Here's the Most Important Easter Question: Who Got the Body of Jesus?

Here we are on Day Two of the Easter Weekend and I'm betting odds are excellent that you have heard somebody confidently assert that the claim that Jesus Christ was literally resurrected from the dead is a fairy tale, and that "what really happened" was that somebody, most likely the disciples, stole Jesus' corpse, hid it, and then built themselves a lucrative religious movement based on the resurrection lie.

There are multiple rival claims from skeptics who don't want to believe that Jesus was actually resurrected, including that the early Church borrowed the resurrection idea from earlier pagan mythologies, that there was a mass hallucination that prompted the false resurrection claim, and so on and so on.

Before we take up the "they stole His dead body" explanation, allow me to point you to superb sources who persuasively demonstrate, based on deep historical documentation, archeology, science and logic, why the other claims are groundless.

Rod Martin, who happened to have been a member of the original PayPal pre-IPO startup team and has since become a widely respected futurist, best-selling author and evangelical advocate in the public square, systematically destroys the familiar argument that Easter was "stolen" from pagan myths in a lengthy Substack column.

On the Hallucination Theory, former Los Angeles Police Detective J. Warner Wallace was an atheist before applying his investigative skills to the evidence for Jesus' resurrection. Check out this 4:48 video of Wallace systematically refuting the idea that the disciples wanted so badly for Jesus not to be dead that they imagined they saw Him alive.

Then there is the Swoon Theory that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross. Here's how Bobby Conway of cross-examined.org refutes the Swoon Theory:

"A view popularized in the 18^th century, which suggested that Jesus never died on the cross, but merely passed out. To cast aspersion on the resurrection, adherents to the swoon theory contend that after Jesus was placed in the tomb and mistaken for dead, he was restored to consciousness at which point he then rolled away the tomb stone and announced, 'Check it out, folks, I’m alive.'

" Are we so naïve as to think after being severely scourged, having his hands and feet nailed to a cross, his head punctured by a crown of thorns, his side stabbed, and his body wrapped in 75 pounds of burial cloth following his death, that Jesus somehow mustered the strength after regaining consciousness to unwrap himself, move a two-ton stone out of the way, bi-pass the guards only to then convince his disciples that he’s alive? I don’t think so. If that did happen, the only place he would’ve been discovered is at the nearest hospital."

You should also check out Stephen Miller's explanation on HillFaith of the terrible injuries that crucifixion inflicted on the human body, including the horrendous flogging that preceded being nailed to the cross..  

Now, let's look at the most important question in Easter apologetics, namely, who got the body of Jesus? Virtually all of the scholars who deal with this issue, including skeptics and believers, agree on the basic facts — Jesus was arrested, tried, condemned, flogged, crucified, dead, buried.

And they agree that the evidence overwhelmingly points to the tomb being empty on Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene and the other women arrived, saw and talked with Jesus, and then told the disciples what they had seen.

Thus the question: what happened to the corpse? Since bodies don't decay into dust in a mere three days, it must have been removed from the tomb. There are three prime candidates for the guilty party.

First, there are the friends of Jesus, that is, the disciples. But what did they do as soon as Jesus was arrested? They fled, and hid for fear they would be next on the cross. None of them had any military experience that we know of.

Is it logical then, to claim these men somehow found the courage and the skills to overcome the Roman Legion unit guarding the tomb, steal the body, and then fool the world into thinking He was resurrected? Check out this assessment of the possibility the disciples succeeded in stealing the body.

Second, what about Jesus' enemies? They knew Jesus had claimed He would be resurrected, that's why they asked Pilate to post a guard at the tomb. But if for whatever reason, His enemies decided to steal the body preemptively, just in case people started believing the resurrection claim?

His enemies would have rolled Jesus' rotting corpse down Jerusalem's Main Street to prove He was not alive. That would have been the end of Christianity. That leaves only grave robbers as possible candidates for stealing the corpse of Jesus.

But grave robbers broke into ancient tombs with the expectation of finding lots of valuables the deceased had hoped to take with them. So it was the graves of deceased rich people that were the targets of grave robbers. Jesus had no worldly goods, so there was no expectation that robbing His grave would be worth the risk.

Put all of the above together and it should be clear that the most logical conclusion, given the evidence, is that Jesus really was literally resurrected and He is alive today. It also means what He said about Himself at John 14:6 is true.

So what does that mean for you?