“No One Dies for a Lie”
People may die for something that is false. The real question is whether they will die for something they know is false—and that is what makes the Apostles’ testimony so significant.
During his January 2025 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Mel Gibson discussed the historical case for the resurrection in relation to his upcoming film, The Resurrection of the Christ.
Gibson argued that the Gospel accounts should be taken seriously, pointing in particular to the earliest witnesses who, according to Christian tradition, endured persecution and violent deaths rather than recant their testimony.
Gibson summed up his argument with a line that’s been memed and quoted across the internet: “No one dies for a lie.”
The claim is true, but it has also prompted an obvious objection that’s almost always raised in the comments section: If no one dies for a lie, then why do people so often die for false causes? What about suicide bombers, political assassins, militants and religious extremists who willingly sacrifice themselves for beliefs that are demonstrably false?
At first, that sounds like a pretty strong objection. However, it fundamentally misses the point. Here’s why:
There is a profound difference between dying for something that is false and dying for something you know to be false. People have obviously died throughout history for beliefs that were wrong. The question is whether someone would willingly endure persecution and death for a story they personally knew they had invented.
And this is what makes the Apostles’ testimony so compelling.
They weren’t simply repeating something they had heard from somebody else. They claimed to have personally seen the risen Christ. Their entire message rested on something they said they had witnessed themselves.
According to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome, Andrew was crucified in Greece, James was executed in Jerusalem, Thomas was killed by a spear in India, Philip was crucified in Hierapolis, Bartholomew was martyred in Armenia, Matthew was martyred in Africa, James the Less was killed in Jerusalem, Thaddaeus was martyred in Armenia or Persia, Simon the Zealot was martyred in Persia, and Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot, was also martyred.
Of course, none of this means that people cannot die for something that is false. Islamic militants, for example, may genuinely believe the religious claims for which they are willing to die. Their willingness to die demonstrates the sincerity of their belief. It does not demonstrate that the belief itself is true.
That is the distinction that matters here.
An Islamic terrorist is dying for something he believes to be true, but which he has received from others. He can be sincerely mistaken. The Apostles were claiming something very different. They claimed to have personally seen, heard and encountered the risen Christ.
If they had deliberately invented the resurrection, they would have known it was invented.
That makes their situation fundamentally different. They weren’t defending a belief they had inherited or repeating a story they had been told. They were claiming to be eyewitnesses to the central event they proclaimed.
So the argument is not, “Nobody ever dies for something false.” History obviously disproves that.
The argument is that people may die for a lie they sincerely believe, but why would multiple people willingly endure persecution and death for a testimony they personally knew was fabricated? What would they have to gain in their death?
The Apostles’ deaths do not, by themselves, prove the resurrection. But they do present a serious problem for the idea that the resurrection was simply a deliberate invention by its earliest witnesses.
It reminds me of something Charles Colson once said about the 1974 Watergate scandal. Colson was named one of the “Watergate Seven,” and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to discredit Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in an effort to expose the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
A year before his imprisonment, while he was still under investigation and facing arrest, Colson’s close friend, Thomas L. Phillips, gave him a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Colson devoured the book and soon after became a Christian.
Colson, who was derided by the media at the time for converting to Christianity just prior to his trial, went on to serve seven months of his one-to-three-year sentence. But his newfound faith was no trivial ploy to reduce his punishment.
Upon his release, Colson went on to create Prison Fellowship Ministries, an organisation dedicated to ministering to inmates, former prisoners, and their families. He also established the Christian teaching and resource organisation, The Colson Centre.
In 1982, on Easter Sunday, Colson delivered a sermon to a group of prison inmates. One of the prisoners later recalled the atmosphere as Colson preached. The prisoners were “spellbound,” he said.
In his message, Colson spoke a little about his own experience meeting Christ and admitted that his involvement in the Watergate scandal played a crucial part in convincing him of the truth of the resurrection.
Colson explained:
I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me.
How?
Because twelve men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.
Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison.
They would not have endured that if it weren’t true.
Watergate embroiled twelve of the most powerful men in the world and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks.
You’re telling me twelve apostles could keep a lie for 40 years?
Absolutely impossible.
So, the question is not merely, “Did they die for what they believed?” It is: “Did they have firsthand knowledge that what they were proclaiming was true or false?”
That’s the distinction the objection fails to address.