PETER’S EVIDENCE
So we see ample historical evidence for the resurrection.
Earlier we mentioned a unique and rather unexpected approach to the resurrection that we find in Scripture. Let’s go back and explore it.
How did Peter explain the resurrection on the Day of Pentecost? He was a close disciple of Jesus, he had been there to witness the crucifixion, and he’d talked with Jesus after He rose from the dead.
But in his Pentecost sermon, Peter didn’t give such factual evidence. He didn’t say, “I know God raised Him up again because I saw Him.” Instead he declared, “I know God raised Him up because it was impossible for Him to be held in death’s grip.” This is recorded in Peter’s words in Acts 2:24, where Jesus is referred to as the One “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”
Peter’s words present the first apostolic statement on the resurrection. Peter was declaring with absolute certainty, “God raised up Jesus—the man you nailed to a cross.”
Remember that Peter was speaking to a crowd in Jerusalem, the city where Jesus died. Many in that crowd had probably been eyewitnesses to Jesus’ crucifixion, which had happened there less than two months earlier. His execution had been a prominent event in the city, one that no doubt was a topic of discussion for a long time. Peter was addressing people keenly interested in what he was talking about.
In Peter’s words to them, the resurrection was just as much a fact of history as the crucifixion—a fact with immediate and powerful results. And the reason Peter gave for the resurrection is simply this: it wasn’t possible that Jesus could be held by death.
The world today says, “It’s impossible for Jesus to rise from the dead.” But Peter said, “It’s impossible for Jesus not to rise from the dead.”
How could Peter make such a statement? His argument is based not upon the kind of factual evidence we would think of, but upon two other points.
First, Peter bases it on the nature of biblical prophecy. In stating that it was impossible for death to hold Jesus, Peter noted that David spoke “concerning Him” (Acts 2:25). Christ’s resurrection had already been prophesied. And once God speaks, it is done. Jesus must rise again because God’s Word is always true; He cannot be wrong. Once the prophetic word is given, God’s nature is such that He cannot fail to fulfill it.
Peter quotes Psalm 16 and says that David was speaking of Christ when he said, “You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 2:27).
Peter was whispering into the souls of the Jews standing before him, for Jews knew that once God spoke through a prophet, it was as good as done.