Christ has without any doubt, been raised.

God sent his angels to roll away the stone, but not to let Christ out. You see, Christ did not need the stone to be rolled away. We see him later walking into a room which was locked. His resurrection body had the power to walk through walls. No, the stone was not rolled away so that Christ could come out. The stone was rolled away so that we could look in.

1 Corinthians 15: 20 states emphatically: "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead."

On that glorious Sunday morning, as the first rays of sunshine reached the rich man’s grave where they had laid the body of Jesus, God stretched out his mighty arm and raised his Son from the tomb. The powers of hell were petrified at the sight of Jesus coming out of the grave as the chains of death fell from his exalted, risen body and he came to us victorious over sin and death.

He is risen!  Christ has without any doubt been raised

Because Christ has been raised from the dead, we now have true faith, true forgiveness, and true hope.  Our preaching is not useless, nor was the preaching of the apostles. Those who believed their preaching also received a pure faith which saves to the extreme:   a faith which cleanses from sin, a faith which remains standing in the trial, a faith which frees my true humanity made in the image of God:   a living, working faith.

The witness of the apostles was the solid witness of those who had seen the resurrected Lord with their own eyes. They were not deceived. Jesus had appeared to them. They were not giving testimony of some mystical experience with Jesus. They had fellowship with him.  They ate with him. They experienced that Jesus is alive.

They did not expect to see Him.

In fact, Thomas had to be offered touchable evidence that it was indeed the Lord, before he would believe.

Jesus appeared to his disciples over many days. He appeared to 500 people at the same time in broad daylight.

Their testimony was true. Jesus had come out of the grave. In fact, there is more evidence to support the resurrection of Jesus Christ than almost any other ancient historical fact. If the tomb was not empty, why didn’t they produce the body?

The reason was there was no body to produce.

Jesus is risen! The testimony of the Christian faith is without a shadow of a doubt, perfectly true.