I was struck the other day by a thought that should have occurred to me many years ago. After Jesus rose from the dead He appeared to His disciples several times over the course of 40 days, until He ascended to heaven. What never occurred to me until now, however, was to ask why the disciples did not proclaim the resurrection of Christ until after His ascension.
I don’t know about you, but that strikes me as odd. Why would they wait? If you saw someone alive who had previously been dead, would you hesitate more than a few moments to proclaim it abroad? Add to this His celebrity, the public nature of His death (many saw Him die), the disciples’ close relationship with Him, and the fact that His resurrection would vindicate His messianic claims, and the disciples had every reason to instantly proclaim to everyone in Israel that they saw Jesus alive. So why did they wait?
N.T. Wright muses that certain unbelieving contemporaries of the disciples must have surely asked this question. It is certainly plausible to think unbelievers would have used this lapse of time between the resurrection of Christ and the disciples’ proclamation of His resurrection as an argument against the resurrection. They might have argued “Why, if you knew Jesus had risen from the dead on X date, did you wait until X+Y date to proclaim it?” Indeed, a delayed proclamation could have been interpreted as time borrowed to fabricate the resurrection story. The longer they waited to proclaim the resurrected Christ the less credible their claim would become.
Wright thinks Mark may have offered an explanation to those critics in his gospel in Mark 16:8: “And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.” This does not seem adequate, however, because the verse describes a time prior to the first resurrection appearance (this particular episode was after the angels’ resurrection announcement), and is limited to some women followers.
Did the disciples delay because they were afraid no one would believe them? Remember, Jesus only appeared to His followers and relatives. While His death was very public, His resurrection and resurrection appearances were not. He did not go the temple and show Himself alive to the chief priests or temple-gatherers. He did not walk the streets of Jerusalem showing the people the nail prints in his hands and feet. He only showed Himself to His close associates and relatives.
Did the disciples delay because they were waiting on Jesus to reveal Himself as Israel’s king? We know that right up to the day of His ascension the disciples were waiting for Jesus to restore Israel’s national sovereignty (Acts 1:6-7). With such an expectation, maybe they were waiting on Jesus to make the next move, fearing that any proclamation of their experience may hinder His plans.
Does anyone else have any suggestions for why the disciples might have delayed their proclamation? Does anyone have any suggestions to explain why Jesus chose to show Himself alive to believers and relatives rather than to unbelievers?
Post script: In my Blessed Are Those Who Believe Without Seeing post I argue that John 20:29 shows that the apostles did proclaim the resurrection to at least some individuals prior to Pentecost.
April 24, 2007 at 10:32 am
I think the reason why is partly because at first they were really stunned and still not sure what was going on. Thomas was still unbelieving.
And then they really didn’t have a clue yet what to do. Jesus never told them to go proclaim the resurrection. He told them to proclaim the gospel, and until that time they had not fully comprehended that Jesus would die and rise again.
Before that they did not go out and proclaim the gospel either without Jesus first telling them to do so. Was that what they were supposed to do?
Remember they were students and they had one master. After the death of Jesus they were a stunned group without a teacher.
It took Jesus to tell them, go to Jerusalem and wait and then preach and teach. I think it would be a mistake to assume they would even know to go out and proclaim the resurrection without being told to do so.
Blessings
Bro Jevan
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April 24, 2007 at 11:19 am
I agree with Jevan’s comments. Also, a quick rebuttal to Pilate or to the Sanhedrin would have possibly engendered more rage and possibly fatal retaliation upon the disciples. Tarrying in Jerusalem, until they were endued with “power” (Acts 1:8) both enbaled them to declare the Gospel with boldness but also it afforded Peter to declare this event during Pentecost on Solomon’s Porch to the diaspora. I think the timing is crucial and divine.
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April 24, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Jevan,
Thomas was unbelieving until He saw Jesus. By the time all of the apostles had seen Jesus (which was early on during Jesus’ 40 days of appearances) they all believed.
Not knowing what to do may be part of the explanation, but I have a hard time believing they were waiting for Jesus to tell them what to do because He was their master. This makes them sound like automatons. We know from the Gospel records how unwise and impulsive some of the apostles were pre-Pentecost, so if anything we would expect them to go out and instantly proclaim the resurrection.
It seems to me that the natural human reaction would be to proclaim this unbelievable miracle that vindicated the teachings/claims of their master. Maybe they didn’t think others would believe them since Jesus only appeared to them (private appearances to His own disciples), and they were afraid that their testimony would only endanger their lives. But if that is the reason, why were they so confident in proclaiming His resurrection post-Pentecost? Maybe that can be explained by the indwelling of the Spirit.
Jason
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April 24, 2007 at 11:18 pm
James,
You and I are thinking along the same lines. Fear prevented an earlier testimony to the resurrection, and this fear was overcome by the infilling of the Spirit.
Of course, if I was an unbeliever I would use the 40+ day lapse in time before the resurrection was proclaimed as evidence that the story was fabricated.
Jason
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April 24, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Everyone, I would still like to hear your thoughts on why Jesus only appeared to His followers and relatives, rather than to the unbelievers.
Jason
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April 25, 2007 at 6:29 am
There are other important questions from that time. According to the Gospel of Matthew, after Jesus’s resurrection, many of the dead saints came out of their tombs and entered Jerusalem, where they appeared to many.
Why is there no mention of this mass resurrection elsewhere? Did the saints reclaim their land and property, or did it remain with their descendants? If their wives had remarried, did they retake their wives or marry new ones?
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April 25, 2007 at 11:03 am
I don’t see how waiting for your teacher to tell you that declaring the resurrection makes them like automatons. Let’s remember they did not think to go out and declare the gospel until Jesus sent them out. Why did Jesus have to give them the “great commissions”?
Let’s also revisit how disoriented they were with Jesus dead and gone. They were in shock. Part of that, besides having him die…having the Messiah die, might have been the fact that they relied on him for leadership.
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April 26, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Anonymous,
Staying on topic is appreciated, but let me briefly address your comments.
You are assuming that the saints who were resuscitated were dead a long time. Many commentators believe they were recently deceased saints.
You say “mass resurrection.” That implies a lot of people. We don’t know how many. We only know it was many. Is that 25? Is that 50? Is that 400? I don’t know, but we need not think it to be a huge number.
Why must this account be recorded elsewhere? Name me a historian who thinks an incident must be reported multiple times before it can be considered historical. There are many events in both Scripture anjavascript:void(0)
Publish Your Commentd secular history that are only written about once.
Jason
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April 26, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Jevan,
Your portrait just seemed to portray the disciples as people who could not think for themselves. Even if they were naturally hesitant to do anything without Jesus first instructing them to because they looked to Him as their teacher, in this case it seems like the natural human reaction would be instant proclamation. We do the same when someone is healed at church. We tell unbelievers about it. The disciples had a particularly good reason to tell others: it vindicated Jesus (and themselves) before the unbelievers. Of course, as I told you and James, they might have been afraid to proclaim it since Jesus’ appearances were private, and they feared that the public would not believe them, only incriminating themselves.
Of course, we both may be right. Maybe the disciples wanted to tell everyone about Jesus’ resurrection, but were afraid that it would only be to their detriment. As a result, they were waiting on Jesus, not to tell them to start proclaiming His resurrection, but to show Himself alive to the unbelievers as well (some evidence for this might be found in Acts when prior to Jesus’ ascension the disciples asked if he was going to restore the kingdom at that time. This shows that they were waiting on Jesus to make the next move). Of course, this never happened. What did happen is that Jesus finally told them to tell others about His resurrection, and then gave them the power to do so on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit allowed them to overcome their fears of the unbelievers’ reaction to their testimony about the resurrection of Jesus.
But I still want to know what you think about why Jesus only appeared to believers and relatives. Why not just appear in the marketplaces? Why not appear before the Sanhedrin, or in the Temple?
Jason
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April 30, 2007 at 6:12 am
While all of you are thinking about why Jesus only appeared to close relatives and believers, let me offer you what I think at least part of the reason entails.
I think the reason Jesus didn’t show Himself alive to His executioners and skeptics is because it is like God to do that. That sounds like a non-explanation, so let me elaborate.
As a matter of course, God is rather reserved in His self-revelation. He does not employ angels to proclaim His existence to all mankind to the four corners of the Earth. He doesn’t appear to everyone in a dream, or speak audibly to them either. Such direct forms of divine communication are rare. Only a select few experience such things. God has revealed Himself to all men only through the general revelation of creation and conscience, but these are subtle (though powerful) forms of divine self-revelation that are easy to deny, or to a certain extent, be missed.
God is definitely not silent, but He is not in our faces either. It’s as though He is whispering to humanity, and only those who desire to know Him will listen. The rest usually talk over Him. Think Romans 1-3.
Norman Geisler and Frank Turek summed it up best when they wrote, “God has provided enough evidence in this life to convince anyone willing to believe, yet he has also left some ambiguity so as not to compel the unwilling.” (I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist)
What do you think?
Jason
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April 30, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Jason,
Luke 16:31
Arthur
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May 5, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Here are some thoughts, notice the sequence.
1. In several Gospel passages (e.g. Mark 8:30) Jesus indicates His deity to the disciples and then explictly forbids them to tell anyone of Him.
2. In Matthew 27:53, those from open graves and the bodies of the saints fallen asleep appeared in Jerusalem subsequent to Christ’s resurrection. In Mark 12:18 we see that the Saduccee’s attempted to refute resurrection possibility with Christ, in person. This was also a core teaching of this sect. A mass appearance of resurrected saints would certainly establish the erroneousness of this view, as Christ had prophecied.
3. Between post-Calvary and pre-ascension periods of Christ’s presence on earth he spent much time with his close followers intimating divine truths to them. This was probably done to establish them further in the faith to suddenly be released upon the Globe with the Gospel of Christ, in Spirit and with truth.
4. It may not have been God’s sovereign and often mysterious intent to show the particular resurrected Christ to a carnal world. According to Acts, “beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”(Acts 1:22 NKJV)It is possible, then, that God’s purpose was to use a human witness of His resurrection, those who will subsequently, by being endued with Spirit Power, turn their world upside down. This was a “must” and not just coincidence. God obviously enabled them to do this with “great power” (Acts 4:33).
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October 29, 2014 at 4:24 am
All of you have good points. I agree that if Jesus showed Himself to people in power, they would have fought hard against the Apostles. Also, Jesus had already resurrected (although only to physical life) at least two people that we know of. But that fact did not have a big effect on the people in power. The leaders of the Jews kept saying that Jesus was doing miracles by the power of Satan. They simply did not want to admit the divine mission of Jesus. Somebody said, “If one does not want to hear, he/she will even deny the explosion of a bomb nearby”.
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March 24, 2016 at 2:29 am
[…] Why Did the Apostles Wait so Long to Proclaim the Resurrection? […]
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April 13, 2016 at 1:24 am
What a lot of tosh from religious not – it all. Appearing to the PUBLIC would have meant PROOF. EVIDENCE. Hiding from the Romans like a two penny fugitive proves that you are not a son of god. No resurrection took place. Would you hide from your children like christian and mooslim gods do?
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April 13, 2016 at 3:18 pm
Jason I believe the reason is simple.
Jesus appeared bodily to the disciples and while he did not entrust to any man, the few he did appear to had as much trustworthiness as any he had known except for Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who themselves were secret disciples unknown to anyone but Jesus.
Remember it was right after the story of the transfiguration that Jesus told the two disciples he took up the mountain with him when he went for a special meeting. Right after that meeting, when he learned that the arrest was planned to take place in Gethsemane that very night. Jesus swore them to secrecy about the meeting on the mountain so as not to link the men at the meeting. “Don’t breathe a word of what you’ve seen. After the Son of Man is raised from the dead, you are free to talk.”
I submit that Jesus also swore those he appeared to, to secrecy as well, especially because he was still alive, in the flesh and if they breathed a word they not only would subject Jesus to be hunted down again but put their own lives in danger to be slaughtered. The bible also tells us that Jesus appeared in the flesh: “………touch me, feel me”, he said “for a ghost does not have muscle, flesh and bones as you see that I have…..” and then ate with them to prove that he was alive and not an apparition.
After the resurrection from the tomb the Roman soldiers would have had an eye and an ear open looking for the anything that would lead them to why the tomb stone was rolled away and the body missing so they most likely also believed that Hat the followers stole the body or perhaps they even suspected that he survived the crucifixion.
After things quieted down during the following month and the plans for escape from the area set in place, most likely the secrecy would have been top priority until Jesus had “ascended to the Father”; in other words, escape from the country. The same people who helped Jesus throughout his campaign, provided the loaves and fishes, the wine, hewed the tomb, requested the body, prepared the burial and sealed the tomb helped plan and fund the escape with provisions, wagons and livestock for him and the entourage traveling with him from Bethany, the departure place to exit Roman held territory and Jewry.
Then the disciples were free to begin their communication.
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April 13, 2016 at 9:36 pm
Lazarus609, I deal with the issue of Jesus not appearing to the crowds at https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2007/05/01/why-didn%E2%80%99t-jesus-appear-to-unbelievers/#more-230. I argue that if even some of Jesus’ disciples did not believe He was resurrected, why think His enemies would (particularly since they already had proven that despite believing he raised Lazarus from the dead, they still wanted to kill Him and refused to follow Him). In addition to that, it’s not as if Jesus only appeared to believers. He also appeared to skeptics (Thomas), deniers (James), and enemies (Paul).
Jason
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May 2, 2017 at 1:01 am
What if jesus never did reveal himself to unbelievers because it’s only the believers that had clue about the son of man rising on the third day….!
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August 12, 2018 at 1:06 pm
Why Did the Apostles Wait so Long to Proclaim the Resurrection? | Theo-sophical Ruminations
[…]We have now created a definition of what makes a true ‘Sustainable Living’ model.[…]
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June 18, 2020 at 1:50 pm
I totally agree with the prior comment
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July 20, 2021 at 5:53 pm
Thanks to all responsible for this webboard and leaving comments to consider. Another factor which can be added to the discussion is that Jesus’ main mission was two-fold: 1. The work of salvation (i.e. the Cross) 2. The establishment of the Kingdom. “The Cross must come before the Crown” because those who will be subjects of the eternal king must have eternal life of course. When the Jews (mostly) rejected Christ and had him crucified it became obvious that the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom would be delayed, and the ‘mystery age’ (the Church Age, a mystery because there is no mention of the Church Age in the OT, if there was the OT saints would have been confused/conflicted by the message) was intercalated into the dispensational calendar. Daniel’s 70th week (the Tribulation, with the satanically inspired Roman Empire leading the charge against the Jews) would have taken place right after the resurrection had the Jews all been in-step with the resurrected Christ (i.e. believed in Him), but because they were not, having rejected Christ as both Savior and Messiah, the eschatological dispensations had to be delayed, and so from the day of Pentecost the Church Age began. The disciples had a lot of fear and anxiety, not having all the facts at that point, and certainly needed the command and encouragement from the Risen Christ, coupled with the power of the Holy Spirit for them to overcome their fears and begin their evangelical mission.
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