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Scripture tells us that he rose, and it does not need a historian’s permission to be true. But this thing was not done in a corner (Acts 26:26). The facts below are God’s facts, and they bear witness to his word. They do not sit in judgment on it. And Jesus warned that those who will not hear Moses and the prophets will not be persuaded, though one rose from the dead (Luke 16:31). The trouble was never a lack of evidence.
He may never have lived
Almost no historian of the ancient world doubts that Jesus lived and was crucified. Tacitus, a Roman historian who despised Christians, recorded that Christ was put to death under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. In 2012 Bart Ehrman, an agnostic scholar, wrote a whole book to answer those who say Jesus never lived.
The resurrection is a legend
A rumor can start in a day. A legend that crowds out the facts needs time, and distance from anyone who could correct it, and the resurrection had neither. Paul wrote to the Corinthians within about twenty-five years of the cross, handing on a summary that many scholars, including some who deny the resurrection, date to within a few years of it.
And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
1 Corinthians 15:5-8 (KJV)
Most of the five hundred were still alive when Paul wrote. He names Cephas and James, and he had met them both (Galatians 1:18-19). A man inventing a story does not point you to living witnesses who could expose him. The resurrection was preached in Jerusalem, a short walk from the grave, and there is no record that anyone produced the body. His enemies said the disciples had stolen it, which grants that the tomb was empty, and Matthew says that story was still being told when he wrote (Matthew 28:13-15).
The disciples lied, or they were fooled
The disciples gained nothing by the story but trouble, and some were killed for it. Herod put James the brother of John to the sword (Acts 12:2), and the Jewish historian Josephus records that James the brother of Jesus was stoned in Jerusalem. Men will die for a falsehood they believe. They do not choose prison and death for a story they know they invented, and these men said they had seen him and eaten with him.
Even scholars who reject the resurrection generally grant that the disciples believed they had seen him alive. Were they fooled by grief? A vision does not empty a tomb, and the appearances did not come only to grieving friends. That same James was one of the brothers who did not believe in him (John 7:5), and he became a leader of the church in Jerusalem. Paul was hunting Christians down when Christ met him. Grief does not turn a doubting brother into a leader, or an enemy into an apostle.
Dead men do not rise
They do not, and the disciples knew it as well as you do (Luke 24:11). The Christian claim is not that dead men rise on their own. It is that God raised this one. To rule it out because dead men stay dead is to assume there is no God who could raise them, which is the very thing in question. Hume put the objection more carefully, saying a report of a miracle is always more likely false than true. But how likely it is that God raised this man depends on whether there is a God who would, so it comes back to whether God is there. And experience is all against it only if you first leave out the men who said they saw him. Paul told the philosophers of Athens what the resurrection means for every man alive.
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Acts 17:31 (KJV)
The empty tomb is God’s assurance to all men that the Judge has been named. It is empty, and you will stand before the man who left it. So God now commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30), and the man who will judge you is the same man who receives sinners today (Luke 15:2).
Under every objection
What God Calls You To Do
An objection can be answered and a man still stay away. Jesus said that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19). The trouble between you and God is not finally an argument. You have sinned against him, and you know it.
Christ came for sinners exactly like you. He kept the law you have broken, and on the cross he bore its curse for everyone who trusts him, and God raised him from the dead. So the call is the one Jesus preached. Repent, and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). You do not have to settle every question first.