The Disciples Were Changed
Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection, because it is entirely artless. They do not invite us to look at themselves, as they invite us to look at the empty tomb and collapsed graveclothes and the Lord whom they had seen. We can see the change in them without being asked to look. The men who figure in the pages of the Gospels are new and different men in the Acts. The death of their master left them despondent, disillusioned, and near to despair. But in the Acts they emerge as men who hazard their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and who turn the world upside down.
What has made the change? What accounts for their new faith and power, joy and love? Partly, no doubt, Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit; but then the Holy Spirit came only when Jesus had risen and ascended. It is as if the resurrection let loose mighty moral and spiritual forces.