In Peter’s message delivered at the home of Cornelius in Acts 10, the apostle drew attention to one of the special circumstances of the appearance of Jesus after his resurrection. He said, “Him God raised up on the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God” (vv. 40-41). This small detail regarding the Lord’s post-resurrection showings to his close friends, family members and acquaintances is entirely in keeping with the narratives concerning those days. It accurately depicts the various instances described in the four gospels. Peter went on to explain in regard to this audience, chosen as witnesses to his being raised from the dead: “even to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead” (v. 41b). They shared intimate moments together, just as they had previously.

The point of this terse piece of evidence is that his appearances were not to people who could have been fooled by an impersonator or imposter. Because of their intense personal knowledge of Jesus, people like Peter, James and John, men who had companied with him all of the time of his public ministry to the Jews were selected for this honor. Is it not also a powerful fact that both the mother of the Lord and his fleshly brothers also followed with the apostles in the days after the events of his death and appearances (Acts 1:14)? Paul tells us, moreover, that he appeared personally to James (1 Cor. 15:7). In fact, he says that on a single occasion be was seen of over 500 of such people (1 Cor. 15:6). Who would have known him better?

Peter’s remarks suggest that God was very careful about what sort of people he would honor with such a blessed moment of recognition and enlightenment. In every single case they would be individuals whose ability to know The Risen One as Jesus of Nazareth and none other was beyond dispute. The New Testament goes on to set forth the details of these unique moments in history as providing those (at first) doubtful people every possible opportunity to deny the reality of what they were seeing and experiencing. Someone has said that “seeing is believing,” but in fact this is not necessarily so. Believing in the reality of a thing is only possible when one has come to be convinced by overwhelming evidence that what one has seen, heard or experienced, is real and genuine. The evidence must be examined and accounted as worthy of the settled conviction that derives from it. This describes the resurrection witnesses and the circumstances of their testimony precisely.

John adds the detail that one of the disciples was very doubtful that this thing had happened, and demanded to see and touch the print of the nails in order to be fully convinced that this whole thing was not a mere illusion: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (Jn. 20:25). Jesus accommodated the doubtful Thomas, and through him all of us, challenging him to feel the nail prints and place his hand into the wounds in his side (v. 27). Thomas was thereupon convinced, exclaiming, “My Lord and my God” (v. 28).

Apparently he gave each one of them in his own turn the opportunity to do the same, for John later proclaimed him to be the very manifestation of eternal life on the basis of his personal tactile touch of the Risen One, when he said, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life; (For the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show to you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us;)…” (1 John 1:1, 2). Their doubts were all defused by the proof he gave, and with it the fog of misunderstanding cleared away.

And so, their boldness in declaring him to be the Son of God, risen from the dead, in their preaching in the book of Acts, is inexplicable on any other ground than that they were utterly convinced that God had raised him up from the grave. That one whom they saw and spoke with in the forty days between Passover and Pentecost was indeed Jesus of Nazareth! And it was none other than him. Thus, in John’s Revelation he calls Jesus “the first begotten from the dead” (1:5), and when he appears in glory to that prophet on Patmos he asserts, “I was dead, and behold, I am alive for ever more” (v. 18). There is no doubt at all that John and the rest believed that this was powerful assertion was so with every fiber of their being.

Thus, their conviction should be ours also. The Lord chose those men and women as his special witnesses precisely because they could not be fooled as to his identity. Their previous doubts had been resolved. And it is for this reason that their confidence and boldness ought to be ours also, due to the very special circumstances of their experiences with him after his death, burial and resurrection. This is the very reason that God selected the ones he did. So that we might have a faith that rests on the most rock-solid of evidence one could imagine. That is precisely what we have in the form of their testimony.