Good Friday is good because of Resurrection Sunday. If Jesus just died for us, that would be loving, but no solution for the greatest problem we have. Since Jesus rose for us, everything is different. It means His message is true, His authority absolute, and His gospel trustworthy. But did He rise?
Roman History Scholar Professor Thomas Arnold, who held the chair of modern history at Oxford said,
“I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”
And of course, CS Lewis:
“Early in 1926 the hardest boiled of all atheists I ever knew sat in my room on the other side of the fire and remarked that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was really surprisingly good. ‘Rum thing,’ he went on. ‘All that stuff of Frazer’s about the Dying God. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it had really happened once.’ To understand the shattering impact of it, you would need to know the man (who has certainly never since shown any interest in Christianity). If he, the cynic of cynics, the toughest of the toughs, were not—as I would still have put it—’safe,’ where could I turn? Was there no escape?”
Quotes from A Ready Defense, a compilation of Josh McDowell’s apologetic works.