death of Christ was victorious.
It was the end, if you will, of any hope for lost, condemned spirits. Right? This is not a second chance of salvation; it was a statement of defeat. And for us as Christians, we know that the suffering on the cross was the end of the payment, or what we would call the propitiation for our atonement, the satisfaction of God's justice.
So, you know, we would expect him to go to heaven and to be blessed and restored with his glory, as John 17 says, and not put in some place of torment in hell. Any reference to that, as First Peter would make to us here in chapter three, is simply a proclamation of victory.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I know you preached on the person and work of Jesus in your series called Christology and we're going to listen to a little portion of that right now called the Significance of the Resurrection.
Speaker 3
How important and how significant is the resurrection of Jesus Christ? I mean, it is a seemingly anti-intellectual thing to believe in something supernatural. I mean, dead people stay dead, you know, that's usually how it works. And if they do come back, it seems it's on a table in a gurney for a couple of hours, you know, not on the third day. So what is this all about? Why is this such an important thing if indeed it actually happened? Christianity is predicated on the fact that Jesus is alive. We don't really have a religious system without it.
So let's just start as broadly as we can think about it and say if there is no resurrection, right, then Christ is dead. And if we're not going to believe the supernatural, then he lived and he's done and he's over. And even if you do believe in life after death, he's just in some disembodied spirit somewhere. But that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not what Christianity assumes. And I say assumes not because it's not proven, but because everything rests on that. I mean, even when Jesus speaks to the disciples in the Great Commission, the assumption is he's now alive and he's going to be with them. He will see. I'm going to prepare a place for you, John 14. When I come back, I'm going to receive you. You're going to live with me. I am alive. If there was no resurrection of Christ, right then Christ is dead. And really you should just recognize it's the thread that dismantles the whole thing. I mean, there is no Christianity without it. And that is the claim, and we claim today that Jesus is alive. That's a big deal.
The question though is can we look at this objectively, you know, like, I don't know, like the Milvian Bridge battle for Constantine or George Washington, you know, becoming our first president or Lincoln being shot at Ford's Theater. Can we be confident that it actually happened? But one of the things that's very important and different about Christianity than most other historical claims that are of a religious or supernatural nature is that the claims of the Scripture always present this to us as the public death and public appearances that lots of people saw him die and lots of people saw him raised chronologically after he was dead. The public nature of that is huge. The evidence for Christianity dates back to the time that it happened. Right? This is not disjointed or disconnected from the events. The claims of Christ, they were made in a place that is connected to what Christ did in a time frame that's close to what Christ did. The extant copies of what we have. And all of this is a discussion about a public death and a public resurrection.
I love this verse. You don't need to turn there. I quote it often. But in Acts 26:20, Paul is speaking to King Agrippa about the rationality of the resurrection. And when he brings this all up in verse number 24, Festus, kind of the underling here to the king, responds to Paul, verse 24. And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, this is Acts 26:24, just to set up verse 26. Paul, you are out of your mind. This doesn't make any sense. Your great learning. He's admitting he's a PhD and he's a smart guy and all that, but your great learning is driving you out of your mind. You're crazy. Because this just doesn't happen. People don't die and come back to life.
But Paul. Now here's his defense to the resurrection here. There's a few things here, but the first one's important. Paul said, I'm not out of my mind. Most excellent, Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly, for I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice. Underline now, for this has not been done in a corner. I love that. It's an idiom, right? Because it's kind of a slamming idiom. This is not done in a corner somewhere. But really, obviously what that means is this was done publicly. They not only crucified him publicly, they crucified him by a road, Matthew 27 says, where passersby came by. It's like perfect. It's like a billboard. Not in the middle of the desert, but right off the 5 Freeway, right? Everybody's going by, everybody's watching. They're all there for the Passover. Crowded in Jerusalem. They're all. If you said, how many people saw that guy dying out there? And they made a big fuss about him. They had a kangaroo court overnight. And they put the sign over him, king of the Jews. Which was weird because usually you had insurrectionist or criminal or rapist or robber over your head. That one said king of the Jews. And he was in the middle of three people being crucified. You'd have thousands of people say, I saw him being crucified. This was as public as you could make it. It's in the capital city of the nation and it is done by a public thoroughfare. And the Bible says people were passing by the road casting insults at him. Public, public, public death.
This is being claimed when it happens. There's a close proximity in time and geography. You know, it was funny, I don't know why. I had a little stage in my college days when you'd go get your milk or your, you know, corn flakes and you'd stop at the rack there, at least the place where I'd shop. And there were those world magazines and they were all the crazy stories like lady gives birth to 50-pound baby and kid grows a fifth arm out of his back or whatever. Just bizarre, bizarre, bizarre stories. A child can rotate his head 360 degrees, horn growing out of the forehead. Just bizarre things. Well, I'd stand there and I would flip through the magazine and everything either happened a long time ago or it happens in some bizarre little town in Argentina I've never heard of. Right. It didn't happen in Chicago where I was reading the magazine, you know, at the corner of La Salle and 8th. Oh, I'm going to go check it out and talk to those people. You can't, because it's never near you and it's never now. And if it is now, it's not near you now. That's the way those bizarre claims were made.
Well, it is near you and it is now. In other words, you've got just days after this happened. Right. They had to wait so many days until the Spirit came upon them. But the first sermon in Acts chapter two is all about the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection is prominent in the preaching of Peter. And this is just weeks before. So these weren't claims that grew out of a, you know, sitting on a shelf life thinking about the rabbi that used to live. These are contemporaneous assertions. Acts 2:32 is a good example. The other one that you should look at is 1st Corinthians 15. This is good because this is not just. It's a contemporaneous assertion that's being made because he went around and privately showed up at everybody's upper room where two or three people were gathered.
I love what Paul says here about the resurrection and kind of taking a cross-section of proof and saying it wasn't just that he appeared to a lot of people. He appeared to a lot of people at one time. That's a big deal. Verses three through eight. Let's start in three for I deliver to you as of first importance, what I also received. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, that he rose again. He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter, and then to the 12. And then he appeared to more than 500 brothers. Three words at one time, right? Most of whom are still alive, if you want to check it out, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and the other apostles. And lastly, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me. That is a great statement. He is now claiming the resurrection of Christ in the same era, in the same time period. Within months of it happening, we have the first preaching of it. We have discussions and appearances. Three days after he died on the day of his resurrection, he's appearing to people and he's appearing to people, hundreds of them at one time. Contemporaneous assertions and claims.
Thirdly, the circumstances don't leave as many plausible options. Lots of theories have been proposed. Option A is. Here's one suggested plausible option, the swoon theory. Swoon. I don't use that word much, but that was the word that was given to this theory, that he didn't really die. I like to say, quoting the Princess Bride, that he wasn't dead, but he was mostly dead. Right? That's the swoon theory. Because, you know, if you're only mostly dead, then you can get put in a grave. And as the swoon theory goes, the coolness of the grave there, the tomb kind of revives you. You've got a little time to rest up there and then you pop out and it's like you rose from the dead, but you didn't. Some problems with that. Number one, I like to put it this way. The Romans were good at killing. This was a public, high-profile death. The chief priests and the scribes were watching. I mean, we had Pilate involved in this. I mean, you're not going to put amateur killers out there. But let's just say he was only mostly dead. You got a few other problems. There's a big stone in front of this grave that I'm thinking you've spent. You're on your third day in this tomb. It's just tough for me to think you're going to roll the big stone away. And there's not only a big stone, there are big guards standing outside. Remember that was a big part of the story. The Roman guards were dispatched. It was such a high-profile death that they had high-profile guards there to make sure that no one stole the body. That would be bad. And I'm thinking if that really happened, there's a real easy way to stop the myth of the resurrection. Kill him again, right? That was your assignment, to kill him, right? Hey, Romans, just kill him and then present the body to the world and say, hey, he didn't rise from the dead because the resurrection was being preached from the weekend of his crucifixion on. People were saying he rose from the dead. You want to stop that, right? They hated Christians. Stop it. How do you stop it? We'll kill the revived guy. There'd be a chapter 29 to Matthew. We'd have the second death of Christ, but we don't. Easy one to fix.
If he did swoon, fifthly, I'm thinking a victorious post-coma victim. It's hard to imagine Christ getting people to be willing to die for the story of the resurrection if in reality he came out as a pretty beaten up, almost crucified hospital victim. Swoon theory is stupid. The second theory, option B, is called the theft theory. The theft theory, it was the reason they posted guards there. They didn't want anybody to steal the body and claim that these eight predictions, at least recorded in our gospels and all the synoptics that go with that, so several references and promises to his resurrection, we don't want that taking place. So we'll post guards there and make sure no one steals the body.
Here's the first problem. To post guards there. Who are you posting guards there to keep from getting in the tomb? You need to remember this. Most people wanted him dead. The Jews weren't big on him. The Jewish leaders hated him. A lot of people wanted to see him dead. People that heard him talk about God being his father. The rank and file Jews hated him. The Pharisees didn't like him. The Sadducees even got offended. The Romans weren't big on this whole thing either, the Christ Ministry. So there was only a small group of people. If you're a detective, you're looking for suspects. The only people that had a motive were the disciples. And the disciples were displaying fear, not savvy, not shrewdness, to go, you know, nab the recently crucified body of Christ. What happened when he got arrested? Where did they go? Everywhere. Peter, the head of the bunch who said, I'm willing to die with you, was willing to stay at a distance. And he was probably the closest one, warming himself by the fire in Caiaphas Court, watching Jesus from a distance, denying him with cursing, right? That's what he was doing because he was afraid. But if the swooned Christ would have to get past the soldiers, then, you know, if he's being stolen the corpse, you've got to still fight those Roman guards. I don't think Peter and Thomas and Philip and Nathanael are a big scary posse for the Roman soldiers. Not to mention, and I didn't even list this as a separate one, they all died for this. Even John, who died, we assume, of old age on the island of Patmos, died as a prisoner. The rest of them had their heads lopped off.
Option C, hallucination theory. We just thought we saw him, didn't you? Yeah, I did. Well, here's the great thing. Not just one testimony. Unlike most of these bizarre claims, we're not relying this on one guy's testimony. We're not even relying on 12 guys' testimony, we're relying on hundreds. And if you're telling me it was a hallucination and it was a look-alike and didn't wasn't that, you know.
Speaker 4
That was Madonna, you know. No.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think it was, you know, at the airport you always think you see somebody famous. All I'm saying is it would require the entire terminal thinking they saw somebody you know. This is mass delusions because Paul in 1st Corinthians 15 is telling you to look up the people that saw him and go talk to him. Most of them are still alive, a couple have died. But go talk to the 500 people that saw him at one time, not to mention all the other people that saw him individually and in small groups.
If it is a hallucination theory and knowing it was causing so much trouble in the first century, again, the critics would only need to produce the body. Produce the body, that is a death blow, pardon the pun, to a resurrection theory. Show me the dead body and we're done. With this option D. Oops, we misplaced the body. The misplaced body theory. I lose my keys every now and then. I'm just thinking, I don't think so. You had less than 72 hours to forget. Right. And since this was a really public death and burial, it would require mass forgetfulness. Hundreds of people would have to forget where we put the body.
Here's the other thing about that theory, and it's pissed off. In liberal books, they pass these theories off as possibilities. I'm thinking to myself, there's a guy named Joseph who knows where it is and he's still alive, right? This is his family tomb. So I'm thinking Joseph of Arimathea knows where it is. Someone should ask him. I don't think the resurrection myth grew.
Speaker 4
Up and no one thought to ask.
Speaker 3
Joseph, where was your tomb again? Not to mention that there was dispatched Roman guards.
Speaker 4
Right.
Speaker 3
And the Jews were concerned about this resurrection. Surely they weren't guarding the wrong tomb.
All right, you know, that's not exhaustive, and I understand it's not, you know, every argument we could possibly have, but I think the preponderance of evidence, we've got an empty tomb of a very high profile guy after a high profile death.
This is hard to explain. Unless, of course, those promises from the Old Testament are actually true. And since all the other promises came true, maybe this resurrection one came true also.
Speaker 1
This is Focal Point, and you're listening to Pastor Mike Fabares in a message titled "The Significance of the Resurrection." You can hear the complete, unedited version of this message at focalpointradio.org. At Focal Point, we're passionate about equipping you with solid, straightforward answers so you can defend your faith and give an answer for the hope that is in you.
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