The Easter Story In Virtual RealitySample

The Resurrection of Jesus in Virtual Reality

For instructions on how to watch this video click here.  This 360° video is available in true virtual reality by clicking here.

"My Lord and my God." (John 20:28)

According to early Christian writers, the number eight was symbolic of the belief that Jesus was both Lord and God. But why was this symbolism ascribed to the number eight? It all goes back to the Apostle Thomas.

After Jesus was resurrected, Thomas was the first to declare that Jesus was divine. According to John 20:26, he did this eight days after Jesus rose from the dead, and it was this single confession that triggered all of the symbolism of the number eight. Very soon thereafter, the early church started celebrating the Sunday after Easter as the Octave Sunday, remembering Thomas' confession of the divinity of Jesus.

From there early Christians started using the eight-sided octagon as the geometric equivalent of this confession. And once Christianity was legalized, churches started popping up everywhere, many of them built with an octagonal configuration, as an architectural witness that Jesus is both Lord and God.

In the early church Thomas was not remembered as the great doubter (as many today call him the "doubting Thomas"). Let's not forget that all of the Apostles doubted (see Luke 24:11, 38 and Mark 16:13, 14). Thomas was remembered in the early church as the great confessor, the one who first declared what Christians all over the world have repeated for 2000 years - that Jesus is the Yahweh of Israel.

The resurrection of Christ is the centerpiece of human history. Moreover, it is the most historically provable event in the ancient world, recorded in detail by four independent historians, and supported by five epistle writers, all within one generation after Jesus lived on this earth. Today we are more sure about the words and deeds of Jesus Christ than we are about any person of His day.

Jesus is both Lord and God. And it is because of Thomas' famous confession that we call our ministry The Octagon Project.

Transformational thought - The primitive church did not celebrate Christmas, but from the earliest years they celebrated both Easter and the Octave Sunday that followed it.

Transformational prayer - Lord, let me see Easter in a brand-new way - as a day that not only makes my salvation possible, but a day that reminds me that Jesus is both my Lord and my God.

All Gospel references in this plan are from The Merged Gospels translation of the four Gospels. The video above is based on Stories 287- 295 of The Merged Gospels.

See more virtual reality videos of the Holy Land at The Octagon Project.