If Christ is not raised…

/ March 29, 2015

Your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. This is what Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 15:17. Our entire salvation depends upon the resurrection of Christ.

As we enter into Holy Week, there will be a number of posts in social media about how the resurrection of Christ is a metaphor for liberation, anti-imperialism, compassion, or something else, along with the claim that this metaphor, rather than the raising up of Jesus’ body, is what truly matters. You will read people who say that they do not understand the resurrection to be the “resuscitation of a corpse,” or vaguely reference other ancient Mediterranean myths in which venerated figures rose from the dead. There will be articles in the various newsweeklies with headlines like, “Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?” There will be “documentaries” on the History Channel purporting to investigate the reality of this claim.

ResurrectionOf course, no orthodox Christian believes that the resurrection was the resuscitation of a corpse. Rather, those who read the Bible and have taken the time to learn and understand the doctrine of the resurrection will know that it refers to the transformation of Jesus’ body into something that is continuous with, but still different from, the body he had before his death. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, there are both heavenly and earthly bodies. He is clear that the heavenly body is in some way similar to, but in important ways different from, our earthly bodies. In the way that various types of bodies on earth differ from one another (say, bodies for birds, fish, and people), so the heavenly body will be different from the earthly one.

Resurrection is about bodies: no body, no resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is the raising and transformation of a body, the “first fruits” of what is to come (1 Cor 15:20). “First fruits” is an agricultural metaphor. At the time of the harvest, one would gather a small portion of the crops on the first day and gather the rest subsequently. That, says Paul, is what the resurrection of Jesus is like. Christ has been gathered in first, but we will also participate in the same kind of transformation. Our eternal life with God will be embodied, but differently from the way we experience embodiment now.

There is, of course, much that we cannot know about the resurrection body. Like other great doctrines of the faith, the resurrection is a mystery. To be clear, to call something a “mystery” doesn’t mean that we can know nothing of it. It means that there will be much we don’t understand. Understanding incompletely is different from a total lack of understanding. We can know certain things about God and make certain truth claims about God because we have received these through divine revelation, and even though God’s being vastly surpasses our ability to understand, we can still hold as true that which has been revealed.

We do know this much, though: if Christ is not raised, then our faith is futile. Why is this? It is because the resurrection of Christ shows us the telos of our salvation. Like other Wesleyans, I believe that salvation is a process. It involves transformation of our lives in the here and now and eternal life in the age to come. In the resurrection of Christ, we get a glimpse of what our eternal life is to be. It is to be embodied. It is to have continuity with our life before death. Yet it is also to be incorruptible. “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable” (1 Cor 15:42).

In fact, our resurrection is part of a much greater work that God is bringing into being. God is making all things new. God has begun to form a new creation. Our salvation in Christ is our participation in that new creation. So as Paul writes in 2 Cor 5:17-19:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

God has a telos in mind not just for people, but for all creation, and our great privilege is to participate in it.

One of the great cruelties of modernity is that it formed generations of people in such a way that they could no longer affirm belief in the great hope of the Christian life. It took away the expectation of divine action, if not belief in God entirely. We came up with a variety of ways to maintain the structures, language, and practices of the Church, while dispensing with belief in the divine actions that gave rise to the Church in the first place.

I once heard a minister speaking to a class of continuing visitors who were interested in learning about United Methodism. One of the participants asked him, “Do United Methodists believe in eternal life?” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Well, personally, I do not.” I’ve always remembered that moment with sadness. First of all, it’s unlikely that anyone in that class ever came back to the church. Second, I lament the hopelessness of this minister who expected nothing of God beyond the brief moments we have in these mortal bodies. What could one who believed in this way say to the dying? What hope could one offer at funerals? And how painful it must be to envision your own life simply fading into nothingness at the end of your days.

I wonder at times how we have come to expect so little of God. The biblical story and the great doctrines of the faith teach us quite the opposite. What God promises to us is greater than we could ever imagine. So have hope in the resurrection.

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor 15:54-57).

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31 thoughts on “If Christ is not raised…”

  1. Thanks for the reminder of the importance of bodily resurrection, David. Beyond social media errors about the meaning of resurrection, I find that many Christians espouse errors in their understanding of the meaning of resurrection at funerals and on the topic of those who have died. Though I have great sympathy for those who are grieving, I find comments like, “they are free from the body,” “their soul is in heaven,” and my favorite, the hymn “I’ll fly away” to be gnostic distortions of the true Christian meaning of resurrection.

    • Hi, Lanny. Thanks for the comment. I think N. T. Wright tries to get at both of these understandings of the afterlife, while insisting that the ultimate goal is not disembodiment, but resurrection.

  2. David, it seems obvious to me that according to the Gospels that Jesus’s resurrection DOES involve the resuscitation of His corpse, with magical qualities added. Specifically, Jesus’s corpse is gone from the tomb, Jesus shows Thomas the wounds from His corpse, and Jesus later eats a meal of fish with the Disciples just as a resucitated person would. Plus, Jesus’s body now has the ability to walk through walls, appear and disappear, disguise its appearance so as not to be recognized, and fly up to Heaven. Are you saying it’s necessary to believe all of those things are literal and historical? If so, it seems odd to quote Paul in support because he never mentions any of those things. Rather, he describes the resurrected Jesus much differently: as a blinding light and voice, and nothing more. Regarding our resurrection, Paul says only that we will be “changed.”

    • Have you read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (one of the lectionary passages for this Easter Sunday)? There, he specifically says that he affirms that Jesus was buried (as a corpse), that he was raised (body and all), and then goes on to catalogue all of the appearances of the bodily resurrected Christ.

      Paul says that to not believe that Christ has been bodily raised is to believe “in vain.” That’s what the Corinthians were in danger of – allowing their view of the Gospel to be watered down and degenerated by the assumptions of their surrounding pagan culture (which tended to dichotomize the spiritual and the physical).

      And yes, he does say that we should be “changed.” The mortal (us with our dying bodies) shall put on immortality (bodies that do not rot, age, get sick, or die). Paul indeed say that it very important that we believe the gospel that was preached by the apostles.

      I would invite you to spend some time doing some exegetical work in those last chapters of 1 Corinthians, really digging in and seeking to understand the flows of Paul’s argument. And also maybe reading a good commentary like Gordon Fee’s.

      • Josh, in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, Paul says he was told the resurrected Jesus appeared to others, but he doesn’t say who told him that and he doesn’t describe those appearances. Then in verse 8 Paul says that Jesus appeared to him, but again he doesn’t describe it. In Acts we’re told that Paul experienced Jesus as a blinding light and voice, nothing more. However, Paul didn’t write Acts. In fact, we have no first person accounts of the resurrected Jesus as none of the Gospels were written by the Apostles, and even those Gospel accounts of the resurrection are contradictory in parts. Therefore, it seems to me that an emphasis on a bodily resurrection of Jesus is unwarranted. If we insist that Jesus’s resurrection is literal and historical, why stop there? Why not insist that the earth was created in 6 days, that woman was made from man’s rib, that two of every animal on earth walked into an ark to survive a world wide flood, that God made the sun stand still in the sky so that Joshua would have time to win a battle, etc.? How are those claims any more fantastical than that a dead body was resuscitated and endowed with magical powers? If we insist that there is no other way to understand the resurrection of Jesus, then we reject many people who might otherwise be drawn to Christ and change their lives for the better.

    • Britt, you are using some words that you really need to examine and think about: “literal,”historical,” magic.”

      The power of God is not “magic” – it’s the power of God. The resurrection of Jesus is what gives us our hope. It’s something that really happened and that’s how it’s recorded in Christian Holy Scripture – it’s something that really happened. And it’s awesome news!

      As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, to not believe that Christ was “buried” (a real corpse place in a real grave) and that he was raised after three days (a real corpse being reanimated BY God’s power – not “magic”) is to have believed “in vain.” If you don’t believe that Christ Jesus conquered the grave, then why would you worship him or follow his teaching?

      Paul says that he did not make up the resurrection but rather he was just passing along the message. He writes a catalogue of Christ’s post-resurrection appearance to many people and says that, “Hey, I’m just one witness among many.”

      Brit, my question to you would be why do have such a problem with this?

      Is it because you have a problem with supernaturalism?

      Are you trying to hold the gospels up to a standard that no ancient writer could meet? You know, these guys were just compiling what they heard from the oral witness of others. They didn’t have the internet, spell check, cell phones, the post office, computers, etc.

      The question in this is: “Were they telling the truth? Were they telling of what they had heard, saw, and experienced?”

      I believe their testimony. I believe and can testify that Christ has forgiven me, saved me, loves me, and will one day resurrect me and give me a new body like the body of Christ.

      • Josh, I’m using the word “magical” in the same sense that someone today who had never heard of Jesus would describe His post-resurrection abilities upon reading the Gospels. If you prefer the word “supernatural,” that’s fine, as I think they’re synonymous.

        A few other examples to illustrate my point: Muslims believe that Muhammad didn’t die, but rather flew up to Heaven on a winged horse. As Christians we think that’s silly. Catholics believe that Mary didn’t die, but rather had a sinless soul and an incorruptible body that was assumed (physically levitated) up to Heaven. As Protestant Christians we don’t believe that. All three, e.g. Muslims, Catholics, and Protestants, believe that Jesus bodily ascended (physically levitated) to Heaven, though Muslims don’t believe He died and was resurrected.

        In the above examples, were Muslims, Catholics, and Christians telling the truth? Were they telling of what they heard, saw, and experienced? I’m sure many could testify they were. What would be the reaction of any non-believer if told those stories are literally true?

        Again, note that Paul never says he saw the resurrected Jesus in bodily form and he doesn’t say that the Apostles told him they saw Jesus in bodily form. The Gospels accounts were not written by the Apostles, and the anonymous authors of the Gospels never say that they spoke with the Apostles. The Gospel accounts of the bodily resurrection are even contradictory at times. So why insist on someone believing that?

        Perhaps Jesus was bodily resurrected. I’m not trying to persuade you otherwise. But to insist that a person must specifically believe that to be a Christian, rather than interpreting Jesus’s resurrection in spiritual or even metaphorical terms, creates an unnecessary barrier for some to come to Christ. There is plenty of room for alternative views in God’s embrace.

      • I’ll just add here that we function on the basis of testimony all the time. It’s impossible to get by without it. Think if we had to experience everything first-hand before we believed it. That would make normal life impossible.

    • Britt, the very qualities of Jesus that you talk about seem to preclude the resurrection of a corpse. Jesus’ resurrected body no longer retains all the same qualities as our bodies. Resurrection is not resuscitation. It is transformation. And while Paul provides different accounts from the Gospels and Acts, his accounts don’t rule out anything that we find in these other sources.

      • David, I didn’t say that Jesus’s resurrection involved ONLY the resucitation of his corpse. I said that His resucitated body is described as also having supernatural or magical abilities.

        Regarding relying on testimony, every religion has its witnesses. Joseph Smith testified he was visited by the angel Moroni who told him where gold plates inscribed with ancient history were buried. Eleven men were eyewitnesses of those gold plates and their testimonies are found in the front of every edition of the Book of Mormon. Why do we think those testimonies from the 19th Century are less reliable than testimony from the 1st Century?

        In my opinion, if we claim that 2,000 year old testimony that’s both anonymous and sometimes contradictory (the Gospels) is literal and historically accurate, that’s just not persuasive to modern people. However, if we rely on testimony from people today who say I trusted Christ and He changed my life for the better, that actually is persuasive. Testimony in its own day and time is persuasive. Let people have their differences of opinion regarding how to understand the resurrection.

  3. As usual, a great post. Have a question for you: how do you answer those who don’t like to hear about atonement? Why does atonement matter? Does it matter?

    • Thanks, Dennis. I think atonement matters a great deal. Without atonement of some sort, there’s no way to deal with the problem of human sin. Dispensing with some theory of atonement is dangerous, then, because it minimizes the seriousness and power of sin. God bless.

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