What proof is there that Jesus rose?

In John 20:1-18, Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty and meets the risen Lord. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt walks through the evidence that Jesus truly rose from the dead.

Mary comes to the tomb while it is still dark and finds the stone rolled away. Peter and John run to see, and find the grave clothes lying in place and the face cloth folded by itself — not what grave robbers would leave. Two angels sit where Jesus’ body had lain. Then Mary, weeping, mistakes Jesus for the gardener — until He speaks her name. Dr. Holt notes that the risen Jesus does not merely declare us “not guilty”; He makes us God’s own children.

Questions this study answers:

1. What is the evidence for the resurrection? The empty tomb, the neatly folded grave clothes, the angelic witnesses, and the appearances of the risen Jesus all point to a real resurrection, not a stolen body.

2. Why does it matter that Mary first thought Jesus was the gardener? It shows the resurrection caught even His friends by surprise. She knew Him the instant He spoke her name.

3. What did Jesus tell Mary? He sent her to tell the others that He was ascending to “My Father and your Father” — making His people part of God’s family.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to Him, ‘Rabboni!’ (which is to say, Teacher).” — John 20:16 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the John Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

[gentle music] In John 20, we come to the capstone of the entire gospel, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Three days after his death on Calvary, Jesus rose from the tomb. In today's study, we'll examine the details and testimonies of that resurrection, and we'll see why the words, "He is risen," matter to us all of these years later.

The truth of Christianity, it rises or it falls on this one question, is Jesus actually risen or not? Now, let's imagine for a moment that he is not risen. What would the implications of that be? Let's say that Jesus died 2,000 years ago, he was put in a tomb, and then maybe grave robbers took him or something. Maybe his bones were taken, put somewhere else, and right now they're rotting somewhere in a crypt or a tomb in the Middle East. What would be the implications of that if that were true? Well, at the very least, it would mean that everything we're doing today is foolishness and our faith is nothing. The Apostle Paul once considered this exact question in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter. He said, "If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and our faith is also empty. And furthermore, we are also false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ." "If Christ is not risen," Paul adds, "our faith is futile and we are still in our sins." Now, to be blunt, to be clear, I think we can all agree, if Jesus is not risen, if there was no resurrection, then we're all naive and this is just a facade. And in fact, that's exactly what the secular world believes to be true and believes about us. But what if Jesus is risen? What if we can say not only he is risen, but we can say so emphatically, we can say Jesus has risen. He is risen, what? He's risen...

Indeed.

Right. Let's do that again. Jesus has risen. He is risen...

Indeed.

Right. If we can say that emphatically, if we believe that to be true, if Jesus is risen, if 2,000 years ago there was a guy who was crucified, died and was buried, put in a tomb, and three days later he came out of the tomb of his own volition, if that is true, the implications are like nothing this globe has ever seen. And this is a miracle like nothing this globe has ever seen. What if in real space and time a man died and then that same man came back to life just because he chose to do so? Among the many implications we could consider this morning is this one, that death can be defeated. Don't you want that? Don't you fear death? You should. You're mortal. The clock is ticking. If death can be defeated, if in fact when we drive by graveyards and we look out at those tombstones and we see our own future, isn't it comforting, not just comforting, but wonderful to know that death at one time in the past has been defeated? Now, if death was defeated by one man, then it can be defeated by all men. But how? How

can we attain unto that resurrection? That's what we're looking at this morning. I'm going to return now. I'm going to look at verses one through 10. We're going to see this narrative. We're going to see it for the historical reality that it is, but then we're also going to see how it is applied to us these 2,000 years later in our own walk, act, and faith. Let me reread verses one through 10. "Now the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene," of whom Jesus once had cast out seven demons, "Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it's still dark." This is her devotion. "And she saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb." This mighty, huge stone. This is not small. This is something massive that was rolled in front of the tomb in order to keep out the grave robbers. So she comes to the tomb there in verse one, she sees the stone's been rolled away. So she ran, verse two, "She ran and she came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved." Who is that? John, right. Yeah, you can say it loud. John. We've talked about that in the past. John didn't write his own name in the gospel. He was humble at this point in life when he penned this letter. He doesn't even name himself. So he refers to himself as the disciple that Jesus loved, right? So at the very verse two, "She went to Simon Peter, she went to the other disciple who Jesus loved, and she said to them, 'They've taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.'" You see, right at this point, she is not considering resurrection. She's not considering the good news, so to speak. She's considering the bad news. In her mind, what has happened is that grave robbers have come, they've taken our Lord, we don't even know where his body lays. Verse three, "So Peter therefore went out," and they're probably angry at this point. They're probably like, "Who did this? Who would dare to mess with Christ's tomb?" So verse three, "Peter went out and the other disciple, and they went to the tomb. They ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down, looking in, saw," saw something interesting, "saw the linen clothes lying there," which is the last thing they would've expected if a grave robbery had occurred. Newsflash, grave robbers take the linen grave clothes. They don't just leave them all folded up and the like. So they ran together, saw the linen clothes lying there, and yet the first one, John, did not go in. Verse six. "Then Simon Peter came. He followed him. He went into the tomb." He barreled on in, "and then he saw the linen clothes lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but folded together in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who came to the tomb first, he went in also. He saw and he believed. For as yet they did not know the scripture, that he might rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away to their own homes." All right. Let's remember, let's revisit the chronology of what has happened leading up to these verses right here. At 3:00, 3:00 in the afternoon on the Friday. What we call Good Friday was a very dark Friday indeed. In fact, the whole sky grew dark because the King of Kings was sacrificed, was placed on the cross. The sky grows dark, and the wrath of God comes down upon him, and at 3:00 he dies. He dies with three final words, "It is finished." Then he gave up his spirit, and he died at 3:00. Now at that point, what happened? Jesus is dead. Well, a number of things happened. The veil was ripped in the temple. There was a resurrection of other bodies nearby. Even the Roman centurion looks up at this one and says, "Truly, this was the Son of God." There was a lot of things that happened at this point. However, interestingly, the high priests and the religious leaders that had condemned and wanted Jesus to die, at this point, you could show them any sign or any miracle, and they wouldn't be phased by any of it. They were like, "Well, all right. This is odd. The darkness and all that's odd. However, tomorrow's Passover, and because we love God, we need to get those bodies off the hillside there because it defiles the land to have them up on the hillside on the Passover."So they go and they tell the Roman authorities, "Let's hasten this up. We need to get these bodies off the cross." They're more worried about keeping the ceremonial laws of defilement and the like than they were about the fact that they just slaughtered the Son of God. So that said, they want the bodies taken down. If you remember, the Romans go, "Okay." So they go and what do they do to the other two thieves? What do they do? Well, they break their legs so that they'll die faster. So you couldn't push yourselves up. When you're hanging there on the cross, you had a little footstool that your feet were upon. If they break your legs, you can't stand up. You can't get any breath, and so you die faster. So that's what happened to the other two thieves. However, the Roman comes up to Jesus and goes, "This one is already dead." To verify that, to make sure that he wasn't just sleepy or something like that, they used a spear and penetrated his side, and both water and blood came out. And at this point, the bodies are then removed now that all three are dead after the other two were then killed. Now, what happens next? Well, elsewhere in scripture, we see that there was a wealthy Jewish man. His name was Joseph of Arimathea, and he asked Pilate if he could take the body and put it in his own tomb. And so Pilate agrees. Joseph takes the body, and it's put in his own tomb. Now, after that, there's some palace intrigue that's going on here before the resurrection. But after that, the chief priests, they go, "Hey, hey. I remember he said something. This Jesus guy said something about if he died, he wouldn't stay dead three days later," and the like. They said, "Let's post a guard." So they went to Pilate and said, "Hey, let's get some soldiers out here to post a guard because we don't want any of his disciples going in and taking the body out and then running around saying he's risen." Right? "Let's prevent that from happening. Let's post a guard." So as of Saturday night, Jesus is still dead. The tomb is still locked. It's as secure as it humanly could be made. There are trained Roman soldiers guarding a tomb of which in front is a giant, heavy boulder. And yet, in verse one of today's text, we see that Mary Magdalene, in the morning that first day, in the morning, Sunday morning, she goes while it's still dark. She approaches this tomb that was secure and locked down on Saturday. She approaches the tomb, and to her wonderment, the first thing she notices is that the stone is gone. This is the one thing that'd probably been on her mind as she's walking. Remember what she's going to do. Hopefully, she wants to do something with his body to kind of treat it. Remember, it wasn't quite embalmment or anything like that, but they used spices and perfumes and anointing and so forth. She wanted to show some credit to his body even after he was dead. So she's probably in her mind as she's going to the tomb, wondering to herself, A, how am I going to get past the guards, and B, what are we going to do about this giant stone? She rolls up, and neither one's a problem. Now, how was the stone moved? What went on there? Well, if you looked in the Gospel of Matthew, remember, there's multiple accounts for this. Multiple accounts. There's four gospel records. This is not just hearsay and things that got spun up in the hinterlands of the first century. There are gospel records. There are eyewitnesses. And in Matthew chapter 28, we read that the reason that the stone was moved is because angels came and moved it. And when they showed up, when the angel shows up, the Roman guards stood like dead men, is what it says in Matthew. Now, as a side note, those Roman guards, considering what they saw, later on in Matthew 28, we read that they were starting probably to tell people what they saw, and the priests wanted to hush that up. "No, no, no. Shh. We'll give you money, and then you just say the disciples stole the body." And so they took it. And this was the priests who bribed them. That's a side note. You ever wonder if first-century Israel was as bad as bad could be? Yes. The chief priests were the ones bribing the Roman soldiers to hide things about Jesus. Whatever the case here, at this point, again, verse one, the stone is gone, and Mary doesn't know what to make of it, so she runs and she finds Peter and John. They follow her to the tomb. When they get there, as we've just read, they find that it's empty. The stone is gone. At this point, the guards are gone, and most importantly, Christ is gone, and that's the part they're having trouble wrapping their mind around. Christ is gone, but the clothes remain, which as we said before, this is one of the hints from the text that it certainly was not grave robbers. Grave robbers, when they went to tombs in this time, they went to the tombs to collect the things in the tombs, not to pick up and first strip naked a dead, scarred, crucified body. A dead body was not why grave robbers would've gone. They would've gone there for the clothes, the linen clothes, and the spices that were oftentimes enfolded within the clothes themselves. The fact that these clothes were there and that the body was gone ran in the face of what grave robbers typically did. All right. Let's look at our next verses. Let's look at verses 11 through 13. "But Mary stood outside by the tomb, weeping." Remember, the others have departed here. Mary stood by the tomb weeping, and as she wept, she stooped down, and she looked into the tomb once more. She just couldn't help herself. She had to take one more look into the tomb. But this time, she sees something. Verse 12, "And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head of the slab and the other at the foot, where the body of Jesus had lain. And then they said to her," so the women speak up. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" And she said to them, "Because

they've taken my Lord." Why am I weeping? "Because they've taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." All right. So verse 11. She's outside the tomb. She's weeping, inconsolable. Whatever you picture of someone weeping where they just can't stop, won't stop, that's Mary Magdalene in verse 11. She's outside the tomb. She's weeping. Tears are just covering her face, running down her cheeks. She looks in one last time. She looks into the tomb, and this time, to her shock, there's two radiant-looking angels. It says they were dressed in white. Whatever the case is, they stood out. This was not normal. These were not Roman soldiers. These were not fellow Jews. She knew this to be different. There was two angels, and they were seated one at the head and one at the foot of this slab where Christ had been. Now, again, why was she so inconsolable? Well, we've covered that to some degree. For two reasons. Number one, cruel men killed her rabbi, and number two, another cruel man took his body. And so she is freaking out. She's anxious. This Jesus means so much to her. He came to her and he helped her, and he cast out seven demons, and he did all these things with and for her that no one else would give her the time of day. And this one, this rabbi, that the whole country was chasing after, had shown that he desired a personal relationship with someone that everyone else was happy to be done withAnd so she's sad. And furthermore, why else would she be sad, as a side note? Well, here's the thing. Jesus had promised things to the disciples and to Mary. He'd promised things that were good about the future, things that were hopeful. And so when he died, the question is, how can he fulfill those things? When he died, her hope seemed to die. There was probably a lot of reasons that she is weighed down with tears. But then she looks in, she sees through her tears that the tomb is no longer empty. Now, I want to linger for a moment on something that would be easy to just run past. In verses 11 through 13, it interestingly tells us that the angels were seated, one at the head and one at the foot of this slab, and presumably, the slab itself was marred with blood from this crucified Jesus that had been pierced and everything. This was probably this bloody slab on which these angels resided. With that said, it's not an irrelevant detail that they were situated, one at the head and one at the foot. Let me ask you a question. You ever seen the "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" You do have to answer. I know the answer. Picture the Ark of the Covenant in your mind. Picture it as it's described. Better yet, picture it as it's described in the Bible. What do you have on the ark? You have this wonderful, amazing box of sorts with poles extending to each side. It's ornate, it's decorated, it's beautiful. And on top of the Ark of the Covenant is what we would call a lid, but what they called the mercy seat. The mercy seat. This mercy seat was where the priest, the high priest, on the Day of Atonement, would go into the Holy of Holies. He would approach the mercy seat on the top of the Ark of the Covenant. He would take blood from the animal sacrifice, and he'd sprinkle it on top. The Day of Atonement, once a year in the Holy of Holies. He'd sprinkle it on the mercy seat on top. The mercy seat, this is where the presence of God, the Shekinah glory of God, dwelt when they would travel and the like. The top of the ark. Let me ask you a question. As you picture the ark, what's on either side of the mercy seat?

Angels.

Angels. Cherubim. Golden cherubim were designed to occupy either spot on the outside of the mercy seat, between which the blood was sprinkled. In a very real sense, Mary Magdalene, when she looked into the tomb and saw two angels seated on either side of this bloodied slab, she was seeing the ultimate fulfillment of that which the ark always pointed toward. Now, if you just were to go past this text, just reading about where angels were sitting, that might mean nothing to you. But I cite it to demonstrate to you, if you are on the outside looking in at matters of faith, if you're contemplating whether Christianity is true, what I will tell you is it's not only true in the majors, it's true in the minors. It's true in the macro, and it's true in the micro. Every last detail corresponds with shadows and types from other texts and other places within scripture. God is a consistent God, even down to where angels sat in the tomb on the day he was resurrected. So at this point, the angels, they talk to Mary. They ask her why is she weeping? And she says, "Because they've taken my Lord." Look at the relational claim she makes. It'd be very easy to say they've taken the Lord, they've taken a Lord, but she says they've taken my Lord. Mary was yoking herself as a disciple, a follower of the one who had died, which in that context, given that he had been crucified, was a risky thing to do, to tell strangers, "I am one of his disciples." That's what she's declaring. She says, "I'm one of his. I'm crying because they have taken my Lord." Could you say the same thing? Let's look at our next verses. Let's look at verses 14 to 17. These are our last verses in today's text. Verses 14 through 17. "Now when she had said this, she turned around and she saw Jesus. She saw Jesus standing there. Only she did not know that it was Jesus. So Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?'" He draws out questions. "And she, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.' And Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary,' and she turned and said to him, 'Rabboni,' which is to say, 'Teacher.'" And Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me." There's some idea that she rushed to embrace him, held him as tight as could be. He says, "Do not cling to me, for I've not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren and say to them, 'I'm ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and to your God.'" All right. In verse 14, Mary turned from the angels to see Jesus. One minute she's talking to angels, next minute she looks over her shoulder, and there he is. But she doesn't recognize him. Now, there could be a lot of reasons why she didn't recognize him, not the least of which is the last time she saw him, he was a bloodied, beat-up mess. But beyond that, remember, she's been crying. She's inconsolable. It could be tears. It might be that in that relational context, she didn't meet the eye line of the one she was talking to. Whatever the case, we don't know, she didn't recognize it was him at this time. In her own mind, she had no reason to think it was him. She was looking for a dead body, not looking for a live Jesus at this moment. With that said, this is ironic. Mary didn't recognize the very one that she had come to find, the very one she was weeping over. The source of her affection, the object of her tears, was standing right next to her, and she didn't know it. Spiritually speaking, let me ask you a question. How often is that true of you? How often are you going through some hardship, some difficulty, something terrible has gone on in your world, and you wonder, where is God? Where is God in the darkness I'm feeling? Where is Jesus? I'm going through this heartache, this hardship. I'm crying. I'm inconsolable. Where is he? Where is he? Well, here's the thing. He's right next to you in the same way he's right next to Mary. Jesus is with us in our pain, with us in our heartache, with us in our hardships. That was the great promise of the shepherd psalm, Psalm 23. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," certainly a place where you cry and weep and there's heartache and hardship and the like. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil." Why? Because thou art what? With me. Because you're with me. Yes, it's hard. Yes, I don't like it. And yes, this is terrible. And yes, today stinks. But I can face today, and I can face tomorrow with this knowledge, that you are with me. You were with Mary. You were with her in her time of anxiety and fear, and you revealed yourself to her by saying her nameIn this particular case, Mary's standing there, she's weeping, she's crying out, she's broken. There's a fog of grief hanging over her. But in verse 16, she hears her own name on familiar lips. Sometimes it only takes a word to dispel the anxiety and fear from our own minds and hearts. She hears her own name from familiar lips, and in that moment, in a heartbeat, her grief is shattered and it's replaced with joy. And so she does here what you would expect anyone to do in this case. She rushes over and embraces him. So many theologians have looked at this and tried to interpret this all sorts of different ways as far as what might be going on here. Why did he say, "Don't cling to me?" It's more a matter of she rushed over to hold him as if she would never let him go, and he wanted to explain it to her. "Mary, it's me. Now, I need you to do something for me. I need you to go. I need you to go, and I need you to tell the disciples. Tell them I'm ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God." He sent her out with a mission. She encounters the risen Christ. He sends her out with a mission to share the good news. As a side note, that's our calling as well. Now, as we look to wrap up here this morning, I want you to consider something interesting in the perception that she had about this one. This one she refers to as a gardener initially. Way back in the Book of Genesis, Genesis 3. Now remember, Genesis chapters one and two went really well. Genesis chapters one and two, God is just spinning the cosmos into creation. He's creating everything, and as he created things, he said, "It's good."

But then comes chapter three. In chapter three, the serpent, who's more clever than all the beasts of the field, enters into the garden, tempts Adam and Eve. They succumb to temptation just like that. They sin. They commit cosmic rebellion against the very creator, against the King, and because of this sin, because of this rebellion, they are cast out of the garden. Back before the Fall, before biting into that shiny fruit, before the Fall, they interacted with God regularly. They interacted with God, they interacted with Christ. Why? Because it wasn't the Spirit, it wasn't the Father, it was Christ they would've walked and talked with in the cool of the afternoon. That's exactly what scripture says they used to do. Initially, before the Fall, everything was wonderful. They're living in a garden. It's beautiful. It's a type of heaven, so to speak. It's a type of heaven. There's no heartache, there's no hurt, there's no sickness, there's no sin, there's no brokenness. There's none of these different things. There was nothing painful, hurtful, or dangerous, and they lived in this beautiful, pristine utopia. And as they lived in this environment, they had regular interaction with the one who made the environment. We see that they would walk and talk with God in the cool of the afternoon. But then, the Fall, and this one who they used to walk and talk with enters into the garden, and this time as he enters in the garden, their reaction is not to go walk and talk with him. Their reaction is to do what? They hide. They hide because they're ashamed. They know what they've done. Jesus enters into the garden. He calls out to them, and they're hiding. Now to, I guess, make a long story short, at this time, Jesus says a number of things. First of all, he tells them what they've done. The naughty deed that they've done will involve their being sent out from the garden into a world that is dark and hurting, into a world where there will be toil and sweat on their brow. Before, it was easy. Doing work in the Garden of Eden was wonderful. You wouldn't even call it work. They were given dominion of creation. They were naming the animals left and right. It was a great time. But then God says, "Because you did this, because you chose rebellion, you are going to get the fruits of rebellion, and the fruits of rebellion include being removed from the garden, out into the cursed earth, so to speak. And as you are there, you are going to labor, and you're not going to like it. It's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. And beyond that, at some point, you are going to die, because the wages of sin is death." So the very gardener that they had walked and talked with in the cool of the day, they spent all this time with, who they loved, who formed them, who breathed the breath of life into their very body, into their being, into their very lungs, this one who they'd enjoyed this close communion with, this gardener had told them, "You must go." And at the outside of the garden, as they departed, you could look over their shoulder. What'd they see? They saw a fiery sword guarding the way in with at least two cherubim blocking the way. Man was evicted from the garden. But then here, in today's text, John 20, what happens? Jesus, the gardener, returns, so to speak, to pay the price of his people. He paid the price that we should've paid. He lived the life we should've lived. He died the death we should've died. All this is true, and on Calvary, it pleased the Father to crush the Son. The gardener returned, and he went to the cross. But after three days, he was no longer dead. After three days, we see that he is risen indeed. And interestingly, when Mary first looks up, her first words to her are, "Sir, you must be the gardener." With that said, this morning, it's wonderful to know that although we have sinned, although we have broken laws of one greater than us, and although we deserve unlimited, infinite condemnation and distance between himself and us, that God has looked down upon us in our fallen state and determined to do something about it. On Calvary, he did. He sent his own Son to pay the price that we should've paid. The good news is today this means not only are you forgiven, not only is your sin sponged away, not only are you forgiven as if the slate has been wiped clean, but there's something more profound that has happened than that, that sometimes we don't consider, even on Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday, we oftentimes think about the payment that was made and the resolution that came from that. Now you and I are forgiven, so we nod our heads. We say, "Okay, I am forgiven." But God didn't leave it there. If you go to the courtroom and a judge stamps Not Guilty and sends you out, does that judge have a relationship with you thereafter? No. Does he care about you thereafter? No. He simply says you're not guilty. God could've done that. Not guilty, payment received, go and sin no more. He could've done that, but that's not what he does. Instead, what God does is he applies a word that we don't spend enough time thinking about, and it's the word adoption. He says, "You're forgiven. Now, I want you to live with me. And I not only want you to live with me, I want to be your Father, and I want you to be my son or my daughter." This morning, if you are forgiven, that is a wonderful thing. You are spared from the condemnation that is your due. But I want you to rejoice in something more than that. You are part of God's family. You are his son, you are his daughter, and that's not going to change tomorrow when you mess up. The God who made you loves you. You can take it to the bank because it's sealed by that which was most precious to God, the blood of his own Son poured out on Calvary. Let's pray.

[gentle music] To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us at fpcgulfport.org, or you can look us up at sermonaudio.com.