1 Corinthians 15:14-19 (NKJV)

14. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 

15. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. 

16. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 

17. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! 

18. Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 

19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable

To tackle this question, we will look at 5 primary defenses beginning with the first alphabet of the following sentence: ‘Christ Disciples Preached Jesus Everywhere.

Christ – Crucifixion

Disciples – Disciples and His followers

Preached – Paul conversion

Jesus – James conversion

Everywhere – Empty tomb

The Crucifixion

Jesus died at the crucifixion. To prove that Jesus had resurrected, we first need to determine that He actually died (as people still claim He did not). Let’s look at some facts about the crucifixion event.

• Nobody disputes that Jesus was crucified.  
• Even among the skeptics who deny the deity of Christ, most of them would historically agree that a Man named Jesus was on the earth and that He had died by crucifixion.
• The guards who crucified Jesus were professional executioners, and some say that if an executioner took a man off before he was dead, he would have faced the same death. That is why the Roman soldiers pierced Jesus on His side to see if the water and blood were separated, as is consistent with physical death.
• All four gospel accounts (Mathew / Mark / Luke / John) of the Bible record the crucifixion event.

Disciples and Paul’s Conversion

Once Jesus died, the disciples were scared and in hiding, but when they individually saw Jesus risen, they came out and did not stop preaching the gospel. They could have remained in hiding, but they chose to follow Him and died horrible deaths because of this. 

In addition, while the disciples would have had a good reason to follow Jesus (since they were part of His three-year ministry and had witnessed all the miracles), the same cannot be said for Paul. 

Apostle Paul did not know Jesus and was instead on a mission persecuting Christians for believing in Him, but through a vision, Jesus appeared to him, and he was changed (Refer to Acts chapter 9).

The drastic change that Paul had can only be explained by him witnessing the resurrected Jesus. 

the Conversion of James;

James, including all of Jesus’ brothers, were unbelievers during the ministry of Jesus.

John 7:5 (NIV)

5. For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

James was a notable leader of the Jerusalem Church and was called names such as “James the Just.” He was even considered to have ‘camel knees’ from praying. 

Once Jesus appeared to him (after the resurrection), he converted from a Jew to a believer. 

However, this conversion was not taken lightly, and he was later martyred by being pushed off the very place he used to pray at, and when the people saw him still alive, they surrounded and threw rocks at him until he died. 

Throughout this whole time, he did not refute Christ but held onto his beliefs until he died.

The tomb was Empty

There are two essential sub facts for the empty tomb;

• The Enemy attestation of the fact that the body was missing.

If your mother or close friend said something about you, people would not really believe you, but suppose your enemy came and attested to something that would totally exalt you or even confirm your family’s attestation of you, then that would lead to a reliable testimony. In this case, even Jesus’ enemies testified about His resurrection. 

Some also say that the apostles may have stolen Jesus’ body. The problem with this theory is that the Roman cohort guarded the tomb. These men were a trained military force. If these soldiers fell asleep on duty, they were burned to death on the spike, so it would be highly improbable that the disciples would have come and stolen the body while they were sleeping.

• Testimony of women

Women in the olden days did not have any speaking rights, and it took a statement of two women to equal a man’s vote. Surprisingly, the Gospels have women finding the tomb empty. If the Gospel accounts were a made-up story, then having women show up at the tomb would not have made it a compelling case to the immediate audience the disciples were reaching out to.  

This solely ties to the fact that the Bible is attesting to a truth claim. If the apostles needed to develop a lie, they would have instead documented a reliable person in that society, mainly one of the educated men. 

Conclusion

When we put all these facts together, we can come to a reliable conclusion that Jesus did exist, was crucified, and people around, and those who did not meet Him saw Him resurrected after His crucifixion.

Christ’s death and resurrection also proved every claim made about Jesus by the prophets and apostles and erased all doubt concerning His deity. 

The resurrection proved that He truly spoke the things that the Father taught Him, that the Father was one with Him, and that He always did the things pleasing to the Father, for He could do nothing else in His divine perfection (Heb. 7:26).