Dear Friends,
Some people say, “You Christians are just choosing to believe in a fairy tale when you talk about the resurrection. Where’s your evidence?” Don’t be daunted by their question. Today’s devotional will give you some fact with which to answer it. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• I Corinthians 15:1-20 (ESV)

  1 Now I would remind you, brothers,[a] of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

  3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
  12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope[b] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

  20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

“That the body of our Lord left the tomb is a fact which even those who have attempted to invalidate the doctrine readily concede. The great question in dispute, then, is ― Who removed it? Did the enemies of Christ? What would they have gained by that step?… Would it not have weakened their declaration that he was an imposter, and have strengthened that of his apostles, that he was risen? Why did not the priests and rulers…prove their assertion to the satisfaction of all Jerusalem and thus at once strike the death-blow at the infant religion, and overwhelm the apostles with infamy and scorn?…

“The circumstances of our Lord’s interment….were such as to strengthen the fact of his resurrection. He was buried in a tomb hewn out of a rock. To have excavated that rock would have been a work of time, of immense difficulty, if not of utter impossibility. The exit of our Lord therefore from the tomb could only have been by the door through which he passed within it…. In the ‘place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man laid.’ Thus, then, if that sepulcher were emptied, none other than the body of Jesus had broken from its lone captivity. The substitution of another for the corpse of the Savior was beyond the range of possibility.

“And who are the witnesses? A company of poor, unlearned, and timid fishermen… They had nothing earthly to gain in testifying to the fact, but everything to lose. Instead of human applause, and honor, and wealth, they were rewarded with every species of obloquy, deprivation, and suffering. And yet…they traveled everywhere, testifying…that Christ was risen from the dead.

“Nor were they men likely to be imposed upon. They were at first strangely incredulous of the fact itself. How slow of heart were they to welcome the testimony that their Lord was indeed alive…. We are told, ‘their words seemed to them as idle tales.’ And when one of the witnesses to the credibility of the fact testified to Thomas, ‘We have seen the Lord,’ how was the testimony received? ‘Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails,’ were the world of that disbelieving disciple, ‘and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.’” [Octavius Winslow, No Condemnation in Christ Jesus, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1853), p. 130-132]