120. Jesus Rose from the Dead: Proof, Prophecy & Why Easter Matters

If you’ve ever wondered why Christians treat Easter like the hinge point of history, it comes down to one claim that can’t be watered down: Jesus Christ literally rose from the dead. I’m Danielle Venables, and I’m walking you through why the resurrection is not a poetic metaphor, not a “spiritual truth,” and not something we can casually set aside while keeping the label of Christianity. If Jesus didn’t rise, the faith collapses. If He did, the cross is not a defeat, it’s a victory over sin and death.

We dig into the biblical case with clear Scripture, including 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 1, then trace how Jesus predicted His resurrection again and again in the Gospels. From there, we connect the dots to fulfilled prophecy and patterns that point forward to Easter, including Psalm 16, Isaiah 53, and the “third day” sign Jesus links to Jonah. This isn’t presented as a late invention, but as a message embedded in the earliest Christian proclamation.

Then we tackle the questions people actually ask: What about the empty tomb? What about claims of hallucination? What about the counter-argument that the disciples stole the body? We look at why even opposing explanations still admit the tomb was empty, and why the Gospels naming women as the first witnesses is a credibility marker in that culture, not a marketing strategy. We also talk about the post-resurrection appearances and the transformed disciples, including Paul the former persecutor, and why that kind of change demands an explanation.

If this strengthens your faith or sparks new questions, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, share this with a friend who’s skeptical, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. What’s the biggest question you still have about the resurrection of Jesus?

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Transcript

Welcome And Good Friday Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Counterculture Mama podcast. I am your host, Danielle Venables, and last episode we went into Good Friday, um, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and we also addressed uh some of the new age objections to um the crucifixion, to the historical accounts, to the roles that Mary Magdalene and the other women played in the uh Gospels. And we specifically addressed the and challenged the belief that Christianity was made to oppress and suppress women because they would not have been called out by name in those texts if the goal had been to suppress women. In fact, if the goal at all was a political movement or to suppress women and inflate men, they would not have given women a role in this quote-unquote story if it wasn't true. So that's a little recap. You can go ahead and go back to the last episode if you would like to catch up on all that we talked about there. But today we are on to bigger and better and more exciting, less devastating news, and that is the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is single-handedly the best thing that has ever happened to humanity. It was not symbolic, it was literal. There is more and more proof emerging that it really happened. Um, but even old first century historical accounts do admit that the body was missing. Some counter-arguments will say that it was stolen, and we'll get into that a little bit, but I really want to just share the good news with you today. So, first of all, why does the resurrection even matter? There's actually a branch of Christianity will do Christianity in air quotes, because in order to be a Christian, you have to believe in the resurrection. But there are some Christians that say, Well, I like cultural Christianity, but the resurrection may or may not have happened. And it's actually become like normal in some Christian circles to question the resurrection, which is very odd because it is so foundational and it is written in all four Gospels. Um and if we believe that the Bible is the authority, the word of God, that God has compiled and inspired and preserved through the last 2,000 plus years, then um it's kind of a key piece of that. But basically, if Jesus didn't rise, Christianity as a whole collapses. Um, and by that I mean if he didn't rise again, then he didn't conquer death, he didn't conquer sin, he was not an acceptable sacrifice in the eyes of God, and uh that is backed up by 1 Corinthians 15 14. Paul writes, and if Christ be not risen, then it is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain. Romans 1 4 says, And declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. So it's not a symbolic belief. It is not something that we can just bypass and pretend it doesn't exist because we don't understand it. Um if Jesus truly rose from the dead, the cross was not a defeat, right? Satan did not succeed. The uh religious leaders at the time who were hungry for money and power and clout, um, they didn't win, right? It was not a defeat. If if the resurrection is true, which I'm telling you it is, that was a victory. That was Jesus beating Satan, that was Jesus conquering death, and that was Jesus being an acceptable sacrifice in God's eyes to atone for our sins. Um, and the thing about the resurrection that really perplexes me is like Jesus predicted this over and over throughout the Gospels. He said it would happen before it happened. Um I mean, I can find I can find examples for you in the Bible. Let's go to John 2, 19 to 22. It says, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Um Matthew tends to be a little bit more literal. Matthew 16, 21. Says From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. That one is pretty literal. There's also Matthew 17, 22 to 23, Matthew 20, 18 to 19, and Matthew 12, 39 to 40, which points to Jonah. Um, but the point is that Jesus repeatedly talks about how he would suffer, how he would be killed, and how he would rise on the third day. He did not just say all of that just for the sake of saying it, he said it to forewarn his disciples. Um, even though it appears they didn't fully understand that at the time. Um, moving into fulfilled prophecy, there are direct prophetic texts as well as typological patterns that point forward to Christ. So Psalm 16, 10 says, For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Um, in Acts 2, 24 to 32, as well as Acts 13, 34 to 37. I can actually pull those for you. Um Okay, verse 24. God raised him up losing the loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Um I guess that goes all the way to 32, and it I can keep reading, but that basically tells you what's going on there. Um and then there's Acts 13 as well. And f as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way I will give you the holy land and sure blessings of David. Therefore, he also says in another Psalm, you will not let the holy one your holy one see corruption. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Obviously talking about Jesus. Um David died, Jesus died and rose. Um, and so it's it's highlighting that Jesus, in fact, was the fulfillment of these prophecies that David wrote about in the Psalms. Um Peter and Paul both explicitly identify Psalm 16 as pointing to the resurrection of Jesus. Um, then we have Isaiah 53. Um I will have to find that one for you as well, because I don't have it in my notes. So Isaiah 53, verse 8 says, By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people, um, and they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. So this is talking about the innocence of Jesus, which we talked about in the last episode to a degree where even Pontius Pilate, who ultimately sentenced him to death, said, I find no guilt in this man. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, he has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. This is talking about uh the atonement of Jesus rising to be with God and also um, you know, taking on our sins and our iniquities so that we can be seen as pure before the Lord. Um the third day pattern, uh, Jonah 117 just talks about being in the whale for three days. Um and then Jesus actually alludes to this in Matthew 12. Um 39 to 40. Just let me pull it up here. Um okay, so I'll start at 38. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, he being Jesus. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. So that once again is Jesus himself um mirroring the pattern and saying, On the third day I will rise again, just as Jonah came back on the third day. Um And then we have Luke twenty-four forty-six. And said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending you the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Um, this is where he's promising the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to help guide them as they establish the church and spread the good news. But that is yet another time when Jesus himself quotes scripture post-resurrection and says, I am he. Um so there are other supporting threads. Psalm 22, Isaiah 25, 8, he will swallow up death and victory, um, Leviticus 23, 1 Corinthians 15, 20 to 23. Um, there's a lot of different references that you can look at within the Bible. Um and then I believe I read this first Corinthians passage in the last podcast episode, but I'm going to revisit it. It is 1 Corinthians 15 3 to 8, which says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Keeping in mind, too, that the writer of Corinthians, Paul, um was a Christian killer. He was basically a contract killer to take out all of the Christians until he had his own post-resurrection encounter with Jesus. And that encounter was so powerful that he immediately repented, he changed his ways, and he became one of the key missionaries for the church, right? Um that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. This is Paul saying to the Corinthians, If you don't believe me, go ask them. Ask them about their experience. Ask them if they were visited by a resurrected Jesus. So he is so certain of the resurrection, he is so certain of the legitimacy of it and of his own experience that he's like, go, go ask, because I'm not the only one who has seen this. Um, so this isn't some late church invention, it is embedded right into the earliest Christian proclamation. Um, next, if you look into the Gospels, obviously that is a great place to get any information about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But Matthew 28, verses 1 to 10. I can read that to you. Um Matthew 28. Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. Once again, women playing a very important part in being witnesses to the resurrection, not an attempt to erase the feminine. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow, and for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, he as he said. Come, see the place where he lay, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. Um Yeah, I mean that that speaks to itself, or speaks for itself. Um behold, Jesus met them and said greetings, and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. So it's a physical resurrection. They physically touched his body. This is not a hallucination, as some people like to uh say as a way to like dismiss, oh, they were just grieving. It's a hallucination. No, they touched his feet, they touched his body. Um, there's another section in the Bible where Thomas, who was dubbed doubting Thomas, um, you know, touched him, physically touched him, because he was like, How how is this possible? Like he couldn't believe his eyes. So um all four gospels report the empty tomb. A body was never produced, there was never a body that turned up. Um, quite frankly, the odds of a body being stolen were basically zero. Um, even the stone that was placed in front of the tomb was extremely heavy and almost impossible to move. Um, and even the opposing explanations state that the tomb was empty. Um their explanation was that the disciples stole the body, but that still proves that the tomb was in fact empty. So, um, like I said and like I read here, um, the women were the first witnesses in all four gospels, and in that culture, like that was not a strategic way to invent a story. If you want something to be popular, if you want something to take um, you know, take root and become authoritative, you're not going to include women in it during those times. Um, so if it were a fabricated story intended to be persuasive, that detail is highly, highly unlikely. And yet that those gospels all preserve those details. So once again, they are not trying to um erase women, for one, and they are also these accounts do not read like polished propaganda. Um, because that would not have been the popular narrative at the time. Now the other thing to consider is all of the accounts of um all of the accounts of their um encounters with him. They they were grieving, they were fearful, they were skeptical, um, they were not standing around waiting for a resurrection, and something changed them dramatically. Um until like, and that was bearing witness to the resurrection. Um so post-resurrection appearances you can read in 1 Corinthians 15, Luke 24, John 20, John 21, Matthew 28, Jesus appeared to Peter, the 12, over 500 at once, his brother James, and later on Paul. Um James especially was strong because he was an early unbelief. It is said that he um was actually really embarrassed by his brother, um, which you can read in John 7:5. And like I said, Paul used to persecute Christians. So, and then through the book of Acts, the um the whole church explodes. Um, and only that can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit, you guys. So I'm gonna leave it at that for now because I have to run. But I hope that you learned something. I hope that this helped to deepen your faith. I look forward to deep diving on this again in the future. And happy Easter, everyone.