When the disciples encountered the risen Christ, they went about everywhere proclaiming that Jesus died and lives again.
The core message of Christianity is the death and RESURRECTION of Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that Jesus died on the cross, and rose again to life.
“After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.” Acts 1:3
The message preached by the disciples were offensive to the Jewish religious leaders and a disturbing annoyance to the Roman government of the day.
To prove the disciples claims were false and shame them as liars and fraudsters, all one needed to do was to show the body of the person that was crucified thus proving he was indeed dead and not alive. Simple as that.
To prove that Jesus did not die and rise again, why didn’t the Romans who crucified Jesus produce the body that they crucified. They could have destroyed Christianity even before it started! They didn’t. They couldn’t. Because they did not have the body. Where was the body?
Remember, Roman soldiers had been commissioned to stand guard at the tomb. The Romans could have easily opened the tomb and drag out the corpse and parade it and expose the disciples’ falsehood. Why didn’t they?
The Jewish authorities who condemned Jesus to death could have produced the dead body of Jesus and destroyed Christianity even before it started. But they didn’t. Because they did not have the body. Where was the body? Instead, they began arresting the disciples, abusing them and tried to force them to shut up about Jesus.
Acts 4:16-20
“What shall we do with these men?” they asked. “It is clear to everyone living in Jerusalem that a remarkable miracle has occurred through them, and we cannot deny it. But to keep this message from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no more in this name.” Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than God. For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
600 years later, Muhammad comes and says someone else was crucified on the cross. Days after the resurrection, neither the Romans nor the Jewish authorities who witnessed the crucifixion could do anything to stem the spread of the message of the resurrection. And yet, Muhammad comes and makes wild claims with absolutely no proof. Why did Allah wait 600 years for Christianity to grow into the largest religion in the world anyway?
Even if the Jews and Romans could not produce the body, Allah should have, could have, done better than them. He could have decisively put an end to Christianity, by easily producing the dead body of that unknown man that he had made to look like Jesus and deceived the Romans and Jews to crucify. After all, Allah claimed he produced the body of pharoah from 3000 years earlier. Unfortunately, like the Romans and Jewish leaders, Allah too failed to produce the body to prove Islam’s claim as true and Christianity’s claim as false.
The words of Jesus: “I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I WAS DEAD, and now look, I AM ALIVE for ever and ever!”
Revelation. 1:18
Jesus died and rose again. The Bible is true.