The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ’s Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul.
According to St. Matthew, He appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee
According to St. Mark, He was seen by Mary Magdalen, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and by the Eleven before His Ascension into heaven.
According to St. Luke, He walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem.
According to St. John, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to the seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.
St. Paul enumerates another series of apparitions of Jesus after His Resurrection; he was seen by Cephas, by the Eleven, by more than 500 brethren, many of whom were still alive at the time of the Apostle’s writing, by James, by all the Apostles, and lastly by Paul himself.
Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ’s Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ’s Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them “that they speak no more in this name to any man”. Finally, the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ’s Resurrection, for the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would be a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
The Resurrection of Christ has much in common with the general resurrection; even the transformation of His body and of His bodily life is of the same kind as that which awaits the blessed in their resurrection. But the following peculiarities must be noted:
- Christ’s Resurrection is necessarily a glorious one; it implies not merely the reunion of body and soul, but also the glorification of the body.
- Christ’s body was to know no corruption, but rose again soon after death, when sufficient time had elapsed to leave no doubt as to the reality of His death.
- Christ was the first to rise unto life immortal; those raised before Him died again.
- As the Divine power which raised Christ from the grave was His own power, He rose from the dead by His own power.
- Since the Resurrection had been promised as the main proof of Christ’s Divine mission, it has a greater dogmatic importance than any other fact. “If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain”.
Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons:
- It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death.
- The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin.
- By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own resurrection, and as the model and the support of our new life of grace.
The resurrection of the dead was expressly taught by Christ and defended against the unbelief of the Sadducees, whom He charged with ignorance of the power of God and of the Scriptures. St. Paul places the general resurrection on the same level of certainty with that of Christ’s Resurrection: “If Christ be preached, that he rose again from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain”. The Apostle preached the resurrection of the dead as one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
Source: A. J. Maas (Catholic Encyclopedia)