As we Christians approach the Easter holiday, we naturally begin to think of Christ’s death and resurrection. Of course, the death had to come first. It was on the cross that Christ paid the penalty for all of our sins.
And while we often (and correctly) combine the dual thoughts of “Christ’s death and his resurrection,” it is sometimes helpful to separate them for the purpose of meditation. That might be a good thing for us to do this holy week.
The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the “most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history.”1 Thus our reflection of Christ’s resurrection subdivides naturally into two parts: its historicity and its meaning. There is only space here to begin to summarize each of these two concepts.
The historicity of the resurrection falls along the acceptance of evidence allowable in a court of law. With this background, Lord Darling, former Chief Justice of England, looks at the historical evidence of the resurrection. He wrote:
We, as Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teaching, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be sceptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what he proclaimed himself to be, must surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favour as a living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.2
Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), English scholar who was appointed regius professor at Cambridge in 1870, said:
Indeed, taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ. Nothing but the antecedent assumption that it must be false could have suggested the idea of deficiency in the proof of it.3
All of the historical evidence of the resurrection without any doubt points to the truth that Jesus physically rose from the dead. Logically such a well-documented event in history must possess significant and relevant meaning.
The Apostle Paul prioritized the resurrection of Christ as foundational within the scope of Christianity. He wrote:
Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:15-19)
In this paragraph Paul declared the highest importance of the resurrection because (1) if Christ was not raised, we believers have no future hope, (2) our faith is worthless because it is based on a lie, (3) we are still in our sins because Christ accomplished nothing on the cross, and thus (4) we are to be pitied because of our naivety.
Paul also stated in this passage that it was God who raised Jesus from the dead. The notion that it was God who raised Jesus from the dead is found throughout Romans (4:24, 8:11, 10:9). The fact that God did raise Jesus from the dead is proof positive that Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross was sufficient and satisfactory to a holy God.
It is because of this connotation of the resurrection that the Early Church (Acts 2-7), which was completely Jewish at that time, chose to celebrate the resurrection weekly. Thus they changed their day of worship to Sunday, the day of the week that he rose from the dead, not the traditional Sabbath. Once a year was not sufficient, weekly was a must. As a result, we worship on Sunday which is evidence that the Early Church viewed the resurrection as so very important.
What a wonderful thought that ties the historicity and importance of the resurrection together into one beautiful concept! Because of what Jesus did in history on the cross, and because God saw that his redemptive work was sufficient for God’s holiness, Jesus was raised from the dead. This provides us a system of belief that brings meaning to our lives. We celebrate that this Easter Sunday, not only because it is Easter, but because it is also Sunday.
Dr. Keith Shubert
1Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith, San Bernardino, CA: Campus Crusade for Christ, 1972, page 185.
2Taken from Michael Green, Man Alive, Downers Grove, IL: Inter-varsity Press, 1968, pages 53-54.
3Taken from Paul E. Little, Know Why you Believe, Wheaton, IL: Scripture Press Publications, 1967, page 70.
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