The Not-Quite Empty Tomb

James Montgomery Boice

Publisher, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Inc, 1716 Spruce St Philadelphia PA 19103 USA. Smashwords Edition.

Copyright 2010, Linda M. Boice.

Revised 2011, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. All rights reserved.

All Scripture is taken from the New International Version unless otherwise noted. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved

Material from this book was excerpted from The Christ of the Empty Tomb, chapter 6, pages 75-86. P&R Publishing, 2010.

This article may be duplicated in its entirety and without edit, including this full disclaimer for personal, small group, non-commercial use. No more than 200 copies may be made. No electronic use beyond email is permitted. Any use other then those listed herein are forbidden without prior written permission. All rights reserved. ARJMB090.

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The Not-Quite-Empty Tomb

One of the great historical evidences of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the empty tomb. But the remarkable and quite startling fact is that when Peter and John arrived at the tomb on the first Easter morning it was not quite empty. The body of Jesus was gone, but something was still there. The graveclothes remained behind. The Bible suggests that there was something so striking about them that John saw them and immediately believed in Jesus' resurrection.

That is significant, for it marks the first time there was an indication of belief by one of the disciples. Ernest Renan ¹ argued that faith in the resurrection was the result of rumors spread by Mary Magdalene who had suffered an hallucination, thinking she had seen Jesus. But that could not be. Mary suffered no hallucination. The last thing in the world she expected was the resurrection of her Lord. And John, at least, testified that he believed some time before Mary ever returned to the tomb and met Jesus in the garden.