“Why Should You Believe in Jesus?”
This is an adapted excerpt from Square One, Session 4. Check out the full Square One series here.
Time travel movies tease us with the idea that you could step into a phone booth and witness history for yourself — play piano with Mozart or listen to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. If we could see these things with our own eyes, they’d feel more real than they do in a history textbook. But until someone breaks the laws of physics, we’re left to study the past through historical evidence. As we’ll see, those same rules apply when we study Jesus.
So let’s travel back to the first century. Why should you believe in Jesus — someone you’ve never seen? How can you trust what the Bible says about him? This isn’t about taking a “leap of faith” or acting on “blind faith.” The Bible itself describes faith as “the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen” (Heb. 11:1, CSB). It’s a trust based on evidence.
Even someone in Jesus’ inner circle, his disciple Thomas, had a hard time accepting the reports that Jesus had come back from the dead. He refused to believe unless he saw the nail marks in Jesus' hands for himself (John 20:25). A week later, Jesus appeared and invited Thomas to touch his scars. Thomas’s doubts melted away. While Jesus understood Thomas’s need for proof, he followed up with a crucial statement: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). It’s not wrong to want evidence, but at some point, we have to decide what we believe about the evidence available to us.
The Big Idea
We can trust in Jesus because of the historical fact that he rose from the dead. Miraculous events in the Bible are often called “signs” because they point to something, proving that God authorized the person performing them. Of all Jesus’ miracles, none stands out like his resurrection. The Apostle Paul said this event is of “first importance,” arguing that if Christ wasn’t raised from the dead, then our faith is useless and pitiful (1 Cor. 15:14, 19). The resurrection is the foundation of Christian hope.
So what is the evidence? Let’s examine the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection from a historical perspective. Scholars, skeptics, and believers alike have debated these events for centuries, but there are several basic facts on which experts generally agree:
First, Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. This is an undisputed historical fact.
Second, he was buried, but his tomb was found empty soon afterward. Days after his tomb was sealed with a large stone and guarded, several women found the stone rolled away and the body missing.
Third, the disciples had experiences they believed were resurrection appearances. After Jesus’s death, his followers were humiliated, scattered, and hopeless. Yet just days later, they were transformed into bold proclaimers of a risen King. They claimed they saw the risen Jesus, touched his wounds, and ate with him. They proclaimed this in the very city where Jesus was just publicly executed, and over decades of persecution, not one of them ever recanted. They willingly died for their testimony.
Fourth, the persecutor Saul of Tarsus converted. Saul (later known as Paul) was a zealous enemy of the early Christians until he had an encounter that he claimed was with the risen Jesus. He became the greatest missionary in history, writing more books of the New Testament than anyone else, all based on the reality of Jesus' resurrection.
Finally, Jesus’s skeptical brother, James, was also converted. Like Paul, the reason given was that he, too, saw the risen Jesus. The conversion of a committed enemy and a skeptical family member are powerful pieces of evidence.
The resurrection addresses our whole being. The evidence speaks to our minds, the story of victory inspires our hearts, and Christ’s authority motivates our will.
The Big Question
Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead? As we meditate on all this, may God help us to believe, even though we haven't seen.