Conflicting Views of the Resurrection in Acts

In an earlier blog entitled “The Resurrection in Matthew,” I pointed out that the New Testament contains many conflicting stories concerning the resurrection of Jesus. Mark’s story is clearly an add on, not original to the author, and lacking in details. Matthew’s story is the most spectacular involving an eclipse of the sun, two earthquakes, the return to life of Jewish holy men in Jerusalem, and the physical return to life of Jesus on a mountain in Galilee. Although in Luke the resurrected Jesus often appears as a ghost as he flies through doors and walls, his appearance to the disciples in Jerusalem is very physical. In John, Jesus meets with his disciples in a closed room in Jerusalem, and then again in Galilee along the sea of Tiberias. It is clear from John’s account that Jesus is physically present. In Acts, Jesus is very physically present with his disciples in Jerusalem for forty days after his death on the cross (1: 3-5), and then the disciples watch while he physically ascends to heaven (1:9).

But Acts also contains the story of Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road. See Acts 9:1-30, 22: 1-21, and 26: 9-20. This resurrection encounter was clearly a vision experience. While on the way to Damascus, a light came from heaven surrounding Paul, the soon to be apostle fell to the ground, and Jesus spoke to him from heaven, explaining to Paul that he had a special job for him to do. In Acts 26: 16-19, both Jesus and Paul confirm the fact that this encounter was a vision experience. In 1Corinthians 15: 3-8, Paul claims that his experience of the resurrected Jesus was the same as the experiences of the disciples.

What are modern Christians to do in sorting out all this confusion. This is an important question because the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith. Let me answer that question by telling a story of my own.

I am married to a ski patroller. Eight years ago Lyn changed jobs requiring that we move our winter residence from Summit County Colorado to Leadville, a tiny town in central Colorado that sits at over 10,000 feet. The news of her new job came to us in North Carolina, requiring that we make our plans for housing over the internet.

Our new digs were different—tiny, dark, with furniture that belonged in a landfill. When our son came to visit, he pulled me aside and asked: “Dad, when did you and Mom take up smoking pot? This place reeks of it.” I explained that we hadn’t done so yet, but that it might help create a brighter glow to the place.

One morning I was working on a novel alone in the apartment, and I needed to consult a reference book that was stored in our bedroom. The bedroom was dark and without windows. As I entered the door, I saw my wife’s dresser, and the beautiful face of her mother jumped out at me.

Instantly the meaning of the resurrection became clear. Love does not die. I felt a pulsing of love for this wonderful woman who had died the year before. It was obvious that her love was an ever present reality for my wife. Her picture was the only item of beauty in the apartment.

That’s what happened two thousand years ago. Though he had died on a cross, the love between Jesus and his disciples continued as an ever present reality. His close followers encountered that love in dreams, vision experiences, and in retelling stories about their shared time together. Love is real. It is part of the created universe. You cannot kill or destroy it. Over the forty or fifty years it took for these love stories to find their way into gospels, the stories took on legendary characteristics and were crafted to reflect the Jewish belief in a soon to come general resurrection. The most damning evidence for the physical resurrection of Jesus comes in Acts 10: 41. Here the author comments that “God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen, not by the whole people, but only by certain witnesses God had chosen beforehand.” A God of love would not operate that way!