As we come upon the Easter celebration, albeit in very odd times, I thought I’d share some thoughts from my meditations upon one of the most important chapters in all of the Bible. In it Paul deals extensively with the resurrection of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead, establishing them as central to the validity of the Christian faith. If Christ didn’t rise from the dead Christianity is not true, and our faith is in vain, period. Our faith rests on a falsifiable historical fact, meaning if someone, anyone, could have proved Jesus stayed dead, Christianity would be dead too, would in fact have never gotten off the ground. But it did, and an actual, physical, witnessed resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the only explanation for it. Since the so called Enlightenment, many have tried to keep some form of Christianity without the resurrection, but why waste your time. If it didn’t happen, actually, in real space and time, then Christianity is a lie, and his followers who spread the message of the resurrection were liars. I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in basing my life on a lie. If it isn’t true, if it didn’t happen, I want nothing to do with it. This chapter, however, is a huge problem for the skeptics, and why our faith is so well grounded on a real resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Paul starts his discussion with a proclamation of the gospel, the good news of the coming of the Messiah. It is the gospel on which the Corinthians have taken their stand, and by which they are saved. Then he tells us what this gospel is: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance.” Verses 3-6 are critical for the defense of the Christian faith. Paul will tell us what he received, but from whom did he receive it, and when? First, what he received was in the form of a creed, an easily remembered saying that could be passed along. Pretty much every scholar believes he received it when he visited Jerusalem three years after his conversion (which he tell us in Galatians 1) when he spent 15 days with Peter, and also saw James, the Lord’s brother. The implication is that the creed had already been around for some time, likely developed to spread the faith not long after the resurrection itself.
Why this is important is that it counters much of the history of biblical criticism from the 19th and 20th centuries, when many scholars insisted that Christianity’s core beliefs developed over a long period of time. There might have been a kernel of historical truth, they claimed, but the needs of the Christian community determined what eventually got written down. Also, most non-Christians think of the transmission of the Christian faith as basically the result of the telephone game, something was said or happened, but transmission over time naturally distorted it. Wrong! That the central tenant of the Christian faith was so well established so early blows up any idea of development over time. Jesus’ first followers believed and claimed, and many gave their lives, for a real resurrection. Here is the creed Paul received:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and
that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles
Finally, Paul says, adding to the creed, “last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” It’s not insignificant that that eyewitness testimony is part of this creed. This is a consistent theme throughout the New Testament, and the basis upon which the apostles and early disciples of Jesus claimed their faith was the truth, objectively. In Acts 1 when the apostles are picking a replacement for Judas, Peter says:
21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, 22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.
Peter in the first Christian sermon after Pentecost in Acts 2, speaking of David says:
31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.
In Acts 3 after Peter healed a crippled beggar, he tells those astonished by what he did:
15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
Peter also says in the first chapter of his second letter:
15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
There he was speaking specifically of the transfiguration, but notice the importance Peter places on helping them to remember. The apostle John in the first chapter of his gospel says that the Word, who was God, who was Jesus, tabernacled, or lived for a while among them, and adds: “We have seen his glory . . .” John starts the first chapter of his first epistle:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
In Acts 13, Paul and his companions enter a synagogue on a Sabbath, and in his speech Paul says:
29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.
This is all deeply significant, and makes an impact when seen like this in one place. Critics and skeptics for hundreds of years, and boldly today, declare the Bible stories, including the resurrection, are all myths and fairy tales, legends made up by benighted, backward ancient people who didn’t know science, and didn’t know any better. But they would be wrong because ancient people knew very well that dead people stay dead, which is why the eyewitness testimony to one coming back from the dead was so critical to the establishment and spread of the church.
Nothing about this reads like myths, legends, and fairy tales. It reads like history, like claims of sober people who lived out the implications of the truth of those claims, and in many cases died for what they claimed they had seen. An actual physical, real, witnessed resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the only plausible explanation for their testimony, transformed lives, growth of the church, and transformation of the Western and eventually entire world. Every Christian ought to memorize this creed, and proclaim it in every evangelical encounter because upon it rests our hope, and the ultimate vindication of our faith.
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