The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is pivotal to the Christian faith.  Without the Resurrection, Jesus was a phenomenal teacher who lied about being God and was sentenced to an excruciating death for this lie. New Testament textual critics tend to focus a lot of energy on refuting the claim that Jesus physically rose from the dead.  One of those theories is called ‘The Substitution Theory’.

Before getting into the specifics of this theory, we should mention the following to forestall questions about the validity of the crucifixion account as an actual event. There are several non-Christian references to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, ‎meaning that this event wasn’t something ‘invented’ by the authors of the New ‎Testament.  This was an actual historical occurrence with more historical ‎evidence than many other events that are uncontested as being authentic‎. Our research findings on this topic can be found at this link https://copticapologetics.com/2023/09/18/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-crucifixion-of-christ/

The theory:

This theory states that the person who was crucified and died on the cross was not Jesus Christ of Nazareth, but someone impersonating Him. There are two prevailing thoughts – either it was Jesus’s twin brother, or it was someone transfigured to appear physically like Jesus. The reason so many people claimed to see Jesus Christ after He was ‘miraculously’ resurrected from the dead was because He hadn’t actually died.

Problems with this theory:

Firstly, Jesus had no twin brother.  There is zero evidence for this in authentic ancient texts – neither by Christian nor non-Christian writers.

Secondly, the case of mistaken identity where someone was transformed into the likeness of Jesus also has no ancient textual support. The few scholars who believe this to be a more probable explanation of the Resurrection of Christ claim that it could have been either Thomas the Apostle, Judas Iscariot, or Simon of Cyrene. Which one of these people do you think would have endured the unimaginable agony of crucifixion until the point of death without caving in and confessing to the deception?

Thirdly, this theory calls into question the intelligence and due diligence of the Romans and the Jewish authorities.  They would have been keeping a very close eye on Him! Can one believe that the Jewish authorities would make such a mistake? They wanted Jesus dead (Chilton 2013).

Fourthly, Saint Mary, the mother of Jesus, would hardly be found spending six hours at the foot of the cross where her Son was slowly dying, mourning His suffering and imminent death, if she suspected this man was not her son.

Fifthly, why would Jesus disappear when his followers were being persecuted, tortured and executed? Abandoning them does not suit His nature at all – such abandonment would not have resulted in His disciples’ refusal to recant their belief in Jesus as being God incarnated on earth.

Lastly, who would have had the ability to miraculously alter the appearance of a man to look so much like Jesus that his mother and some of his closest friends would have been fooled? And if this person or being performed this miracle to deceive what eventually included billions of people, what could be their motivation? How does one believe the word of someone who proclaims to have purposely deceived an entire community?

In conclusion:

Without textual evidence from ancient authors from the first or second century, such an important, faith-altering incident has no leg to stand on. In addition, when trying to apply logic to this theory, too many questions remain unanswered. The Substitution or Mistaken Identity Theory is not a viable alternative to the miraculous Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

References:

Chilton, Brian. 2013. ‘Mistaken Identity Theory’, Pastor Brian Chilton, 25 March 2013, ‎https://pastorbrianchilton.wordpress.com/tag/mistaken-identity-theory/.‎