I’ve never been a Schwarzenegger fan but he’s clearly a very popular actor. He’s served as a Republican governor too and so he’s done some impressive things in the 75 years he’s spent on this planet. In fact, it’s been reported that he believes that he could win the 2024 Presidential race if he were allowed to run.

Known to many as ‘The Terminator’ ‘Arnie’ seems to think that he knows a lot about death also. As far as he is concerned it is the final terminus.  This became very clear in a conversation he had with fellow actor Danny Devito which was published recently.

When asked what happens to us when we die the all-action star recalled something he had said in a previous interview in which he had stated that when you’re dead ‘you’re 6 feet under’ and anyone that tells you something else is a liar.   When challenged he went on to explain that he was talking about people and their physical bodies and not their souls. He is quite prepared to admit that he is not an ‘expert’ but he is sure that as far as our bodies are concerned we will never see each other again like that.

Well Arnie is very entitled to his opinion. We all are.  But I would like to point out that to suggest that anyone who claims there will be a resurrection is a ‘liar’ puts him in direct conflict with what Jesus said. This is what He said. ‘Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgment’.

Now Jesus could have been telling lies of course, but if He was it raises two important questions. Firstly, why would He do that, and secondly why were His first followers so determined to promote His cause even though it often resulted in persecution and death? 

I believe He said it because He believed it, and His followers did because of all they experienced following the first Easter Day. There was the empty tomb for example, but also those occasions when they said He had passed through locked doors, eaten with them and disappeared from sight at will. Even His own brother became a believer and was willing to be executed because of his faith.

Reflecting on the evidence for the resurrection one well-known scholar put it this way: ‘Were it not for the astounding, and world-view-challenging, claim that is thereby made, I think everyone would long since have concluded that this was the correct historical result’.  

I’ve met some pretty prolific liars in my time, and I admit I’ve been taken in on a few occasions, but I would need something very convincing to put my life on the line even if my brother had said it.

So, did Jesus lie? Did the first disciples lie when they wrote the New Testament? Was the apostle Peter willing to be crucified upside down in Rome for a lie? I find the reasoning implausible. 

That’s why I am willing to stake my future on the words of a man who was renowned for telling the truth and was capable of transforming a terrified rabble into a group that fearlessly proclaimed their leader had conquered death.

And if you have your doubts, as I once did, take heart from these words of Oscar Wilde: ‘scepticism is the beginning of faith’. Better still it can be an open door to hope. It was for me and could be for you too.