I confess that i am not totally convinced that Jesus was resurrected, i would like to believe that but i seem to not have a strong enough faith as to believe that it could happen, i question its validity but i realise that he was a great man and i still believe he was the son of God, I believe most of the Word but the Resurrection is hard to digest for me.
There are a lot of things that can be hard to believe, because we don't have the knowledge to understand how it could be done. But we should believe God, and God's word to us which is the Bible, and trust that He is not lying to us or making things up! Faith is belief in God's word, even if we can't understand how God does the things that He does.
"Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him." (Heb 11:6).
As the apostle Paul said, "By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible" (Heb 11:3). So he's saying that we realise (by our faith in God) that the whole universe was created by God, and that it is made up from invisible things, e.g. atoms and energy and light. When we learn that the electrons orbiting around an atom can only orbit in fixed orbits, or energy levels, we may wonder why that is, and why it operates in a digital manner rather than analogue. Why do they obey those laws? If they didn't then the universe would be completely different, but what makes the electrons behave in that manner? And how did the various parts of atoms come into existence? There is so much we don't understand about it, yet we clearly realise that the universe exists, and there had to be a creator.
Likewise we don't understand how a resurrection can take place, as it implies that apart from our physical bodies there must be something else that is who we are, that is not physical. Otherwise if our body is completely destroyed, and returns to dust, if God created another body, even if it was identical to ours and He implanted our memories and personality into the brain, it still wouldn't be us - it would be a clone. So we reason there is perhaps a spiritual part to us that continues to exist when we die, in an unconscious state, which God can clothe with a body and restore to consciousness. The trouble then is that we have no understanding at all of what a spirit being is. Scientists suggest that spirit beings, such as God, angels and demons, exist in extra dimensions which we don't have access to, and therefore we can't have any understanding of. We just have to accept that there are some things that we cannot understand while we are human. As Paul again puts it (1 Cor 13:9-12):
"For we know in part, ... but when that which is complete has come, [
i.e. after he has been resurrected as an immortal spirit being] then that which is partial will be done away with. ... Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known."
So one day, after we have been resurrected, we may then learn and understand how God can resurrect a dead person and restore them to life. But we can believe now that God is amazing and when He says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa 55:9), He is not exaggerating!
So in the meantime don't worry and stress about it, for the important thing is that God has called you and that you have some faith, and realise that the faith you have is from God who is working in you - "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8).
I think when we become a Christian most if not all start out having faith and belief in God's word, yet we still have some doubts. I think that it's difficult to have 100% faith unless we have a personal experience that proves to us the existence of God. I used to have 99.9% belief in the Bible, but there was still that tiny nagging doubt that it could all be a fabrication by men (highly unlikely, but possible). So I used to pray that God would increase my faith. Eventually He did increase my faith to 100%, although perhaps not in the way I expected! I developed a back problem (I had on a couple or so occasions had a similar problem, which got better after about a week, but on this occasion it didn't get better and lasted for 4 months). Eventually I heard that an evangelist (Rheinhard Bonnke) was visiting my home town so I went along to the meeting. At the end of the meeting Rheinhard said that it was too crowded for him to call people up on stage for him to pray for, so he said if anyone would like a healing from God they should raise their hand. So I raised my hand. He then prayed a very short and simple prayer, something like, "Father please heal those people who have raised their hands, in Jesus' name please heal them now." After about a second or so I felt a tingling feeling start at the top of my head and fill downwards, filling my torso but not going down my arms or legs (later I realised that the sensation filling my brain and spine made logical sense). It felt like it was something coming down from directly above me and entering into me. It was a wonderfully pleasant tingling type of sensation - very enjoyable! It lasted for perhaps 10 to 15 seconds and then gently faded away. The meeting then ended and we left, and outside opposite the building were some steep steps. I went up the steps two or three steps at a time to test my back, and just as I thought, my back had been healed! :)
Like a resurrection, I have no idea how God healed my back, but I know that He did heal it, and it was proof to me of God's existence. The previous night He also spoke to me, interrupting a nonsensical dream. It was similar to if you recorded over some music on a tape recorder and played it back. There was a dream, then a short silence followed by the three words "nine one nine", then another brief silence followed by the nonsensical dream continuing as if it had been been uninterrupted. It startled me so that I woke up. I decided I must look up page 919 in my Bible the next day. I kept forgetting while I was at home and had access to my Bible, but remembered 3 days later! I only had one Bible at that time, a paperback NIV which was formatted like a modern book (not in two columns). When I looked at page 919 it was a right-hand page and starting at the top was the start of a new chapter. It was Isaiah 58, and as it was a NIV it had a heading at the start of the chapter to give a brief summary of what it was about. Now the evening before the words were spoken to me while I was dreaming, we had a Bible study in my home, just me, my younger brother and his fiance, and the assistant pastor at the church that I eventually started attending. At the end I asked the pastor if he could explain fasting to me, because I was struggling to understand the logic of it. I had been trying to understand it for ages but nobody could come up with an explanation that made any sense to me. Likewise this pastor's explanation didn't make sense to me. But the heading at the top of page 919 in my Bible said, "True fasting". I then realised that the "nine one nine" was God answering my question about fasting!
So in the same day God had helped me understand something mentioned in the Bible and then healed me of a back problem. I don't understand how He healed my back, nor how He was able to speak words into my thoughts, but He did. And I now fully believe and trust that God can also resurrect people, as He has promised in His word to us.
So I encourage you to believe all the Bible, and if you do you will believe that Jesus was resurrected to life again by God. A few decades after Jesus was resurrected he sent an angel to the apostle John to give him a vision, which John wrote down and it became the book of Revelation. In it he wrote that Jesus said, "
I am he that liveth, and
was dead; and, behold,
I am alive for evermore" (Rev 1:18), and "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last,
which was dead, and is alive" (Rev 2:8).
i dont feel like i have led a Life worthy of his house.
