Commentary

Does the book of Acts point to a physical, bodily resurrection?

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Here’s a great post by Amy of Stand to Reason. She focuses on TWO passages to make a case for Acts teaching a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Excerpt:

The first is the words of Peter’s evangelistic sermon in Acts 2:22-36:

[Y]ou nailed [Jesus] to the cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him, “…You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”

In case they missed the fact that Jesus’ body did not decay, Peter continues:

Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet…, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.

In other words, Peter argues that David couldn’t have been speaking of himself when he wrote those words of Scripture because David’s body decayed in a tomb. He then contrasts David’s death with Jesus’ death and physical resurrection to show that the words of the Psalm are describing Jesus, and therefore Jesus is the Messiah they’ve been waiting for.

This is good, because the early sermon by Peter in Acts 2 is super early. So even if a bad guy argues that Paul’s view of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15:3-7 is non-physical, you can fall back on Acts 2 and the early eyewitness testimony of Peter. But as Amy mentions, there are other arguments as well.

Further study

The top 10 links to help you along with your learning.

  1. How every Christian can learn to explain the resurrection of Jesus to others
  2. The earliest source for the minimal facts about the resurrection
  3. The earliest sources for the empty tomb narrative
  4. Who were the first witnesses to the empty tomb?
  5. Did the divinity of Jesus emerge slowly after many years of embellishments?
  6. What about all those other books that the Church left out the Bible?
  7. Assessing Bart Ehrman’s case against the resurrection of Jesus
  8. William Lane Craig debates radical skeptics on the resurrection of Jesus
  9. Did Christianity copy from Buddhism, Mithraism or the myth of Osiris?
  10. Quick overview of N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection

Debates are a fun way to learn

Three debates where you can see this play out:

Or you can listen to my favorite debate on the resurrection.

Extra stuff

A lecture on Bart Ehrman by William Lane Craig.

10 thoughts on “Does the book of Acts point to a physical, bodily resurrection?”

  1. The problem with this proof is that there are myriad Catholic saints (including St. Silvan, died 350 AD) that have *not* decayed, either, thus implying (to the chagrin of our host) that CATHOLIC saints are, in some way, as blessed as Jesus.

    Scientifically, of course, there is ample speculation on why these bodies have not decayed, but we don’t actually know for certain what the cause of their remarkable preservation might be.

    For some pics:

    http://www.catholicapologetics.info/library/gallery/incorrupt/incorrupt.htm

    (Saint Silvan is absolutely freaky (died 1600+ years ago and is still intact!)

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  2. Thanks for the treasure trove of resources, WK!

    ECM, if these Catholic saints have indeed been preserved (I’m not going to debate this here), and are blessed in with incorruption, that doesn’t present any problems for the apologetic value of the argument. We can say that Jesus was resurrected bodily because a) He interacted with people and b) this was bodily because Peter, who was one of those who interacted with Him, says his body did not see decay. In the case of the catholic saints, they didn’t walk around speaking to people in their incorrupt state.

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    1. The Knight emphasized the lack of decay (or am I the only one seeing the bolding) so, yes, it does compromise his point, since lack of decay is not exclusive to Jesus, thus not being a point in his favor. (If he did, indeed, rise again, then that should be all that really matters, period, no? Why would pointing out the lack of decay be of any apologetic value at all? I think that if he did rise, then it woudl be taken for granted that he didn’t decay, thus making it all a moot point.)

      And what’s to debate? They haven’t decayed, period. It’s not like this is open to interpretation as the link obviously provides. (And you can Google up videos of the bodies, too, if those pics aren’t sufficient evidence.)

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      1. ECM, I think the point of this post by Amy is to specifically defend against hallucination theories, such as those put forward by naturalists like James Crossley and Gerd Ludemann, or even moderate Christians like Wofhart Pannenberg, who thinks that the risen Jesus was not a physical body but a pillar of light or something. The point of the reference to decay is that Peter preaching a few weeks later thought that the BODY had not decayed – which goes to support the empty tomb narrative, which undermines the hallucination theory, and supports the inference to the resurrection. Granted that apparently some people do not appear to decay after death, but in the exact same sermon Peter is talking about appearances of the risen Lord, which hasn’t occurred for any of the examples you mentioned. And remember that Acts is written after Luke, and Luke is written after Matthew. And Matthew after Mark. So this is late! Why leave the “no decay happened” thing in there if the body was all decayed after a few decades when Acts was written?

        So the real question is, does the mentioning of lack of decay support the empty tomb, and does support for the empty tomb support the inference of a physical resurrection body? And I think the answer to that is YES: what they thought they saw was Jesus’ resurrected physical body. The question that Amy is trying to answer is “what did they see – a body or a ghost?”, and we think that the early, eyewitness mention of Jesus’ body not decaying lends support to the empty tomb, and thus to the physical body resurrection inference.

        I’m not sure that it is a huge disagreement since none of the people you pointed out are suspected of having risen from the dead.

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  3. Acts 1:3After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command… 9After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

    What is Acts 1, chopped liver?

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  4. ECM: Yes, WK emphasized the lack of decay. There are people who claim that Jesus wasn’t bodily resurrected, but only in spirit. This is what is being refuted by this argument.

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  5. Well, without completely agreeing with ECM, the emphasis you are using on this passage is not what I believe it is. (No, it’s got nothing to do with me being Catholic.)

    I believe, in the mentioned verse what Peter is emphasizing on is the fulfillment of messianic prophesy made by David. Think about it. Peter doesn’t have to mention about the lack of bodily decay to prove a point about Jesus’ bodily resurrection. What he is emphasizing on is actually that because Jesus rose from the dead and isn’t rotting in His grave, He is the promised messiah that their ancestor David spoke of. And it only makes sense because I think it’s safe to say Peter was comfortable preaching only amongst Jews till the encounter with Cornelius. So he was making a case for Jesus indeed being the promised Messiah, by refreshing the memories of the Jews, by quoting their famous ancestor. This is not to say I disagree with you, I am just saying the emphasis is wrong. Almost every time OT is mentioned in NT, it is to remind the people of fulfillment of the prophesies. Jesus did that too.

    As for case against hallucination theories, it comes in Luke and John (though you might they were written later), the wounds on Jesus’ body. If it’s just a spirit, the wounds won’t be there. The wounds are very important proof for the bodily risen Christ.

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    1. Shalini, I agree with you on the emphasis of the passage. Peter is referencing David’s messianic prophecy.

      On the other hand, I do think that his use of the passage implies bodily resurrection, so it’s still useful in an apologetic context to refute theories of the resurrected Christ as a ghostly apparition.

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  6. Oh and I don’t think there is any comparison between the saints and Jesus. Jesus is alive, they are dead. None of these saints have been reported to have interacted with this body of theirs that we see in the pictures. Besides most of these bodies have some kind of wax coating and some do have a certain of level of decay. I understand what ECM is saying that you don’t have to mention that Jesus’ body didn’t decay because He is alive, because it’s like stating the obvious. Fair enough. Bodily decay doesn’t happen to living beings unless they are specifically suffering from medical conditions like gangrene. But the passage doesn’t say that the risen body of Jesus is not decaying. Peter is saying that he knows the body of Jesus is not rotting in the grave because he saw Him alive. It’s all about the way you phrase it, I guess.

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