Unbelievers, whether religious or irreligious, tend to portray the Christian faith as an assault on reason. Shelley, for example, declared that: “All religious notions are founded solely on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination and do not want one to reason.” Phillip Adams — who really should be more sceptical about his scepticism — bleats the same tune. Faith, he says, is “a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” and “the ultimate fantasy”. Not that he has listened to many, but he claims that sermons are delivered in church along the lines of “believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary”.

When it comes to the central tenet of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, Bishop Spong and John Dominic Crossan both claim that the resurrection stories were legends which simply grew. Barbara Thiering believes that Jesus never died on the cross, so, of course, there is no place for a resurrection. Sometimes one is even treated to an exercise in logic: “All men are mortal. Jesus is a man. Therefore Jesus is mortal.”

This kind of thing is meant to leave orthodox Christians floundering in the wake of the advance of scientific thinking. Actually, the problem today is increasingly not so much that the evidence has been examined and found wanting, but that it has not been examined in the first place. One could only wish there was more hard thinking, not less. J. B. Phillips was right to complain that “the most important Event in human history is politely and quietly by-passed”.

How, then, do we tackle the hard facts of the claim that in 30AD a man, Jesus, died on a Roman cross, but within three days rose from the dead, never to die again? The first thing to say is that the documents which make this claim are consistent with themselves. This is not to say that there are not a few difficulties. For example, all four Gospels tell us that it was the women who first made their way to Jesus’ tomb on that fateful Sunday, but Luke mentions five women (Lk 24:10), Mark three (Mk 16:1), Matthew two (Mt. 28:1), while John only mentions Mary Magdalene (Jn 20:1). This could use an explanation, but it hardly represents an internal contradiction. After all, if there were five, there was also one; and if there was one, there could also have been five. John, for instance, does not say that there was only one.

One should also point out that the resurrection of Jesus was not something which took place in a corner. All in all, there were probably 12 resurrection appearances over a 40-day period. This means that well over 500 men, not counting the women, saw Jesus after he rose from the dead (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-8). Scripture requires two or more witnesses to record a conviction in law (Deut. 19:15). The resurrection of Jesus thus amply fulfils this requirement!

The Old Testament itself had prophesied that the suffering servant would be vindicated (Is. 53:1-9, 10-12) and that the one forsaken by God (Ps. 22:1-21) would rule to the ends of the earth (Ps. 22:21-31; see Ps. 16:8-11). Jesus too prophesied not only his death but his resurrection from the dead (Mt. 16:21; 17:9, 22-23; 20:18-19).

Jesus never presented himself as simply a mortal man, even an extraordinary mortal man. Consistently he portrayed himself as the Lord from heaven, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, who brings something of the glory of heaven to earth, veiled though it was in some respects. Jesus Christ is indeed the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

The bigoted unbeliever needs to explain some hard facts. Why could nobody produce the dead body? The authorities had every reason to produce it if they could, for Christianity could have been strangled in its infancy by the public display of Jesus’ corpse. However, the authorities were not able to come up with the necessary body. The tomb was empty.

Further, what transformed the apostles from the fearful band who met on the Thursday night for the Last Supper to the fearless band which went out preaching the risen Christ in the hostile environment of Jerusalem? Something — or Someone — got hold of them and changed them radically. Peter had denied Christ three times (Mk 14:66-72), but in Acts 2-5 risks his life to declare that Jesus is the Christ, and the great proof of this is that he is risen forever from the grave.

The obvious explanation is that Peter (and the others) became convinced that Jesus had risen in the body. This was certainly not the result of wishful thinking. In spite of all the prophecies, none of the disciples was expecting Jesus to appear back from the dead (Mt. 28:17; Lk 24:11, 21, 25, 37; Jn 20:15, 24-28; 21:4).

It was not only a case of one “doubting Thomas”; they were all the same. Mary Magdalene, for example, saw the risen Christ and thought that he was the gardener; she did not see the gardener and think that he was Christ risen. Those who are determined not to follow the evidence wherever it leads have a hard time of it.

H. S. Reimarus in 1778 claimed that the disciples did not want to return to their old jobs, so they stole Jesus’ body, waited 50 days, and then proclaimed the second coming. One of the troubles with this conspiracy theory is that it was the disciples’ belief that Jesus had triumphed bodily over the grave that led to the persecution of Christians. Fishing may not be everybody’s idea of the ultimate thrill, but it appeals rather more than being flogged, crucified, stoned, or thrown to the beasts.

Ten men could not maintain the Watergate conspiracy for two weeks before the truth began to emerge. Human beings may be prepared to suffer for a lie which they do not know is a lie. Hence communism has its martyrs. But nobody will die for something which he knows is fraudulent. As for the explanation that the women went to the wrong tomb, that is rather like trying to explain Hiroshima by postulating some juvenile misuse of fire-works.

What does this mean for us? We know that we will die. Death will strike down our loved ones, and it will strike us down too. I have written this, you are reading it, but your life and mine will end in death.

We need to be reminded, in Thomas Gray’s words, that “The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” Many think that this only means that we will rot in our graves. Others hope against all hope that we will be reincarnated in some other form. But God says that we will be resurrected to face his judgment (Acts 17:31; Heb. 9:27). For the Christian, this is good news, for Christ has paid for sin and has conquered death.

We can pretend that these things are not true. Eugene Christian once wrote a book entitled How to Live to be a Hundred. Alas, he died at 69, although that is not the greatest tragedy of his life. The Christian lives with eternity in view. In April 1945 the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was led off to be tried and executed by the Nazis. Before he was taken away, he told one British prisoner to tell his friend, Bishop George Bell of Chichester, that “for me it is the end but also the beginning”.