The Berean Call
We’ve often given many proofs that the Bible is true. We have not emphasized, however, that, with few exceptions, Scripture honestly reveals the flaws and sins of the best saints—even when such facts could have been avoided. Such honesty gives the ring of truth to Scripture. One of the strangest accounts concerns the disciples’ unbelief in the face of Christ’s resurrection. In fact, their skepticism and apparent unwillingness to believe, even when Christ met them face to face, seems so unlikely that no fiction writer would have dared to portray it.
Christ indicts His disciples with “hardness of heart” (Mk 16:14). They did not believe, even when Christ appeared to them (Lk 24:36-38). Yet one of the thieves crucified with Christ believed in His resurrection, or he would not have asked, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Lk 23:42).
The disciples’ doubts were without excuse in view of the many Messianic prophecies. That they could be so blind to the Scripture, even after being taught personally by Christ over several years, should cause us to re-examine ourselves lest we be guilty of the same.
All of the disciples as well as the rabbis—and even John the Baptist (“Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?” – Lk 7:19-20), who was “filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb” (Lk 1:15)—expected the Messiah to set up His kingdom when He first came to Israel. Christ’s crucifixion shattered their faith. How could He have been the promised Messiah?
Yet numerous prophecies made it clear that the Messiah’s first coming would be as the Lamb of God to be crucified: “they pierced my hands and my feet” (Ps 22:16); “they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced” (Zec 12:10). The prophets declared that He would be “despised and rejected…wounded for our transgressions…taken from prison and from judgment…cut off out of the land of the living…his grave [would be] with the wicked” (Isa 53:3,5,8,9) and that He would rise again the third day (Ps 16:10; Jn 2:19; Mat 12:39,40).
Moreover, they also had to ignore the many times Christ himself had told them plainly that He was going to be crucified and rise from the dead the third day.
After Christ’s resurrection, the angels at the tomb reminded the women: “Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words” (Lk 24:6-8). We do not have the record of every time the Lord declared this to His disciples, but it must have been more often than the recorded instances.
At least seven different occasions on which He made His death and resurrection plain to His disciples are recorded in the Gospels: (Mat 16:21; 17:22,23; 20:17-19; Mk 8:31,32; 9:31,32; Lk 13:32,33; Jn:12:32-34).
Here are some examples: “For he taught his disciples, and said…the Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and…he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him” (Mk 9:31,32);
“Behold…all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again” (Lk 18:31-33);
“And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly” (Mk 8:31,32; Lk 9:22).
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