Human denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead has plagued the Church from its beginning (Matt. 28:11-15; cf. 1 Cor. 15:12). In addition to its clear direct testimony to the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew provides additional, unique evidence that implies that truth (Matt. 27:52-53).

To better assess this unique evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus, we will consider it in relation to some of the other evidence in Matthew for bodily resurrection of the dead.

Evidence for Bodily Resurrection of the Dead before the Death of Jesus

1. Jesus Raised a Ruler’s Daughter (Matt. 9:18-26)

2. Jesus Authorized and Commissioned His Twelve Disciples to Raise the Dead (Matt. 10:1, 8)

3. Jesus Warned of the One Who is Able to Destroy Both Soul and Body in Hell after Death (Matt. 10:28)

4. Jesus Testified of the Dead Who Had Already Been Raised Up as Proof That He Was the Christ (Matt. 11:5)

5. Jesus Repeatedly Predicted That He Would Be Raised from the Dead (Matt. 16:21; 20:19; etc)

6. Jesus Taught That God Spoke about the Resurrection of the Dead Long Ago (Matt. 22:31-32)

7. Jesus Promised That He Would Drink Again with His Disciples of the Fruit of the Vine in His Father’s Kingdom (Matt. 26:29)

Each of these seven points shows that Jesus affirmed the reality of bodily resurrection of the dead. Several of them also point, either directly or implicitly, to Jesus Himself bringing about such a resurrection of people.

Evidence for Bodily Resurrection of the Dead after the Death of Jesus

Matthew relates several remarkable events that took place when Jesus died and afterwards:

Mat 27:50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

 ⁵¹ ¶ And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

 ⁵² And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

 ⁵³ And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

He is the only one to record the opening of the graves of many saints (Matt. 27:52a). He specifies that the bodies of those who slept arose (Matt. 27:52b).

He asserts that they came out of their graves after the resurrection of Jesus (Matt. 27:53a). Moreover, they went into Jerusalem (the holy city) and appeared unto many people (Matt. 27:53b).

Given the preceding context of the book and Matthew’s explicit statement that their bodies arose, the reader of Matthew has every reason to believe that these saints experienced bodily resurrection from the dead. In fact, there is no legitimate basis for believing otherwise.

Importantly, Matthew testifies that they did not come out of their graves until after Jesus rose, which means that His resurrection preceded theirs. Their exiting the grave and appearing after Jesus arose implies that His resurrection was the basis for theirs, which is in keeping with His plain assertions elsewhere (John 5, 11).

To hold then that Jesus experienced only some kind of spiritual resurrection but these saints experienced a bodily resurrection would make no sense at all. In order to assert validly that there was such a radical difference between His resurrection and theirs, a person would have to provide extremely compelling evidence that would overrule both the entire preceding context of bodily resurrection in Matthew and the close relationship between Jesus’ resurrection and theirs.

Because there is no such compelling evidence, the bodily resurrection of these saints implicitly testifies to the bodily resurrection of Jesus. This interpretation of the significance of Matthew’s mentioning their resurrection is strengthened by Matthew’s direct testimony to Jesus’ rising bodily, which he provides in Matthew 28.

Evidence for the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus after His Resurrection

Matthew provides much evidence about the bodily resurrection of Jesus in his last chapter.

1. The women came to the tomb, saw where He was laid, and did not find the body (Matt. 28:1-7). In fact, an angel affirmed to them that He had risen just as He said that He would and directed them to verify that fact by looking at the place where He had been laid (Matt. 28:5-6).

2. Jesus then appeared to the women (Matt. 28:9a). They grabbed His feet and worshiped (Matt. 28:9b), clearly proving that He had risen bodily.

3. His enemies were unable to produce the body and had to concoct a ridiculous story to explain that inability (Matt. 28:11-13). Their inability powerfully testifies to the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

4. Jesus appeared to the eleven who had proceeded to Galilee and commissioned them (Matt. 28:16-20). This appearance confirmed the truth of what the angel had directed the women to testify to them (Matt. 28:7), which further verifies that He rose bodily.

Jesus Arose Bodily!

The unique Matthean information about the resurrection and appearances of many saints implicitly corroborates both the implicit and the explicit evidence in Matthew for the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Truly, Jesus arose bodily!

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

After His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-11), Jesus went into the temple and proceeded to cleanse it (21:12-13). A closer look at what took place on this occasion calls into question a common understanding of this account.

What Did Jesus Claim by What He Said When He Cleansed the Temple?

Entering the temple, Jesus discovered people there who were selling and buying there. He violently acted to disrupt their activities, overturning the chairs and tables of those who were defiling the temple by their corrupt mercenary practices (21:12).

As He did so, He pronounced judgment on them by declaring that these people were thieves: “It is written, ‘My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (21:13). In saying the words, “My house,” was Jesus claiming to be Deity Himself by asserting that the temple was His house?

Whose House Was Jesus Claiming the Temple to Be?

At least two aspects of this account call into serious question the interpretation that Matthew 21:13 records that Jesus was claiming to be Deity. First, Jesus did not just say, “My house . . .” He said, “It is written . . .” In other words, Jesus was quoting Scripture when He said the words, “My house.”

“My house . . .” therefore, was a declaration that the house that belonged to God was being corrupted by these people. Through His actions and His words, Jesus was asserting God’s authority over the house that belonged to God.

Second, the remainder of the account shows a conspicuous absence of a response from His enemies that would be fitting with their having perceived that He had made the stupendous claim of being God Himself:

Mat 21:14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.

 ¹⁵ And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased,

 ¹⁶ And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

 ¹⁷ And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.

Had Jesus citation of the words, “My house,” been a claim to His being Deity Himself, we would expect that His enemies would have immediately exploded with charges against Him that He had blasphemed. Matthew, however, does not say anything about a hostile response from them.

The parallel account in Mark does inform us that there was a hostile response from the Jewish religious leadership on this occasion; however, it explains that their response was for a different reason: “And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine” (11:18). The religious leaders thus feared Jesus’ influence with the people.

Had Jesus plainly claimed on this occasion that He was God, the leaders would not have had to sway the people into opposing Him because they themselves would have turned against Him for making such a claim. Neither Matthew’s account nor the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, however, seem to provide any clear indication that what Jesus said on this occasion provided the Jewish leadership or the people with an occasion to charge Him specifically with blasphemy.

In light of these considerations, I conclude that Matthew 21:13 is not a record of Jesus’ claiming directly to be God. Although His words and actions on this occasion do imply that truth, the passage is not handled properly when people speak of its pointing to His Deity as the main point of the passage.

What Jesus’ Words and Actions Actually Stressed on This Occasion

What then did Jesus’ words and actions on this occasion stress? Clearly, Jesus was claiming that He was the Messiah whom God had chosen and authorized to judge all those among His people who were sinfully perverting the righteous ways of God. Jesus claim to have such God-given judicial authority over the established Jewish leadership is thus the actual main point of Jesus’ words and actions at this time.

This interpretation does not deny that the passage has implications for Jesus’ own deity, which is clearly taught in many other passages as well as plainly implied in many other passages. Rather, it stresses that the main point of the passage is about Jesus being the Christ who rendered judgment for God.

Jesus’ own words on the earlier occasion of His cleansing the temple provide strong support for this interpretation because John writes that on that occasion “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up’ (John 2:17). John thus made known that His disciples viewed Jesus’ cleansing of the temple as His acting in zeal for the glory of His Father’s house, which shows that He did what He did on that occasion as God’s agent of judgment.

As Jesus did in His first cleansing of the temple (John 2:13-22), so He rendered similar judgment on those who were perverting His Father’s house later (Matt. 21:12-17). Both accounts of Jesus’ cleansing the temple stress Jesus’ judicial authority as God’s Christ.

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Together, Luke-Acts comprises a larger portion of the New Testament than do the writings of any other Scripture writer (unless Paul wrote Hebrews). Because Luke wrote both books to the same man, Theophilus (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-2), he has the unique distinction of being the one person to whom the Spirit directed more of the New Testament than He did to any other person.

Luke ends his Gospel with an account of Jesus’ instructing His disciples prior to His Ascension (Luke 24:15-49). He begins Acts by reminding Theophilus of what he had previously written to him, including an explicit reference to Jesus’ instructing them before He ascended: “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:1-2; cf. Luke 1:1-4). The explicit references to Jesus’ instructing them before His Ascension (at both the ending of Luke and the beginning of Acts) underscored to Theophilus the importance of that instruction.

JESUS’ FOCUS ON THE KINGDOM PRIOR TO HIS ASCENSION

Luke then related to Theophilus that prior to His ascension to heaven, Jesus appeared repeatedly to His disciples over a 40-day period: “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). This statement communicated to Theophilus that during that entire time, Jesus was speaking to them about the things concerning the kingdom of God. In fact, Luke said that His appearing to them and His speaking to them about precisely that subject were the infallible proofs that He was alive after His passion.

Based on this singular emphasis of Jesus’ communications to His disciples during this 40-day period, Theophilus understood that the preeminent subject in the minds of both Jesus and His disciples during that entire period was the kingdom of God. Keeping this fact in mind is vital for a proper interpretation of the subsequent events.

THE DISCIPLES’ QUESTION ABOUT JESUS’ RESTORING THE KINGDOM TO ISRAEL

Theophilus learned next that Jesus gathered His disciples together and commanded them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit that the Father had promised (Acts 1:4-5). In response to His interactions with them throughout this post-Resurrection, pre-Ascension period and specifically to His specific instructions to wait for the giving of the Spirit, His disciples asked him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

Noting the earlier emphatic statement about Jesus’ speaking about the kingdom to His disciples (Acts 1:3), Theophilus certainly would have understood this question in relation to that emphasis. He would thus have known that the disciples were not bringing up a matter that was important only to them but not so to Jesus.

JESUS’ ANSWER TO HIS DISCIPLES

Theophilus then read of Jesus’ answer and of His Ascension:

“And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” (1:7-9).

Clearly, he would have interpreted Jesus’ answer and Ascension from the standpoint of not just the disciples’ question but also from the standpoint of Jesus’ singular emphasis on the kingdom of God throughout that 40-day period. On this reading of Acts 1:1-9, we can only interpret Jesus’ answer properly by seeking to understand it in the same way that Theophilus did.

A “THEOPHILIC” UNDERSTANDING OF THE DISCIPLES’ QUESTION AND JESUS’ ANSWER

To assess rightly how Theophilus understood Acts 1:6-9, we must consider key truths about the kingdom from both Luke and Acts, the two books that Luke wrote specifically to him:

(1) In his Gospel, Luke informed Theophilus that an angel instructed Mary to name Him Jesus before He was even conceived and explained the significance of that naming in a way that can only be rightly understood as pointing to the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Luke 1:30-33). Theophilus therefore would have believed that Jesus’ sitting on the throne of His father David and ruling forever over the house of Jacob was central to the mission that His name reveals (Luke 1:32-33).

(2) Theophilus learned at the end of Luke that the disciples expected Jesus to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21), which certainly hearkened back to the confident expectation that he had read about of Israel’s national deliverance from those who were oppressing her (cf. Zacharias’ Spirit-filled prophecy that spoke of his thanking God for redeeming and saving him and his people (Israel) from their enemies and from the hand of all those who hated them [Luke 1:68-79]).

(3) Theophilus did not read in Acts 1:7-8 that Jesus told His disciples that they were mistaken in thinking that Israel still has a glorious national future. Nor did he read that Jesus informed them that they were wrong in expecting that He would be the One to bring about the glorious restoration of the kingdom to them.

(4) Instead, what Luke wrote to Theophilus told him that Jesus pointed them to the Father’s sovereignty over the timing of that glorious event and instructed them that they were not to focus at this time on the timing of that event.

Viewing Jesus’ answer to His disciples from this “theophilic” (the consistent focus on the kingdom from Luke 1 to Luke 24 to Acts 1) viewpoint, we should understand that Jesus upheld to them the validity of their expectation but redirected their focus to the present priority of their testifying for Him throughout the world. Doing so, they would faithfully occupy until He would gloriously return to restore the kingdom to Israel, just as He said (implied in Acts 1:6).

WHY THE OPPOSING VIEW IS WRONG

Many deny this understanding of Jesus’ answer because it does not fit with their overall theological understanding of Scripture. They hold that Israel has no national future. As seen above, however, a consideration of how Theophilus, the original recipient of both Luke and Acts, would have understood this matter shows that this view is erroneous.

CONCLUSION

Despite the arguments of those who for theological reasons deny that Israel has a national future as a kingdom, Jesus’ answer interpreted through the eyes of Theophilus shows that Luke wrote to him to inform him (and us) of this glorious truth: Jesus will restore again the kingdom to Israel at the precise time and season that the Father has put in His own power. O Theophilus, Jesus will restore again the kingdom to Israel!

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.