Resurrection

“He is not here. He is risen” (Luke 24:6).

What happened to the twelve disciples of Jesus after the resurrection?

In AD 44, King Herod ordered that James the Greater be thrust through with a sword. He was the first of the apostles to be martyred.

And so the bloodbath began.

• Luke was hung by the neck from an olive tree in Greece.
• Doubting Thomas was pierced with a pine spear, tortured with red-hot plates, and burned alive in India.
• In AD 54, the proconsul of Hierapolis had Philip tortured and crucified because his wife converted to Christianity while listening to Philip preach. Philip continued to preach while on the cross.
• Matthew was stabbed in the back in Ethiopia.
• Bartholomew was flogged to death in Armenia.
• James the Just was thrown off the southeast pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. After surviving the one-hundred-foot fall, he was clubbed to death by a mob.
• Simon the Zealot was crucified by a governor of Syrian in AD 74.
• Judas Thaddeus was beaten to death with sticks in Mesopotamia.
• Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot, was stoned to death and then beheaded.
• And Peter was crucified upside down at his own request. J
• John the Beloved is the only disciple to die of natural causes, but that’s only because he survived his own execution. When a cauldron of boiling oil could not kill John, Emperor Diocletian exiled him to the island of Patmos, where he lived until his death in AD 95.

Every single one died for their faith in the crucified and the risen Christ.

Compare that to what happened at Watergate. Charles Colson writes:

I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured it if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world – and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.