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500 Eyewitnesses Saw Jesus After His DeathIntroduction
Imagine having to die for a story. Not a vague idea or some philosophy, but an actual story of which you were part off yourself. That was exactly the choice the first eyewitnesses of Jesus were facing. They did not die for a fairytale, they died for what they had seen with their own eyes. And that raises all sorts of questions that cut across history: what evidence was so powerful that it literally cost them everything, and why do Christians around the world still place so much value on that evidence. Why do Christians today still prefer to die rather than turn their backs on their faith. And finally, why do people today still prefer not to see that evidence?
The Price of a Testimony
To understand what they sacrificed, we need to scrutinise one word from the original language of the New Testament: martys. That is Greek for ‘witness’. We now know it as ‘martyr’. This shift in meaning is, of course, no accident; it is the history of early Christianity in a nutshell. Unlike in Islam, the first apostles were not called to die in some holy battle. No, instead they were called to bear witness to what they had seen. Witness to an empty tomb and a living Christ. But in the ruthless arena of the Roman Empire, that testimony soon proved life-threatening.
The Roman Empire tolerated many religions, but demanded that you participate in the imperial cult: making a sacrifice to the emperor as god. For the early Christians, this was an impossible boundary. Their position was that of the apostle Peter: "We must obey God rather than human beings" (Acts 5:29). There was only one Lord, and the emperor in Rome was not him. This refusal or disobedience was not simply seen as a religious position. No, it was seen as political treason. And political treason was ruthlessly quashed.
Just a side note. Some Christians suggest that in Romans 13 Paul says that we should always obey the government. That would mean that those early Christians should have just done what the Roman Empire told them to do. I made a six-part series on that to explain how we should look at texts like that. You can find the link in the description below this video:
Back to today’s topic for a moment. According to tradition, Stephen was the first to pay the highest price. While he was stoned, he testified in full in Acts 7:55-56
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
His death was not an exception, but the beginning of a pattern. A pattern of martys: sealing your testimony with your life.
The Unlikely Conspiracy
There are still those who claim that the apostles simply made up the story of the resurrection. A completely outdated argument, of course, but let’s take that thought seriously for a moment. If it was a lie, then it was a conspiracy. A plot concocted by a group of terrified, defeated fishermen and tax collectors whose leader had just been executed in the most humiliating way by the Roman state. What would they gain from such a lie? No money, no power, no status. On the contrary, it brought them into direct conflict with both the Jewish leaders and the Roman occupier. It was exactly what Jesus had prophesied to them: "A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also." (John 15:20).
A conspiracy is successful only if the conspirators gain. But what did the apostles ‘gain’ from this plot? History shows us: persecution, torture, and often they died a violent death. For the death of James, the son of Zebedee, we have direct Biblical evidence in Acts 12:2, where it says: "he [King Herod] had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.". There is strong evidence for Peter’s crucifixion and Paul’s beheading from very early Christian testimonies and writings. For the other apostles, the traditions are of later history and less well established. But even if they were not killed, we can be pretty sure that this lie did not give them a happy life.
Would these men, to their last breath, hold on to a story they knew was false? People die for what they believe to be true. Who dies for a lie that he himself invented? The conviction the apostles had was so unwavering that it begs a question that echoes throughout history: What had they seen? What made them leave their jobs, families and status behind only to be treated like scum?
The Witnesses Who Wrote Down Their Stories
This phenomenon did not stop after the first generation. It spread like wildfire, and we know the stories because bystanders wrote them down, sometimes the events were literally written down in the shadow of their own execution.
Take Ignatius of Antioch, for example. Around the year 107-110, this bishop was chained and taken to Rome. Tradition tells us that he was thrown to the wild animals. Along the way, he wrote seven letters that we still have today. His attitude reflects the words of the apostle Paul: "For to me to live is Christ, and to me to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21). In his letter to the Romans, Ignatius tells his fellow Christians not to intercede for him. He writes: "I am the wheat of God and am ground by the teeth of wild beasts." He did not see his death as an end, but as the ultimate imitation of Christ.
Or consider the story of Perpetua and Felicitas in Carthage, around the year 203. Perpetua was a young, noble mother with a baby. Her story is unique because we possess parts of her diary. Her own father begged her to renounce her faith in the risen Lord. "Think of your son," he said. All she had to do was offer a pinch of incense to the emperor, but she refused. In her diary, she describes a vision of a ladder to heaven. For her, the choice was clear: save her temporary earthly life by denying her Lord, or enter an eternal life by remaining faithful. Together with her slave Felicitas, she was killed in the arena. Her diary is not an easy-to-digest theological work; it is the raw, personal testimony of a woman who believed that Christ was worth more than earthly life itself.
The Fair Evidence
Let’s be honest for a moment. The fact that Ignatius, Perpetua and many thousands of others were willing to die is not rock-solid mathematical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. These testimonies are not secret ingredients that suddenly allow us to test the resurrection in a laboratory.
But what it does conclusively prove is the deep, unwavering sincerity of their conviction. It makes the easy explanation—that it was all a cynical conspiracy—extremely unlikely. Their deaths change the debate. The question is no longer, "Is it a lie?" but, "What was the source of such a life-changing, unshakable conviction?"
Among the first Christians, we can say that they saw the Lord Jesus with their own eyes. The apostle Paul also refers to this in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
Paul actually says something like "you don’t have to believe me! Go and check with one of those many hundreds who have seen Him."
There are considerably fewer writings found that testify to the reign of Emperor Nero and yet no one doubts that the man ever existed. There is a wealth of written evidence, both extra-biblical and biblical, that shows that Christianity is not based on a fairy tale. Such an abundance of indirect and direct witnesses should be enough to accept the facts: Jesus rose from the grave, thus showing that He is Who He is! The Son of the Most High God.
An Inexplicable Growth
And that conviction had an effect that historians to this day try to explain. A small, persecuted Jewish sect from a remote corner of the Roman Empire, with a crucified ‘criminal’ as its leader, became the dominant force in that same empire within three centuries. American sociologist Rodney Stark estimates that there were about 1,000 Christians in AD 40 and that the Christian population grew by 40 per cent every 10 years. This would mean that in the year 100, there were 7530 Christians, in the year 200 AD 217,795 and by the end of the third century 6,299,832 Christians.i
How could that be? We know how Islam did it… That involved a sword and a bunch of ruthless men. But the early Christians had no military power at all, no political support, and they were under constant threat. It was probably the early church father Tertullian who gave an explanation that later became famous. He wrote that "the blood of Christians is seed", an idea often summarised as, "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church". The public executions were not a deterrent, but a demonstration. The public did not see criminals, but people from all walks of life facing their death with incomprehensible peace. They saw something worth dying for, and wondered what it was. The testimony of the martyrs was the most powerful sermon early Christianity had.
I’ve made a video about persecution in which we look at this topic in a slight different way. The link to this video can be found in the description below:
The Echo of 2000 Years
This pattern of persecution did not stop after the fall of the Roman Empire; on the contrary, it runs like a thread through history, right up to the present day. According to the organisation Open Doors‘ World Watch List 2025, more than 380 million Christians worldwide face severe to extreme persecution. The context has changed, but the core of the conflict is often the same as it was in ancient Rome. The persecuted Christians are experiencing the truth of Paul’s words in Romans 8:35, 37
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? […] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
This is not forgotten history. It is happening right now. We don’t hear much about it in the secular media, but many Christians, especially in Muslim countries, are being persecuted, raped, tortured and killed. Why? Because they don’t want to deny Jesus their Lord.
Same Heart, Same Motive
But the most disconcerting thing is not that the persecution continues. It is the shocking similarity in motives. When you listen to the stories of modern believers who risk everything, you hear echoes of Ignatius and Perpetua.
They are not driven by hatred or politics. Their witness is by definition non-violent; they undergo suffering, they do not cause it. Their motives, after 2,000 years, are still the same: a deep, personal fidelity to Christ, a desire to imitate Him, imitatio Christi, and an unshakeable hope of the resurrection. They live out the words of Jesus, who said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23). A Coptic Christian in Egypt rebuilding his church after a bombing, a pastor in a North Korean underground congregation, or the Nigerian Christian family who are being slaughtered and burned—they are driven by the same force that chased the apostles out of their upper rooms and made Perpetua stand in the arena.
The Core is Uncomfortable
And this brings us back to the core. The authorities, the sceptics, the unbelievers, then and now, would rather not see this evidence. Not because it is illogical, but because it is disruptive. It presents an authority higher than the state, a loyalty deeper than blood ties, and a hope stronger than death. It makes the atheist uncomfortable! It is one thing to say Christians are crazy but to claim that they willingly die for a lie is downright stupid!
Ultimately, the testimonies of the martyrs are not about death. Their fortitude is not evidence in itself, but it points with inescapable force to the source of their courage: the conviction that the Man for whom they died had preceded them in death and resurrection. As Jesus himself said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26).
Of the first Christians we can say that they saw the risen Lord for themselves. They had no choice but to accept the facts. But what about now, 2,000 years later? We still hear stories from people that they have seen the Lord Jesus himself. Yes, that happens. Jesus still shows Himself to people. But a vast majority have never had that privilege. The majority have only heard of the risen Lord. But we also know that hearing alone does not bring man to God. We see that many simply refuse to believe the testimony is true. But even though the Lord Jesus does not appear to everyone, He does give everyone a chance to accept the martyrs’ testimony. He convinces by His Spirit.
Accept it or not
The average sceptic wonders why we believe in the risen Lord. If you then ask, "Do you mean that if I can give you a reasonable answer to this question, you will put your trust in Jesus as your Saviour?" they become uncomfortable they will invariably reply, "I have many more questions!" The sceptic is not looking for answers; he rejects the light God has given him. But others see the glory of Jesus, they hear the incredible testimonies and believe. They believe the direct eyewitnesses and the many thousands since!
This is a testimony that has rocked the world for 2,000 years. And it still poses the same question to each of us today: if people were willing to give up everything for it, what could its value be to you?
Endnotes
i Stark, R. The Rise of Christianity: a sociologist reconsiders history. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
