Page:A Brief Bible History (Boyd and Machen, 1922).djvu/102

96  this Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven." Acts 1:10, 11. The disciples went then into the city, where they were constantly in the Temple, praising God.


 * 1) Describe the burial of Jesus. How long did his body rest in the tomb?
 * 2) Enumerate the persons who saw the empty tomb.
 * 3) Enumerate, so far as the facts are known, the persons who saw Jesus after the resurrection.
 * 4) In what books of the New Testament are the facts about the resurrection mentioned?
 * 5) What is the importance of the resurrection of Jesus for our Christian faith?
 * 6) Describe the change which the resurrection produced in the early disciples of Jesus.

The Christian Church is founded on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus; if that fact had not occurred there would be no Church to-day. The disciples of Jesus of Nazareth were evidently far inferior to him in spiritual discernment and in courage. Evidently they could not hope to succeed if he had failed. And with his death what little strength they may have had before was utterly destroyed. In the hour of his trial they had deserted him in cowardly flight. And when he was taken from them by a shameful death, they were in despair. Never did a movement seem to be more hopelessly dead.

But then the surprising thing occurred. Those same weak, discouraged men began, in a few days, in Jerusalem, the very scene of their disgrace, a spiritual movement the like of which the world has never seen. What produced the wonderful change? What was it that transformed those weak, discouraged men into the spiritual conquerors of the world?

The answer of those men themselves was plain. Their despair, they said, gave way to triumphant joy because the Lord Jesus had